his imprecations, even against Heaven itself. On one occasion, when they had stormy weather, he had stamped upon the deck like a madman, roaring out to the devil to come and do his work. Who knows but that God, at that moment, would have punished this impious blasphemer, and precipitated his body to the bottom of the sea, and his soul into the gulf of hell, if it had not been for those two innocent children, in favor of whom he deferred his vengeance, and warned me in a dream what I should do.
James will confirm to you the truth of this most extraordinary incident. I am sure he can never forget his wonderful preservation. I would say to him, that I trust the grateful recollection of it may be of service to him through the whole course of his life. When he is tempted to sin against God, I would have him pause, and ask himself the question, whether it was to commit this sin, that God withdrew him so miraculously from the waves of the sea,
I now resume the thread of my story. About the time that I was deprived of the very great comfort of preaching the word of God to my countrymen in Cork, there was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, forbidding the exportation of any manufactured woollen goods from Ireland. This law broke up my manufactury entirely; for the broadcloth I made was much better suited for exportation than for home use. Cork had ceased to be an agreeable residence to me after the disputes in the Church; and though I remained there for some months, and I preached in English in a Presbyterian Church every Sunday, yet I had an unsettled feeling, and was all the time on the look-out for any thing that might turn up to suit me better.
I sometimes thought of buying a farm to live upon with
