S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Conversion
No sooner was a convert initiated, but by an easy figure he became a new man, and both acted and looked upon himself as one regenerated, and born a second time into another state of existence.
In what way, or by what manner of working, God changes a soul from evil to good, how He impregnates the barren rockthe priceless gems and goldis to the human mind an impenetrable mystery in all cases alike.
As to the value of conversions, God alone can judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with Him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.
What is it but a continued perpetual voice from heaven, to give men no rest in their sins, no quiet from Christs importunity, till they awake from the lethargic sleep, and arise from so dead, so mortiferous a state, and permit him to give them life?
Till some admirable or unusual accident happens, as it hath in some, to work the beginning of a better alteration in the mind, disputation about the knowledge of God commonly prevaileth little.
Tis not for a desultory thought to atone for a lewd course of life; nor for anything but the superinducing of a virtuous habit upon a vicious one, to qualify an effectual conversion.