ime. My friend spoke of my
backslidings with concern; requesting me to make sure of my
forgiveness, and to forsake them; and then he added some words of sweet
comfort. But from this time forth I began to be sick at times of my
existence. I had heart-burnings, longings, and, yearnings that would
not be satisfied; and I seemed hardly to be an accountable creature;
being thus in the habit of executing transactions of the utmost moment
without being sensible that I did them. I was a being incomprehensible
to myself. Either I had a second self, who transacted business in my
likeness, or else my body was at times possessed by a spirit over which
it had no control, and of whose actions my own soul was wholly
unconscious. This was an anomaly not to be accounted for by any
philosophy of mine, and I was many times, in contemplating it, excited
to terrors and mental torments hardly describable. To be in a state of
consciousness and unconsciousness, at the same time, in the same body
and same spirit, was impossible. I was under the greatest anxiety,
dreading some change would take place momently in my nature; for of
dates I could make nothing: one-half, or two-thirds of my time, seemed
to me totally lost. I often, about this time, prayed with great
fervour, and lamented my hopeless condition, especially in being liable
to the commission of crimes which I was not sensible of and could not
eschew. And I confess, notwithstanding the promises on which I had been
taught to rely, I began to have secret terrors that the great enemy of
man's salvation was exercising powers over me that might eventually
lead to my ruin. These were but temporary and sinful fears, but they
added greatly to my unhappiness.

The worst thing of all was what hitherto I had never felt, and, as yet,
durst not confess to myself, that the presence of my illustrious and
devoted friend was becoming irksome to me. When I was by myself, I
breathed freer, and my step was lighter; but, when he approached, a
pang went to my heart, and, in his company, I moved and acted as if
under a load that I could hardly endure. What a state to be in! And yet
to shake him off was impossible--we were incorporated
together--identified with one another, as it were, and the power was
not in me to separate myself from him. I still knew nothing who he was,
further than that he was a potentate of some foreign land, bent on
establishing some pure and genuine doctrines of Christianity, hitherto