that he is a merciful Being, and, with infinite goodness and
long-suffering, forbears to punish those that offend; waiting to be
gracious, and willing not the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should return and live; that he often suffers wicked men to go on a long
time, and even reserves damnation to the general day of retribution:
that it is a clear evidence of God, and of a future state, that
righteous men receive not their reward, or wicked men their punishment,
till they come into another world; and this will lend him to teach his
wife the doctrine of the resurrection, and of the last judgment: let him
but repent for himself, he will be an excellent preacher of repentance
to his wife."

I repeated all this to Atkins, who looked very serious all the while,
and who, we could easily perceive, was more than ordinarily affected
with it: when being eager, and hardly suffering me to make an end--"I
know all this, master," says he, "and a great deal more; but I han't the
impudence to talk thus to my wife, when God and my own conscience knows,
and my wife will be an undeniable evidence against me, that I have lived
as if I never heard of God, or a future state, or any thing about it;
and to talk of my repenting, alas! (and with that he fetched a deep
sigh; and I could see that tears stood in his eyes,) 'tis past all that
with me."--"Past it, Atkins!" said I; "what dost thou mean by that?"--"I
know well enough what I mean, Sir," says he; "I mean 'tis too late; and
that is too true."

I told my clergyman word for word what he said. The poor zealous priest
(I must call him so; for, be his opinion what it will, he had certainly
a most singular affection for the good of other men's souls; and it
would be hard to think he had not the like for his own)--I say, this
zealous, affectionate man could not refrain tears also: but recovering
himself, he said to me, "Ask him but one question: Is he easy that it is
too late, or is he troubled, and wishes it were not so?" I put the
question fairly to Atkins; and he answered with a great deal of passion,
"How could any man be easy in a condition that certainly must end in
eternal destruction? That he was far from being easy; but that, on the
contrary, he believed it would one time or the other ruin him."

"What do you mean by that?" said I.--"Why," he said, "he believed he
should, one time or another, cut his own throat to put an end to the
terror of it."

The clergyman shook his he