A Pastor's Sketch - Human Ability

Extract
A Pastor’s Sketch Human Ability
Ichabod Spencer

A member of my church called upon me, with manifest solicitude, in respect to a friend of his, whom he desired me to visit: a young woman, who was a stranger to me. She was a member of the church, (but not of mine), and though she was a resident in the place where I lived, she did not attend upon my ministry. I had reason to believe that she had tried it, but soon left the congregation because she disliked the preaching. She attended worship with another congregation, whose minister, as I suppose, preached many doctrines, not only different from those which I preached, but contrary to them. And I had little doubt that he would talk to inquiring sinners very differently from myself. To visit this young woman under such circumstances was not pleasant to me. I should have to encounter her prejudices, and very likely should be obliged to contradict many things which had been taught to her; and, in such a case, it seemed to me almost beyond hope, that I should be the instrument of any good. However, she had consented to meet me, and it would be ungracious, if not unchristian, for me to refuse. I understood that a deep and painful anxiety, respecting her salvation, had troubled her for many months; and when her friend desired her to converse with me, she had consented reluctantly, I had no doubt. She told him she was “willing to converse with anybody,” an expression indicative, as I thought, of no great confidence in myself, but yet it manifested an anxiety of mind.

I immediately called upon her. She was an intelligent young woman; her manners were refined, her education was excellent, and her well-trained mind was evidently accustomed to deep and extensive study. I am confident she has few equals in intellectual excellence.

She was in deep trouble. She had been a professor of religion for more than ten years, having united with the church in a distant part of the country, but for several years past she had been …