However, at eight o’clock precisely the bell rang, and the daughter was there. She was a woman between thirty and forty years of age, fine features, and strong in intellectual expression of countenance. She confirmed all that her mother had told me, and when I asked her what had led to it, she informed me that she was engaged to a young man of very superior position to her own, that when walking together one evening the year before they had turned into Christ Church, and there heard a sermon that had made them both so uneasy that neither of them had ever been happy since. They were afraid to go again, for fear that their trouble should be increased; so they had wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and finding none, till at length somebody told them that if they only joined the Church of Rome they would be at peace. She added that the young man had joined already, and that she hoped to be received on the Sunday following, when she trusted that both their hearts would be at rest. It was clear that the poor thing was really anxious about her soul, so instead of saying one word to her about the Romish controversy, I asked her the question, “_Must you be holy first_, _or forgiven first_?” She was very much surprised and almost affronted by my asking her anything of so simple a character. “Of course I know that,” said she. “I daresay you do, but it will do you no harm to tell me what you know.” “Of course I must be holy first,” was the reply. “Then there is the secret of all your difficulty: you have been for the whole year striving to be holy, and you have utterly failed, so that you have had no peace, and could have no peace in the forgiveness of sin.” “Do you mean to say then,” said she, “that I can be forgiven first?” I said, “That is exactly what the Scripture teaches,” and I set before her a series of passages, showing first how the forgiveness is bestowed through the perfect propitiation of the Son of God, and then how it is granted at once, before the fruits of faith can possibly be developed. The poor thing was amazed, and I believe that that very evening, before she left the house, she was enabled to trust her blessed Saviour for the present perfect forgiveness of all her sins. She left the house declaring that nothing should induce her to join the Church of Rome, and now followed the most fearful struggle that I ever met with in the whole course of my ministry.