Whoso Offereth Praise Glorifieth God.
By Mary W. Howard
ACTUATED by this motto, I now make public some of the workings of a mind, struggling to break the thrall imposed by those, who in the expressive words of our Saviour, "Have taken away the key of knowledge." In meditating upon the gratitude I owed to God, in bringing me to receive a measure of what we believe is "present truth;" in praying with Cowper "O grant that I may faithful be,
To clearer light, vouchsafed to me," my mind reverted to the following, which I knew had come from my pen many years ago; years too, after I had professed religion, and which had been carefully preserved among my private manuscripts. In praise to His name who has led me up from those dark waters, I pen it here, thinking it may be words fitly spoken to some heart. "I pity the unbeliever!" Long years ago this expression touched the sympathies of my childish heart, and as I write it to-night that sympathy is so aroused that I can scarce restrain my tears; not so much in pity for the unbeliever, as that I am that unbeliever!! No! I am not an unbeliever yet. But, a doubter—a dark despairing doubter! Often do the dark waves of unbelief surge over me threatening to overwhelm me. Alas! how I do feel their withering blight! But never before has it escaped the innermost recesses of my sad heart. Nor would I now breathe it to mortal ear, lest those foul surmises should raise a doubt, in that fellow-mortal's heart. There have been times when I would fain have disclosed my feelings to some kind friend, but have been restrained, fearful of the consequences to myself or to that friend. Thus have I struggled with it, at times prayed over it, keeping it within my own dark heart, where, oh, may I ever keep it hidden, till it is crushed forever by triumphing faith. But a conviction almost overpowering, so that I cannot always master it, has prompted me to record this to-111night, to prove as it were in after years, that the outcast infidel I may become, should not be, too rashly judged. "Let us rather waive the grudge
And attend to what he saith;
He may have some doubt to tell
That with us did never dwell." There has always, even in my better religious days seemed to me, such an incongruity in the manner of quoting scripture by our accredited teachers in religion that I have never dared to read works against infidelity, lest the refuted instead of the refuting, should find a response in my heart. Then is it any wonder, that the enemy of all righteousness should assail me here, when religion all around and within is so low? Yet at times I venture to believe I shall yet in triumph praise Him who is the light of my countenance and my God;" for there are occasional soul-glimpses, unutterable, of things which lie beyond this mortal vision—things eternal but unseen. Arrived at the state of mind, indicated in what I have copied, the faith of one's heart must perish, if it did not put on armor. And this armor I did in a measure put on, by putting aside the long established forms of thought, in which I had been schooled, and following the natural bias of my mind, into the beauties of the Advent faith. It was indeed a warfare; and often, in doubt and unbelief, has the oft-recurring question, come surging back upon the soul, "Are you sure?" The voice went through the depths of the soul, till the deep response, "Yes, I believe," settled all and the victory was won. "The miracle of this confiding is accomplished by the act itself:" so that he that believes, believes, and there can rest, knowing by sweet experience that peace that passeth understanding, for it cometh from God.