"
This was but one of many lawless thoughts which assailed me at this
time. Another, very persistent, was the view I took of the sufferings
of the Saviour of mankind. Why, I asked, were they made so much of?---
why was it said that He suffered as no man had suffered? It was
nothing but the physical pain which thousands and millions have had to
endure! And if I could be as sure of immortality as Jesus, death would
be to me no more than the prick of a thorn. What would it matter to be
nailed to a cross and perish in a slow agony if I believed that, the
agony over, I should sit down refreshed to sup in paradise? The worst
of it was that when I tried to banish these bitter, rebellious ideas,
taking them to be the whisperings of the Evil One, as the books
taught, the quick reply would come that the supposed Evil One was
nothing but the voice of my own reason striving to make itself heard.
But the contest could not be abandoned; devil or reason, or whatever
it was, must be overcome, else there was no hope for me; and such is
the powerful effect of fixing all one's thoughts on one object,
assisted no doubt by the reflex effect on the mind of prayer, that in
due time I did succeed in making myself believe all I wished to
believe, and had my reward, since after many days or weeks of mental
misery there would come beautiful intervals of peace and of more than
peace, a new and surprising experience, a state of exaltation, when it
would seem to me that I was lifted or translated into a purely
spiritual atmosphere and was in communion and one with the unseen
world.
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