Father unto you.” 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. In adopting my present change in life, I anticipate, more or less, the difficulties I have to encounter—the troubles I have to overcome, and the sacrifices I must naturally make on the present trying occasion. The friends of my past life—the companions of other days, and the acquaintances of my more mature years, have abandoned me. The very relations who watched over my infant years—who led me by the hand from the cradle of youth into the maturity of life, have also forsaken me; but Heaven, I trust, has not done so—God, I trust, will be my protector; and “if God be for us, who can be against us?” Rom. viii. 31. Oh, my friends, let persons pause before they condemn—let truth take the place of falsehood—let reason but act as the substitute for prejudice—and then I will ask the candid mind the important question, “should I remain under a conviction of my error?” Should I, for a mere temporary gratification, barter an eternal good? Should I, for merely ministering to the wishes of friends and relations, damn this soul which is destined for immortality? Oh, my friends, consider me, when in the character of the Roman Priesthood, and I will again put the important question, “should I remain any longer under a conviction of my error?” Think of me, going from the sanctuary to the altar, clothed in the priestly vest—a vest which I considered as a mere parade of ecclesiastical pomp. Consider me then as being looked upon as the medium of propitiation between the living and the dead—between heaven and earth—between man and his Creator, and offering up what was considered as a sacrifice of propitiation by some, but what was believed to be only a figure or memorial by me that offered on the occasion; would I not deserve to be damned—shall I repeat the unsanctified expression—would I not deserve to be damned for ever, should I continue any longer bending the knee of hypocrisy beneath the altar of dissimulation? Yes, and for having continued so long under a conviction of my error, I now most humbly implore forgiveness, for I should have long since acted in correspondence with the words of our Saviour—“For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?—or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Mark viii. 36–37.