Page:Poems Taggart.djvu/46

 seriousness was produced in my mind; when I became deeply impressed with the supreme excellence and importance of religion, and greatly desirous that my dark and alienated mind might be enlightened by the Spirit of Truth, and brought into a sacred nearness to the Saviour of sinners,—that my soul might be renovated, and entirely conformed to the holy will of God, and that I might live a devoted and useful life. And for a short time I believed I had experienced, in part, what I so anxiously desired; but I have never derived that peace and consolation from religion, which Christians in general enjoy, and which it is so amply adequate to afford. But if I have not been the subject of renovating grace, and of those holy illuminations, that are essential to the divine life, it is my earnest and supreme desire that I yet may be, and that my soul, in life and in death, may be entirely resigned and conformed to the righteous will of the all-wise God and Saviour. But, though I have failed of obtaining that enjoyment and holy delight, which the principles of religion in ordinary cases afford, yet through a series of the deepest afflictions they have been my sole support. When in the bloom of youth, with a high relish for the tranquil and delightful amusements of ,early life, and an ardent desire of improvement, I was at once deprived of every earthly enjoyment and of almost all that could render life tolerable,—doomed to the endurance of perpetual bodily anguish,—and, while writhing upon the bed of languishing, deprived even of the sweet and soothing influence of balmy sleep, the all-important support and restorative of exhausted and decaying nature. In the midst of these deplorable calamities, a firm belief in the doctrines of the Gospel has sustained my spirit, and endued my soul with strength to bear, with a measure of composure and resignation, these long-protracted and inconceivable sufferings.