with the master of the house for suffering such a fellow, as they called
him, to be brought out of the grave into their house; but being answered
that the man was a neighbor, and that he was sound, but overwhelmed with
the calamity of his family, and the like, they turned their anger into
ridiculing the man and his sorrow for his wife and children; taunting him
with want of courage to leap into the great pit and go to heaven, as
they jeeringly expressed it, along with them; adding some profane and
blasphemous expressions.

They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and as far as
I could see, though the man sat still, mute and disconsolate, and their
affronts could not divert his sorrow, yet he was both grieved and offended
at their words: upon this, I gently reproved them, being well enough
acquainted with their characters, and not unknown in person to two of them.
They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths: asked me what I
did out of my grave at such a time when so many honester men were carried
into the church-yard? and why I was not at home saying my prayers till the
dead-cart came for me?

I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not at all
discomposed at their treatment of me. However, I kept my temper. I told
them that though I defied them or any man in the world to tax me with any
dishonesty, yet I acknowledged that in this terrible judgment of God many a
better than I was swept away and carried to his grave. But to answer their
question directly, it was true that I was mercifully preserved by that
great God whose name they had blasphemed and taken in vain by cursing and
swearing in a dreadful manner; and that I believed I was preserved in
particular, among other ends of his goodness, that I might reprove them for
their audacious boldness in behaving in such a manner and in such an awful
time as this was; especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest