slaves;
and have appeared from that very hour the votaries, the patrons, the
champions of religion; and after a course of the most resolute
attachment to it, in spite of all the reasonings or the railleries, the
importunities or the reproaches of its enemies, they have continued to
this day some of its brightest ornaments; a change which I behold with
equal wonder and delight, and which, if a nation should join in deriding
it, I would adore as the finger of God."

The mind of Major Gardiner continued from this remarkable time, till
towards the end of October, (that is rather more than three months, but
especially the first two of them,) in as extraordinary a situation as one
can well imagine. He knew nothing of the joys arising from a sense of
pardon; but, on the contrary, for the greater part of that time, and with
very short intervals of hope towards the end of it, took it for granted
that he must in all probability quickly perish. Nevertheless, he had such
a sense of the evil of sin, of the goodness of the Divine Being, and of
the admirable tendency of the Christian revelation, that he resolved to
spend the remainder of his life, while God continued him out of hell, in
as rational and as useful a manner as he could; and to continue casting
himself at the foot of divine mercy every day, and often in a day, if
peradventure there might be hope of pardon, of which all that he could
say was, that he did not absolutely despair. He had at that time such a
sense of the degeneracy of his own heart, that he hardly durst form any
determinate resolution against sin, or pretend to engage himself by any
vow in the presence of God; but he was continually crying to him, that he
would deliver him from the bondage of corruption. He perceived in himself
a most surprising alteration with regard to the dispositions of his
heart; so that, though he felt little of the delight of religious duties,
he extremely desired opportunities of being engaged in them; and
those licentious pleasures which had before been his heaven, were now
absolutely his aversion. And indeed, when I consider how habitual all
those criminal indulgences were grown to him, and that he was now in the
prime of life, and all this while in high health too, I cannot but
be astonished to reflect upon it, that he should be so wonderfully
sanctified in body, as well as in soul and spirit, as that, for all the
future years of his life, he from that hour should find so constant a