I knew I had changed during the last two years, though
I did not know how much; and I believed I was changing, though I could
not tell in what the change which was taking place would end. I had no
idea that I could ever become a Christian again, though the tendency of
the change which was taking place in me was in that direction.
Having taken leave of my friends, I hastened to Boston, and prepared for
my voyage across the deep. I was to sail by the Royal Mail Steamship
_Canada_, on the eleventh of January, 1860. Just as I was stepping on
board the packet, I received a letter from my youngest son. Among a
number of other kind things, it contained words like the following:
"Father, dear, when you get to England, don't dream that by any breath
of yours, or by any paper balls that you can fire, you can ever shatter
or shake the eternal foundations on which Christianity rests." Words
like those from a dear good son could not but have a powerful effect on
my mind.
And now I started on my voyage. I had never ventured on the sea before
without dread of shipwreck and drowning. This time I had no such fear.
On the contrary, as the vessel threaded her way among the rocks and
islands of Boston Harbor, I experienced a strange and unaccountable
elevation of soul.
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