"True," replied Mr. Stevens, "but how many feel these charms who never hold communion with Him who has invested them with their magic power. They profess to rise up through nature, 'to nature's God;' but their conceptions of His character are essentially defective; they admire His grandeur and His greatness, but there is no recognition of His purity; they extol His benevolence, but are not awed by His justice. I recollect being in company with a gentleman, who was an impassioned admirer of nature, and after an eloquent descant on its magnificent scenery, he concluded by saying, 'The Deity, who has given existence to such physical wonders, would act a very undignified part to stoop so low as to notice the little frailties of humanity; but to suppose he would punish them, would be to offer Him an insult.' Hence they very naturally, from their assumed premises, scornfully reject the remedial scheme of salvation that is revealed to us in the Scriptures." "Our reception or rejection of the Scripture scheme of salvation," said Mr. Lewellin, "depends on the opinion we form of the character of God; for if his purity and equity be not recognized, the law which commands obedience will be denounced; the distinction between virtue and vice, which the Scriptures mark with such precision, will be confounded; and the whole scheme of Divine mercy will be regarded as a cunningly devised fable. I remember the time when I lived without any habitual reverence for the Supreme Being. I admired the wisdom and the benevolence which I could trace in the construction of the universe; but it neither excited gratitude, nor led to any dependence on God for preservation from evil, or for happiness. It is true when the elements were disturbed, when the tempest raged, when the lightning flashed, and when the thunder roared, I trembled; but no sooner had these commotions ceased, than all was tranquil within; yet it was not peace of mind, it was a moral torpor, a judicial insensibility, the ease which precedes the moral pangs of the second death." This reference to his former state induced me to ask him to give us an account of his conversion. He complied with my request; but as the more prominent incidents have been already narrated, I need not detail the whole of his statement.