In this view it may naturally be inferred, that he passed the remainder of the night waking; and he could get but little rest in several that followed. His mind was continually taken up in reflecting on the divine purity and goodness; the grace which had been proposed to him in the gospel, and which he had rejected; the singular advantages he had enjoyed and abused; and the many favours of providence he had received; particularly in rescuing him from so many imminent dangers of death; which he now saw must have been attended with such dreadful and hopeless destruction. The privileges of his education, which, he had so much despised, lay with an almost insupportable weight on his mind; and the folly of that career of sinful pleasure, which he had so many years been running with desperate eagerness, filled him with indignation against himself, and against the great deceiver, by whom (to use his own phrase) he had been “so wretchedly and scandalously befooled.” The mind of major Gardiner continued from this remarkable time, rather more than three months, (but especially the two first of them,) in as extraordinary a situation as one can well imagine. He knew nothing of the joys arising from a sense of pardon; but, on the contrary, for the greater part of that time, and with very short intervals of hope towards the end of it, took it for granted, that he must, in all probability, quickly perish. Nevertheless, he had such a sense of the evil of sin, the goodness of the Divine Being, and of the admirable tendency of the Christian Revelation, that he resolved to spend the remainder of his life, while God continued him out of hell, in as rational and useful a manner as he could; and to continue casting himself at the feet of Divine Mercy every day, and _often_ in a day, if peradventure there might be hope of pardon, of which all that he could say was, that he did not absolutely despair. He had at that time such a sense of the degeneracy of his own heart, that he hardly durst form any determinate resolution against sin, or pretend to engage himself by any vow in the presence of God; but was continually crying to him, that he would deliver him from the bondage of corruption. He perceived within himself a most surprising alteration with regard to the dispositions of his heart; so that though he felt little of the delight of religious duties, he extremely desired opportunities of being engaged in them; and those licentious pleasures, which had before been his heaven, were now absolutely his aversion; and he was grieved to see human nature, even in those to whom he was a stranger, prostituted to such low and contemptible pursuits. He therefore exerted his natural courage in a new kind of combat, and became an open advocate for religion, in all its principles, so far as he was acquainted with them, and all its precepts, relating to sobriety, righteousness, and godliness. Yet he was very desirous and cautious,