grief that he had not a Bible.]
WIFE. – But how you makee me know that God teachee them to write
that book?
W.A. – By the same rule that we know Him to be God.
WIFE. – What rule? What way you know Him?
W.A. – Because He teaches and commands nothing but what is good,
righteous, and holy, and tends to make us perfectly good, as well
as perfectly happy; and because He forbids and commands us to avoid
all that is wicked, that is evil in itself, or evil in its
consequence.
WIFE. – That me would understand, that me fain see; if He teachee
all good thing, He makee all good thing, He give all thing, He hear
me when I say O to Him, as you do just now; He makee me good if I
wish to be good; He spare me, no makee kill me, when I no be good:
all this you say He do, yet He be great God; me take, think,
believe Him to be great God; me say O to Him with you, my dear.
Here the poor man could forbear no longer, but raised her up, made
her kneel by him, and he prayed to God aloud to instruct her in the
knowledge of Himself, by His Spirit; and that by some good
providence, if possible, she might, some time or other, come to
have a Bible, that she might read the word of God, and be taught by
it to know Him. This was the time that we saw him lift her up by
the hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as above.
They had several other discourses, it seems, after this; and
particularly she made him promise that, since he confessed his own
life had been a wicked, abominable course of provocations against
God, that he would reform it, and not make God angry any more, lest
He should make him dead, as she called it, and then she would be
left alone, and never be taught to know this God better; and lest
he should be miserable, as he had told her wicked men would be
after death.
This was a strange account, and very affecting to us both, but
particularly to the young clergyman; he was, indeed, wonderfully
surprised with it, but under the greatest affliction imaginable
that he could not talk to her, that he could not speak English to
make her understand him; and as she spoke but very broken English,
he could not understand her; however, he turned himself to me, and
told me that he believed that there must be more to do with this
woman than to marry her. I did not understand him at first; but at
length he explained himself, viz. that she ought to be baptized. I
agreed with him in that part readily, and wished it to be done
presently. “No, no; hold, sir,” says he; “though I would have her
be baptized, by all means, for I must observe that Will Atkins, her
husband, has indeed brought her, in a wonderful manner, to be
willing to embrace a religious life, and has given her just ideas
of the being of a God; of His power, justice, and mercy: yet I
desire to know of him if he has said anything to her of Jesus
Christ, and of the salvation of sinners; of the nature of faith in
Him, and redemption by Him; of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection,
the last judgment, and the future state.”
I called Will Atkins again, and asked him; but the poor fellow fell
immediately into tears, and told us he had said something to her of
all those things, but that he was himself so wicked a creature, and
his own conscience so reproached him with his horrid, ungodly life,
that he trembled at the apprehensions that her knowledge of him
should lessen the attention she should give to those things, and
make her rather contemn religion than receive it; but he was
assured, he said, that her mind was so disposed to receive due
impressions of all those things, and that if I would but discourse
with her, she would make it appear to my satisfaction that my