ocents
cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment I left the godly
man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way I went.

CHAPTER LVII

A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold;
but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all
wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a
cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of
some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of
thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect
of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the
fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the
moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that
hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning
women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like
palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.

The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.--I began to
reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the
succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of
the eloquent orator can express.--I stopped to collect my reason and my
thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that
drifts in the tempestuous air.--I considered, that I knew not a footstep
of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the
precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very
object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within
me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh
shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean
when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five
miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious
dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby
enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful
in that woful time.

But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the
fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter
grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The
mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up,
and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in
my veins not more benumbed in its co