At this I tried to recall a few good words such as my father used, and at length, after much beating of the wings of my memory, I remembered some that were the words of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and did betake myself to prayer in this manner: "O most gracious God, I tremble to come into Thy presence, so polluted and dishonored as I am by my foul stain of sin which I have contracted; but I must come or I perish. I am useless to any purposes of God and man, and, like one that is dead, unconcerned in the changes and necessities of the world, living only to spend my time, and, like a vermin, eat of the fruits of the earth. O my God, I can not help it now; miserable man that I am, to reduce myself to so sad a state that I neither am worthy to come to Thee nor dare I stay from Thee. The greatness of my crime brings me to my remedy; and now I humbly pray Thee to be merciful to my sin, for it is great." And this prayer I spoke aloud twice daily thenceforward, at the rising and the setting of the sun, going out of my house and kneeling on the turf on the top of the Black Head. And when I had prayed I sang what I could remember of the psalm that runs, "It is good for me that I have been in trouble, that I may learn Thy statutes." In my mind's eye I see myself, a solitary man in that lone place, with the sea stretching wide below me, and only the sound of its heavy beat on the rocks rising over me in the quiet air. CHAPTER XLII OF THE BREAKING OF THE CURSE Thus far have I written these four days past, amid pain and the quick lessening of the powers of life. In sleepless hours of the night I have made this writing, sitting oftenest by the light of my feeble candles until the day has been blue over the sea. And now that I glance back and see my own heart in the mirror I have made for it, I am like to one who has been brought through a fearsome sickness, that has left its marks upon him, to look for the first time at his altered face in the glass. And can it be that I, who have penned these words, am the man of seven years ago? Ah, now I see how profound has been the change that my great punishment has made in me, and perceive the end of God in refusing my poor atonement of life for life, and cutting me off from among men. I will not say that what I have already written has not cost me some pangs, and perhaps some tears. But now I am come to that place where I must tell of the great turning-point in my sad state, and though the strength fails me wherewith I hold the pen to write of it, my spirit rises before it like as the lark awakened by the dawn.