down, Christ raised him up." "His life hung in doubt,
not knowing which way he should tip." More sensible evidence came. "One
day," he tells us, "as I walked to and fro in a good man's shop"--we can
hardly be wrong in placing it in Bedford--"bemoaning myself for this hard
hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing
that I should not be pardoned, and ready to sink with fear, suddenly
there was as if there had rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon
me, but very pleasant, and I heard a voice speaking, 'Did'st ever refuse
to be justified by the Blood of Christ?'" Whether the voice were
supernatural or not, he was not, "in twenty years' time," able to
determine. At the time he thought it was. It was "as if an angel had
come upon me." "It commanded a great calm upon me. It persuaded me
there might be hope." But this persuasion soon vanished. "In three or
four days I began to despair again." He found it harder than ever to
pray. The devil urged that God was weary of him; had been weary for
years past; that he wanted to get rid of him and his "bawlings in his
ears," and therefore He had let him commit this particular sin that he
might be cut off altogether. For such an one to pray was but to add sin
to sin. There was no hope for him. Christ might indeed pity him and
wish to help him; but He could not, for this sin was unpardonable. He
had said "let Him go if He will," and He had taken him at his word.
"Then," he says, "I was always sinking whatever I did think or do." Years
afterwards he remembered how, in this time of hopelessness, having walked
one day, to a neighbouring town, wearied out with his misery, he sat down
on a settle in the street to ponder over his fearful state. As he looked
up, everything he saw seemed banded together for the destruction of so
vile a sinner. The "sun grudged him its light, the very stones in the
streets and the tiles on the house-roofs seemed to bend themselves
against him." He burst forth with a grievous sigh, "How can God comfort
such a wretch as I?" Comfort was nearer than he imagined. "No sooner
had I said it, but this returned to me, as an echo doth answer a voice,
'This sin is not unto death.'" This breathed fresh life into his soul.
He was "as if he had been raised out of a grave." "It was a release to
me from my former bonds, a shelter from my former storm." But though the
storm was allayed it was by no means over. He had to strug