s, and actions, and all his most secret
practices, intentions, and inclinations. See him meditating also on
his numberless omissions, taking the law of God for his rule, and
beginning now, for the first time, to discover what manner of person
he has been. How does he stand amazed at his own former stupidity and
blindness and hardness of heart, and how astonished also at the
patience of God, which has so long borne with him.

And now his heart relents, the tears of penitential sorrow begin to
flow; the lion also is changed into a lamb, and the same person who
before might have been compared to the woman in the gospel, "out of
whom there went seven devils," or to "Saul breathing out threatenings
and slaughter," may now be likened to the Magdalen weeping at the feet
of Jesus, or to Paul trembling and astonished, and crying out, as he
lay on the ground, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" or to the
same Paul, when it was afterwards said of him, "Behold, he prayeth."
With trembling limbs, and with a body bowed down with age, behold then
this repenting sinner walking to that public worship which he had so
long neglected; with weak and failing eyes he opens the scripture; at
the age of seventy he begins to inquire with childlike simplicity into
the nature of the gospel, and knowing how short his time is, he makes
haste to obey it.

And now, perhaps his old companions deride him; for as he once sneered
at others who were religious, and called them all hypocrites, so is he
now sneered at, and called a hypocrite in his turn: he becomes the
scoff of the drunkard and the merry jest of the profane, and they that
"sit in the gate make songs of him." Now also the very sins of his
youth, which had been scarcely mentioned before, are brought forward
by his former favorites and friends as present evidence against him;
his crimes are even aggravated, and are all blazed abroad; but it is
one proof of his sincerity, that even these cutting reproaches do not
shake him from his purpose, nor induce him to turn back to his old
companions. No, they may laugh, they may smile at what they call his
pretended sanctity, but in truth he is no hypocrite.

"The tear
That drops upon his Bible is sincere."

He is disposed to doubt, indeed, for a time, his own sincerity; for
his guilt is so great, and the blessings of the gospel, including as
they do the gift of eternal life, appear so large in his eyes, that
he cannot at once ra