The Earl of Aberdeen
|
LORD HADDO, M.A., Fifth Earl of Aberdeen, Royal
Academician, etc., was born again in Brighton.
Here is the story of how his instantaneous transformation
took place:
"It was about seven o'clock in the evening of
January,
1848, that I received such a deep impression of Eternity
that the effect has continued to the present day--and, by
the blessing of God, will remain to my
dying day. I had
just dressed for dinner, when the sight of the clothes
which I had thrown off suddenly impressed me with the
thought of dying--of undressing for the last time; of being
unclothed of this body. . . I felt the terrors of dying un-
prepared in a degree approaching to reality. In short,
the prospect of death was impressed on
my imagination
with overwhelming force; and not of death only, but of
Eternity, the day of Judgment, an
offended God, and the
sentence to eternal punishment. I felt the
imperative
necessity of preparing for death at any cost and any
sacrifice. . . . Safety was all I aimed at, and I grasped at
it with the feelings of a drowning man.
"When I went to dinner, some musicians came as
usual,
at this hour, before the house. Their tune seemed to me
utter discord, and they were sent away in disgust. What
madness, I thought, to be fiddling, when Heaven and
Hell are immediately before us!"
It was after an experience like this that the question
of his life's work presented itself solemnly to Lord Haddo.
"what wilt [T]hou have me to do[,]" became the ever-
recurring thought of his quickened
soul to the end of his
days.
|
|