the groundlessness of his tears,
and however strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had
described, I nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and
his humility and terror resulting from it, might be made available as
no mean engines in the work of his conversion from prodigacy, and of his
restoration to decent habits, and to religious feeling.

I therefore told him that he was to regard his dream rather in the light
of a warning than in that of a prophecy; that our salvation depended not
upon the word or deed of a moment, but upon the habits of a life; that,
in fine, if he at once discarded his idle companions and evil habits,
and firmly adhered to a sober, industrious, and religious course of
life, the powers of darkness might claim his soul in vain, for that
there were higher and firmer pledges than human tongue could utter,
which promised salvation to him who should repent and lead a new life.

I left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the next
day. I did so, and found him much more cheerful and without any remains
of the dogged sullenness which I suppose had arisen from his despair.
His promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberate
earnestness, which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it was
with no small delight that I observed, after repeated visits, that his
good resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time;
and when I saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions,
whose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, and
revive his long discarded habits of industry and sobriety, I said within
myself, there is something more in all this than the operation of an
idle dream.

One day, sometime after his perfect restoration to health, I was
surprised on ascending the stairs, for the purpose of visiting this
man, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the
landing-place, through which, at the commencement of his mysterious
vision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. I perceived at once that he
was strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against such
a catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as I bid 'God bless
his work.'

He perceived my thoughts, I suppose, for he immediately said:

'I can never pass over that floor without trembling. I'd leave this
house if I could, but I can't find another lodging in the town so cheap,
and I'll not take a better t