Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/487

 silence not liable to misconstruction, that the duties and ordinances of religion are matters of his most devout and diligent observance. How often have I been awaked at dawn of Sabbath, by his devout strains of prayer and praise, sent up from the midst of a little company of praying people, who at that hour assemble for religious exercises in a vacant building near my residence. How sure am I to find him reverently seated in his place, among the earliest who assemble in the house of God. What an active promoter of every commendable and pious design, is sure to be found in him.

Every laudable habit, which had survived the general extinction of all practical virtue, seems to have acquired additional confirmation: and from the operation of higher principles, seems to follow of course, and derive the best guaranty of its continuance. I might go on to particularize; but it would only be to fill up the outline already sketched, and which, whether relating to his former or his present character, however, imperfect, is strictly true. Ask of him the cause of so obvious and surprising a change, and he humbly, but unhesitatingly ascribes it wholly to the power of the Divine Spirit, operating, he cannot tell how, but evidently by means of the word and ordinances of God, upon his whole mind. Such was the origin of this great moral renovation, and such are the agency and means by which its effects are sustained, and under the operation of which they are beginning to combine into a habit of holiness. He rejoices in the hope of its duration to the end of life, solely he would say from the confidence he has in the immutable love and and faithfulness of the Holy Being, who has wrought so great a work in him. And let philosophers cavil and doubt, if they must; but this man's example is a refutation in fact of a thousand of their sceptical theories. He is a new man, and the change was effected chiefly before discipline, or example, had time to work it. He is an honest man, and soberly asserts that to his certain knowledge he did not perform the work himself. But where is the example to be found of such and so great a change, wrought by mortal means? The history of the human race is challenged to produce it. To God then who created man, to Christ who redeemed him, and to the Holy Ghost who sanctifies him, be ascribed without abatement, or reserve, the power and the grace-displayed in this and every similar instance of the conversion of a blind, and hardened and wretched sinner.

Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 136-138.