dom come on shore
here, and I came now only to call on my wife and hear how my family do,
and give them a little money, which I received last night.'

'Poor man!' said I; 'and how much hast thou gotten for them?'

'I have gotten four shillings,' said he, 'which is a great sum, as
things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too,
and a salt fish and some flesh; so all helps out.' 'Well,' said I, 'and
have you given it them yet?'

'No,' said he; 'but I have called, and my wife has answered that she
cannot come out yet, but in half-an-hour she hopes to come, and I am
waiting for her. Poor woman!' says he, 'she is brought sadly down. She
has a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover; but I fear
the child will die, but it is the Lord--'

Here he stopped, and wept very much.

'Well, honest friend,' said I, 'thou hast a sure Comforter, if thou hast
brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; He is dealing with us
all in judgement.'

'Oh, sir!' says he, 'it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared, and
who am I to repine!'

'Sayest thou so?' said I, 'and how much less is my faith than thine?'
And here my heart smote me, suggesting how much better this poor man's
foundation was on which he stayed in the danger than mine; that he had
nowhere to fly; that he had a family to bind him to attendance, which
I had not; and mine was mere presumption, his a true dependence and a
courage resting on God; and yet that he used all possible caution for
his safety.

I turned a little way from the man while these thoughts engaged me, for,
indeed, I could no more refrain from tears than he.

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the door and
called, 'Robert, Robert'. He answered, and bid her stay a few moments
and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs to his boat and
fetched up a sack, in which was the provisions he had brought from the
ships; and when he returned he hallooed again. Then he went to the
great stone which he showed me and emptied the sack, and laid all out,
everything by themselves, and then retired; and his wife came with a
little boy to fetch them away, and called and said such a captain had
sent such a thing, and such a captain such a thing, and at the end adds,
'God has sent it all; give thanks to Him.' When the poor woman had taken
up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at once in, though the
weight was not much neither; so she left