ould, in the frenzy of his despair, swear at that mysterious portion of
the Trinity by the hour, and then employ the next in beating his breast
in the agony of repentance. Many may think all this sheer madness; but
he was not more mad than most of the hot-headed methodists, whose
preachers, at that time, held uncontrolled sway over the great mass of
people that toiled in the humbler walks of life. Two nights in the week
we used to have prayer-meetings at our house; and, though I could not
have been five years old at the time, vividly do I remember that our
front room used, on those occasions, to be filled to overflow, with
kneeling fanatics, old Ford in the centre of the room, and a couple of
lank-haired hypocrites, one on each side of the reprobate, praying till
the perspiration streamed down their foreheads, to pray the devil out of
him. The ohs! and the groanings of the audience were terrible; and the
whole scene, though very edifying to the elect, was disgraceful to any
sect who lived within the pale of civilisation.

I must now draw upon my own memory. I must describe my own sensations.
If I reckon by the toil and turmoil of the mind, I am already an old
man. I have lived for ages. I am far, very far, on my voyage. Let me
cast my eyes back on the vast sea that I have traversed; there is a mist
settled over it, almost as impenetrable as that which glooms before me.
Let me pause. Methinks that I see it gradually break, and partial
sunbeams struggle through it. Now the distant waves rise, and wanton
and play, pure and lucid. 'Tis the day-spring of innocency. How near
to the sanctified heavens do those remote waves appear! They meet, and
are as one with the far horizon. Those sparkling waves were the hours
of my childhood--the blissful feelings of my infancy. As the sea of
life rolls on, the waves swell and are turbid; and, as I recede from the
horizon of my early recollections, so heaven recedes from me. The
thunder-cloud is high above my head, the treacherous waters roar beneath
me, before me is the darkness and the night of an unknown futurity.
Where can I now turn my eyes for solace, but over the vast space that I
have passed? Whilst my bark glides heedlessly forward, I will not
anticipate dangers that I cannot see, or tremble at rocks that are
benevolently hidden from my view. It is sufficient for me to know that
I must be wrecked at last; that my mortal frame must be like a shattered
bark upon the