His Conversion.
People talk of great changes in life, and point to periods and events
which seem to have turned their whole course into a different channel;
but there is nothing that can happen to any individual which will make
such an alteration in his life _as conversion_. Thousands of persons
who had been almost useless in the world, after that event have become
valuable members of society; others who have neglected and abused their
talents and opportunities, have become thoughtful and diligent; others
who have lived in riot and sin, wasting the energies of body and mind,
have learnt to live at peace with all men, and walk in the fear of God
and hope of heaven. Having become new creatures, they have shown it in
every line of their conduct. "Old things have passed away, and behold,
all things have become new."
It was never more strikingly illustrated than in the case of Abraham
Lockwood. For a length of time after he had begun to attend
Sunday-school, there was a manifest difference in Abe's manner. Not
that he was really living a better life, for he was just as sinful as
before, only he was _not now thoughtless_; he might go to the ale-house
with his associates, but he went home to think about it after; he might
swear and laugh like the rest of them when they were together, but he
was no sooner alone than he felt the stings of a remorseful conscience;
he was gradually getting into that state when a man dreads to be alone
with himself; there was always something speaking to him from within,
and the voice was getting stronger and stronger every week, till
sometimes it fairly startled him, and made him afraid; often he would
try to run away from it, but it was of no use; the moment he stopped,
panting from the exertion, it was there again; many a time he tried to
deaden the voice in the deafening noise of the mill, but the more he
endeavoured to destroy it, by some mysterious contradiction, the more
intently he found himself listening for it; it spoilt all the pleasures
of sin by its presence; it was with him night and day; it followed him
in his sleep, and was waiting for him when he awoke; it made him
miserable. Poor Abe was _under conviction of sin_; he was tasting the
wormwood of a guilty conscience, than which nothing is more dreadful,
and nothing is more hopeful, because it is the bitter that oft worketh
itself sweet; it was so with Abe. While he was in this state of mind,
the Rev. David Stoner came to preach in the Wesleyan Chapel at
Almondbury. His fame drew many to hear him, and among the rest Abraham
Lockwood. He went partly out of curiosity, and partly in the hope of
getting relief to his mind; however, he only came away worse than
before; he was miserable, and it now began to show itself to his
companions. "Pain will out," like murder. "What's the matter, Abe?"
they would say to him. "Oh, nothing particular," he would reply. And
then among themselves they said, "Abe looks very queer, he's ill;" then
they tried to enliven him. "Come, cheer up, old boy, we'll have a
yarn." One would tell some droll tale, and another would say something
comical in order to make him laugh; and laugh he did, he must laugh; it
would never do to let those fellows know what was passing in his mind;
so he laughed loud as any of them, but what a laugh!--how empty and
hollow, how joyless and unreal, how unlike his former bursts of
feeling!--a got-up laugh, which shewed plainer than ever _something was
wrong_. Abe knew it, and he felt it was of no use trying any longer to
keep up a sham happiness, and all the time be in torments from a guilty
conscience; he therefore resolved to give up sin and lead a new life.
He probably was hastened to that decision by a remark which fell from
his father's lips; the old man had noticed for some time that Abe was
not in his usual spirits. He would come home of an evening and sit
looking into the fire for an hour without speaking or moving; he had
given over singing in the house, and he seemed as if he hadn't spirit
enough left to whistle to the little bird in the cage; his meals lay
almost untasted, and his tea would go cold before he had taken any.
"Come, my lad, thaa mun get thee tea thaa knows," said the old father
one evening.
"Yes," said Abe, as he pretended to push something into his mouth.
"What's matter with th'?" the father inquired; "thaa's not like
theesen, nor hasn't been for mony a week."
Abe's eyes grew moist, and his chin trembled, but he called himself to
order, no babyism now.
The old man, still looking at him, and keen enough to notice the
struggle he had to master his feelings, went on to say, "Thaa's poorly,
my lad, thaa mun goa to th' doctor, and see if he canna gie thee
some'at."
"No earthly doctor can do onything for me," answered Abe; "it's th'
Physician of souls that I want. Oh, father, I am unhappy; my sins are
troubling me noight and day; I don't know what will become of me: _I
feel like lost_."
"My poor lad, the Lord have mercy on thee," replied the old man, as Abe
put on his cap and walked hurriedly out of the house. He went out
scarcely knowing why; perhaps to hide his trouble from his dear old
father; perhaps to smother his emotions, which were rapidly gaining the
mastery over him, or maybe he knew not why,--an impulse was upon him,
and it carried him forth into the cool evening air; away he went at a
brisk walk from the village in the direction of Almondbury common.
Faster and faster he went, faster and faster as if to keep up with the
rapid current of his thoughts; the distance was uncounted, the
direction unheeded, the time forgotten; one thought only occupied his
tempest-torn mind, what must he do to be saved! There are some who
would think him very foolish to give himself so much concern on a
matter of that sort; but the fact is, Abe was just beginning to act the
part of a wise man in renouncing his old habits and declaring for
Christ. No human eye followed him on that lonely walk to the common,
and no human friend accompanied him; he was alone, the thought pleased
him; he looked around all over the face of the common, but no person
was visible. _Abe was alone with God_, and he determined to speak to
Him, and tell Him all his burden of sorrow. Near to where he stood,
there was a large tree growing, whose lofty branches were uplifted to
heaven; it stood just at the bottom of a little grassy slope of four or
five yards deep, and close to the side of a small clear stream of
water, which ran gurgling and rippling along, moistening the great
roots of this tree; it was here, under its spreading boughs and gnarled
trunk, _Abe found a place for prayer_. Down on his knees he cast
himself, and his first utterance consecrated that spot as a closet,
"God be merciful to me a sinner!" He only needed to utter the first
cry, others followed in rapid and earnest succession, till all the
restraints upon his soul were broken asunder, and in an agony he
wrestled for salvation. Hour after hour fled by; twilight gave place
to darkness; lights shone from the cottage windows away on the
hill-sides; distant watch-dogs answered each other's unwearying bark;
neighbours in the village yonder, stood chatting by their open doors in
the quiet night, and in many a cottage home hard by, children and
grown-up men sat quietly eating their last meal before retiring to bed:
but none of them knew that out on Almondbury common, at the foot of a
great rude tree, a man, one of their neighbours, a sinner like
themselves, _was praying_. No, no, they didn't know: there is many a
thing goes on of vital interest to us, which even our nearest friends
know nothing about; but there are other eyes, invisible, which look
down upon us from their starry heights seeing all our ways. So they
looked, while Abe wrestled for liberty. His chief snare at this time
was, that he was _too bad for Christ to save_; it was a terrible
thought to him, and had so much of seeming truth in it, that he at
times almost despaired; then again he remembered that he could not be
too bad for Christ to save; no, HE could save to the very uttermost all
that came unto Him; Abe tried to believe that with all his heart, and
as he struggled against his doubts and fears, faith grew stronger and
bolder, then in a moment the snare broke, the dark cloud over his soul
burst, and out from the cleft there came a voice, which thrilled his
whole being. "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of
the Lord is risen upon thee." "Glory! Glory!! Glory!!!" burst from
his enraptured lips; his "light was come,"--what a light! a soul full,
_full_ of the light of Divine smiles. No wonder Abe forgot everything
else, in the joys of that ecstatic moment. He leaped, laughed, wept
shouted the praises of God till his voice might have been heard far
away over the waste, as he turned his steps towards home that night.
"Why, he's made a bron new man o' me. I hardly know mysen.
Hallelujah!"
He was not long in reaching home, nor long in letting them know, when
he got there, what a change had come over him. In he went, with a face
shining in all the brightness of his new-found joy. "He's made a bron
new man o' me! He's made a bron new man o' me. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!"
The change in his whole manner and appearance was so great, that his
poor old father was at first alarmed lest he had gone wrong in his
mind; but Abe assured him he had just got right, and by God's help he
meant to keep so.
Oh, if Abe had just got right by the wonderful change which God had
wrought in him, (and who can doubt it?) how many there are in the world
_who are all wrong_, living the wrong life, striving for the wrong
things, going the wrong way, and running towards the wrong goal! Oh,
how many are spending this short life in the pursuit of things which
are worthless and worse; sacrificing their souls' best interests for
the brief indulgence of sinful tastes, or spending the rapidly
accumulating years of their life in dark indifference to eternal things!
The escape of one such sinner as Abe from the captivity in which the
ungodly are all held, may for a brief hour excite remark, perhaps a
desire for liberty, too, in the minds of some others; but these good
desires are often only of short duration, they die where they were
born, and almost as soon, and the soul returns to its former state; the
sleeper slumbers on; the drunkard drinks harder; the swearer blasphemes
more fiercely; the libertine indulges in greater excesses; and all
these hordes of ungodly men push on again down the broad and easy
incline to the pit of Hell. Do people know that the end of a sinful
life is Hell? Do people believe? Why, then, do they press their way
down to such a place?