having acted wrong
leads us to resolutions of doing right. In one of those fortunate
moments may you receive these last admonitions! Shun but the rock on
which I have struck, and you will be sure to avoid the shipwreck I have
suffered. Initiated in the army at an early period of life, I soon
anticipated not only the follies, but even the vices of my companions.
Before, however, I could share with undisturbed repose in the wickedness
of others, it was necessary to remove from myself what the infidel terms
the prejudices of a Christian education. In this I unfortunately
succeeded; and conceiving from my tenderest years a taste for reading,
my sentiments were confirmed, not by the flimsy effusions of empty
libertines, but by the specious sophistry of modern philosophers. It
must be owned that at first I was rather pleased with the elegance of
their language than the force of their reasoning; as, however, we are
apt to believe what we eagerly wish to be true, in a short time I soon
became a professed deist. My favourite author was the late celebrated
David Hume. I constantly urged his exemplary behaviour in private as a
strong argument in favour of his doctrines, forgetting that his literary
life was uniformly employed in diffusing his pernicious tenets, and his
utmost endeavours were constantly exerted in extending the baneful
influence of his philosophical principles. Happy for me had I always
been actuated by the considerations which fill my bosom at this moment,
and which I hope will animate me in that awful part to-morrow's sun
shall see me perform. But the die is cast, and I leave to the world this
mournful memento, "that however much a man may be favoured by personal
qualifications, or distinguished by mental endowments, genius will be
useless, and abilities avail but little, unless accompanied by a sense
of religion, and attended by the practice of virtue; destitute of these,
he will only be mounted on the wings of folly, that he may fall with
greater force into the dark abyss of endless despair."

On my returning to a belief of the truths of Christianity, I have been
very much assisted by the pious exhortations of the ordinary, as well as
by the book he has put into my hands; and I feel a comfort which I am
unable to express by this his charitable and benevolent attention to me.
I believe there is no passion more prevalent in the human breast than
the wish that our memory should be held in remembrance. I shudder at