mained; it was a mournful expedient. I will not delineate. I pause; I throw a veil over many revolving months; let it suffice to say, my purpose was gained, my debts were paid, my pecuniary circumstances easy; but this was all. How mysterious are the ways of heaven! how many torturing scenes I have passed through! But, blessed be God, I have passed through them. Thanks be to the Father of mercies, they can no more be reiterated: My newly acquired competency possessed no charms for me; I derived no satisfaction from any thing around me. In fact, I had nothing in prospect, and hope seemed to have expired in my bosom.
CHAPTER V.
Death's sable pall o'er all my pleasures thrown,
My native isle to me a desert grown;
Sad and forlorn, to the new world I fled,
Amid its wilds to shield my widowed head.
HAVING, as has been described, laid the companion of my youth, the wife of my bosom, in the grave; my spirit still hovered round her tomb. It has been seen, that my life seemed devoted to misery; that I wept at all times, except when I turned my attention to that bright world, upon which, I imagined, I was verging; that I wished the act of putting a period to a weary life had ranked among the Christian virtues; that I never more passionately longed for any good, than for the period, which was to put an end to my existence; that I had but few acquaintance, that I wished not to form new connexions; that I was sick of the world, and all which it could bestow; that the retirement of my lonely dwelling was most acceptable to me; that I abhorred the thought of expecting any thing like happiness in this world; and, that I thus passed weeks and months, verily believing, that I should thus finish days, which, I cherished a soothing hope, would soon be numbered.
Through those sad scenes of sorrow, to which I was condemned, I had one friend, one earthly friend, from whom I derived real consolation. This friend was Mr. James Relly, the man who had been made
