will grow to a flame that will consume me, if I do not
share its glow with others."
Hold opposed this resolution, first by advising him
not to feel too sure, now in the first spring of his enthu-
siasm, that he possessed the stability necessary for an
apostle. But when Oswald urged the entire change
which had taken place in his being and character ;
when he declared it absolutely necessary to his future
peace that he should go and risk suffering and death,
for the sake of the Gospel, Hold reminded him with an
earnestness which is explained by his above mentioned
reflections on the conversion of Oswald,
"How hardly do we learn to be truly humble in
spirit! How continually we strive against being mere
recipients ; we would take for ourselves, give to our-
selves, or, at least, pay off as far as possible, the debt we
owe entirely to the Lord. And so you would now strug-
gle, bear, and suffer, that you may in the end, claim a
little self-desert, where there is nothing but the pure
mercy of your heavenly Father."
"O, certainly not," said Oswald," I feel too entire-
ly that nothing is mine, that all is his, that only his
warm spring-breath has driven the cold night of winter
from the desert of my life. I feel as new and strange a
happiness as must the earth, had she a soul, in spring-
time, at whose approach the long frozen rivers are un-
bound, all the streams flow freely again, and along
their banks vegetation shoots forth into life, and buds
and blossoms in the sunlight. I desire to do nothing
but to carry these blossoms and this perfume into the
wilderness where winter still reigns. I desire only to
seek a soul which shall awake like me, to life, and with
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