God had been anxious
about me from all eternity, and had been scheming to save me.
Another bad result was that I was satisfied I understood what I did
not in the least understand. This is very near lying. I can see
myself now--I was no more than seventeen--stepping out of our pew,
standing in the aisle at the pew-door, and protesting to their
content before the minister of the church, father and mother
protesting also to my own complete content, that the witness of God
in me to my own salvation was as clear as noonday. Poor little
mortal, a twelvemonth out of round jackets, I did not in the least
know who God was, or what was salvation.
On entering the college I signed the Thirty-nine Articles, excepting
two or three at most; for the Countess, so far as her theology went,
was always Anglican. One of her chaplains was William Romaine, the
famous incumbent of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, who on his first Good
Friday in that church administered to five hundred communicants.
The book I was directed to study by the theological professor after
admission, was a book on the Atonement, by somebody named Williams.
He justified the election of a minority to heaven and a majority to
hell on the ground that God owed us nothing, and being our Maker,
might do with us what He pleased.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47