1056
THE KING’S BUSINESS
'I was too much used to discussing with Universalists, to expect any good to come from it, unless- certain terms were agreed upon and adhered to. in the discussion. I proposed, therefore, first that we should take up one point at a time,, and. discuss it till we had settled it, or had no more to say upon it, and then another, and another, confining ourselves to the point immedi ately in debate; secondly, that we should not interrupt each other, but each one should be at liberty to give his views upon the point-; without interruption ; and, thirdly, that there should be no cavilling or mere banter, but that we should observe candor and courtesy, and give to every argument due weight, on whichever side it was presented. I knew they were all of one way of thinking; and I could easily see that they were banded together, and had come together that morning, for the sake of sustaining each other, in their views. Having settled the preliminaries, we commenced the argument. It did not take long to demolish every position that-he assumed. He really-knew but little jof the Bible. He had a way of disposing of the principal passages, as he remembered them, that are generally-arrayed against the doc trine of Universalism. But, as Univer salists always do, he '"dwelt mainly -on the utter injustice of endless punishment. ON SINKING SAND I soon showed him, and those around him, that he had but slender ground to stand on, so far as the Bible was con cerned; and he very soon .took the posi tion, that whatever the Bible said about it, endless punishment was unjust; and that, therefore, if the Bible threatened men with endless punishment, it could not- be true. This settled the question, so far as -the Bible was concerned. In fact I could easily see that they were all skeptics, and would not at all give in because they saw that the Bible contradicted their views. I then closed in with him on the justice of endless punishment. I saw that his friends became agitated, and felt as if thè founda tions were giving away under them. Pretty
soon one of them went out; and as I pro ceeded, another went out, and finally they all forsook him, seeing, as they must have done, one after another, that he was ut terly wrong. He had been their leader; and God gave me thus an opportunity to use him en tirely up, in the presence of his followers. When he had nothing to say, I urged upon him With warmth, the question of im mediate attention to salvation, and very kindly bade him good mornings and I Went away feeling sure that I should soon hear from that conversation again. The doctor’s wife was a Christian woman, and a member of the church. She told me a day or two after, that the Doctor came home from that conversation ap parently greatly agitated, though she did not know where he had been. He would walk the room, and then sit down, but could not remain sitting. He would thus walk and sit alternately; and she could see in his countenance that he was greatly troubled. She said to him: “Doctor, what is the matter?” “Noth ing,” was his reply. But his agitation in creased; and she inquired again, “Doctor, do tell me what is the matter.” | She suspected that he had somewhere fallen in with me; and she inquired again, “Doctor, have you seen Mr. Finney this morning?” This brought him to a stand; and , he burst into tears and exclaimed, “Yes! and he has turned my weapons on my own head!” His agony became in tense; and as soon as the way W3S opened for him to speak out, he surrendered him self to his convictions, and soon after ex pressed hope in Christ. In a few days his companiofts were brought in, one after the pther, till, I believe, the revival made a clean sweep of them. IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER I have said, more than once, that the spirit of prayer that prevailed in those revivals was a very marked feature of them. It was common for young converts to be greatly exercised in grayed; and in some instances,; so much so, that they were constrained to ■pray whole nights,
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