CONVERSION OF A SKEPTIC. 169 and Christ, spiritually, was completely let into my soul, and I was filled from the ocean of his love. O what a rich, tender, melting, heartdissolving season. I felt no transports, but my soul was all dissolved in love. To-day and yesterday my Savior has been unspeakably precious. I do feel that I love God with all my heart, mind, strength and soul, and I believe also my neighbor as myself. I feel that I would sooner wrong myself than my worst enemy. In making this declaration I am conscious that I am inviting scrutiny, but I cannot deny my Lord and master. To his name be all the glory. For I am only a 'brand plucked out of the fire,' a monument of amazing mercy, and without divine grace I cannot stand one moment. I have to pray without ceasing to keep from falling. "Forever here my rest shall be Close to thy bleeding side, This all my hope and all my plea For me the Saviour died." Pray for me, for I need your prayers perhaps more than ever. Should I fall, the hottest place in hell would be my portion. But thank God, I have no fear that hath torment.' He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord will do His part, and O, may He keep me faithful. Wishing you health and strength, I remain in the bonds and fellowship of the gospel in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. Your brother and companion, C. R. BALDWIN. LIFE'S HAPPIEST HOURS. CHAPTER XIV. TO MRS. ELIZABETH H. GARBER. My dear Niece:-I was truly glad to hear from you. I have always esteemed you one of the most valuable of my correspondents, and it is not willingly that I would give you up. If I have separated myself from your church, I yet remain attached to you. It is painful to bid an everlasting farewell to our friends, or rather to take an eternal leave of them, 'for it is no farewell to sorrow concerning them, even as others who have no hope.' Yet what are we ourselves but brands plucked out of the fire. Instead of daring to murmur against God for not irresistibly restraining our our thoughtless' friends from exposing their lives to foreseen and probable dangers, or miraculously averting disease from them, while strangers to us are left to fall. Let us rather adore the unsearchable riches of his grace, that he yet bears with our manners, and affords us a place in his church and among his people. as it was, which your I would gladly have been at the convention in Staunton, and indeed several of my Episcopal friends warmly urged me to attend, could I have conveniently been present, but indispensable engagements prevented me. Yet I doubt whether your meeting, 'delightful' would have had the effect upon me, ardent zeal seems to suppose. I seriously question whether I am fit for anything but a Methodist, and it would be difficult to make any thing else out of me. I am too much tinctured with enthusiasm, too apt to become warm and exultant, and in these happy moments of joy unspeakable, and full of glory, when the love of God is shed abroad by the Holy Ghost given unto me, I could not confine myself to your Liturgy and forms of prayer, however deep and ardent their devotional spirit may be. Yet I CONVERSION OF A SKEPTIC. 173 can truly say, that next to the Methodist, I prefer the Protestant Episcopal church to any other. We agree in everything but the forms of religion. Our doctrines are the same, our hopes and our comforts are one, and we even claim to be a branch of your church, broken off, but in its fall sticking into the earth, taking deep root, and now grown into a lofty, wide spreading tree, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I may have fallen into the common notion of the Methodist in supposing that we are yet but 'lightly esteemed,' and that every where this sect was at one time spoken against; but I appeal to your candor, is it not true? I judge very much from what were my own feelings when I was a man of the world. Our preachers are not generally men of great learning.—But I am not about to discuss the utility or expediency of having well educated men in the ministry. I love to see them there if they are deeply pious, but is it not true, that learning and popular address, apart from truth of doctrine, and holiness of heart and life, have often an |