After considering this picture for a long time, I painted it in a larger size on the wall of my church, just opposite the entrance door, so that every one who came in might see it.  I cannot describe the interest with which I employed myself about this work; and when it was done, finding that it wanted a good bold foreground, I selected a short text-"He came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

God was speaking to me all this time about the Good Shepherd who gave His life for me; but I did not hear Him, or suspect that I was lost, or caught in any thorns, or hanging over a precipice; therefore, I did not apply the subject to myself.  Certainly, I remember that my thoughts dwelt very much on forgiveness and salvation, but I preached that these were to be had in and by the Church, which was as the Ark in which Noah was saved.  Baptism was the door of this Ark, and Holy Communion the token of abiding in it; and all who were not inside were lost.  What would become of those outside the Church was a matter which greatly perplexed me.  I could not dare to say they would be lost forever; but where could they be now? and what would become of them hereafter?  I longed to save John Bunyan; but he was such a determined schismatic that it was impossible to make out a hope for him!  Sometimes I was cheered by the thought that he had been duly baptized in infancy, and that his after-life was one of ignorance; but this opened the door too wide, and made my theory of salvation by the Church a very vague and uncertain thing.  So deeply was the thought ingrained in my mind that one day I baptized myself conditionally in the Church, for fear that I had not been properly baptized in infancy, and consequently should be lost hereafter.  I had no idea that I was lost now; far from that, I thought I was as safe as the Church herself, and that the gates of hell could not prevail against me.

I had many conversations with the earnest people in my parish, but they were evidently resting, not where I was, but on something I did not know.  One very happy woman told me, “Ah! you went to college to larn the Latin; but though I don’t know a letter in the Book, yet I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies.”  Another woman, whenever I went to see her, made me read the story of her conversion, which was written out in a copy-book.  Several other, men and women, talked to me continually about their “conversion.”  I often wondered what that was; but, as I did not see much self-denial among these converted ones, and observed that they did not attend God’s House nor ever come to the Lord’s table.  I thought conversion could not be of much consequence, or anything to be desired.

I little knew that I was the cause of their remaining away from church, and from the Lord’s table.  One thoughtful man told me, “Cornish people are too enlightened to go to church!  A man must give up religion to go there; only unconverted people and backsliders go to such a place!” Yet this was a prayerful man.  What did he mean?  At various clerical meetings I used to repeat these things, but still obtained no information or satisfaction.