Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/142

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to a sense of my extreme folly in living thus unknowing and unknown. Had my illness continued a few days longer I must have perished from actual want; but it pleased Heaven to restore me to some degree of strength; with difficulty I crawled to this Monastery, as it was much nearer than the village. A worthy Friar, long since dead, relieved my necessities, and by his kindness unlocked my heart. He sympathized with me when he heard my tale, and that sympathy gave an energy to every office of humanity that endeared him to me, and rendered his conversation a balm to heal those wounds long rankling within, and which had been productive of the most hateful passions.

"In a very short time I felt no happiness but in his society, and mistaking the nature of my emotions, I conceived that in this retirement, to which I had once such an insuperable aversion, I should find that peace and comfort the world had denied to me.—I made application here, and was soon ad-