splendour, and putteth down another. He told him, what he did not know
before, that God had often revealed to some men events which were to
happen hundreds of years afterwards, and directed him to converse with me,
and I could fully inform him on that subject. William resolved to
converse with me at a future period, but having heard some of his
relations speak rather disrespectfully of me, he was in no hurry.
At length my prison door was unlocked, and I was conducted to his
bed-room.

[Illustration: HISTORY OF A BIBLE.]

My first salutation struck William. In the beginning, said I, God made
the heavens and the earth; and then proceeded to make man, whom he
placed in a garden, with permission to eat of every tree that was in
it, except one. I then related the history of Adam, the first man:
how he was urged and prevailed upon by the devil not to mind God's
prohibition, but to eat of the forbidden tree; and how by this
abominable act he had plunged himself and posterity into misery.
William not relishing this conversation, closed my mouth, desiring me
to say no more at that time.

A few days afterwards he allowed me to talk of the wickedness of
the old world: how God sent Noah to reprove their iniquity, and to
threaten the destruction of the whole world, if they did not repent
and turn to the Lord; that the world were deaf to his remonstrances;
and that God at last desired Noah to build an ark of wood, such as
would contain himself and family; for he was soon to destroy the
inhabitants of the earth by a deluge of water. This conversation was
rather more relished than the former.