future leave off all evil practices; but this
theft and consequent lying appeared to me so necessary, that they could
not be dispensed with.

"A gracious God did not get me safe through. My master sent the other
apprentice to investigate the matter. The ironmonger acknowledged the
giving me the shilling, and I was therefore exposed to shame, reproach,
and inward remorse, which preyed upon my mind for a considerable time.
I at this time sought the Lord, perhaps much more earnestly than ever,
but with shame and fear. I was quite ashamed to go out, and never,
till I was assured that my conduct was not spread over the town, did I
attend a place of worship.

"I trust that, under these circumstances, I was led to see much more of
myself than I had ever done before, and to seek for mercy with greater
earnestness. I attended prayer-meetings only, however, till February
10, 1779, which being appointed a day of fasting and prayer, I attended
worship on that day. Mr. Chater [congregationalist] of Olney preached,
but from what text I have forgotten. He insisted much on following
Christ entirely, and enforced his exhortation with that passage, 'Let
us therefore go out unto him without the camp, bearing his
reproach.'--Heb. xiii. 13. I think I had a desire to follow Christ;
but one idea occurred to my mind on hearing those words which broke me
off from the Church of England. The idea was certainly very crude, but
useful in bringing me from attending a lifeless, carnal ministry to one
more evangelical. I concluded that the Church of England, as
established by law, was the camp in which all were protected from the
scandal of the cross, and that I ought to bear the reproach of Christ
among the dissenters; and accordingly I always afterwards attended
divine worship among them."

At eighteen Carey was thus emptied of self and there was room for
Christ. In a neighbouring village he consorted much for a time with
some followers of William Law, who had not long before passed away in a
village in the neighbourhood, and select passages from whose writings
the Moravian minister, Francis Okely, of Northampton, had versified.
These completed the negative process. "I felt ruined and helpless."
Then to his spiritual eyes, purged of self, there appeared the
Crucified One; and to his spiritual intelligence there was given the
Word of God. The change was that wrought on Paul by a Living Person.
It converted the hypocritical Pharisee into