Personal Recollections | Page 8

that "spirit of the age"
which, operating in a "pressure from without," is daily forcing us
further from the good old paths in which we ought to walk, and in
which our forefathers did walk, when they gave better heed than we do
to the inspired word, which tells us, "Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."
Affectionately yours,
C. E.

LETTER II.
YOUTH.
I have long been persuaded that there is no such thing as an honest
private journal, even where the entries are punctually made under
present impressions. There is so much of positive, active evil always at
work in the mind, that to give a fair transcript of idle unprofitable
thoughts and corrupt imaginings, is out of the question: evil is dealt
with in generals, good in particulars, and the balance cannot be fairly
struck. Those confessions of indwelling sin that remorse will wring
from us, and which perhaps are penned at the moment in perfect
sincerity, being unaccompanied with, the specifications that would
invest them in their naturally hideous colors, beneath the searching
light of God's holy and spiritual law, wear the lovely garb of unfeigned
humility. The reader, coming to such self-condemnatory clauses, is
struck with admiration at the saintly writer's marvellous self-abasement,
only lamenting that he should, in the excess of his lowly-mindedness,
have written such, bitter things against himself, at a time when he was
grieving, resisting, almost quenching the Holy Spirit within by
obstinate transgression.
And if the present, how much more is the past liable to be glossed over?
To be faithful here is next to impossible, for Satan helps us to deceive
ourselves and instructs us to carry out the deception to others. This
consideration might well cause the pen of autobiography to drop from a
Christian's hand, did not an earnest desire to glorify God in his merciful
dealings, together with the consciousness that to no other could the task
he safely delegated, act as a counterpoise to the discouragement. I do
desire to magnify the exceeding riches of God's grace to me, if I may
do so without increasing the charge of arrogant assumption. I know that
among the diversity of gifts which he bestows on his creatures, he
granted me a portion of mental energy, a quickness of perception, a
liveliness of imagination, an aptitude for expressing the thoughts that
were perpetually revolving in my mind, such as to fit me for literary
occupation. I know that Satan, to whom such instruments are
exceedingly valuable, marked me as one who would, if properly trained
to it, do his work effectually within his own sphere; and I am not more
sure of my present existence than I am of the fact that he strove to
secure me for that purpose, from the first expanding of those faculties

which evidently lie exposed to his observation and open to his attacks,
as far as God permits him to work. Can I feel all this, and not bless the
Lord, who so far baffled these designs, and deigned to appoint my field
of labor within the sacred confines of his own vineyard?
The visitation of which I have spoken had a powerful influence on my
after-life; it rendered the preservation of my newly-restored sight an
object of paramount importance, to which the regular routine of
education must needs be sacrificed. A boarding-school had never been
thought of for me. My parents loved their children too well to meditate
their expulsion from the paternal roof; and the children so well loved
their parents and each other that such a separation would have been
insupportable to them. Masters we had in the necessary branches of
education, and we studied together so far as I was permitted to study;
but before it was deemed safe to exercise my eyes with writing
apparatus, I had stealthily possessed myself of a patent copy-book, by
means of which, tracing the characters as they shone through the paper,
I was able to write with tolerable freedom before any one knew that I
could join two letters; and I well remember my father's surprise, not
unmixed with annoyance, when he accidentally took up a letter which I
had been writing to a distant relation, giving a circumstantial account of
some domestic calamity which had no existence but in my brain;
related with so much pathos too, that my tears had fallen over the slate
whereon this my first literary attempt was very neatly traced. He could
not forbear laughing; but ended with a grave shake of the head, and a
remark to the effect that I was making more haste than good speed.
At this time, seven years of age, I became entangled in a net of