Part 5

My friend prayed with me and then I prayed, but all that I could say was "Lord, show me the way." I was not conscious of any special interest, I had simply willed to pray and wanted to believe. I had won the fight with myself, however, to the extent of getting the consent of my will to pray and to trust, but I realized that the battle with myself was only begun and I knew also that I had another fight ahead of me, or a series of them, with the conditions that hemmed me in and seemed to make the Christian life impracticable.

One of these adverse conditions was my relations with the men in my boarding house. How could I go back and tell them that I had decided to do the thing that I had ridiculed and scoffed at in their presence? Of course this was pure cowardice; I was afraid of their ridicule. But the break was made easier for me than I feared it would be. I found on entering the smoking room of the boarding house, that "Uncle Dick Moss," a rank spiritualist, had the floor. He was on his high horse and was charging up and down the room in the midst of a bitter and blatant Ingersollian tirade against Christianity and the Bible. The crowd was cheering him on. The day before, this probably would have amused me and I might have followed him, supporting his arguments, or rather assertions--there were no arguments.

But during the twelve hours that had just passed I had been facing realities and Uncle Dick's exhibition disgusted me. So when he had quieted down, I decided that it was time for me to run up my colors. If the break had to come, it had better come then. "Uncle Dick," I said, "you have been talking about something that you don't know anything about. Here you are swallowing spiritualism, hook, bob and sinker, and having trouble with the Bible and the only religion that can do the business that we need to have done. The trouble with you is that you are afraid that the Bible will upset your spiritualism, and you don't dare to investigate the Bible and stand by the result of your investigation. I'm tired of this whole business, and I have made up my mind to investigate the Bible and, if it is what I think it is, to try to live by it. I am going to be a Christian."

A shout and a laugh went up. I was called "Deacon," and it was suggested that I lead in prayer or at least make a few remarks. But I had said enough to put myself on record and it was hardly to be expected that they would take me seriously on such short notice. When it came time to go to bed I felt that in order not to be misunderstood I must pray in the presence of my roommate. He was a cynic and a nothingarian and I felt sure that he would neither understand nor appreciate it. It was hard to bring it about, as he kept on talking in a way that seemed to give me no opportunity to turn the subject naturally. I was tempted to let it pass, but felt that, if I did, it would be fatal to my new-formed purpose. So finally, in almost an agony of awkwardness, I blurted out, "Jim, I don't care what you think about it, I'm going to pray." Jim proved to be entirely mild and agreeable about it, however, and gave me his blessing in a patronizing sort of a way. The next day I burned my bridges behind me by packing my trunk and going home.

Up to this time I was conscious of nothing unusual. What things had taken place I had done myself and it had been entirely within my own option and power to do or not to do them. I had received the testimony of at least four witnesses of the fact of conversion and the reality of the Christian life; I had relaxed the opposition of my will and given my judgment a chance to act; I had taken advice from experience; I had prayed; I had turned my face toward the Christian life; I had cut loose from conditions unfriendly to Christian experience, and I was trying to be a Christian. But I was still in the fog.

For the next three days I worked very hard trying to be a Christian. I attended a meeting each night, rose for prayer, prayed, did everything I was told to do, and as much more as I could think of. The burden of my prayer and of my requests for prayer was that I might have faith. I wanted to get something that I thought every Christian had, or must have in order to be a Christian, and so far as I knew, I was willing to pay the price. But nothing resulted, except the natural weariness from my own exertions. I was still in the fog.

The fifth day was "Fast Day," a good old New England institution, with a prayer meeting in the morning, which I attended and at which I rose for prayer. In the afternoon was a union service, with a civic or semi-religious topic, but I attended it, as I did not want anything to get by me that might contribute to the solution of my problem. There was scarcely anything about the service that was calculated to make a spiritual impression. The address was poor, as also was the music. I tried to follow the argument, but finally gave it up and began to think about that which had been uppermost in my mind for the five days past. The thing baffled me; the object of my quest had eluded my every effort to grasp it. The experience of the five days was new, but it contained nothing but that which could be accounted for by purely natural causes. I reviewed the whole period to see if I had left out any essential part of the formula. Was it possible that my skepticism had been well founded, that there was nothing in the so-called "Christian experience" after all? It was about four o'clock in the afternoon of the fifth day since I had set my face toward the Christian life and I was still in the fog.

But I was weary with the effort, and as I thought it over, I said to myself "What are you trying to do?" and the answer was, "I am trying to be a Christian." Then it dawned upon me that trying was not trusting; that, if I succeeded in my effort, I should have only a self-made product and not the religion of the Bible and that it was unreasonable for me to expect the results of faith before exercising faith itself. I was stumbling at the very simplicity of faith. I was working to win what God was waiting to give, while my latent faculty of faith, the greatest asset in personality, was lying worthless through disuse. I thought of my experience on the ocean, when finally, helpless to help myself, I had left my whole problem with the Pilot and He had taken command and brought us through to safety, and so I deliberately gave up the struggle and said to myself, "It is right for me to serve God and to live for Him, and I will do it whether I have what they call an 'experience' or not." And, having settled the question, I dismissed it and waited for instructions.

And then something happened, for, from without, surprising me with its presence, like the discovery of a welcome but unexpected guest, there came into my life a deep, great, overflowing peace. I had never known it before, and therefore I could not by any possibility have imagined it; but, I recognized it as something from God. It was not sensational, it came quietly; as quietly "as the daylight comes when the night is done." It was not emotional, unless it was in itself an emotion. But emotions are transient and this had come to stay.

With the peace, there came also something that seemed to be a reinforcement of my life principle, an achieving power, a disposition to dare and an ability to do that which hitherto had seemed impossible; and the petty pessimism of the past gave way before this new consciousness.

With this deep incoming tide of peace and power came a clearing of the mental atmosphere, and I saw that the fog had lifted. When I saw this, I said to myself quietly, "I think I am a Christian," and almost immediately added, "I am a Christian!"

The fog had passed, and the drifting was over; I had come within sight of land. What land it was I did not then know, but it proved to be a new world. How great it is I do not yet fully understand, but I have been exploring it thirty years and I think it is a continent.