horrence of sin as committed against him, were essential to true repentance, and were the very first steps in real religion.

I then stopped, and said to him, “I hope I make myself understood."

"Perfectly," replied the prisoner: "I know myself to be a sinner: we come into the world sinners."

This observation was made in a civil rather than a serious tone, and gave me little hope that he deeply felt the acknowledgment he so readily made.

I then went on to state to him the stupendous love of God to man in giving him a Saviour to deliver him from the wrath to come. I dwelt on the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ; and especially on his agony in the garden, and his ignominious and most bitter death on the cross. I then spoke of his person, his mediatorial character, and his atonement and satisfaction made to God for sin. "The way of mercy," I continued, " is thus opened. God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Pardon and justification are freely offered to every penitent; and the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit are promised to all that duly seek them, to enlighten, renew, and purify the heart. This being then the perilous state of man as a transgressor, and this the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, let me beseech you to

confess and forsake your sins, and seek humbly to God for salvation."

He said he wished to do this, and asked how these blessings of pardon and grace were to be obtained.

I confess, though this inquiry was not made with much earnestness, a hope did at the moment arise in my mind that some benefit would attend our interview.

"This is the very point," I instantly replied, "to which I beg your most earnest regard." He was evidently listening with attention, and I proceeded. "All the blessings of the Gospel are most freely proposed to every penitent. True contrition of soul for sin, and an humble faith in Jesus Christ, are the only dispositions of mind necessary for obtaining mercy; these dispositions proving themselves to be sincere, as they will certainly do, by every work meet for repentance. If you, like the repenting Prodigal, say, I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee; God will not reject your prayer. A broken and a contrite heart he will not despise."

I waited with anxiety for his answer. He replied, with a degree of indifference mingled with confidence, without the least shadow of real contrition, which at once disappointed the hope his question had excited, "I have con

fessed my sins before God, and I hope in his mercy."

"This merely cursory acknowledgment of sin," I replied, "is totally distinct from true repentance. The heart must be affected, the judgment convinced, the conscience alarmed, and the whole soul filled with sorrow and compunction. There must be a hungering and thirsting after salvation, from a deep and abiding sense of our guilt and condemnation. To imagine this general confession of sin, and this general trust in the mercy of God, to amount to Christian repentance and faith, is a gross and ruinous error. The Scripture speaks of an heart of stone being taken out of our flesh, and an heart of flesh being bestowed. There must be an entire change of heart, a new and spiritual life, a genuine and humble sorrow for every sin, before we can have the least hope that we are in the way of salvation.

The gentleman who accompanied me in my visit, here asked him, "Do you feel this earnest desire for grace and pardon, and this sense of your need of a Saviour, which has been pointed out to you?"

"I confess my sins," said the unhappy man, in the calm and unfeeling tone which he generally preserved; "but I cannot say I feel that sorrow you describe, nor that earnest hungering of mind after salvation."

VOL. II.

I then resumed the subject, and endeavoured urgently to impress on him the nature and importance of a broken state of heart; but perceiving him still to remain unmoved, I suddenly stopped the conversation, and, looking him seriously in the face, said, "I can go on no further. Till there be some impression on your heart, some relenting, some desire after a Saviour, some conviction of the need of religious contrition, all I can say will be in vain. Will you permit me, before I proceed, to implore that grace of the Holy Spirit which can alone soften and renew the human mind?"

He complied with great readiness, or rather civility; for his manner was mild, and not at all resembling the ferocity or coarseness of the ruffian; and gave an audible, though tame, assent, to most of the petitions I offered, saying, Amen," "God grant it!" or expressions to that purpose.

When the prayer was finished, I said, “ You see, the object I have been praying for is the very same which I have been endeavouring to urge you to seek; a contrite spirit, a deep apprehension of your totally wrong state of heart. Let me again press you most affectionately to enter on this important duty. Consider the all-seeing eye of God. He is now present in this cell. By him we breathe every instant. It is as vain as it is wicked, to attempt to de

ceive him. Before his eyes every thought of your breast is naked and open. No secret of your heart can escape his view. You may possibly give me a false impression of your character; but, remember, God is not mocked. And, O! what will be the misery you will endure, if you rush into his holy presence in an impenitent state! How unspeakably solemn is eternity! Never-ending duration! When millions of years have rolled by, this eternity will stretch itself infinitely beyond! Who can conceive the full horror of final perdition! Of being for ever shut out from the presence of God, excluded from all hope, filled with all the misery which infinite justice and infinite power can inflict; and that without alleviation! And how soon," continued I, my mind gradually adverting to his last most horrid crime, though I did not yet expressly refer to it, "will this overwhelming scene burst upon you! A few swift hours, and the curtain will be withdrawn, and the eye of God will dart the fierce blaze of truth through your trembling soul! Every vain excuse, and all your pretensions to repentance, will then vanish, as the passing cloud is dispersed by the meridian sun. You will then be made to see the justice of your final sentence; and eternal regret and self-reproach will succeed to the present moment of delusion and obduracy. Fly, then, ere it be too late, to the