CHAPTER VI.

The Awakening.

1848-51.

HE more earnestly I wrought among the people, and the better I knew them, the more I saw that the mere attachment to the Church, and punctual attendance at the services or frequency of Communion, was not sufficient. I wanted something deeper. I wanted to reach their hearts in order to do them good.

Whether this desire sprang up in the ordinary progress by which God was imperceptibly leading me, or from a story I heard at a clerical meeting, I know not-perhaps from both. My mind was evidently as ground prepared to receive the warning. The story was about a dream a clergyman had. He thought the judgment-day was come, and that there was, as it were, a great visitation-greater than the Bishop's. The clergy were mustering, and appeared in their gowns, but instead of being alone, they had part of their congregations with them. Some had a few followers, others had more, and some a great many; and all these received a gracious smile from the Judge when their names were called. The clergyman who dreamed was waiting, as he supposed, with a large number of people at his back.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION.

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When his turn came he went forward; but as he approached, he saw that the Judge's countenance was sad and dark. In a sudden impulse of suspicion he looked back; and lo! there was no one behind him. He stopped, not daring to go any further, and turning to look at the Judge, saw that His countenance was full of wrath. This dream had such an effect upon him that he began to attend to his parish and care for the souls of his people.

I also was beginning to see that I ought to care for the souls of my people—at least, as much as I did for the services of the Church. As a priest, I had the power (so I thought) to give them absolution: and yet none, alas ! availed themselves of the opportunity. How could they have forgiveness if they did not come to me? This absolution I believed to be needful before coming to Holy Communion, and that it was, indeed, the true preparation for that sacred ordinance. I used to speak privately to the members of the Church Guild about this, and persuaded some of them to come to me for confession and absolution; but I was restless, and felt that I was doing good by stealth. Besides this, those whom I thus absolved were not satisfied, for they said they could not rejoice in the forgiveness of their sins as the Methodists did, or say that they were pardoned. In this respect I was working upon most tender ground, but I did not know what else to do.

I used to spend hours and hours in my church alone in meditation and prayer; and, while thinking, employed my hands in writing texts over the windows and on the walls, and in painting ornamental borders above the arches. I remember writing over the chancel arch, with much interest and exultation, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ" (Rev. xii. 10).

I imagined, in my sanguine hope, that the kingdom of

Christ was come, and that the "accuser of the brethren" was cast down. I thought I saw, in the power of Christ given to His priests, such victory that nothing could stand against it. So much for dwelling on a theory, right or wrong, till it fills the mind. Yet I cannot say that all this

was without prayer. I did wait upon God, and thought my answers were from Him; but I see now that I went to the Lord with an idol in my heart, and that He answered me according to it (Ezek. xiv. 3).

One day I saw a picture in a friend's house which attracted me during the time I was waiting for him. It was nothing artistic, nor was it over well drawn, but still it engaged my attention in a way for which I could not account. When my friend came down, we talked about other things; but even after I left the house this picture haunted me. At night I lay awake thinking about it—so much so, that I rose early the next morning, and went to a bookseller's shop, where I bought a large sheet of tracingpaper and pencil, and sent them out by the postman, with a note to my friend, begging him to give me a tracing of the picture in question.

I had to wait for more than a fortnight before it arrived, and then how great was my joy! I remember spreading a white cloth on my table, and opening out the tracing-paper upon it; and there was the veritable picture of the Good Shepherd! His countenance was loving and kind. With one hand He was pushing aside the branch of a tree, though a great thorn went right through it; and with the other He was extricating a sheep which was entangled in the thorns. The poor thing was looking up in helplessness, all spotted over with marks of its own blood, for it was wounded in struggling to escape. Another thing which struck me in this picture was that the tree was growing on the edge of a precipice, and had it not been for it (the tree), with all the

cruel wounds it inflicted, the sheep would have gone over and perished.

After considering this picture for a long time, I painted it in a larger size on the wall of my church, just opposite the entrance door, so that every one who came in might see it. I cannot describe the interest with which I employed myself about this work; and when it was done, finding that it wanted a good bold foreground, I selected a short text"He came to seek and to save that which was lost."

God was speaking to me all this time about the Good Shepherd who gave His life for me; but I did not hear Him, or suspect that I was lost, or caught in any thorns, or hanging over a precipice; therefore, I did not apply the subject to myself. Certainly, I remember that my thoughts dwelt very much on forgiveness and salvation, but I preached that these were to be had in and by the church, which was as the Ark in which Noah was saved. Baptism was the door of this Ark, and Holy Communion the token of abiding in it; and all who were not inside were lost. What would become of those outside the Church was a matter which greatly perplexed me. I could not dare to say that they would be lost for ever; but where could they be now? and what would become of them hereafter? I longed to save John Bunyan; but he was such a determined. schismatic that it was impossible to make out a hope for him! Sometimes I was cheered by the thought that he had been duly baptized in infancy, and that his after-life was one of ignorance; but this opened the door too wide, and made my theory of salvation by the Church a very vague and uncertain thing. So deeply was the thought engrained in my mind that one day I baptized myself conditionally in the Church, for fear that I had not been properly baptized in infancy, and consequently should be lost hereafter. I had no idea that I was lost now; far from that, I thought I was

as safe as the Church herself, and that the gates of hell could not prevail against me.

I had many conversations with the earnest people in my parish, but they were evidently resting, not where I was, but on something I did not know. One very happy woman told me, "Ah! you went to college to larn the Latin; but though I don't know a letter in the Book, yet I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies." Another woman, whenever I went to see her, made me read the story of her conversion, which was written out in a copybook. Several others, men and women, talked to me continually about their "conversion. I often wondered what that was; but, as I did not see much self-denial among these converted ones, and observed that they did not attend God's House nor ever come to the Lord's table, I thought conversion could not be of much consequence, or anything to be desired.

I little knew that I was the cause of their remaining away from church, and from the Lord's table. One thoughtful man told me, 66 Cornish people are too enlightened to go to church! A man must give up religion to go there; only unconverted people and backsliders go to such a place!" Yet this was a prayerful man. What did he mean? At various clerical meetings I used to repeat these things, but still obtained no information or satisfaction.

I made it a rule to visit every house in my parish once a week, taking from twelve to twenty each day, when I sought to enlighten the people by leaving Church tracts, and even wrote some myself; but they would not do. I found that the Religious Tract Society's publications were more acceptable. To my great disappointment, I discovered, too, that Evangelical sermons drew the people, while sacramental topics did not interest them. So, in my ardent desire to reach and do them good, I procured several volumes of Evangelical sermons, and copied them, putting in some