y, and cleave to him to the
end. Alas! alas! that I have known him so late! Formerly I could not
believe one word of what your predecessors and yourselves told us of
Jesus, and of the necessity of believing on him, and becoming his
property. I only laughed, and mocked, and gave pain and trouble to my
teachers. But how is this? I now believe it all, and our Saviour has
so powerfully drawn my heart towards himself, that I can find no words
to describe what I feel." By this and similar speeches he so far
imposed upon the brethren, that they believed him a humble follower of
the good Shepherd, and a true child of God.

But being attacked, autumn 1806, by a malignant disorder somewhat
resembling the smallpox and measles, which raged in the settlement,
the severe pain he suffered from the virulence of the disorder, as the
irruption in his face struck inward, and assuming a cancerous form
destroyed his upper jaw bone, he became impatient, forsook his
professions of confidence in the Saviour, and sought for help in
heathenish practices, and if he had had opportunity would have
proceeded to greater lengths in these abominations, than ever before.
His behaviour in his family too, had become very oppressive, and all
the kind exhortations, as well as the serious remonstrances of the
missionaries, produced no effect; even after he recovered, he remained
quite hardened. He some years afterwards professed sincere repentance,
but his artifice had been so deep before, that the missionaries could
only say, that nothing was impossible to God.

Jacob came first to the brethren at Nain. He was in the beginning
apparently very earnest in seeking his soul's salvation and was
baptized in 1801. But he afterwards fell into temptation, and again
took refuge in his old practices, playing at the same time the part of
a most consummate hypocrite: being discovered, he was excluded; yet
when his health began to decline, the missionaries waited upon him,
and as they saw him drawing apparently near his end, were the more
earnest in exhorting him to turn to Jesus, who alone could deliver him
from the bondage of sin and Satan. For some time he seemed to attend
to their advice, but his last days and final exit out of the world,
gave sufficient proof that his heart was untouched. As his pains
increased, his impatience increased with them. He demanded with
violent cries that a knife might be given him to stab himself, which
being refused, he called for a r