HARROGATE-TO OTLEY AND FOUNTAINS-TO SCARBOROUGH -RETURN TO HULL-SUFFERINGS-COMPOSURE-DEATH. 63 OF THE RECORD VARIOUS CONVERSATIONS-ANTICIPA- TION OF HEAVEN-AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF EARTH INQUIRER-INCONSISTENCIES OF PROFESSORS-CHRISTIANS AFRAID OF INVESTIGATION-CROMWELL'S LETTERS-MURAL TABLET-INTERESTING ARGUMENTATIVE DIALOGUE ON THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY-IMPOTENCE OF HUMAN REASON -PHARAOH'S HEART HARDENED-HIEROGLYPHICS-' MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND' EVANGELICAL TRUTH-A CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? WHAT DOES CHRISTIANITY TEACH? WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY EFFECT? Is Christianity true? What does Christianity teach? What can Christianity effect? These enquiries, the following record of the closing scenes of the life of a learned and accomplished physician, is designed to illustrate. His ardent love of truth, wherever it could be found, and his successful labours to attain it in almost every branch of science, fully entitle him to the epithet" Philosopher." After many years of anxious investigation of the claims of the religion revealed in the New Testament, and the most fearless and candid examination of every scheme of scepticism, especially the materialistic, he confessed that the only true philosophy was the reception of the gospel as B a little child. It was this, which, though he was called away in the very prime of life, in the matured vigour of his faculties, and in the midst of his usefulness, from all that can make this world desirable and dear,-imparted to him that unbroken peace and indescribable joy, in the immediate prospect of dissolution, which gave to those around him the edifying and consoling spectacle of "THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER TRIUMPHING OVER DEATH." Reader! have you ever known the inward battle which doubts and difficulties wage with a secret conviction of the truth; at one time leading you to the very verge of the dreary regions of scepticism, at another time associating your tenacious grasp of religion, with deep distress and painful anxiety? In the following pages, may you receive instruction! They contain the testimony of one who could fully sympathize with you, but who was enabled to fight his way from the midst of the conflict, to the peace of victorious faith. Reader with perhaps never a doubt of the divine authority of the Bible, have you often doubted your own participation of the blessings which it reveals; and have the thoughts of your guilt, frailty, and temptations, of the wrath of God, of death and eternity, cast a gloom over your spirit, and filled you with sad forebodings? From the following pages may |