As I read the pamphlet, I saw that the words were spoken to persons who were taken by surprise.  So should I be.  They were able to say, “We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou has taught in our streets:  in Thy name we have cast out devils, and done many wonderful works.”  Yet, with all this, He replied, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”  I did not see how I could escape, if such men as these were to be rejected.

Conviction was laying hold upon me, and the circle was becoming narrower.  The thought pressed heavily upon me, “What a dreadful thing, if I am wrong!” Added to this, I trembled to think of those I had misled.  “Can it be true?  Is it so?” I remembered some I had watched over most zealously, lest the Dissenters should come and pray with them.  I had sent them out of the world resting upon a false hope, administering the sacrament to them for want of knowing any other way of bringing them into God’s favour.  I used to grieve over any parishioner who died without the last sacrament, and often wondered how it would fare with Dissenters!

My mind was in a revolution.  I do not remember how I got home.  I felt as if I were out on the dark, boundless ocean, without light, or oar, or rudder.  I endured the greatest agony of mind for the souls I had misled, though I had done it ignorantly.  “They are gone, and lost forever!” I justly deserved to go also.  My distress seemed greater than I could bear.  A tremendous storm of wind, rain and thunder, which was raining at the time, was quite in sympathy with my feelings.  I could not rest.  Looking at the graves of some of my faithful Churchmen, I wondered, “Is it really true that they are now cursing me for having misled them?”

Thursday.  Friday, and Saturday passed by, each day and night more dark and despairing than the preceding one.  On the Sunday, I was so ill that I was quite unfit to take the service.  Mr. Aitken had said to me, “If I were you, I would shut the church, and say to the congregation, ’I will not preach again till I am converted.  Pray for me!’” Shall I do this?

The sun was shining brightly, and before I could make up my mind to put off the service, the bells struck out a merry peal, and sent their summons far away over the hills.  Now the thought came to me that I would go to church and read the morning prayers and after that dismiss the people.  There was no preparation for the Holy Communion that day, and I had deputed the clerk to select the hymns, for I was far too ill to attend to anything myself.  The psalms and hymns were especially applicable to my case, and seemed to help me, so that I thought I would go on and read the ante-communion service, and then dismiss the people.  And while I was reading the Gospel, I thought, well, I will just say a few words in explanation of this, and then I will dismiss them.  So I went up into the pulpit and gave out my text.  I took it from the gospel of the day—­“What think ye of Christ?” (Matt. 22:42).