第 五十八 章 · 第58章

This honest, friendly way of treating me unlocked all the sluices of my

passions. He broke into my very soul by it; and I unravelled all the

wickedness of my life to him. In a word, I gave him an abridgment of

this whole history; I gave him a picture of my conduct for fifty years

in miniature.

I hid nothing from him, and he in return exhorted me to sincere

repentance, explained to me what he meant by repentance, and then drew

out such a scheme of infinite mercy, proclaimed from heaven to sinners

of the greatest magnitude, that he left me nothing to say, that looked

like despair, or doubting of being accepted; and in this condition he

left me the first night.

He visited me again the next morning, and went on with his method of

explaining the terms of divine mercy, which according to him consisted

of nothing more, or more difficult, than that of being sincerely

desirous of it, and willing to accept it; only a sincere regret for,

and hatred of, those things I had done, which rendered me so just an

object of divine vengeance. I am not able to repeat the excellent

discourses of this extraordinary man; ’tis all that I am able to do, to

say that he revived my heart, and brought me into such a condition that

I never knew anything of in my life before. I was covered with shame

and tears for things past, and yet had at the same time a secret

surprising joy at the prospect of being a true penitent, and obtaining

the comfort of a penitent—I mean, the hope of being forgiven; and so

swift did thoughts circulate, and so high did the impressions they had

made upon me run, that I thought I could freely have gone out that

minute to execution, without any uneasiness at all, casting my soul

entirely into the arms of infinite mercy as a penitent.

The good gentleman was so moved also in my behalf with a view of the

influence which he saw these things had on me, that he blessed God he

had come to visit me, and resolved not to leave me till the last

moment; that is, not to leave visiting me.

It was no less than twelve days after our receiving sentence before any

were ordered for execution, and then upon a Wednesday the dead warrant,

as they call it, came down, and I found my name was among them. A

terrible blow this was to my new resolutions; indeed my heart sank

within me, and I swooned away twice, one after another, but spoke not a

word. The good minister was sorely afflicted for me, and did what he

could to comfort me with the same arguments, and the same moving

eloquence that he did before, and left me not that evening so long as

the prisonkeepers would suffer him to stay in the prison, unless he

would be locked up with me all night, which he was not willing to be.

I wondered much that I did not see him all the next day, it being the

day before the time appointed for execution; and I was greatly

discouraged, and dejected in my mind, and indeed almost sank for want

of the comfort which he had so often, and with such success, yielded me

on his former visits. I waited with great impatience, and under the

greatest oppressions of spirits imaginable, till about four o’clock he

came to my apartment; for I had obtained the favour, by the help of

money, nothing being to be done in that place without it, not to be

kept in the condemned hole, as they call it, among the rest of the

prisoners who were to die, but to have a little dirty chamber to

myself.

My heart leaped within me for joy when I heard his voice at the door,

even before I saw him; but let any one judge what kind of motion I

found in my soul, when after having made a short excuse for his not

coming, he showed me that his time had been employed on my account;

that he had obtained a favourable report from the Recorder to the

Secretary of State in my particular case, and, in short, that he had

brought me a reprieve.

He used all the caution that he was able in letting me know a thing

which it would have been a double cruelty to have concealed; and yet it

was too much for me; for as grief had overset me before, so did joy

overset me now, and I fell into a much more dangerous swooning than I

did at first, and it was not without a great difficulty that I was

recovered at all.

The good man having made a very Christian exhortation to me, not to let

the joy of my reprieve put the remembrance of my past sorrow out of my

mind, and having told me that he must leave me, to go and enter the

reprieve in the books, and show it to the sheriffs, stood up just

before his going away, and in a very earnest manner prayed to God for

me, that my repentance might be made unfeigned and sincere; and that my

coming back, as it were, into life again, might not be a returning to

the follies of life which I had made such solemn resolutions to

forsake, and to repent of them. I joined heartily in the petition, and

must needs say I had deeper impressions upon my mind all that night, of

the mercy of God in sparing my life, and a greater detestation of my

past sins, from a sense of the goodness which I had tasted in this

case, than I had in all my sorrow before.

This may be thought inconsistent in itself, and wide from the business

of this book; particularly, I reflect that many of those who may be

pleased and diverted with the relation of the wild and wicked part of

my story may not relish this, which is really the best part of my life,

the most advantageous to myself, and the most instructive to others.

Such, however, will, I hope, allow me the liberty to make my story

complete. It would be a severe satire on such to say they do not relish

the repentance as much as they do the crime; and that they had rather

the history were a complete tragedy, as it was very likely to have

been.

But I go on with my relation. The next morning there was a sad scene

indeed in the prison. The first thing I was saluted with in the morning

was the tolling of the great bell at St. Sepulchre’s, as they call it,

which ushered in the day. As soon as it began to toll, a dismal

groaning and crying was heard from the condemned hole, where there lay

six poor souls who were to be executed that day, some from one crime,

some for another, and two of them for murder.

This was followed by a confused clamour in the house, among the several

sorts of prisoners, expressing their awkward sorrows for the poor

creatures that were to die, but in a manner extremely differing one

from another. Some cried for them; some huzzaed, and wished them a good

journey; some damned and cursed those that had brought them to it—that

is, meaning the evidence, or prosecutors—many pitying them, and some

few, but very few, praying for them.

There was hardly room for so much composure of mind as was required for

me to bless the merciful Providence that had, as it were, snatched me

out of the jaws of this destruction. I remained, as it were, dumb and

silent, overcome with the sense of it, and not able to express what I

had in my heart; for the passions on such occasions as these are

certainly so agitated as not to be able presently to regulate their own

motions.

All the while the poor condemned creatures were preparing to their

death, and the ordinary, as they call him, was busy with them,

disposing them to submit to their sentence—I say, all this while I was

seized with a fit of trembling, as much as I could have been if I had

been in the same condition, as to be sure the day before I expected to

be; I was so violently agitated by this surprising fit, that I shook as

if it had been in the cold fit of an ague, so that I could not speak or

look but like one distracted. As soon as they were all put into carts

and gone, which, however, I had not courage enough to see—I say, as

soon as they were gone, I fell into a fit of crying involuntarily, and

without design, but as a mere distemper, and yet so violent, and it

held me so long, that I knew not what course to take, nor could I stop,

or put a check to it, no, not with all the strength and courage I had.

This fit of crying held me near two hours, and, as I believe, held me

till they were all out of the world, and then a most humble, penitent,

serious kind of joy succeeded; a real transport it was, or passion of

joy and thankfulness, but still unable to give vent to it by words, and

in this I continued most part of the day.

In the evening the good minister visited me again, and then fell to his

usual good discourses. He congratulated my having a space yet allowed

me for repentance, whereas the state of those six poor creatures was

determined, and they were now past the offers of salvation; he

earnestly pressed me to retain the same sentiments of the things of

life that I had when I had a view of eternity; and at the end of all

told me I should not conclude that all was over, that a reprieve was

not a pardon, that he could not yet answer for the effects of it;

however, I had this mercy, that I had more time given me, and that it

was my business to improve that time.

This discourse, though very seasonable, left a kind of sadness on my

heart, as if I might expect the affair would have a tragical issue

still, which, however, he had no certainty of; and I did not indeed, at

that time, question him about it, he having said that he would do his

utmost to bring it to a good end, and that he hoped he might, but he

would not have me be secure; and the consequence proved that he had

reason for what he said.

It was about a fortnight after this that I had some just apprehensions

that I should be included in the next dead warrant at the ensuing

sessions; and it was not without great difficulty, and at last a humble

petition for transportation, that I avoided it, so ill was I beholding

to fame, and so prevailing was the fatal report of being an old

offender; though in that they did not do me strict justice, for I was

not in the sense of the law an old offender, whatever I was in the eye

of the judge, for I had never been before them in a judicial way

before; so the judges could not charge me with being an old offender,

but the Recorder was pleased to represent my case as he thought fit.