When he returned to his work, I had an opportunity of conversing with him, and I learned from his own lips the cause of his attempt at suicide, and his bodily feelings under the effect of the medicine he so rashly took. He said that life had lost all its charms to him; he had lost the confidence and respect of mankind, and nothing awaited him but ignominy, and the keen rebuke of a guilty conscience, which he was unable to bear. He dreaded to die, but he dreaded _more_ to live. He had thought on the crime of suicide; he had thought also on the crimes of which he had _already_ been guilty; and his conclusion was that the door of mercy was closed against him. "A guilty conscience! despair of the mercy of heaven! these," said he, "kept me in awful dread of the pains of eternal death; and convinced that this _dread_ of hell was _worse_ than the suffering dreaded, I resolved to know the _worst_, and hang no longer on the rack of anticipated destruction." After taking the acid, he said that he had no distinct recollection of any thing till he began to recover. Then it seemed as if he was awaking from a long and dreadful sleep, and the only impression that he brought up with him, in respect to his sufferings, was, that his breast had been a sea of fire, rolling to and fro, as if vexed by a tremendous tempest. Under this sea of fire, he was fixed in motionless agony, and it was not until the last flaming billow had rolled over him, that he could move or know whether he was living or dead. The last time I had an opportunity of conversing with him, he told me that his views in respect to the mercy of God, were changed. "I now believe," said he, "that my Maker will have mercy on me, sinful as I am, and I mean to love him, and serve him, and '_wait_ all the days of my appointed time till my change come.'" And I was delighted to hear him speak, in the simplicity of his soul, of that great goodness of which he was the living and speaking monument; and to observe how scrupulously conscientious he was in all his words and actions. What his future life has been I know not, but I well remember his pleasing change of mind, and I could not help believing that it was the _goodness_ of God that led him to repentance.