CHAPTER V.

THE ARREST OF COWPER.-PROVIDENCES AND DISCIPLINE OF TRIAL BY WHICH HE WAS AWAKENED.-HIS ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE.-HIS CONVICTION OF SIN.-HIS ANGUISH AND DESPAIR.

THE great event of Cowper's conversion made a change in his whole life and social circle, such as no temporary insanity, had he recovered from it in any other way than that of a religious faith by Divine grace, could have effected. It broke up all his habits, and removed him forever from the gay and dissipated companions, in whose society so many years of the best part of his life had already been spent. "The storm of sixty-three," as Cowper designated the period of his terrific gloom and madness at St. Alban's, made a wreck of the friendships of many years, and he said that he had great reason to be thankful that he had lost none of his acquaintances but those whom he had determined not to keep. He refers, in his letters, to some of them who had been suddenly arrested by death, while he himself was passing through the valley of the shadow of death in the lunatic asy

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THE ARREST.

lum. "Two of my friends have been cut off during my illness, in the midst of such a life as it is frightful to reflect upon; and here am I in better health and spirits than I can almost remember to have enjoyed before, after having spent months in the apprehension of instant death. How mysterious are the ways of Providence! Why did I receive grace and mercy? Why was I preserved, afflicted for my good, received, as I trust, into favor, and blessed with the greatest happiness I can ever know or hope for in this life, while they were overtaken by the great arrest, unawakened, unrepenting, and every way unprepared for it? His infinite wisdom, to whose infinite mercy I owe it all, can solve these questions, and none beside Him." One of these friends cut off so unexpectedly, was poor Robert Lloyd the poet, son of Rev. Dr. Lloyd, one of the teachers at Westminster School. They had been among Cowper's intimate associates in the Nonsense Club, with Bonnel Thornton, George Colman, and others of a like convivial character. No wonder at the feelings of gratitude and amazement with which he looked back at his own danger, and at the supernatural suddenness and violence of his escape.

In 1762 the revolutionary chain of events in Cowper's existence began, and his character and life were together arrested and turned back from an earthly into a heavenly career. He had glided

FALSE PEACE.

71

on through life thus far, till he was thirty-one years of age, a fine classical scholar, a man of exquisite refined taste, an amiable, playful, affectionate temper, a deep humorous vein, and a disposition for social amusement, as well as a tendency to mental depression, that led him to seek the enjoyment of society for relief. He had neither religious habit nor principle, but had come to an acquiescence, with which he says he had settled down, in the following conclusion as to the future life, namely, "that the only course he could take to secure his present peace was to wink hard against the prospect of future misery, and to resolve to banish all thoughts upon a subject on which he thought to so little purpose."

To wink hard against the prospect of future misery! How graphic a picture of the struggle in a careless, prayerless, pleasure-loving heart, against partial conviction and anxiety in regard to the retributions of a future state. This winking hard against the prospects of future misery is, we apprehend, the only religious effort of many a mind, and the only step of many a disturbed and frightened conscience toward peace. Some persons wink so hard, that the effect is like that produced by a blow upon the temples, or a strong, sudden pressure over the eye-balls, making the eyes flash fire. Strange radiances appear in these eye-flashes, which some are willing to accept as revelations,

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SPIRITUAL SLEEP-WALKERS.

when they have rejected the Word of God, or so utterly neglected it, as to be quite ignorant of its actual details in reference to the future world.

If the soul were suddenly illuminated, in the midst of its carelessness and unbelief, to see and feel things as they are, terror would take possession of the conscience and the heart, and all insensibility would pass away forever. But we are often as men in a trance, or as persons walking in their sleep, and conscious of nothing. Sleepwalkers are never terrified, even by dangers that would take from a waking man all his self-possession. Sleep-walkers have been known to balance themselves upon the topmost ridge of the most perilous heights, with as much indifference and security as if they were walking upon even ground. They have been seen treading at the eaves of lofty buildings, and bending over, and looking down into the street, making the gazers, who have discovered the experiment, tremble with fright, and grow faint with expectation; and if the trance should suddenly pass away, and the waking sense be restored, the self-discovery would prove fatal, and the man would lose his balance and fall, where before he trod with perfect indifference and security. Just so to the quickened sight and conscience of spiritual spectators, careless sinners are beheld walking asleep and indifferent on the verge of the world of woe. They bend over toward the

THE AWAKENING.

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flaming gulf, and if they saw and felt what it is they are doing, what dreadful hazard they are running, there would, for the time, be no more life in them. The consciousness of meeting a holy God, and the thought of what was before them, would fill their minds with anguish, which nothing but the blood of Christ, nothing but a heartfelt, humble application of the soul for God's mercy, through Christ, nothing but the faith and hope of forgiveness, could possibly allay.

Through this process of awakening, and terror, Cowper was to pass to life and peace eternal, though reason itself was to be dethroned, for a short period, in the dreadful conflict. But God's time of interposing mercy had come. Cowper had now nearly spent what little patrimony had fallen to him, and began to be in want; under fear of want, he began to desire an appointment. Here occurs a passage in his autobiography which the writers of his life long concealed studiously from notice, and continued to ignore its existence, even when it had been printed, and even garbled it in printing it themselves. Hayley ran over the passage by saying that Cowper, in this emergency, had prospects of emolument by the interest of his family, and was nominated to the offices of Reading Clerk, and Clerk of the Private Committees in the House of Lords. Now let Cowper, as a grateful child of God, showing us from what