hold, I saw a man clothed
with rags standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house,
a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw
him open the book and read therein; and as he read he wept and trembled;
and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable
cry, saying, "What shall I do?"

In this plight, therefore, he went home, and restrained himself as long
as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his
distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble
increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and
children; and thus he began to talk to them: "O my dear wife," said he,
"and you the children of my bowels, I, your dear friend, am in myself
undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am
certainly informed that this our city will be burned with fire from
heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee, my wife, and
you, my sweet-babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which
yet I see not) some way of escape _can_ be found whereby we may be
delivered."

At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that
what he said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy
distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing toward night, and
they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got
him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day;
wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So when
the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, "Worse
and worse": he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be
hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and
surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would
chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to
retire himself to his chamber to pray for and pity them, and also to
condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields,
sometimes reading and sometimes praying; and thus for some days he spent
his time.

Now I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was,
as he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind;
and as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, "What shall
I do to be saved?"

I saw also that he looked this way, and that way, as if he would run;
yet he stood still, because,