ther; yet I forced myself, and would look on still. But quickly
after, I began to think, 'How if one of the bells should fall?' Then I
chose to stand under a main beam, that lay overthwart the steeple, from
side to side, thinking here I might stand sure; but then I thought again,
should the bell fall with a swing, it might first hit the wall, and then,
rebounding upon me, might kill me for all this beam. This made me stand
in the steeple door; and now, thought I, I am safe enough; for if a bell
should then fall, I can slip out behind these thick walls, and so be
preserved notwithstanding.

"So after this I would yet go to see them ring, but would not go any
farther than the steeple-door. But then it came in my head, 'How if the
steeple itself should fall?' And this thought (it may, for aught I know,
when I stood and looked on) did continually so shake my mind, that I
durst not stand at the steeple-door any longer, but was forced to flee,
for fear the steeple should fall upon my head."

About this time, while wandering through Bedford in pursuit of
employment, he chanced to see three or four poor old women sitting at a
door, in the evening sun, and, drawing near them, heard them converse
upon the things of God; of His work in their hearts; of their natural
depravity; of the temptations of the Adversary; and of the joy of
believing, and of the peace of reconciliation. The words of the aged
women found a response in the soul of the listener. "He felt his heart
shake," to use his own words; he saw that he lacked the true tokens of a
Christian. He now forsook the company of the profane and licentious, and
sought that of a poor man who had the reputation of piety, but, to his
grief, he found him "a devilish ranter, given up to all manner of
uncleanness; he would laugh at all exhortations to sobriety, and deny
that there was a God, an angel, or a spirit."

"Neither," he continues, "was this man only a temptation to me, but, my
calling lying in the country, I happened to come into several people's
company, who, though strict in religion formerly, yet were also drawn
away by these ranters. These would also talk with me of their ways, and
condemn me as illegal and dark; pretending that they only had attained to
perfection, that they could do what they would, and not sin. Oh! these
temptations were suitable to my flesh, I being but a young man, and my
nature in its prime; but God, who had, as I hope, designed me for bett