dates I could make nothing: one-half, or two-thirds of my time, seemed
to me totally lost. I often, about this time, prayed with great
fervour, and lamented my hopeless condition, especially in being liable
to the commission of crimes which I was not sensible of and could not
eschew. And I confess, notwithstanding the promises on which I had been
taught to rely, I began to have secret terrors that the great enemy of
man's salvation was exercising powers over me that might eventually
lead to my ruin. These were but temporary and sinful fears, but they
added greatly to my unhappiness.
The worst thing of all was what hitherto I had never felt, and, as yet,
durst not confess to myself, that the presence of my illustrious and
devoted friend was becoming irksome to me. When I was by myself, I
breathed freer, and my step was lighter; but, when he approached, a
pang went to my heart, and, in his company, I moved and acted as if
under a load that I could hardly endure. What a state to be in! And yet
to shake him off was impossible--we were incorporated
together--identified with one another, as it were, and the power was
not in me to separate myself from him. I still knew nothing who he was,
further than that he was a potentate of some foreign land, bent on
establishing some pure and genuine doctrines of Christianity, hitherto
only half understood, and less than half exercised. Of this I could
have no doubts after all that he had said, done and suffered in the
cause. But, alongst with this, I was also certain that he was possessed
of some supernatural power, of the source of which I was wholly
ignorant. That a man could be a Christian and at the same time a
powerful necromancer, appeared inconsistent, and adverse to every
principle taught in our Church and from this I was led to believe that
he inherited his powers from on high, for I could not doubt either of
the soundness of his principles or that he accomplished things
impossible to account for. Thus was I sojourning in the midst of a
chaos of confusion. I looked back on my by-past life with pain, as one
looks back on a perilous journey, in which he has attained his end,
without gaining any advantage either to himself or others; and I looked
forward, as on a darksome waste, full of repulsive and terrific shapes,
pitfalls, and precipices, to which there was no definite bourn, and
from which I turned with disgust. With my riches, my unhappiness was
increased tenfold; and here, with another great acquisition of
property, for which I had pleaed, and which I had gained in a dream, my
miseries and difficulties were increasing. My principal feeling, about
this time, was an insatiable longing for something that I cannot
describe or denominate properly, unless I say it was for utter oblivion
that I longed. I desired to sleep; but it was for a deeper and longer
sleep than that in which the senses were nightly steeped. I longed to
be at rest and quiet, and close my eyes on the past and the future
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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