Читать книгу The Story of a Peninsular Veteran. Sergeant in the Forty-Third Light Infantry, during the Peninsular War онлайн
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‘Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie:
The fault that needs it most grows two thereby.’
Subsequent reflection upon the debased condition of my mind at that time has shown me, and my experience has borne out the fact, that man by nature is spiritually insensible, and in a condition that exactly verifies the declaration of holy Writ. His soul is touched with an iceberg. The faculties are chained down by invincible ignorance. There is a moral chaos within; through every power darkness and confusion reign with total absence of form and order. In the more emphatic language of inspiration, he is ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’ nor can an archangel’s voice awaken or revive him. But when the Spirit of truth shall descend, the frozen heart shall melt, and flow down before the Lord in streams of contrition and obedience. Equally sure am I that no power less than Divine can effect the change alluded to. Reason can do many things; it may distinguish right from wrong, and can prove the truths on which the distinction rests. But the knowledge of good and evil is one thing, power to choose the former and reject the latter is another; and without pretending to unusual research, I fearlessly affirm, and challenge refutation, that spiritual influence, and that alone, is sufficient to overcome the spiritual malady of the human race. Man does not want his heart to be merely mended; it must be renewed. To attempt the repair of bad principles is wide of the mark: that would be like decorating the outside of a building, the rottenness of whose timbers betokens the nearness of its fall. All such trash and lumber must be cleared away: they seldom pay even for stowage, and the safer way is to carry them out of sight. A new foundation must be laid, based on firmer ground, and constructed with better materials. Old things must pass away, and all things become new. Principles are to be engrafted which had no previous existence; and this decisive and comprehensive reformation, which is not to be viewed as an accessory or appendage to religion, but as its leading feature, constitutes the chief difference between refinement in morals and actual conversion to God. Some apology is perhaps due for thus breaking out into meditations instead of pursuing my narrative: all I have to offer is, that, reflecting on the goodness of God, I cannot refrain from exulting in the change I have myself experienced, grounded on the sacred verities just described. Feeling myself invigorated by the review, perhaps others may share in the privilege, and rejoice in possession of the same hope. Travelling through the great and terrible wilderness of this world, I gather solace from such recollections, and go forward. The retrospect is like an oasis in the desert; a beautiful green spot, amid the aridity of desolating barrenness, verdant as the garden of the Lord, and refreshing as the dew of Hermon.