ay for me,
comfort me." James spoke kindly to him, but was too honest to give
him false comfort, as it is too often done by mistaken friends in
these dreadful moments.

"James," said he, "I have been a bad master to you--you would have
saved me, soul and body, but I would not let you--I have ruined my
wife, my children, and my own soul. Take warning, oh, take warning
by my miserable end," said he to his stupefied companions: but none
were able to attend to him but James, who bid him lift up his heart
to God, and prayed heartily for him himself. "Oh!" said the dying
man, "it is too late, too late for me--but you have still time,"
said he to the half-drunken, terrified crew around him. "Where is
Jack?" Jack Brown came forward, but was too much frightened to
speak. "Oh, wretched boy!" said he, "I fear I shall have the ruin of
thy soul, as well as my own to answer for. Stop short! Take
warning--now in the days of thy youth. O James, James, thou dost not
pray for me. Death is dreadful to the wicked--Oh, the sting of death
to a guilty conscience!" Here he lifted up his ghastly eyes in
speechless horror, grasped hard at the hand of James, gave a deep
hollow groan, and closed his eyes, never to open them but in an
awful eternity.

This was death in all its horrors! The gay companions of his sinful
pleasures could not stand the sight; all slunk away like guilty
thieves from their late favorite friend--no one was left to assist
him, but his two apprentices. Brown was not so hardened but that he
shed many tears for his unhappy master; and even made some hasty
resolutions of amendment, which were too soon forgotten.

While Brown stepped home to call the workmen to come and assist in
removing their poor master, James staid alone with the corpse, and
employed these awful moments in indulging the most serious thoughts,
and praying heartily to God, that so terrible a lesson might not be
thrown away upon him; but that he might be enabled to live in a
constant state of preparation for death. The resolutions he made at
this moment, as they were not made in his own strength, but in an
humble reliance on God's gracious help, were of use to him as long
as he lived; and if ever he was for a moment tempted to say, or do a
wrong thing, the remembrance of his poor dying master's long
agonies, and the dreadful words he uttered, always operated as an
instant check upon him.

When Williams was buried, and his affairs came to be inquired into,