-"Why, sir," said
he, "she will tell me it cannot be true that this God I shall tell her of
can be just, or can punish or reward, since I am not punished and sent to
the devil, that have been such a wicked creature as she knows I have
been, even to her, and to everybody else; and that I should be suffered
to live, that have been always acting so contrary to what I must tell her
is good, and to what I ought to have done."--"Why, truly, Atkins," said
I, "I am afraid thou speakest too much truth;" and with that I informed
the clergyman of what Atkins had said, for he was impatient to know.
"Oh," said the priest, "tell him there is one thing will make him the
best minister in the world to his wife, and that is repentance; for none
teach repentance like true penitents. He wants nothing but to repent,
and then he will be so much the better qualified to instruct his wife; he
will then be able to tell her that there is not only a God, and that He
is the just rewarder of good and evil, but that He is a merciful Being,
and with infinite goodness and long-suffering forbears to punish those
that offend; waiting to be gracious, and willing not the death of a
sinner, but rather that he should return and live; and even reserves
damnation to the general day of retribution; that it is a clear evidence
of God and of a future state that righteous men receive not their reward,
or wicked men their punishment, till they come into another world; and
this will lead him to teach his wife the doctrine of the resurrection and
of the last judgment. Let him but repent himself, he will be an
excellent preacher of repentance to his wife."

I repeated all this to Atkins, who looked very serious all the while,
and, as we could easily perceive, was more than ordinarily affected with
it; when being eager, and hardly suffering me to make an end, "I know all
this, master," says he, "and a great deal more; but I have not the
impudence to talk thus to my wife, when God and my conscience know, and
my wife will be an undeniable evidence against me, that I have lived as
if I had never heard of a God or future state, or anything about it; and
to talk of my repenting, alas!" (and with that he fetched a deep sigh,
and I could see that the tears stood in his eyes) "'tis past all that
with me."--"Past it, Atkins?" said I: "what dost thou mean by that?"--"I
know well enough what I mean," says he; "I mean 'tis too late, and that
is too true."

I told the clergyman,