The faith of the Gospel, he was more particularly taught, was such a reception of the truths of Scripture, and more especially of the engagement of God to pardon every sinner who came to him in Christ Jesus, as led not only to an entire dependence upon Christ, but to a complete submission to his will, and a consequent change in our own nature. It was not merely a reception of the doctrine of faith, which was to be regarded as faith in the soul, but the creation in the heart of a new and animated feeling of trust in the Redeemer. The influence of faith in the soul was like that of food to the body; it imparts a new feeling and character; gives new nourishment and vigour, and works by love, not only to the Saviour himself, but to all around us. Faith, therefore, to be a living principle, must be felt by ourselves, and must be seen by others: and of both these points the faith of this young man gave ample proof. It gave confidence to his own mind, and even gladdened his heart; it made the Bible a new book to him; it cheered the solitude of his prison; it directed him to be mindful of every practical duty; it gave a new direction to all his hopes and fears, and enabled him to go onwards in a spirit of filial dependence to meet the last conflict. It was at this time, I think, that he made a confession, which served to explain his previous state of mind, and to show how remarkably his attention was fixed on one point. “How extraordinary, sir,” said he, “it is, that for these last two days I have been able to give my mind only to _one_ subject; the thought of my crime and of my death have been taken from me, and I have scarcely been able to give my attention to either.” The one subject which occupied all his attention, and shut out every other, was the love of his Saviour, who had given himself for his sins. This, as he said, “filled his heart.” His state of mind served to show the absorbing nature of this Divine principle when it is fully implanted in the soul. When the mind has suddenly gained a view of its former state of alienation, and has been brought nigh again to God, it is impossible that the sense of this vast change should not swallow up every other feeling. It is difficult at all times to think much of God, and to think of any thing else; but how much more, when the first conviction of the Divine presence overwhelms the soul. And, as David, in the fifty-first Psalm, appears to have comparatively lost sight of his sin against his country, the family of Uriah, and of all the consequences of it, in the depth of the feeling which he had of his sin against God; so the love of Christ took possession of Jolin’s mind; and in its length, and breadth, and depth, and height, so filled his thoughts, and so absorbed his soul, that every other subject sank into nothing.