condole with them. Many sorrowful days I had in this place,
often getting alone. "Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I
chatter; I did mourn as a dove, mine eyes ail with looking
upward. Oh, Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me" (Isaiah
38.14). I could tell the Lord, as Hezekiah, "Remember now O
Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth."
Now had I time to examine all my ways: my conscience did not
accuse me of unrighteousness toward one or other; yet I saw how
in my walk with God, I had been a careless creature. As David
said, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned": and I might say
with the poor publican, "God be merciful unto me a sinner." On
the Sabbath days, I could look upon the sun and think how people
were going to the house of God, to have their souls refreshed;
and then home, and their bodies also; but I was destitute of
both; and might say as the poor prodigal, "He would fain have
filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no
man gave unto him" (Luke 15.16). For I must say with him,
"Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight." I
remembered how on the night before and after the Sabbath, when
my family was about me, and relations and neighbors with us, we
could pray and sing, and then refresh our bodies with the good
creatures of God; and then have a comfortable bed to lie down
on; but instead of all this, I had only a little swill for the
body and then, like a swine, must lie down on the ground. I
cannot express to man the sorrow that lay upon my spirit; the
Lord knows it. Yet that comfortable Scripture would often come
to mind, "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with
great mercies will I gather thee."