ere came a company
to mourn and howl with her; though I confess I could not much condole
with them. Many sorrowful days I had in this place, often getting alone.
"Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove,
mine eyes ail with looking upward. Oh, Lord, I am oppressed; undertake
for me" (Isaiah 38.14). I could tell the Lord, as Hezekiah, "Remember
now O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth." Now
had I time to examine all my ways: my conscience did not accuse me of
unrighteousness toward one or other; yet I saw how in my walk with God,
I had been a careless creature. As David said, "Against thee, thee only
have I sinned": and I might say with the poor publican, "God be merciful
unto me a sinner." On the Sabbath days, I could look upon the sun and
think how people were going to the house of God, to have their souls
refreshed; and then home, and their bodies also; but I was destitute of
both; and might say as the poor prodigal, "He would fain have filled his
belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him"
(Luke 15.16). For I must say with him, "Father, I have sinned against
Heaven and in thy sight." I remembered how on the night before and after
the Sabbath, when my family was about me, and relations and neighbors
with us, we could pray and sing, and then refresh our bodies with the
good creatures of God; and then have a comfortable bed to lie down on;
but instead of all this, I had only a little swill for the body and
then, like a swine, must lie down on the ground. I cannot express to
man the sorrow that lay upon my spirit; the Lord knows it. Yet that
comfortable Scripture would often come to mind, "For a small moment have
I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee."

THE FOURTEENTH REMOVE

Now must we pack up and be gone from this thicket, bending our course
toward the Baytowns; I having nothing to eat by the way this day, but
a few crumbs of cake, that an Indian gave my girl the same day we were
taken. She gave it me, and I put it in my pocket; there it lay, till it
was so moldy (for want of good baking) that one could not tell what it
was made of; it fell all to crumbs, and grew so dry and hard, that it
was like little flints; and this refreshed me many times, when I was
ready to faint. It was in my thoughts when I put it into my mouth, that
if ever I returned, I would tell the world what a blessing the Lord gave
to such mean