Yet while conversion is absolutely necessary for every man, we by no means assert that its inner history must, in each step, be necessarily the same, though the results must be essentially the same in every case.  The Spirit of God, who works when and how He pleases, may, in some cases, so work in the soul from its earliest years, that the time when the seed of a new life entered it, and the process by which it has gradually increased there, until it now brings forth fruit, are both unknown.  Not unknown is the fact that life is there, for it is recognised and evidenced by its fruit, but when it began may be unknown; and the rate or successive stages of its increase may be equally unknown, or at least unmarked.

This is true in some cases—­or, let it be admitted, in many cases, chiefly among those favoured ones who have been reared from childhood within the paradise of a truly Christian home,—­still, why should we deny the reality of many conversions on the mere ground of their suddenness?

We shall not appeal to authentic historical facts to refute the objection, but simply remind our readers of such sudden conversions as those of Paul the apostle, the jailer at Philippi, or the thousands on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem.  Would we be warranted in rejecting those, because a few days or hours only marked a transition from death to life, from darkness to light, from their serving Satan to serving God, from being enemies to their being friends of Jesus?

But apart from this evidence, what, we would ask, is there in the nature of conversion inconsistent with its alleged suddenness?  There may indeed be a preparedness for it that may occupy much time, as dawn ushers in the sunrise, or as months of travail precede the “child born into the world;” and there maybe results whose character may require time to determine.  Nevertheless, why should not conversion itself, apart from its antecedents or consequents, be sudden?  Let us consider briefly what conversion is.

It is not, for example, the attainment of good habits nor even the doing of good works, though it leads to and must end in this, if genuine.  These are the results of conversion.  Nor, again, does it imply anything like a full or accurate knowledge of the Christian scheme, far less of its “evidences;” for how little could have been thus known by the converted jailer of Philippi, who was one day a heathen, and the next day a baptized Christian—­or by the converted thief on the cross—­or by the three thousand converts on the day of Pentecost!