When about twelve years old, I found I was doing things which I believed to be wrong in the sight of God; and so I lived on, my conscience ever condemning me, until I was about thirty-three years of age. At that time Elder A. Snyder held a protracted meeting near my place of residence, when the word of God laid hold on my heart and so deeply convicted and condemned me that I found I had no other way than to yield to it or else be lost. Moments of fear, that I had sinned too much to be pardoned, would come; but they were succeeded by hopes that I might yet be saved. I prayed often in secret, that God might pardon my sins. I presented myself at the mourner's bench in the meeting, and after wrestling for about an hour I laid hold on faith in Christ, that there was salvation in His blood [103] for me: and blessed be His holy name load of sin was rolled away, and my soul was set at liberty in the gospel.

      When the blessing of justification came upon me I was so greatly overpowered that I could not rise up. But I commenced forthwith to testify to all around me of what the Lord had done for my soul. Soon after, I was baptized and then joined myself to the Church of God.

      It is now a number of years since I obtained the blessing of forgiveness; and I am as firmly as ever resolved to walk in the fear of God and work out my soul's salvation with fear and trembling. In my hours of trial, temptation and shortcoming, I am encouraged to trust in the goodness and mercy of God, and so I betake myself to prayer, when I always find my blessed Saviour a help in every time of need and willing to accept and bless my soul.

[THW 103-104]