!
But I have vowed a vow, and in that there is hope."

My heart quaked with terror when I thought of being still living in a
state of reprobation, subjected to the awful issues of death, judgment,
and eternal misery, by the slightest accident or casualty; and I set
about the duty of prayer myself with the utmost earnestness. I prayed
three times every day, and seven times on the Sabbath; but, the more
frequently and fervently that I prayed, I sinned still the more. About
this time, and for a long period afterwards, amounting to several
years, I lived in a hopeless and deplorable state of mind; for I said
to myself, "If my name is not written in the book of life from all
eternity, it is in vain for me to presume that either vows or prayers
of mine, or those of all mankind combined, can ever procure its
insertion now." I had come under many vows, most solemnly taken, every
one of which I had broken; and I saw with the intensity of juvenile
grief that there was no hope for me. I went on sinning every hour, and
all the while most strenuously warring against sin, and repenting of
every one transgression as soon after the commission of it as I got
leisure to think. But, oh, what a wretched state this unregenerated
state is, in which every effort after righteousness only aggravates our
offences! I found it vanity to contend; for, after communing with my
heart, the conclusion was as follows: "If I could repent me of all my
sins, and shed tears of blood for them, still have I not a load of
original transgression pressing on me that is enough to crush me to the
lowest hell. I may be angry with my first parents for having sinned,
but how I shall repent me of their sin is beyond what I am able to
comprehend."

Still, in those days of depravity and corruption, I had some of those
principles implanted in my mind which were afterwards to spring up with
such amazing fertility among the heroes of the faith and the promises.
In particular, I felt great indignation against all the wicked of this
world, and often wished for the means of ridding it of such a noxious
burden. I liked John Barnet, my reverend father's serving-man,
extremely ill; but, from a supposition that he might be one of the
justified, I refrained from doing him any injury. He gave always his
word against me, and when we were by ourselves, in the barn or the
fields, he rated me with such severity for my faults that my heart
could brook it no longer. He discovered some n