forgotten it all. A flood of new and fierce temptations broke over
him, and had it not been for a strong sustaining arm which unseen
upheld him, his soul must have sunk in the deep and angry waters. At
one time he was almost overwhelmed in a hurricane of blasphemous
suggestions, and at another time his faith had wellnigh made
shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or deliberate atheism. But the
very reluctance and dismay of his spirit showed that a new nature was
in him. "I often, when these temptations have been with force upon
me, did compare myself to the case of such a child whom some gipsy
hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and
country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry; but yet I was
bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me
away." It was all that he could do to refrain from articulating such
words as he imagined would amount to the sin against the Holy Ghost;
and for a year together he was haunted with such diabolical
suggestions that he was weary of his life, and fain would have
changed condition with a horse or a dog. During this dreary term it
is no wonder that his heart felt hard. "Though he should have given
a thousand pounds for a tear, he could not shed one; and often he had
not even the desire to shed one." Every ordinance was an affliction.
He could not listen to a sermon, or take up a religious book, but a
crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed in betwixt the subject and
his bewildered mind, he could not assume the attitude of prayer but
he felt impelled to break off, almost as if some one had been pulling
him away; or, to mar his devotion, some ridiculous object was sure to
be presented to his fancy. It is not surprising that he should have
concluded that he was possessed by the devil; and it is scarcely
possible to peruse his own and similar recitals without the forcible
conviction that they are more than the mere workings of the mind,
either in its sane or its disordered state.