Chapter 4

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?