ower to call upon, the Almighty Being, from
whom alone he can seek mercy and forgiveness, and before whom his
repentance can alone avail.

Hours have glided by, and still he sits upon the same stone bench with
folded arms, heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before him, and
the urgent entreaties of the good man at his side. The feeble light is
wasting gradually, and the deathlike stillness of the street without,
broken only by the rumbling of some passing vehicle which echoes
mournfully through the empty yards, warns him that the night is waning
fast away. The deep bell of St. Paul's strikes--one! He heard it; it
has roused him. Seven hours left! He paces the narrow limits of his
cell with rapid strides, cold drops of terror starting on his forehead,
and every muscle of his frame quivering with agony. Seven hours! He
suffers himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible which
is placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen. No: his thoughts
will wander. The book is torn and soiled by use--and like the book he
read his lessons in, at school, just forty years ago! He has never
bestowed a thought upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet
the place, the time, the room--nay, the very boys he played with, crowd
as vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and some
forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo of
one uttered but a minute since. The voice of the clergyman recalls him
to himself. He is reading from the sacred book its solemn promises of
pardon for repentance, and its awful denunciation of obdurate men. He
falls upon his knees and clasps his hands to pray. Hush! what sound was
that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark! Two
quarters have struck;--the third--the fourth. It is! Six hours left.
Tell him not of repentance! Six hours' repentance for eight times six
years of guilt and sin! He buries his face in his hands, and throws
himself on the bench.

Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled
state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken
from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with
the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every
side--how different from the stone walls of Newgate! She is looking--not
as she did when he saw her for the last time in that dreadful place, but
as she used when he loved her