my conscience being (unknown to me) supported by the power of God, gave me no rest. It was an incessant thorn in my paths, and made them so grievous, that I was absolutely forced, in spite of my thoughtless and idle habits, to study how to assuage its torment; and my false pride and shame, though supported by Satan, were too weak to overcome this mighty witness for God, and were therefore obliged finally to submit.

Experience convinced me by slow degrees, that my only remedy was to resist the wicked licentiousness of my imagination with all my might in the first instance. This, for a long time, I found to be an Herculean labour; yet by dint of perseverance, and a determined resolution to die rather than be conquered, I at length (by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord) found that I had made a little progress; and to assist this as much as possible, I came to a resolution never to be idle; for I found that the tempter (by which I mean my evil thoughts, for as yet I perceived nothing beyond them) always took advantage of me in such moods, and prompted me to all kinds of evil.

The next alleviation to my misery I found to be humility, and submission to the rod of heaven, which I began to be in some measure sensible of. I was indeed at last forced, in spite of myself, and my secret enemy, to feel, and

see, that God was not, as I formerly and blas-" phemously thought, an almost indifferent spectator of wickedness, but that he clearly saw it, and as surely punished! This great and important truth was burnt as it were into my heart, by the actual cautery of conscience, in such an intolerable manner, that my soul, subdued by exquisite torment, was forced to bow herself to the dust of acknowledged error, and the dunghill of vileness, and humbly and tremblingly supplicate a remission from her agonies.

In this manner I for some time kept up a weak fight and resistance to my spiritual foes, without knowing who they were, or who it was that supported me; seeking by all means to keep my mind constantly employed in reading, writing, music, and every employment which might help to drive away the evil spirit that tormented me; and I found so sensible a benefit from these occupations that I followed them still more and more.

I was about this time (1782) called to a situation, which gave my enemy an opportunity of tempting me on another side which I had always considered to be my forte. My strong side, as I vainly thought it, was my love of justice, my public spirit, and contempt of filthy lucre. I was appointed paymaster to a large corps of troops, and entered upon my new office with hopes of emolument which I did not formerly

feel. But though, through the undeserved protection of God, I escaped from any open actual breach of probity and honesty, yet my desire of making a fortune, (which desire had hitherto been dormant, from the interposition of those dreams of glory which possessed my heart, and were to be blown away in the first place, and secondly from the absence of temptation and opportunity) this desire now increased with the nearness of the attracting object, which appearing to be within my probable reach, attracted my heart in a proportionate degree. At the same time, I suppose I may do myself the justice to say, that when I accepted the office of paymaster, I resigned a still more lucrative appointment attached to it, which was that of commissary of stores to the troops: this I did because I understood that I could not reap the full emoluments from it, without overstepping the boundaries of what I considered to be the duty of an honest servant of the public. The two under-commissaries in this department did not see the matter in the same light; and they, therefore, very readily took all the trouble for the sake of the emolument.

At the close of my paymastership, by which I really made nothing, but what I saved from my open allowances; I was called down to Calcutta on the business of the office, to assist in settling the accounts with my predecessor

and senior, for whom I had partly been acting. Being also by a train of incidents introduced into the gayest society there, the incessant cry of the watch-dogs of conscience was the only thing that could have possibly preserved me from ruin, amidst the great dangers and temptations to which I was continually exposed had my conscience slept in this time of general assault from every quarter, I should have been lost.

But here, again, God's providence raised up this judge and deliverer, this Samson* for me, who was so much stronger than the giants of the Philistines, that he overthrew them even in their own cities. By this figure I mean to say, that the power of reason and conscience was so great within me, that it put to flight my pride, vanity, and uncleanness of thought, even in the midst of the most intoxicating pleasures, and the gayest company. Neither the charms of beauty, the delicacies of the table, the inspirations of wine, nor even music itself, had any power to support me against the overwhelming force of this inexorable judge within; whose just decisions often pierced my heart with the acutest agonies, almost to fainting, when I

* Is not the history of Samson, like that of Abraham and his family, an allegory? I do not mean allegory only, but allegory also, as well as literal and historical fact.

tried to appear most full of mirth and joy. In vain did I pour down bumper after bumper, to drive away, if it were possible, my misery, by intoxication; my conscience defied the power of wine; and I only filled my veins with fuel to feed the fire of that tormentor, without being able to overcome its terrible voice.

My particular situation at that time riveted these chains, these cart-ropes of fashion and vanity upon me, too strongly to be broken through, until the business was finished which brought me to Calcutta ; but then I was preparing to withdraw from a society of nominal pleasure, but vanity, snares, and real misery,' when an unexpected incident brought me back, for a time, to the same tiresome and dangerous round. The second grade in a high military office was conferred upon me through the friendship of an officer, who had formed an opinion of, and regard for me, much higher than I merited; and as we were old acquaintances, I lived with him at his desire. This situation threw me back again into all the dangers from which I had been about to escape.

But far gone as I was in the paths of error. and perdition, my deliverance was approaching, and even near at hand. The accidental absence on business of the officer in whose quarters I lived, left me more at liberty to spend as I chose those hours which were not devoted to