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“Please pray for a young lawyer, who is moral and worthy in every respect, but is lacking the one thing needful.”

Ernest was present, and heard the reading of this petition. Who could it be but himself? At first, a flash of displeasure, to call it by the mildest name, passed over his handsome face. Who was the person that had the impudence to direct attention to him? But all harsh thoughts soon passed away, when he reflected that the petitioner, whoever it might be, desired only his good. The process of rigid introspection succeeded his first unpleasant thoughts, and he at once gave attention to the contest between conscience and passion that had mysteriously begun. He seemed to be only a spectator of the conflict of antagonistic forces in his soul. There are times, says one of the most profound and philosophical women of the nineteenth century, when our passions speak for us, and we stand by and look on in astonishment. There is something similar to this in the process of spiritual regeneration. Questions and answers suddenly arise in the mind, as of concealed beings in whispered consultation, and we appear to ourselves to be listening to the mysterious dialogue. So it was with Ernest Edgefield, as he sat in the church engaged in self-examination. It appeared to him that he had suddenly awakened out of an alarming dream. He had been in a moral sleep all his life, and had never reflected seriously upon the unknown eternity which was distant but a single step. A “still small voice” seemed to come on the very breeze, and whispered: “What folly this young man has displayed in thinking of nothing but the things of time and sense.” Ernest almost started. “What am I living for?” he asked himself. “In a few weeks I shall be married, and will give renewed attention to business. But time will flow on: and if I live, I will soon be an old man, and I must die, and then—and then—what?” Ernest was neither infidel nor skeptic: indeed, he only needed that his fears should be aroused as a precedent condition to becoming an active Christian. After prayer had been offered up for the “young lawyer,” and while thoughts, conclusions and convictions were all mingling together in the mind of Ernest, he looked at Clara, who was sitting where he could see her face. Their eyes met. She was gazing at him with an expression which he could easily interpret, and if she had spoken in an audible voice, he could not more clearly have understood her to say: “Isn’t it ridiculous?” The young man almost shuddered. Why did a great yawning abyss seem to open suddenly between them? The depression which had for some days weighed down his spirits, all at once appeared like a heavy rock upon his breast, causing something like a sickening sensation to creep through his troubled heart. However, in his present state of newly aroused emotions, to which he had been such an utter stranger all his life, he felt that a subject of more vital importance than even his marriage deserved his immediate attention. Accordingly he turned his gaze upon the preacher, who announced his text: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” Dr. Coyt, in the progress of his discourse, drew a word-picture, upon which his audience gazed in profound, breathless silence. No one looked upon this picture more intently than Ernest. He saw himself alone with his Creator and the balances which were to determine his everlasting destiny. Never before had Ernest’s relations to time and eternity appeared in so vivid a light. The next morning after this, as the sun kissed the glowing horizon, darkness and doubt were dispelled from the soul of Ernest by the enlightening beams of the Sun of Righteousness. He had found that “peace which passeth all understanding,” and he was strangely happy.