It was at this period that I framed my first attempt at serious argument in a letter to my father. I took this position, that our own _experience_ and _consciousness_ were the highest kind of evidence of our mental power, and that I had this evidence of my mental inability to love God as required. My father's reply was published in the _Christian Spectator_, and was regarded as masterly and unanswerable. Its chief aim was to lessen confidence in my own consciousness, and to show that, as God was just and good, and certainly did require supreme love to him, we had the power to obey. I was unable to meet the argument, and so allowed that it must be so, and that all that was in my way was my own obstinate "unwillingness." But there was another point about which I attempted to reason that I did not give up so easily. According to the theory of "obstinate unwillingness," there was nothing in the Bible by way of promise, or even encouragement, for any like me. For how could God feel sympathy for obstinate rebels, or how make promises of hope and encouragement to those whose only difficulty was an unreasonable dislike to God and his service? Such texts as I quoted to the contrary (as Prov. 2:1-6; Matth. 7:7; John 4:10) were not for such as I, but for those already converted; and no prayers, even, were acceptable till offered by a renewed heart. So it seemed impossible, in any case, to pray acceptably to God for the greatest of all boons, redemption from the awful doom of eternal death; for at regeneration the blessing was already given, and before that act no prayer was acceptable. So there was no place for such a prayer. This I never accepted, though I did not quite venture to oppose it. At one time my mind turned with longing and tender emotions toward Jesus Christ. All he said and did appeared so reasonable and so kind that it seemed to me he would hear my prayers. I brought, to sustain this idea, the case of the young man whom "Jesus loved" when he had no religion. Here I was met by a theory that, till now, had not attracted my notice, which was, that there was a human soul in Christ joined to the Divine mind, and that it was this human soul that felt this "human sympathy" for sinners, and _bore all the suffering_, while the Deity had nothing but calm, unmingled bliss. This made me feel that I could love the human soul, but could not love God. Indeed, the sufferings of this innocent Savior, _unshared by God_, was the most revolting of all. At the close of a long year of such darkness and suffering, I went to my friends in Boston, where "a _revival_" was in progress, and where I met my father. Here I received the most tender sympathy, was taken to prayer-meetings, and every thing was said and done that piety and love could devise for my relief, but all in vain.