submissive reply, well becoming a pious help

mate.

I now watched the hand of God, to see if an opportunity offered for my departure; but every door seemed for a time to be shut. However, I kept close to my church, endeavoured to shun all company, embraced every opportunity that offered itself to pour out my soul in prayer, and to shew God my trouble; Psal. cxlii. 2. Nor did the deep concern I was under in the least abate; but heaviness of spirit, meekness, and humbling sorrow, perpetually pursued me, and my mind was immersed in the meditations of futurity.

After wife had returned from her nursery, my she had an awful dream, which in the morning she related to me. It was this-that the devil had appeared to her in her sleep, with a most formidable aspect, and was going to lay hold of her; but she cried out, and he immediately left her, and made a violent seizure of me. I had not, at that time, told her much of my distress of mind; therefore she knew not how much the narrative of her dream contributed to the

anguish of my spirit. I laid her words up, and pondered them over in my heart. And, as I believed her to be a very pious soul, I was fully persuaded I should, ere long, feel the effects of her dreadful vision; which (God knows) I soon did, as my reader will observe in the sequel.

I had no thoughts of a violent temptation, by divine permission, assailing me, that should strip me of fleshly confidence; but what I expected was, that death, judgment, and eternal damnation, would be the dreadful result of her dream.

Finding fresh troubles increase daily upon me, I longed to get out of the place I was then in, fearing that my companions would some time or other entangle me, and get me out a pleasuretaking on the Lord's day; for, as I found that my power against sin was little worth, I wanted to shun even the appearance of temptation. I went over to Mr. Low's, a nurseryman at Hampton Wick, and asked him to employ me; which he accordingly did. It was now late in the autumn; but he promised to employ me till he could provide for me in another way. I endeavoured to get a ready-furnished lodging at Kingston, but could not: I was therefore determined to walk to and fro, from Kingston to Mortlake, every day, rather than stay in that place, where I had contracted an intimacy with several persons whose company I did not relish. I continued in this situation for about a fortnight; but at length got a lodging at Kingston. I was now determined never to get acquainted with any person, unless he seemed to be religious; and, being in a strange place, where I was

not known, I had not so many temptations to draw me into company.

I now took to reading any book that I could get; kept close to the church; kept up private and family prayer with my wife, and laboured to recommend myself to the favour of God. I learned several little short prayers to repeat on the road as I walked, or at my labour, or on my bed, which I judged was redeeming lost time. However, I had one great difficulty to grapple with here, which was, we were obliged to go to a public-house on the Saturday evening to receive our wages, where each labourer was compelled to spend four-pence. This I could not avoid, though I found it a snare to me; because I was compelled to wait till the foreman had paid me, which sometimes would be as late as eight or nine o'clock; during this time I was obliged to hear the songs that were sung, and their filthy conversation.

This I found scattered all my religious thoughts, and made many breaches in that poor false peace which I had been patching up by the mere dint of hard labour: however to close up these gaps, I generally worked the harder, said more prayers, read more, and got up earlier in the morning, in order to perform a greater task; and so by these means, I pacified conscience with a double portion of dead works; Heb. ix. 14.

My fellow workmen perceiving me to sit silent at the pay-table, while they were so jovial, and finding that I would not join with them for liquor when at work, they suspected I had caught a religious infection. Upon this, I was set up as a butt for laughter and ridicule. And my bringing forth now and then a passage of scripture, to shew the end they were like to make if they died in sin, as they then lived, this gave great offence, and exposed my head as a mark for every scorner upon which to spend his shafts. This I laboured under for the space of many months.

For a while they suspected me to be a methodist; but, finding I never went to the meeting, and that, in every argument with them, I pleaded for the church, their suspicion was, that I wanted to be better than other people, and to be more religious than was required of those who belonged to the church of England.

Having, as I thought, patched up a tolerable religion, and redeemed a deal of lost time by labour, I began to be lifted up in my own mind, and to be filled with a vain conceit of my own righteousness. Finding my zeal and diligence to continue, and from my being now habituated to this religious course of life, I began to have a very high opinion of my religion, and to judge myself righteous and despise others. Indeed the language of my heart to most people was,

"Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou," Isa. lxv. 5.

However, God permitted me to make several private slips in this my religious way of life, which brought fresh guilt on my conscience. This sting induced me to examine a little the root of my religion; and I found that I had no love to God in it; but that it was merely to pacify my conscience, escape the torments of hell, and to appear righteous before men. While I was perplexed with these thoughts, this was secretly suggested to my mind, Suppose you could continue this course of religion till the time of your death, you can only rub off as you go; and hardly that; for you offend daily, in thought, word, and deed; and what is to become of all that black scroll that is behind? I found, the more I meditated on these things, the deeper I sunk in distress; therefore I tried to cast it from me, not liking to come to book. This put me a little out of conceit with my own righteousness; I thought there was something yet wanting on that head; and, conscience lashing me within for past offences, as well as for present blots, stopt me from boasting, and shewed me a little of the hypocrisy of my own heart; God beholds the proud afar off; " and those that walk in pride he is able to abase," Dan. iv. 37.

I am now going to relate what I am almost ashamed of; but still I am determined to let