I indulged myself in my mad
experiments of unlimited freedom till appalled by the melancholy
results. I did not become _all_ that unchecked license could make me;
but I became so different a creature from what I had anticipated, that I
saw the madness of my resolution, and recoiled. I came to the verge of
all evil. God had mercy on me and held me back in spite of my impiety,
or I should have become a monster of iniquity. Man was not made for
unlimited liberty. He was made for subjection to the Divine will, and
for obedience to God's law. He was made for fellowship with the good
among his fellow-men, and for submission to Christian discipline. He can
become good and great and happy only by faith in God and Christ, by
self-denial, by good society, by careful moral and religious culture,
and by constant prayer and dependence on God. I now no longer say, "I
will be a _man_;" but, "Let me be a Christian." I no longer say, "I will
be all that my nature, working unchecked, will make me;" but, "Let me
be all that Christ and Christianity can make me. Let me check all
tempers at variance with the mind of Christ; and all tendencies at
variance with His precepts. Let the mouth of that fearful abyss which
lies deep down in my nature be closed, and let the infernal fires that
smoulder there be utterly smothered; and let the love of God and the
love of man reign in me, producing a life of Christ-like piety and
beneficence.
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