"But this is not the only subject on which my mind is perplexed. In a conversation the other evening, when we were tracing up the bestowment of every good and every perfect gift to the free and unmerited grace of God, Mr. Corrie asserted, with the utmost degree of confidence, that no true believer in Jesus Christ can doubt his personal election to eternal life. This assertion, made by so good and amiable a man, and which met the decided approbation of his sisters, fell upon my ear with all the terror of the condemning sentence; and from that moment to the present, I have been driven, as an outcast, from the promises of mercy, I have read the Scriptures to satisfy my mind on this point, and there I read of sinners being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world--of their being elected according to the foreknowledge of God the Father--of their being predestinated; but this high point appears invested with such terror, that my spirit recoils when attempting to approach it; and though I have prayed for faith to receive the hidden mysteries of revelation, and for wisdom to understand them, yet I cannot believe that I am one of the selected number, whose name has been enrolled in the Lamb's book of life. But should I feel all this terror on my spirit, when adverting to a doctrine which appears stated, with the utmost degree of explicitness, by the inspired writers, if I had that faith which is of the operation of the Spirit of God? Should I, if I possessed like precious faith, recoil, with almost instinctive dread, from a subject on which my pious friends speak with so much animation and delight? Surely there must be some defect in my experience, which renders me incapable of disengaging myself from the bondage of fear in which I am held; and which holds me back from a participation of that glorious liberty which I see enjoyed by the children of God around me.