THE BROTHERS
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It happened one evening, while my mind was reeking under all these united attacks, that I walked forth into the way. My path lay through a field in which were two men, who, from the congeniality of their sentiments, more than from the tie of kinship, I considered to be brothers. They were so engaged in conversation as they walked before me, that I escaped their notice, so that I had an opportunity of hearing the whole of their discourse unperceived.
"Can you reconcile your mind to the doctrine of redemption," said the one to the other, "and place the least confidence in the merits of Christ? For my part," continued he, "I am quite a Freethinker; I see no necessity upon which it is founded. The world, take it altogether, according to my opinion, is good enough, and cannot need an expiation; and indeed, when I consider what modern discoveries have been made respecting the immensity of creation, and that the globe which we inhabit is but a speck in it, the idea lessens the doctrine of Revelation altogether in my esteem."
"You are perfectly right," answered the other; "I have long thought as you do, and have made up my mind to reject it altogether. All the doctrines of Christianity, excepting the moral part of it (and that the world had before) are, in my esteem, only calculated for weak and vulgar minds; and indeed their authority is precarious, depending upon writings that, for anything we know, may or may not be true."
The reader will at once conclude that these observations tended not to dissipate my former gloom; and although, low as my spirits then were, I thought a mere child in grace might easily have refuted their false reasoning's; yet my mind was too sore and too sorrowful in the moment to enter into controversy. Every application to a wound, if put on with roughness, acts like a caustic.
I had heard enough not to desire more; and therefore withdrew from the brothers as unperceived as I came. The words of Job struck my mind with great force as I left them—"Shall he who contends with the Almighty, instruct him? He who reproves God, let him answer it." (Job 40:2.)
It was a considerable time before I was enabled to shake off the ill effects induced in my mind by reason of the conversation which I had overheard between the brothers. Not that my faith (I bless the Great Author and Giver of it) was in any danger of being overthrown thereby; for a faith like mine, founded in grace, will ultimately triumph over all the powers of nature. He who is born of an incorruptible seed lives and abides forever, and therefore nothing corruptible can destroy it. It may apparently be choked with weeds, and may at times languish and seem ready to die; but die it cannot, for the seed is incorruptible; and by the way, I would desire my reader to set this down in the memoranda of his mind, as an everlasting maxim—That what originates in God cannot be lost by man. Divine teachings baffle all the malice of human reasoning's.
But my distress, induced by the conversation which I had heard, sprung from another source. There is in every man's heart, even when in a renewed state, a much stronger propensity to evil than good. Hence nothing is more easy than the introduction of a train of corrupt thoughts into the mind, which the greatest exertions, void of divine aid, cannot afterwards expel; while, on the contrary, the chaste and pure images of grace, tending as they do, in every instance, to mortify and subdue the corrupt desires of our nature, nothing but a higher influence than what is human can gain admission for them at the first, or cause them to be cherished when received; and this explains why it is that false impressions, from being more congenial to our nature, are more easy of access, and more permanent in their duration, than the true.
I know not, reader, what your feelings on this point are; but with me, I confess, that it is quite the case. It is a work of much difficulty with me to keep alive in my mind the remembrance of some sweet portion of Scripture, or some delightful verse in a psalm or hymn, to help me on to the hour of meditation and prayer; whereas the idle, corrupt jingle of some foolish song, which was lodged in the memory of my boyish days, too frequently rises to my recollection, in spite of all my endeavours to suppress it; and I fear, that if encouraged, I could repeat it with the greatest exactness. Pause, to observe with me what a decisive proof this is of indwelling corruption!
It was an ill effect of this kind which the sceptical conversation of the brothers left upon my mind. By the ludicrous turn which they gave to some portions of Scripture, and the impious and bold reasoning's which they made on others, they gave birth to a train of images within me, which, like a spectre, arose continually to my view.
I stop the reader one moment again to remark, (and what I humbly conceive, if closely adopted, will not prove an unprofitable remark) how little they consult their own happiness, who mix indiscriminately with the world, and who are not sensible of the dreadful consequences of seeing and hearing the corruptions which are going on in life! What from the lightness and indifference to divine things with which some treat the truths of God, and what from the open contempt poured upon them by others, it is really like running into the midst of pestilence, to come within the circle of their society.
Our eyes are the purveyors of the evil, and our ears inlets of the corruption; and never was that aphorism of Solomon more easy to be observed than in the present moment—"Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way." (Prov. 4:14.) For my own part, I have never found my peace of mind so unbroken, as since I have totally withdrawn myself from all but the necessary and unavoidable communion with men of the world. By ceasing from their communion, we live out of the reach of the contagion of their principles, and we live above the influence of their good or bad opinion; and it is a maxim of as much beneficial consequence to the mind as it is to the body, to breathe a pure atmosphere. You cannot come within the region of anything filthy and corrupt—but its poisonous effluvia will attach themselves to you.
I have often thought what a peculiar providence it was, that while my mind was under the impression of such accumulating trials, God should direct my steps towards the means of relief; but so it was, that in prosecuting the path of my pilgrimage, as I passed the road, there stood an house on my right hand with this inscription in the front of it:
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