"It is consoling to meet with others who are exercised in a similar way with ourselves. I thought your faith was too strong ever to stagger, and your prospect of eternal life too clear ever to be shaded by dubious uncertainty; but now, I perceive, you can doubt, which encourages me to hope that my faith may be genuine, though it is sometimes involved in perplexity, and sinks into depression." "Have you," Mrs. Stevens asked, "had any recent conversation with your papa on religious subjects?" "Not very recently, because he has manifested a more than ordinary degree of reserve when there has been any allusion to them, and therefore I have judged it proper to observe great caution while his prejudices are in such a state." "But may not this reserve on his part be the solemn musings of a mind deeply impressed by the truth, which has hitherto been either misunderstood or rejected?" "I should be happy if I could put such a favourable construction on his manner; but I fear not." "Our favourite poet says:-- 'Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread, Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.' Allow me, my dear friend, to offer you my congratulations. Your prayers, I hope, are answered; and you may go home, and embrace your father as a 'fellow-heir of the grace of life.'" "If I could, the sun of my bliss would never go down; but, alas! I fear that you congratulate me on what we wish to be true, rather than on what actually is the case." "My dear, I speak what I believe." "Impossible! Has he made any particular communication to you, which enables you to speak in such a decisive tone?--if so, tell me, my dear friend, what you know. I am impatient to hear it." "The evening before Josiah's cottage was consumed, your father spent some hours with us, and seemed not only willing, but anxious to converse on religious subjects. At one time, he was affected almost to tears, when he said, 'My dear Sophia has often told me that a Divine illumination of mind is the great secret in personal religion; and on one occasion, when she quoted the words of the apostle, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned," she made an impression on my mind which has never left me.' Thus God has not only subdued the prejudices of your father's heart against the truth, and opened the eyes of his understanding to see its excellence and importance, but has employed you as the agent in the accomplishment of this great work."