and brought them into such extremity, that the captain of the vessel
urged him to go to prayers immediately, if he ever intended to do it at
all; for he concluded they would in a few minutes be at the bottom of the
sea. In this circumstance he did pray, and that very fervently too; and
it was very remarkable, that while he was crying to God for deliverance,
the wind fell, and quickly after they arrived at Calais. But the major
was so little affected with what had befallen him, that when some of his
gay friends, on hearing the story, rallied him upon the efficacy of his
prayers, he excused himself from the scandal of being thought much in
earnest, by saying "that it was at midnight, an hour when his good mother
and aunt were asleep, or else he should have left that part of the
business to them;"--a speech which I should not have mentioned, but as
it shows in so lively a view the wretched situation of his mind at that
time, though his great deliverance from the power of darkness was then
nearly approaching. He recounted these things to me with the greatest
humility, as showing how utterly unworthy he was of that miracle of
divine grace by which he was quickly after brought to so true and so
permanent a sense of religion.




CHAPTER V.

HIS CONVERSION.


And now I am come to that astonishing part of his story, the account of
his conversion, which I cannot enter upon without assuring the reader
that I have sometimes been tempted to suppress many circumstances of