40. Thus, therefore, when I had heard and considered what they
said, I left them, and went about my employment again, but their
talk and discourse went with me; also my heart would tarry with
them, for I was greatly affected with their words, both because by
them I was convinced that I wanted the true tokens of a truly godly
man, and also because by them I was convinced of the happy and
blessed condition of him that was such a one.

41. Therefore I should often make it my business to be going again
and again into the company of these poor people; for I could not
stay away; and the more I went amongst them, the more I did
question my condition; and as I still do remember, presently I
found two things within me, at which I did sometimes marvel
(especially considering what a blind, ignorant, sordid and ungodly
wretch but just before I was). The one was a very great softness
and tenderness of heart, which caused me to fall under the
conviction of what by scripture they asserted, and the other was a
great bending in my mind, to a continual meditating on it, and on
all other good things, which at any time I heard or read of.

42. By these things my mind was now so turned, that it lay like an
horse-leech at the vein, still crying out, Give, Give, Prov. xxx.
15; yea, it was so fixed on eternity, and on the things about the
kingdom of heaven (that is, so far as I knew, though as yet, God
knows, I knew but little), that neither pleasures, nor profits, nor
persuasions, nor threats, could loose it, or make it let go its
hold; and though I may speak it with shame, yet it is in very deed,
a certain truth, it would then have been as difficult for me to
have taken my mind from heaven to earth, as I have found it often
since, to get again from earth to heaven.