very rare that the providence of God casts us into any
condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may see
something or other to be thankful for, and may see others in worse
circumstances than our own. Such certainly was the case of these men, of
whom I could not so much as see room to suppose any of them were saved;
nothing could make it rational so much as to wish or expect that they
did not all perish there, except the possibility only of their being
taken up by another ship in company; and this was but mere possibility
indeed, for I saw not the least sign or appearance of any such thing. I
cannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange longing
or hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight, breaking out
sometimes thus: "O that there had been but one or two, nay, or but one
soul, saved out of this ship, to have escaped to me, that I might but
have had one companion, one fellow-creature to have spoken to me, and to
have conversed with!" In all the time of my solitary life, I never felt
so earnest, so strong a desire after the society of my fellow-creatures,
or so deep a regret at the want of it.

There are some secret moving springs in the affections, which, when they
are set a going by some object in view, or, though not in view, yet
rendered present to the mind by the power of imagination, that motion
carries out the soul, by its impetuosity, to such violent, eager
embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable. Such
were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I
repeated the words, "O that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and
my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands
would clinch together, and my fingers would press the palms of my
hands, so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have
crushed it involuntarily; and the teeth in my head would strike
together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I
could not part them again. Let the naturalists explain these things, and
the reason and manner of them: all I can say to them is, to describe the
fact, which was even surprising to me, when I found it, though I knew
not from whence it proceeded: it was doubtless the effect of ardent
wishes, and of strong ideas formed in my mind, realizing the comfort
which the conversation of one of my fellow-christians would have been to
me.--But it was not to be; either their fate or mi