was now spiritually groping his way, in total and coal-black darkness. At length he slipped down the slimy bank--and his feet touched the river, which he now knew to be of blood. He grasped convulsively at the osiers to save himself from falling into that horrible stream: a huge serpent sprung from the thicket, and coiled itself about his arms and neck;--and at the same moment an enormous alligator rose from the river of blood, and seized him in the middle between its tremendous jaws. He uttered a fearful cry--and awoke. This dream made a deep impression upon him. He believed that he had experienced a foretaste of Hell--of that hell, with all its horrors, in which he would be doomed for ever and ever--without hope, without end. And yet, by a strange idiosyncrasy of conduct, he did not court the consolation of the clergyman: he breathed no prayer, gave no outward and visible sign of repentance: but continued in the same sullen state of reserve before noticed. Still, after that dream, he dreaded to seek his bed at night. He was afraid of sleep; for when he closed his eyes in slumber, visions of hell, varied in a thousand horrible ways, presented themselves to his mind. He never thought of his children: and once when the clergyman asked him if he would like to see them, he shook his head impatiently. Death! he shuddered at the idea--and yet he never sought to escape from its presence by conversation or books. He sate moodily brooding upon death and what would probably occur hereafter, until he conjured up to his imagination all the phantasmagorical displays of demons, spectres, and posthumous horrors ever conceived by human mind.