to hold back from Christ-Natural incredulousness- LETTERS -TO AN ANXIOUS INQUIRER. LETTER I. Feelings of privacy commonly accompanying serious impressions-The critical state of an awakened Sinner-An instance of abandoned convictions-Advice. MY DEAR SIR, How shall we account for that secrecy of feeling which you have found it so difficult to infringe, and which is so common to the experience of awakened sinners? That delicacy which guards the threshold of religion, and restricts the conversation of intimate friends to its exterior and general matters? Shall we attribute it to a greater degree of refinement, or to a nicer sense of decorum? But it is as prevalent among the ruder, as among the more polished classes of society. Shall we ascribe us; it to an unwillingness to obtrude our griefs upon the sympathy of friends? This would be an apology in which fact would not sustain for he to whom we unbosom our sorrow, is supposed to take a deep and unaffected interest in our spiritual welfare. And, moreover, this privacy is discoverable in the very man, who, instead of comprehending the sentiment of a Christian poet, that -"with the soul who ever felt the sting "Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing," would, at other times, drag you rudely through all the minutiae of his private woes. Nor is a want of confidence the cause of this restraintfor every other feeling may be imparted with freedom. Nor can it be wholly, if at all, owing to the confessed etiquette of irreligious society, which proscribes the subject of evangelical truth, much as a law of Athens prohibited the name of Death: Nor to that disgust which arises from a familiar and ill-timed use of scriptural terms: Nor to any thing else which could furnish an excuse, while it implies a compliment to our refinement, our taste, or understanding. These questions and answers, if they serve no other purpose, may at least lead you to the conclusion that you are not alone: numberless other voices utter the same complaint; and the subject, in its different shapes, has given rise to a thousand discussions; and has led to a variety of artificial rules of Christian conduct. Professors of religion who sincerely desire to promote the weal of their friends, have frequently proposed such queries as the following:-How shall I express my concern for one who is prepared at all times to interrupt me, by saying— "this is a private matter between God and myself;" and who feels that he has reason for offence in a rude invasion of his tranquillity? How shall I introduce the subject of religion in a circle where it may be received with symptoms of impatience, or with that listless silence which hints its dismission? And after all that can be said, there is an art in the successful introduction of a religious topic, which is less easily attained than zeal-a happy tact, which even the profane often admire, but which requires qualities that long experience and fervent piety may not be able to confer. But this delicacy of feeling-we will give it its current title, although it belongs to that class of things which have wrong names, and which are embraced in the forbidden practice |