aws
of men, they were great and crying transgressions. While I sat
pondering on these things, I was involved in a veil of white misty
vapour, and, looking up to heaven, I was just about to ask direction
from above, when I heard as it were a still small voice close by me,
which uttered some words of derision and chiding. I looked intensely in
the direction whence it seemed to come, and perceived a lady robed in
white, who hastened towards me. She regarded me with a severity of look
and gesture that appalled me so much I could not address her; but she
waited not for that, but coming close to my side said, without
stopping: "Preposterous wretch! How dare you lift your eyes to Heaven
with such purposes in your heart? Escape homewards, and save your Soul,
or farewell for ever!"

These were all the words that she uttered, as far as I could ever
recollect, but my spirits were kept in such a tumult that morning that
something might have escaped me. I followed her eagerly with my eyes,
but in a moment she glided over the rocks above the holy well, and
vanished. I persuaded myself that I had seen a vision, and that the
radiant being that had addressed me was one of the good angels, or
guardian spirits, commissioned by the Almighty to watch over the steps
of the just. My first impulse was to follow her advice, and make my
escape home; for I thought to myself. "How is this interested and
mysterious foreigner a proper judge of the actions of a free Christian?"

The thought was hardly framed, nor had I moved in a retrograde
direction six steps, when I saw my illustrious friend and great adviser
descending the ridge towards me with hasty and impassioned strides. My
heart fainted within me; and, when he came up and addressed me, I
looked as one caught in a trespass. "What hath detained thee, thou
desponding trifler?" said he. "Verily now shall the golden opportunity
be lost which may never be recalled. I have traced the reprobate to his
sanctuary in the cloud, and lo he is perched on the pinnacle of a
precipice an hundred fathoms high. One ketch with thy foot, or toss
with thy finger, shall throw him from thy sight into the foldings of
the cloud, and he shall be no more seen till found at the bottom of the
cliff dashed to pieces. Make haste, therefore, thou loiterer, if thou
wouldst ever prosper and rise to eminence in the work of thy Lord and
Master."

"I go no farther in this work," said I, "for I have seen a vision that
has repr