A Personal Testimony 10 7 withstanding that I had apparently every reason to be well satisfied with my lot, and every opportunity to enjoy the good things of this world, my mental condition was anything but satisfactory. It is hard to picture the state of a mind sub ject to increasingly frequent and protracted spells of depres sion, for which there seemed to be no reason or explanation. Certainly I was thoroughly discontented, desperately unhappy, and becoming more and more an easy prey to gloomy thoughts and vague, undefinable apprehensions. No longer could I find mental satisfaction and diversion in the places and things which once supplied them. My gratifications had been largely of an intellectual order, and my mind had been much occupied in efforts to pierce the veil of the material universe, and to dis cover what, if anything, lay concealed behind it. This quest had carried me into the domains of science, philosophy, occultism, theosophy, etc., etc. All this pursuit had yielded nothing more reliable than conjecture, and had left the inquirer after the truth wearied, baffled and intellectually starved. Life had no meaning, advantage, purpose or justification; and the powers of the much-vaunted human intellect seemed unequal to the solution of the simplest mysteries. The prospect before me was unspeakably dark and forbidding. “ w h e r e i s t h e w i s e ?” (1 Cor. 1 :20) But some remedy against settled despair must be found. So I followed others in the attempt to find distraction in the gaieties, amusements and excitements of a godless, pleasure seeking world, among whom I was as godless as any. Some good people who were interested in me, and who had an inkling of my condition, assured me that what I needed was more “diversion” and “relaxation,” and that I was “work ing too hard,” etc. This view of the matter was urged by church members. No one told me the simple truth; namely, that I needed Christ and His salvation. O, the innumerable millions who are stumbling through life, vaguely conscious of
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