as the most ferocious animal has necessarily its intervals of
repose, these intervals in man are greatly influenced by the immoral
character of the conduct which may have preceded them. He appears
to be at peace, indeed, but it is an irreligious, malignant peace; a
savage sardonic smile, destitute of all charity or dignity; a love
of confusion, intoxication, and sarcasm.

In this state I was accustomed to sing--anything but hymns--with a
kind of mad, ferocious joy. I spoke to all who approached my
dungeon, jeering and bitter things; and I tried to look upon the
whole creation through the medium of that commonplace wisdom, the
wisdom of the cynics. This degrading period, on which I hate to
reflect, lasted happily only for six or seven days, during which my
Bible had become covered with dust. One of the jailer's boys,
thinking to please me, as he cast his eye upon it, observed, "Since
you left off reading that great, ugly book, you don't seem half so
melancholy, sir." "Do you think so?" said I. Taking the Bible in
my hands, I wiped off the dust, and opening it hastily, my eyes fell
upon the following words: --"And he said unto his disciples, it must
needs be that offences come; but woe unto him by whom they come; for
better had it been for him that a millstone were hanged about his
neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of
these little ones."

I was affected upon reading this passage, and I felt ashamed when I
thought that this little boy had perceived, from the dust with which
it was covered, that I no longer read my Bible, and had even
supposed that I had acquired a better temper by want of attention to
my religious duties, and become less wretched by forgetting my God.
"You little graceless fellow," I exclaimed, though reproaching him