The greater part of persons who have had much experience in visiting the dying sick, or condemned criminals, have, in general, little confidence in a repentance which only springs up under the apprehension of immediate death, whatever flights of sentiment may be exhibited. They have seen in the backsliding of men who promised every thing in the time of sickness, how vain, generally speaking, are the convictions of their sincerity. In the greater part of these cases, there is a want of completeness in the work of repentance and faith, which the experienced pastoral visitor is often able to detect; too little of real contrition, or too much of profession and confidence. But in the case in question, those who visited Jolin confess themselves to have been impressed, as they might conceive the spectators to be affected by the case of the thief on the cross. One and all were led to say, “this is the finger of God.” Under such circumstances, it cannot surely be wrong to gather together a few particulars of this history, which will be interesting to those, at least, who have experienced the power of divine grace in their own change of heart, and who rejoice in every display of it in the sinner that repenteth. Jolin appears in early life to have been sent to school, although he said, that such had been the irregularity of his father’s house, and such the hindrances thrown in his way, that he had been more impeded than encouraged by his parents, in any attempt to attend upon the public means of religious instruction. How tremendous is the responsibility of such a father and mother; culpable in their neglect, but awfully so in their example! And what a case is here presented of the retributive justice of God! The father trained his child in habits of intoxication, and treated him with cruel violence; and the son, in a fit of intoxication, by an act of violence, hurried his father headlong to the bar of God’s judgment. We are not able, often, so clearly to trace the workings of Almighty wrath; nor is it to be expected, that, placed as we are in a state in which we must look for our rewards or punishments beyond the grave, we should here see any proportionate recompense of crime. Still we know, that “as a man sows so he shall also reap,” if not in this world, to bring him to repentance, yet certainly, and how much more awfully! in that world where a place for repentance is no where found.