has been shown to my fellow-traveller and myself by all the officers of government, and in fact by all classes, wherever we have travelled.*

THE GOSPEL EXTENSIVELY PREACHED.

'Our chief ground of hope, however, for Turkey, is that the gospel has free course, and is being preached, not by the small band of missionaries only, but by scores of native preachers and teachers. It has been our delightful pleasure, in travelling from station to station, to meet continually with those faithful and devoted labourers, and to see how wonderfully the Spirit of God has qualified them for their work, and is owning and blessing their labours. We have, also, had the peculiar satisfaction of being present at the examination, for the Christian 'ministry, of the first Moslem who has ever aspired to that sacred office, and of witnessing the sanction which was unanimously given to his appointment. I enclose a brief report which I made at the time, and which, I feel assured, you will be much interested in reading. You will most probably remember the name of the individual. He was the first convert from Moslemism, and is now the first licensed preacher from that religion.'

'Perhaps we have been flattered by this, and have formed too favourable an opinion; but I speak as I have found, and whatever be the motives of the Turkish officials in treating us as Englishmen so courteously, the comparison of this fact with that of the very different treatment of many others before the war and before the hatti-humaioun, leads me to conclude that the change is attributable to these.'

THE MONTHLY

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

APRIL, 1857.

Jephson; or, Midnight and Dawn.

A TALE OF INNER LIFE.

CHAP. V.-NEW ACQUAINTANCE.

THE major, always at his ease, and generally liking or disliking a new acquaintance at once, soon became attached by something in Jephson, which he did not perhaps define; and being on the most intimate terms at my house, declared himself inclined to pass the remainder of the day with us, if agreeable, a proposition which was warmly accepted. For an hour or two, we chatted, as my village friends say, 'quite promiscuous like,' going from Dan to Beersheba, a lively, zig-zag, butterfly sort of pleasant chit-chat, such as suited the summer afternoon, and served to bring Jephson and the major nearer together. Nor were graver .topics altogether omitted, but touched lightly, and quitted, and returned to; and it was evident that my guests, who were disposed to be pleased with each other, were yet gently testing one another, and pleasantly trying to ascertain what points of agreement there were between them. The major hoped to find the stranger a Christian; but he had mixed too much with the world, and indeed had himself remained too long without God,' to be startled or repelled, when at last Jephson could not very well avoid withholding his assent to some remark that the former had made; on which, 'Have you read Paley's Natural Theology?' inquired the major; 'I have a handsome illustrated edition of it, quite at your service; and indeed I should be gratified if we could read it together.' 'You are very kind,' said the other, but admirable writer as Paley is, he chose a very easy and pleasant course to pursue; and I think that many sincere believers at the present day recognise that he has unconsciously, perhaps, but cleverly skipped the chief difficulty, rather than met it.'

I was afraid this depreciation of his oracle would have astounded

VOL. VII.

the major, to whom Paley was as great an authority in one line, as 'the Duke' was in another. But both my friends smiled, and so pleasantly misunderstood each other's smile that no harm ensued. One smiled to think that a reference to Paley should be evidently deemed an end of all controversy; and the other, to think there was a sensible man who yet could not see the conclusiveness of the archdeacon's argument. But the double smile was mutually observed through a pleasant medium; and off they went at a tangent to some other topic. At last, after some little management of the conversation, I asked the major to tell his new acquaintance how he himself had become satisfied as to the truth of Christianity. He was thoughtful in an instant; and while he appeared to be slightly struggling with some feelings not of the happiest kind, Jephson said, "The truth of Christianity! But that is not beginning at the beginning.'

'Yet it can scarcely have escaped you, that if Christianity be true, all the preliminary questions are settled by this one fact. And a very happy thing it is for most men that there is some shorter path to satisfaction than that which you were intimating when so rudely interrupted by a growl from Plato.'

'But you ascribed much of Blair's unstableness to the fact of his not having gone back far enough.'

Another young

'Yes; minds differ, and so must their treatment. friend of mine, who has been somewhat idly perplexing himself and others about some doctrinal points, at last wrote to me to the effect, that, though he could no longer believe with the orthodox, on certain matters which he indicated, yet he felt himself immovably fixed in his faith as to certain other grand and fundamental truths. Now it so happened, that it only needed a somewhat similar process to be passed through as regarded what he did still believe, in order to send him out to sea again; for the reasons which satisfied him were insufficient, if those on which he had rejected some other truths were sound. Now I knew that he was honest and anxious, but at the same time a wee bit conceited, and flattered himself that he had a genius for-if Plato would be kind enough to growl again just now, it would save me the necessity of using a word, which, pardon me, but I did not foresee that it would occur in such a connexion.'

'Never mind; metaphysics-well? Your honest and anxious friend, somewhat conceited, and with a taste for metaphysics.'

"That's it; 66 a taste for metaphysics, but not the power, not the patience necessary for the safe pursuit. And my remark was that as to this even he flattered himself. If he had not been honest, he would have been a paltry quibbler; as it was, he quibbled, without knowing that it was quibbling.'

'Well, and you'

'Thought it might do him good to push him a little further into the stream, that he was rather vain-gloriously tempting.'

'And so'

'Simply showed him that there was no standing where he was; that what he thought was good ground, was like that he had imagined

himself forced to regard as a sand-bank. In short, I determined, since he was willing to play with some of the weapons of scepticism, that it should not be a little amateur sort of afternoon toying and coquetting with such matters, but that he should have such a personal experience as might "whip the offending Adam out of him," and leave the earnestness and honesty of his mind free from the alloy I have indicated.'

'Well, you adopted a sort of homeopathic treatment, I see.'

"Something like it. Or, I foresaw that he would sooner or later take the disease, and thought it best he should have it under the eye of a friend. So I cautiously administered suggestions, and difficulties, and doubts, till he grew profoundly miserable; and, at the same time, a sober earnestness began to display itself, whose moral worth was more than that of his originally too easy faith, and argued well for the issue.'

'Bold practice, upon my word,' struck in the major, who had been listening.

6

'I should like to know what the religious people would say to you,' said Jephson; they are particularly fond, I have observed, at least, many of them, of applying certain epithets to any man whose wheel does not run in their rut, that must be rather galling to men who, with all their freedom, are yet sincere Christians.

'And all the sincerer for having dared fearlessly to pursue their inquiries. I agree with Coleridge, that "he who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."'

And the result of this false attack, or manœuvre, of whatever kind you call it?' asked the major.

When I showed him, after a time, the fallacies of the very objections I had raised, and he began to feel that there was solid standing ground after all to be reached, this coming out of darkness into light again made him happier than he could express, and he has valued truth ever since too much to trifle with it.'

Well, I should scarcely thank you for trying such experiments on me, I confess,' said the major. How do you designate the process -moral, metaphysical vaccination, or what?"

Inoculation, rather, I submit,' said Jephson; 'but I agree with our host, that there are some persons for whom the process is desirable, those, namely, who are liable to the disease.'

You need not fear, major,' I replied; 'you are not the kind of man to require any such friendly severity of treatment. But you would have complied with my request, I think, had it not been for this digression, and told our new friend what brought you into your new service.'

'You could have mentioned it better yourself,' said the major; ' yet since you request it, I cannot hesitate; but there seems nothing to tell. Under somewhat peculiar circumstances, I once listened, almost for the first time in my life, to a chapter from the Bible-one

of the Psalms. It had a strange power over me. It soothed me into comparative tranquillity, out of one of the terriblest storms of passion that ever swept through my heart. I looked on the book with a reverence I had never felt for it, and taking my hat at once, went directly to a bookseller's shop, and bought all the books on the evidences of Christianity he had. I shut myself up and read; day and night, almost, I read incessantly. At the end of the third day, I said, Christianity is true; the Bible is a revelation from God; my course is plain."

66

And what then?' asked Jephson.

'What then? Why, there was but one thing to do, was there? What the Scriptures affirmed, I resolved to believe; and what they enjoined, I resolved to do. It was as plain as the word of command-Halt! March! Wheel! or any other. It was like orders from the War Office to join one's regiment, at such a place, such a time. Or, you may say, that the aide-de-camp brings you written orders from the general-in-chief to march here, or advance there, to do this or that. There's no room for either doubt or disobedience. And I sometimes fancy, that some good folks I know would have been all the better Christians, if they had learned a little more thoroughly the art of prompt, unquestioning obedience. I should like to have the drilling of some of them, that I should. I'd have printed on the order-books of every one of your regiments of Christians the words of that downright sensible old fellow, heathen or whatever he was, that said, "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done."

The major had risen while speaking; and as he finished, he passed through the open window that led out into the garden, and left Jephson and myself together.

'Military,' said he. But he said it kindly and thoughtfully.

"To know how to obey is no mean qualification in the search for truth.'

'But are you satisfied that he will remain what he now is?' asked Jephson. And how long has he been a Christian?'

About three years; and though I cannot doubt that his promptitude will often require a guiding wisdom, that perhaps he might be ready to suspect as too cold, and restraining, and "prudential" (a word, by the bye, he has no affection for), yet I trust he will remain at heart and in his life a Christian, whatever vagaries of belief, as to the outskirts of things, he may not improbably yield to. He is a noble fellow, as you will know when you come to hear a little more of his history.'

CHAPTER VI. RETROSPECTIVE. JEPHSON'S EARLY HISTORY.

It would be useless to attempt any thing more than a few jottings of the intercourse which ensued between Jephson and myself, and various friends, whose acquaintance he formed during his frequent visits at my house. Bit by bit, at various times, I gathered particulars of his history, which gradually wove themselves into a whole.