portion of the community, have been treated with deference. You must be sensible that we are acquainted with your religious opinions, as they are given to the world; what then must we think of your present conduct? Why do you call upon Jesus Christ to help you? Do you believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ? Come now, answer me honestly-I want an answer as from the lips of a dying man, for I verily believe that you will not live twenty-four hours.' I waited sometime at the end of every question: he did not answer, but ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I addressed him, 'Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions; will you answer them?-Allow me to ask, do you believe?— or let me qualify the question-Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? After a pause of some moments, he answered, 'I have no wish to believe on the subject.' I then left him."

He was also visited by a Quaker who was in the practice of visiting the sick, for the purpose of affording them consolation. He said, he never saw a man in so much apparent distress. He sat with his elbow on his knee, and his head leaning on his hand; and beside him stood a vessel, to catch the blood that was oozing from him in five different streams, like spider's-webs-one from the corner of his mouth, one from each eye, and one from each nostril! This Friend endeavoured to get him into conversation, but was only answered by horrible looks and dreadful groans. He was also visited by a preacher of the Methodist order. His object was, if possible, to get from him the truth in his dying hour, in relation to his future prospects with eternity. But all he could get from him, in answer to his questions, was awful groans, which seemed to unnerve the whole system. This man was with him until he drew his last breath, and his immortal spirit had fled.

3. FRANCIS NEWPORT.

"The wicked is driven away in his wickedness."

FRANCIS NEWPORT, who died in the year 1692, was favoured with both a religious and liberal education. After spending five years in the university, he was entered in one of the Inns of Court. Here he fell into the hands of infidels, lost his religious impressions, forsook the paths of virtue, became an avowed infidel, and associated himself with a club of educated but abandoned wretches, who met regularly to encourage and confirm each other in wickedness.

He continued thus for several years, till habits of dissipation and vice brought on an illness, during which his former religious impressions revived with invincible force. The horror of his mind was inexpressible; the sweat poured from his system; and in nine days he was reduced, principally through mental anguish, from a robust state of health to perfect weakness. His expressions and language, all the while, were the most dreadful that imagination can conceive.

Writing to his companions, he said, "Who, alas! can write his own tragedy without tears, or copy out the scal of his own damnation without horror? That there is a God I know, because I continually feel the effects of his wrath; that there is a hell I am equally certain, having received an earnest of my inheritance there already in my breast."

His friends, who had only heard he was distracted, hearing him deliver himself in such terms, were amazed, and began to inquire of those around, what made him talk at such a rate? He, hearing them whispering together, and imagining the cause, called them all to him, and said, "You imagine me melancholy or distracted; I

wish I were either, but it is part of my judgment that I am not. No; my apprehension of persons and things is rather more quick and vigorous than it was when I was in perfect health; and it is my curse, because thereby I am more sensible of the condition I am fallen into. Would you be informed why I am become a skeleton in three or four days? See how then I have despised my Maker, and denied my Redeemer; I have joined myself to the atheists and profane, and continued this course under many convictions, till my iniquity was ripe for vengeance, and the just judgment of God overtook me when my security was the greatest and the checks of my conscience were the least. How idle is it to bid the fire not burn when fuel is administered, and to command the seas to be smooth in the midst of a storm! Such is my case; and what are the comforts of my friends? But I am spent,-I can complain no more. Would to God that the cause of my complaining would

cease.

The cause of my complaining! this renews my grief, and summons up the little strength I have left to complain again, like an expiring blaze before it is extinguished. It is just so with me; but whither am I going?"

As he said this he fainted away, and lay in a swoon for a considerable time; but by the help of some spirits, he was brought to himself again.

"My business," says the writer, "calling me away for a day or two, I came again on Thursday morning pretty early. When I came in I inquired of his friends how he spent his time. They told me he had had little company; and his expressions were much shorter; but what he did speak seemed to have more horror and despair than before. I went to his bedside, and asked him how he did. He replied, 'Damned and lost forever.' I told him the purposes of God were hidden; perhaps he was punished in this life to fit him for a better. He

answered,They are not hidden to me, but discovered; and my greatest torment, my punishment here, is for an example to others. O that there was no God, or that this God could cease to be, for I am sure he will have no

mercy upon me!'
"Alas!' said I,

there is no contending with our Creator, and therefore avoid such words as may provoke him more.'

"True,' replied he, there is no contending; I wish there was a possibility of getting above God-that would be a heaven to me.'

"I entreated him not to give way to such blasphemous thoughts, for. Here he interrupted me. Read we not in the Revelation of them that blasphemed God because of their pains? I am one of their number. O how do I envy the happiness of Cain and Judas!'

"But,' replied 1, 'you are yet alive, and do not feel the torments of those that are in hell.'

"He answered, This is either true or false; if it be true, how heavy will those torments be, of which I do not yet feel the uttermost? But I know it is false, and that I endure more than the spirits of the damned; for I have the very same tortures upon my spirit that they have, beside those I endure in my body. I believe at the day of judgment the torments of my mind and body will both together be more intense; but, as I now am, no spirit in hell endures what I do. How gladly would I change my condition for hell! How earnestly would I entreat my angry Judge to send me thither, were I not afraid that out of vengeance he would deny me! Here he closed his eyes a little, and began to talk very wildly, every now and then groaning and gnashing his teeth; but soon after, opening his eyes, he grew sensible again, and felt his own pulse, saying, How lazily my minutes go on! When will be the last breath, the last pulse, that shall beat my spirit out of this decayed mansion,

into the desired regions of death and hell? O, I find it is just now at hand! And what shall I say now? Am not 1 afraid again to die? Ah! the forlorn hopes of him that has not God to go to! Nothing to fly to for peace and comfort!' Here his speech failed him: we all, believing him to be dying, went to prayer, which threw him into an agony; in which, though he could not speak, he turned away his face, and made what noise he could to hinder himself from hearing. Perceiving this we gave

over.

"As soon as he could speak, (which was not till after some time,) he said, 'Tigers and monsters, are ye also become devils to torment me, and give me a prospect of heaven, to make my hell more intolerable?"

"Alas! sir,' said I, 'it is our desire of your happiness that casts us down at the throne of grace; if God denies assistance, who else can give it? If he will not have mercy, whither must we go for it?'

"He replied, 'O! that is the dart that wounds me! God is become my enemy, and there is none so strong as to deliver me out of his hands. He consigns me over to eternal vengeance, and there is none able to redeem me! Were there such another God as he, who would patronize my cause; or were I above God, or independent of him; could I act or dispose of myself as I pleased; then would my horrors cease, and the expectations and designs of my formidable enemies be frustrated. But O! this cannot be, for I :'

"His voice failed again, and he began to struggle and gasp for breath; which, having recovered, with a groan dreadful and horrid as if it had been more than human, he cried out, O! the insufferable pangs of hell and damnation!' and then expired.