ood, and it was only at the earnest and unceasing instigations
of my enlightened and voluntary patron that I at length put my hand to
the conclusive work. After I said all that I could say, and all had
been overborne (I remember my actions and words as well as it had been
yesterday), I turned round hesitatingly, and looked up to Heaven for
direction; but there was a dimness come over my eyes that I could not
see. The appearance was as if there had been a veil drawn over me, so
nigh that I put up my hand to feel it; and then Gil-Martin (as this
great sovereign was pleased to have himself called) frowned, and asked
me what I was grasping at. I knew not what to say, but answered, with
fear and shame: "I have no weapons, not one; nor know I where any are
to be found."

"The God whom thou servest will provide these," said he, "if thou
provest worthy of the trust committed to thee."

I looked again up into the cloudy veil that covered us and thought I
beheld golden weapons of every description let down in it, but all with
their points towards me. I kneeled, And was going to stretch out my
hand to take one, when my patron seized me, as I thought, by the
clothes, and dragged me away with as much ease as I had been a lamb,
saying, with a joyful and elevated voice: "Come, my friend, let us
depart: thou art dreaming--thou art dreaming. Rouse up all the energies
of thy exalted mind, for thou art an highly favoured one; and doubt
thou not that He whom thou servest, will be ever at thy right and left
hand, to direct and assist thee."

These words, but particularly the vision I had seen, of the golden
weapons descending out of Heaven, inflamed my zeal to that height that
I was as one beside himself; which my parents perceived that night, and
made some motions towards confining me to my room. I joined in the
family prayers, and then I afterwards sung a psalm and prayed by
myself; and I had good reasons for believing that that small oblation
of praise and prayer was not turned to sin. But there are strange
things, and unaccountable agencies in nature: He only who dwells
between the Cherubim can unriddle them, and to Him the honour must
redound for ever. Amen.

I felt greatly strengthened and encouraged that night, and the next
morning I ran to meet my companion, out of whose eye I had now no life.
He rejoiced at seeing me so forward in the great work of reformation by
blood, and said many things to raise my hopes of future fame and