Old Portraits and Modern Sketches; Personal Sketches and Tributes; Historical Papers | Page 4

I protest before
God, I lie not, neither do I frame this sort of speech; these were really,
strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose
mercy is unsearchable, forgive my transgressions."
One day, while standing in the street, cursing and blaspheming, he met
with a reproof which startled him. The woman of the house in front of
which the wicked young tinker was standing, herself, as he remarks, "a
very loose, ungodly wretch," protested that his horrible profanity made
her tremble; that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing she had
ever heard, and able to spoil all the youth of the town who came in his
company. Struck by this wholly unexpected rebuke, he at once
abandoned the practice of swearing; although previously he tells us that
"he had never known how to speak, unless he put an oath before and
another behind."
The good name which he gained by this change was now a temptation
to him. "My neighbors," he says, "were amazed at my great conversion
from prodigious profaneness to something like a moral life and sober
man. Now, therefore, they began to praise, to commend, and to speak

well of me, both to my face and behind my back. Now I was, as they
said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But oh!
when I understood those were their words and opinions of me, it
pleased me mighty well; for though as yet I was nothing but a poor
painted hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly.
I was proud of my godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did either to be
seen of or well spoken of by men; and thus I continued for about a
twelvemonth or more."
The tyranny of his imagination at this period is seen in the following
relation of his abandonment of one of his favorite sports.
"Now, you must know, that before this I had taken much delight in
ringing, but my conscience beginning to be tender, I thought such
practice was but vain, and therefore forced myself to leave it; yet my
mind hankered; wherefore, I would go to the steeple-house and look on,
though I durst not ring; but I thought this did not become religion
neither; yet I forced myself, and would look on still. But quickly after, I
began to think, 'How if one of the bells should fall?' Then I chose to
stand under a main beam, that lay overthwart the steeple, from side to
side, thinking here I might stand sure; but then I thought again, should
the bell fall with a swing, it might first hit the wall, and then,
rebounding upon me, might kill me for all this beam. This made me
stand in the steeple door; and now, thought I, I am safe enough; for if a
bell should then fall, I can slip out behind these thick walls, and so be
preserved notwithstanding.
"So after this I would yet go to see them ring, but would not go any
farther than the steeple-door. But then it came in my head, 'How if the
steeple itself should fall?' And this thought (it may, for aught I know,
when I stood and looked on) did continually so shake my mind, that I
durst not stand at the steeple-door any longer, but was forced to flee,
for fear the steeple should fall upon my head."
About this time, while wandering through Bedford in pursuit of
employment, he chanced to see three or four poor old women sitting at
a door, in the evening sun, and, drawing near them, heard them
converse upon the things of God; of His work in their hearts; of their

natural depravity; of the temptations of the Adversary; and of the joy of
believing, and of the peace of reconciliation. The words of the aged
women found a response in the soul of the listener. "He felt his heart
shake," to use his own words; he saw that he lacked the true tokens of a
Christian. He now forsook the company of the profane and licentious,
and sought that of a poor man who had the reputation of piety, but, to
his grief, he found him "a devilish ranter, given up to all manner of
uncleanness; he would laugh at all exhortations to sobriety, and deny
that there was a God, an angel, or a spirit."
"Neither," he continues, "was this man only a temptation to me, but, my
calling lying in the country, I happened to come into several people's
company, who, though strict in religion formerly, yet were also drawn
away by these ranters. These would also talk with me of their ways, and
condemn me as illegal and dark; pretending