this edifice of pride and worldly impiety. I turned over the leaves, read and laughed, read again and found the puerility at least poetical. The book left me no rest, I felt as it were attracted to it, it tortured me, and to my shame I was soon forced to confess to myself, that it contained connexion, strength, and spirit, that it instructed me, and that gardens, flowers, and trees of love bloomed, where I had only seen a waste desert. The presentiment seized me, that another God might rule the universe than he, whom in my enthusiastic views of nature, or in my poetical inspirations, I had been willing to discover, or to acknowledge in the vortex of frivolity.
"My mind much affected, after some weeks of anxiety and meditation, longed ardently to read the Holy Scriptures. None of my numerous acquaintances, even such as were book collectors, or who possessed extensive libraries, had this book in their households. I felt ashamed, that I too had never required it. From that time
