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16 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

the spring when the True Christian Religion was recommended to me by my friend at Liverpool, I went, according to annual custom, to visit an old college pupil of mine, the late Right Honorable John Smith, of Heath, in the county of York. On the evening before I set out, I opened the long-neglected volume, not with a view to read it, but merely to get a better idea of the general nature of its contents, when, in turning over the pages, I happened to cast my eye upon the term Divinum Humanum. The term appeared new and strange, but still it did not affect my mind in a manner to produce any lasting impression; and accordingly, on shutting up the book, it seemed to be forgotten and gone. Probably, too, it would never again have been recalled to my remembrance had it not been for the following memorable circumstance.

"On awaking early one morning, not many days after my arrival at my friend's house, my mind was suddenly and powerfully drawn into a state of inward recollection, attended with an inexpressible calm and composure, into which was instilled a tranquillity of peace and heavenly joy, such as I had never before experienced. Whilst I lay musing on this strange, and to me most delightful harmony in the interiors of my mind, instantly there was made manifest, in the same recesses of my spirit, what I can call by no

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