Excerpt from Critical and Miscellaneous Essays The day dreams on the subject of religious conversions, which they who list may hear on every side, are, like other dreams, the types of substantial realities. Though the workings of the Almighty hand are distinctly visible only to the omniscient eye, yet even our narrow faculties can often trace the movements of that perennial under-current which controls the sequences of human life, and imparts to them the character of moral discipline. In the compre hensive scheme of the Supreme Governor of the world for the progressive advancement of the human race, are com prised innumerable subordinate plans for the improvement of the individuals of which it is composed; and whether we conceive of these as the result of some preordained system, or as produced by the immediate interposition of God, we equally acknowledge the doctrine of Divine Providence, and refer to him as the author of those salutary revolutions of human character, of which the reality is beyond dispute. It is a simple matter of fact, of which these volumes afford the most conclusive proof, that, about the twenty-sixth year of his age, Mr. Wilberforce was the subject of such a change; and that it continued for half a century to give an altered direction to his whole system of thought and ac tion. Waiving all discussion as to the mode in which the divine agency may have been employed to accomplish this result, it is more to our purpose to inquire in what the change really consisted, and what were the consequences for which it prepared the way. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.