TWICE-BORN MEN
REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE
Compiled by HY. PICKERING
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 unprepared 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 Thou have me to do,” became the ever-recurring thought of his quickened soul to the end of his days.