OR THE DESERT ISLAND. 95

cisive moment the fear of God’s judgments, which had
hitherto been forgotten, overwhelmed him with the most
terrific apprehensions.

He recalled to mind his numberless transgressions, the
enormity of his sins; and had all the riches and dignities
and empires of the world been at his disposal, freely would
he have given them in exchange for a few more hours to
live—hours that for somany years he had squandered and
abused as if his Creator had fixed no term to his earthly
pilgrimage. His pride, his haughtiness, his implacable
resentments, and more especially the cruel and unjusti-
fiable persecutions to which his capricious hatred had sub-
jected the innocent Merville, were now weighing most
heavily upon his conscience: earnestly did he desire to
revoke the past—but this was impossible ; of the future he
almost despaired. The present moment was all he could
dispose of; and most diligently ought he to have em-
ployed it in seeking reconciliation with his God.

But, alas! the violence of his fever had disordered his
senses ; and although he was conscious of the necessity of
repentance, his troubled memory could not enable him to
frame or recite the shortest supplication. He knew that
he was on the threshold of eternity, and yet minute after
minute was rapidly passing and leaving his thoughts the