conclusion was fastened on my spirit, for the former hint did set
my sins again before my face, that I had been a great and grievous
sinner, and that it was now too late for me to look after heaven;
for Christ would not forgive me, nor pardon my transgressions. Then
I fell to musing upon this also; and while I was thinking on it,
and fearing lest it should be so, I felt my heart sink in despair,
concluding it was too late; and therefore I resolved in my mind I
would go on in sin: for, thought I, if the case be thus, my state
is surely miserable; miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable
if I follow them; I can but be damned, and if I must be so, I had
as good be damned for many sins, as be damned for few.

'Thus I stood in the midst of my play, before all that then were
present: but yet I told them nothing. But I say, I having made this
conclusion, I returned desperately to my sport again; and I well
remember, that presently this kind of despair did so possess my
soul, that I was persuaded I could never attain to other comfort
than what I should get in sin; for heaven was gone already; so that
on that I must not think.'[56]

How difficult is it, when immorality has been encouraged by royal
authority, to turn the tide or to stem the torrent. For at least
four years, an Act of Parliament had prohibited these Sunday
sports. Still the supinelness of the justices, and the connivance
of the clergy, allowed the rabble youth to congregate on the Green
at Elstow, summoned by the church bells to celebrate their sports
and pastimes, as they had been in the habit of doing on the Lord's
day.[57]

This solemn warning, received in the midst of his sport, was one