in their way of sinning, for it was all a force even upon
themselves; they did not only act against conscience, but
against nature; they put a rape upon their temper to drown the
reflections, which their circumstances continually gave them;
and nothing was more easy than to see how sighs would
interrupt their songs, and paleness and anguish sit upon their
brows, in spite of the forced smiles they put on; nay, sometimes
it would break out at their very mouths when they had parted
with their money for a lewd treat or a wicked embrace. I have
heard them, turning about, fetch a deep sigh, and cry, 'What a
dog am I! Well, Betty, my dear, I'll drink thy health, though';
meaning the honest wife, that perhaps had not a half-crown
for herself and three or four children. The next morning they
are at their penitentials again; and perhaps the poor weeping
wife comes over to him, either brings him some account of
what his creditors are doing, and how she and the children are
turned out of doors, or some other dreadful news; and this
adds to his self-reproaches; but when he has thought and pored
on it till he is almost mad, having no principles to support him,
nothing within him or above him to comfort him, but finding
it all darkness on every side, he flies to the same relief again,
viz. to drink it away, debauch it away, and falling into
company of men in just the same condition with himself, he
repeats the crime, and thus he goes every day one step
onward of his way to destruction.

I was not wicked enough for such fellows as these yet. On
the contrary, I began to consider here very seriously what I
had to do; how things stood with me, and what course I ought
to take. I knew I had no friends, no, not one friend or relation