When the meeting was held for the examination of candidates for membership,
I was of course present. The pastor was an old-school expounder of the
strictest Presbyterian doctrines. He was apparently as eager to have
unbelievers in these dogmas lost, as he was to have elect believers
converted and rescued from perdition; for both salvation and condemnation
depended, according to his views, upon the good pleasure of infinite Love.
However, I was ready for his doleful questions, which I answered without a
tremor, declaring that never could I unite with the church, if assent to
this doctrine was essential thereto.
Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly maintained that I was
willing to trust God, and take my chance of spiritual safety with my
brothers and sisters,--not one of whom had then made any profession of
religion,--even if my creedal doubts left me outside the doors. The
minister then wished me to tell him when I had experienced a change of
heart; but tearfully I had to respond that I could not designate any
precise time. Nevertheless he persisted in the assertion that I _had_ been
truly regenerated, and asked me to say how I felt when the new light dawned
within me. I replied that I could only answer him in the words of the
Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting.
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