"
So the missionary dream died out of me, by a foolish and illogical
antipathy enough; though, after all, it was a child of my imagination only,
not of my heart; and the fancy, having bred it, was able to kill it also.
And David became my ideal. To be a shepherd-boy, and sit among beautiful
mountains, and sing hymns of my own making, and kill lions and bears,
with now and then the chance of a stray giant--what a glorious life! And
if David slew giants with a sling and a stone, why should not I?--at all
events, one ought to know how; so I made a sling out of an old garter and
some string, and began to practise in the little back-yard. But my first
shot broke a neighbour's window, value sevenpence, and the next flew
back in my face, and cut my head open; so I was sent supperless to bed
for a week, till the sevenpence had been duly saved out of my hungry
stomach--and, on the whole, I found the hymn-writing side of David's
character the more feasible; so I tried, and with much brains-beating,
committed the following lines to a scrap of dirty paper. And it was
strangely significant, that in this, my first attempt, there was an
instinctive denial of the very doctrine of "particular redemption," which
I had been hearing all my life, and an instinctive yearning after the
very Being in whom I had been told I had "no part nor lot" till I was
"converted.
Pages:
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205