hich he saw within
these walls, was conducted with the strictest decency and decorum. He
received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and
they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge what they thought so
miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the _Catholic faith_, as they were
pleased to call it. But they could not succeed; for though no religion
lay near his heart, yet he had too much of the spirit of a gentleman
lightly to change that form of religion which he wore, as it were loose
about him; as well as too much good sense to swallow those monstrous
absurdities of Popery which immediately presented themselves to him,
unacquainted as he was with the niceties of the controversy.

CHAPTER III.

MILITARY PREFERMENTS.

When his liberty was regained by an exchange of prisoners, and his health
thoroughly established, he was far from rendering unto the Lord according
to that wonderful display of divine mercy which he had experienced.
I know very little of the particulars of those wild, thoughtless and
wretched years which lay between the 19th and 30th of his life; except
that he frequently experienced the divine goodness in renewed instances,
particularly in preserving him in several hot military actions, in all
which he never received so much as a wound after this, forward as he was
in tempting danger; and yet that all these years were spent in an entire
alienation from God, and in an eager pursuit of animal pleasure as his
supreme good. The series of criminal amours in which he was almost
incessantly engaged during this time, must probably have afforded some
remarkable adventures and occurrences; but the memory of them has
perished. Nor do I think it unworthy of notice here, that amidst all the
intimacy of our friendship, and the many hours of cheerful as well as
serious converse which we spent together, I never remember to have heard
him speak of any of these intrigues, otherwise than in the general with
deep and solemn abhorrence. This I the rather mention, as it seemed a
most genuine proof of his unfeigned repentance, which I think there is
great reason to suspect, when people seem to take a pleasure in relating
and describing scenes of vicious indulgence, which they yet profess to
have disapproved and forsaken.

Amidst all these pernicious wanderings from the paths of religion,
virtue, and happiness, he approved himself so well in his military
character, that he was made a lieutenant