to converse with me,
and I could fully inform him on that subject. William resolved to
converse with me at a future period, but having heard some of his
relations speak rather disrespectfully of me, he was in no hurry.
At length my prison door was unlocked, and I was conducted to his
bed-room.

[Illustration: HISTORY OF A BIBLE.]

My first salutation struck William. In the beginning, said I, God made
the heavens and the earth; and then proceeded to make man, whom he
placed in a garden, with permission to eat of every tree that was in
it, except one. I then related the history of Adam, the first man:
how he was urged and prevailed upon by the devil not to mind God's
prohibition, but to eat of the forbidden tree; and how by this
abominable act he had plunged himself and posterity into misery.
William not relishing this conversation, closed my mouth, desiring me
to say no more at that time.

A few days afterwards he allowed me to talk of the wickedness of
the old world: how God sent Noah to reprove their iniquity, and to
threaten the destruction of the whole world, if they did not repent
and turn to the Lord; that the world were deaf to his remonstrances;
and that God at last desired Noah to build an ark of wood, such as
would contain himself and family; for he was soon to destroy the
inhabitants of the earth by a deluge of water. This conversation was
rather more relished than the former.

The next opportunity, I gave him a history of the ancient patriarchs,
showing the simplicity, integrity, and holiness of their lives,
extolling their faith in God, and promptness in obeying all his
commandments. William became much more thoughtful than I had seen him
upon any former occasion. What I told him he generally related to his
friends at table. Their conversation was now more manly and rational;
formerly they conversed only about horses, hounds, dress, &c. now
about the history of the world, its creation, the remarkable men
who had lived in it, the different changes which had taken place in
empires, kingdoms, &c.

He was wonderfully taken with the account I gave of that nation whom
God had chosen for his own people, viz. the Jews. I told him how
wonderfully God had delivered them from captivity in Egypt; how he
drowned in the Red Sea an army of Egyptians, with their king at their
head, who were pursuing the Jews. But when I told him of the holy law
of God, and expatiated a little upon it, he shrugged up his shoulders
an