Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/21

Rh juvenile pleasures required the most vigorous and uniform effort. Religion was not a native of the soil, it was an exotic, which, when planted, could only be kept alive by the most persevering attention. Hence Religion became a subject of terror. I was not ten years old when I began to suffer; the discovery of my sufferings gave my fond father much pleasure, he cherished hope of me when he found me suffering from my fears, and much indeed was I tortured by the severe, unbending discipline of my father, and the terrifying apprehensions of what I had to expect from the God who created me. The second son of my parents was naturally of a pensive, gloomy disposition. He was more piously disposed, and less fond of amusement than myself, and hearing much of Cain as the eldest son of Adam, of Esau as the eldest son of Isaac, and of Abel, and Jacob, as the younger sons, my soul was frequently filled with terror, verily believing my brother was the elected, and myself the rejected of God. This appalling consideration, even at this early period, frequently devoted my days and nights to tears and lamentation. But stability dwelt not with me, and the pleasing expectations of my father were often blasted; my attachment to my playmates, and their childish gambols, revived, and when engaged in appropriate amusements, I often forgot the immediate terror of the rod, and of future misery; both of which, as often as I reflected, I painfully believed I should endure. My father took every method to confine me within his walls; it was with difficulty he prevailed upon himself to permit my attendance at school, yet this was necessary, and to school I must go; while that rigid and extreme vigilance, which was ever upon the alert, produced effects diametrically opposite to the end proposed. My appetite for pleasure increased, and I occasionally preferred the truant frolic, to the stated seasons of study, yea though I was certain severe castigation would be the consequence. Pious supplications were the accompaniments of the chastisements which were inflicted, so that I often passed from the terror of the rod, to the terrifying apprehensions of future and never-ending misery. Upon these terrific occasions, the most solemn resolutions were formed, and my vows were marked by floods of tears. I would no more offend either my father, or his God; I dared not to say my God, for I had heard my father declare, that for any individual, not the elect of God, to say of God, or to God, "," was nothing better than blasphemy; when most devout, I was prevented from deriving consolation from my pious breathings, by a persuasion that I was a reprobate, predestined to