Almost a Christian.

Louisa's case a common one.

CHAPTER V.

ALMOST A CHRISTIAN.

"Ye will not come unto me."

THE melancholy story related in the last chapter is not an uncommon one. It is the story of thousands. All that is necessary, reader, to make the case your own, is that you should feel such a degree of interest in religious duty as to open your eyes clearly to its claims upon you, but yet not enough to induce you cordially to comply with them,— and then that death should approach you while you are thus unprepared. The gloomy forebodings and the dreadful remorse which darkened Louisa's last hours, must in such a case be yours.

It was not my intention, when forming the plan of this work, that it should present religious truth and duty in gloomy or melancholy aspects. Religion is a most cheerful and happy thing to practice, but a most sad and melancholy thing to neglect; and as undoubtedly some who read this book will read it only to understand their duty, without at all setting their hearts upon the performance of it, I ought to devote one or two chapters particularly to them. The case of Louisa, though it was a melancholy one, was real. And what has once occurred, may occur again. You will observe, too, that all the suffering which she manifested in her dying hour was the work of conscience. The minister did all that he could to soothe and calm her. Examine all

Neglecting duty when it is pointed out.

the conversation he had with her at her bedside, and you will find that it was the language of kind invitation.

Sometimes such a dying scene as this is the portion of an individual who has lived a life of open and unbridled wickedness. But, generally, continued impiety and vice lull the conscience into a slumber which it requires a stronger power than that of sickness or approaching death to awaken. Louisa was ALMOST A CHRISTIAN. She was nearly persuaded to begin a life of piety. In just such a state of mind, my reader, it is very probable you may be. Perhaps since you have been reading this book, you have been thinking more and more seriously of your Christian duty, and have felt a stronger and stronger intention of doing it, at least at some future time. You ought, after having read the first chapter, to have gone at once, and fully confessed all your sins to God. When you read the second, you should have cordially welcomed the Savior as your friend, and chosen him as your Redeemer and portion. You ought to have been induced by the third to begin immediately a life of prayer, and to have been constant and ardent at the throne of grace since you read it. But perhaps you neglected all this. You understand very clearly what Christian duty is. It is plain to you that there is a Being above with whom you ought to live in constant communion. You understand clearly how you are to begin your duty, if you have neglected it heretofore, by coming and confessing all your sins, and seeking forgiveness through Jesus Christ, who has died for you. Thus you know what duty is. The solitary difficulty is, that you will not do it.

But why? What can be the cause of that apparent infatuation which consists in continually neglecting a duty which you acknowledge to be a duty, and which you know it would increase your happiness to perform? Were I to ask you, it is very probable you would say what I have

How to begin your duty.

Design of this chapter.

Procrastination.

known a great many others to say in your situation; it would be this:

I know that I am a sinner against God, and I wish to repent and to be forgiven, and to love and serve my Maker, but I do not see how I can repent."

Many persons do That is, they use

My reader, is this your state of mind? use this language, and use it honestly. it honestly, if they mean by it what the language properly does mean, that they see the propriety, and duty, and happiness of a new life, so that in some sense they desire it, but that some secret cause, which they have not yet discovered, prevents their obedience. I design in this chapter to help you to discover what that cause is. If you really wish to discover and to remove it, you will read the chapter carefully, with a willingness to be convinced, and you will often pause to apply what is said, to your own case.

There are three very common causes which operate to prevent persons, who are almost Christians, from becoming so altogether.

I. A spirit of procrastination. Waiting for a more convenient season. The following case illustrates this part of

our subject:

A boy of about twelve or fourteen years of age, a member of an academy, in which he is pursuing his studies preparatory to his admission to college, sees the duty of commencing a Christian life. He walks some evening at sunset alone over the green fields which surround the village in which he resides, and the stillness and beauty of the scene around him bring him to a serious and thoughtful frame of mind. God is speaking to him in the features of beauty and splendor in which the face of nature is decked. The glorious western sky reminds him of the hand which spread its glowing colors. He looks into the dark grove in the edge of which he is walking, and its expression of deep, un

E

of the approach of that evening when the sun of his life is to decline, and this world cease forever to be his home.

As he muses in this scene, he feels the necessity of a preparation for death, and as he walks slowly homeward, he is almost determined to come at once to the conclusion to commence immediately a life of piety. He reflects, however, upon the unpleasant publicity of such a change. He has many irreligious friends whom it is hard to relinquish, and he shrinks from forming new acquaintances in a place that he is so soon to leave. He reflects that he is soon to be transferred to college, and that there he can begin anew. He resolves that when he enters college walls, he will enter a Christian; that he will from the first be known as one determined to do his duty toward God. He will form no irreligious friendships, and then he will have none to sunder. He will fall into no irreligious practices, and then he will have none to abandon. He thinks he can thus avoid the

The admission to college.

The college walk.

awkwardness of a public change. He is ungenerous enough to wish to steal thus secretly into the kingdom of heaven, without humbling his pride by an open admission that he has been wrong. He waits for a more convenient season.

When he finds himself on college ground, however, his heart does not turn any more easily to his duties toward God than before. First, there is the feverish interest of the examination, then the novelty of the public recitation-room,— the untried, unknown instructer,-the new room-mate,—and all the multiplied and varied excitements which are always to be found in college walls. There are new acquaintances to be formed, new countenances to speculate upon, and new characters to study, and in these and similar objects of occupation and interest, week after week, glides rapidly away. At last on Saturday evening, the last of the term, he is walk