Soon after this period I made another discovery, much more affecting and momentous than the deficiency of gifts,—it was deficiency of grace; and most seriously awful were the consequences. The scantiness of my knowledge, and very slender Christian experience, had so far warped my judgment, that I began to conclude that the work in my heart was complete; and as all enemies were destroyed, little more remained but to ascend quietly to heaven. Painful experience soon overthrew my air-built fabric, and taught the necessity of watchfulness and circumspection. It was about the season of Christmas, when being inveigled into company by far too gay and mirthful for Christian gravity, I was unhappily seduced into the sinful practices then in the ascendant. I felt at first some checks of conscience, but unhappily disregarded them. The beginning of sin is like the letting out of water. Resistance must be immediate, or the mountain-torrent will defy opposition. The season of festive merriment, so called, continued for three days; and during the whole of that time, I was seduced by the indecent levities of thoughtless men, to whom I ought to have presented a better example. On the third night I awoke to a sense of my situation. My first sensations were like those of one who, having taken a wrong road, is suddenly smitten with the widening obliquity of his path, 251and knows not how to repair his error. My peace was gone. I felt that the Spirit of God was grieved, and had withdrawn His influence. Shorn of my strength, I had become weak as other men. I was afraid to be left alone, lest, impelled by satanic suggestion, I should rashly throw away my life. From this dread alternative I was, however, mercifully preserved.