mind, a continual meditating on it, and on all other good things which at that time I heard or read of.
422. By these things my mind was so turned that it lay, like a horse-leech at the vein, still crying out, "Give, give" (Prov. xxx. 15); which was so fixed on eternity, and on the things about the kingdom of heaven (that is, so far as I knew, though as yet, God knows, I knew but little), that neither pleasures nor profits, nor persuasions nor threats, could make it let go its hold. And though I speak it with shame, yet it is a certain truth it would then have been as difficult for me to have taken my mind from heaven to earth as I have found it often since to get it again from earth to heaven.
43. One thing I may not omit. There was a young man in our town to whom my heart before was knit more than to any other; but he being a most wicked creature for cursing and swearing and whoring, I now shook him off, and forsook his company. But about a quarter of a year after I had left him I met him in a certain lane, and asked him how he did. He, after his old swearing and mad way, answered he was well. "But, Harry," said I, "why do you curse and swear thus? What will become of you if you die in this condition?" He answered me in a great chafe, "What would the devil defer company if it were not for such as I am?"
44. (About this time I met with some ranters' books which were highly in esteem by several old professors. Some of these I read, but was not able to make any judgment about them; wherefore, as I read in them and thought upon them, seeing myself unable to judge, I would betake myself to hearty, prayer this manner: "O Lord, I am a fool, and not able to know the truth from error. Lord, leave me not in my own blindness, either to approve or condemn this doctrine. If it be of God, let me despise it; if it be of the devil, let me not embrace it. Lord, I lay my soul in this matter only at thy feet; let me not be deceived, I humbly beseech thee." I had one religious intimate companion all this while, and
