itness_, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes
which he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror with
which the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his
description, with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of
punishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,
almost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,
imploring earnestness, which I shall never forget--"Well, sir, is there
any hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and promised
away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to the place?"

In answering him I had no easy task to perform; for however clear might
be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, 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 profligacy, 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 d