On his return home he stopped at a country store to make a
small purchase, and there at the end of the shelf he saw a cheap dingy
copy of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." He purchased it, and read it in his
wagon by the evening light. He had tried to read it before, but failed
to make his way in it. It was the first clear message and sure token of
a spiritual life that had yet reached him. He had lived through the
"everlasting no," and here was the "everlasting yea" set plainly before
him. Years afterward M. D. Conway told Carlyle of walking in the woods
at Groveland with Wasson, and how his face became radiant with internal
light when he spoke of "Sartor Resartus."
This new-birth from above seized upon him like a fever. He now felt that
he had a mission in life; a message to mankind. And in what way could he
deliver this message? How could he make known to others what was in his
full heart, except from the pulpit? For the first time he conceived the
ministry as a high-minded and ennobling profession. He decided
accordingly to go into the church. His family were Calvinists, and
Calvinism was the only mode of faith of which he knew very much. That
such a step should have been inspired by the writings of a heretic like
Carlyle was in itself a contradiction which foreboded an ultimate
collision. Yet no man perhaps ever lived who had a clearer sense of a
Divine Presence in the universe than Thomas Carlyle, and it was this
which Wasson recognized in him.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143