had
been neglected, and that I had been diverted from the worship of God by
attending to the quibbles and dogmas of this singular and unaccountable
being, who seemed to have more knowledge and information than all the
persons I had ever known put together.

We parted with expressions of mutual regret, and when I left him I felt
a deliverance, but at the same time a certain consciousness that I was
not thus to get free of him, but that he was like to be an acquaintance
that was to stick to me for good or for evil. I was astonished at his
acuteness and knowledge about everything; but, as for his likeness to
me, that was quite unaccountable. He was the same person in every
respect, but yet he was not always so; for I observed several times,
when we were speaking of certain divines and their tenets, that his
face assumed something of the appearance of theirs; and it struck me
that, by setting his features to the mould of other people's, he
entered at once into their conceptions and feelings. I had been greatly
flattered, and greatly interested by his conversation; whether I had
been the better for it or the worse, I could not tell. I had been
diverted from returning thanks to my gracious Maker for his great
kindness to me, and came home as I went away, but not with the same
buoyancy and lightness of heart. Well may I remember the day in which
I was first received into the number, and made an heir to all the
privileges of the children of God, and on which I first met this
mysterious associate, who from that day forth contrived to wind himself
into all my affairs, both spiritual and temporal, to this day on which
I am writing the account of it. It was on the 25th day of March, 1704,
when I had just entered the eighteenth year of my age. Whether it
behoves me to bless God for the events of that day, or to deplore them,
has been hid from my discernment, though I have inquired into it with
fear and trembling; and I have now lost all hopes of ever discovering
the true import of these events until that day when my accounts are to
make up and reckon for in another world.

When I came home, I went straight into the parlour, where my mother was
sitting by herself. She started to her feet, and uttered a smothered
scream. "What ails you, Robert?" cried she. "My dear son, what is the
matter with you?"

"Do you see anything the matter with me?" said I. "It appears that the
ailment is with yourself and either in your crazed head or y