actually
dead. He was the night before last seized with a paralytic stroke. He
lay a long time without sense or motion; a delirium followed. In a short
interval of reason he sent, earnestly imploring to see me. Seldom have I
witnessed so distressing a scene.

"As I entered the room he fixed his glassy eyes full upon me, quite
unconscious who I was, and groaned out in an inward hollow voice--'Go to
now, ye rich men, weep and howl, for your miseries are come upon you.' I
asked how he did. He replied still from St. James: 'How? why my gold and
silver are cankered, the rust of them shall witness against me; they eat
up my flesh as it were fire.'

"I was astonished," continued Dr. Barlow, "to see so exact a memory
coupled with so wild an imagination. 'Be composed, sir,' said I, seeing
he began to recollect me, 'this deep contrition is a favorable symptom.'
'Dr. Barlow,' replied he, grasping my hand with a vehemence which
corresponded with his look, 'have you never heard of riches kept by the
owner thereof to his hurt? Restitution! Doctor, restitution! and it must
be immediate, or it will be too late.' I was now deeply alarmed.
'Surely, sir,' said I, 'you are not unhappily driven to adopt St.
James's next words--forgive me but--you can not surely have defrauded.'
'O no, no,' cried he, 'I have been what the world calls honest, but not
what the Judge of quick and dead will call so. The restitution I must
make is not to the rich, for any thing I have _taken_ from them, but to
the poor, for what I have _kept_ from them. Hardness of heart would have
been but a common sin, in a common man; but I have been a professor,
Doctor, I will not say a hypocrite, for I deceived myself as much as
others. But oh! how hollow has my profession been!'

"Here seeing him ready to faint," continued Dr. Barlow, "I imposed
silence on him, till he had taken a cordial. This revived him, and he
went on.

"'I was miserable in my early course of profligacy. I was disappointed
in my subsequent schemes of ambition. I expected more from the world
than it had to give. But I continued to love it with all its
disappointments. Under whatever new shape it presented its temptations,
it was still my idol. I had always loved money; but other passions more
turbulent had been hitherto predominant. These I at length renounced.
Covetousness now became my reigning sin. Still it was to the broken
cistern that I cleaved. Still it was on the broken reed that I leaned.
S