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and, instead of employing all our faculties in the acquisition of
what is good, make them the instruments of our degradation? There
are, doubtless, exceptions, but I confess they cannot apply to a
wretched individual like myself. There is no merit in thus being
dissatisfied with myself; when we see a lamp which emits more smoke
than flame, it requires no great sincerity to say that it does not
burn as it ought to do.

Yes, without any degradation, without any scruples of hypocrisy, and
viewing myself with perfect tranquillity of mind, I perceived that I
had merited the chastisement of my God. An internal monitor told me
that such chastisements were, for one fault or other, amply merited;
they assisted in winning me back to Him who is perfect, and whom
every human being, as far as their limited powers will admit, are
bound to imitate. By what right, while constrained to condemn
myself for innumerable offences and forgetfulness towards God, could
I complain, because some men appeared to me despicable, and others
wicked? What if I were deprived of all worldly advantages, and was
doomed to linger in prison, or to die a violent death? I sought to
impress upon my mind reflections like these, at once just and
applicable; and this done, I found it was necessary to be
consistent, and that it could be effected in no other manner than by
sanctifying the upright judgments of the Almighty, by loving them,
and eradicating every wish at all opposed to them. The better to
persevere in my intention, I determined, in future, carefully to
revolve in my mind all my opinions, by committing them to writing.
The difficulty was that the Commission, while permitting me to have
the use of ink and paper, counted out the leaves, with an express
prohibition that I should not destroy a single one, and reserving
the power of examining in what manner I had employed them. To
supply the want of paper, I had recourse to the simple stratagem of
smoothing with a piece of glass a rude table which I had, and upon
this I daily wrote my long meditations respecting the duties of
mankind, and especially of those which applied to myself. It is no
exaggeration to say that the hours so employed were sometimes
delightful to me, notwithstanding the difficulty of breathing I
experienced from the excessive heat, to say nothing of the bitterly
painful wounds, small though they were, of those poisonous gnats.
To defend myself from the countless numbers of these tormentors, I
was compelled, in the midst of suffocation, to wrap my head and my
legs in thick cloth, and not only write with gloves on, but to
bandage my wrist to prevent the intruders creeping up my sleeves.

Meditations like mine assumed somewhat of a biographical character.
I made out an account of all the good and the evil which had grown
up with me from my earliest youth, discussing them within myself,

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