QUESTIONING ONE'S OWN HEART. 145

Tf so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works, either
without his knowledge or appointment.

And if nothing happens without his knowledge, he knows that
I am here, and am in this dreadful condition; and if nothing
happens without his appointment, he has appointed all this to
befall me.

Nothing occurred to my thoughts to contradict any of these con-
clusions; and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force,
that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to befall me;
that I was brought to this miserable circumstance by his direction,
he having the sole power, not of me only, but of everything that
happened in the world. Jhamediately it followed,—

Why has God done this to me? What have [ done to be thus
used ?

My conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had
blasphemed, and methought it spoke to me like a voice: Wretch !
dost thou ask what thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful
mis-spent life, and ask thyself what thou hast not done! Ask,
Why is it that thou wert not long ago destroyed? Why wert
thou not drowned in Yarmouth Roads? killed in the fight when
the ship was taken by the Sallee man-of-war? devoured by the
wild beasts on the coast of Africa? or, drowned here, when all the
crew perished but thyself? Dost thou ask, What have I done?

I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and
had not a word to say—no, not to answer to myself; but rose up
pensive and sad, walked back to my retreat, and went up over my
wall, as if I had been going to bed; but my thoughts were sadly
disturbed, and I had no inclination to sleep; so I sat down in my
chair, and lighted my lamp, for it began to be dark. Now as the
apprehension of the return of my distemper terrified me very much,
it occurred to my thought that the Brazilians take no physic but
their tobacco for almost all distempers; and I had a piece of a roll
of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some
also that was green and not quite cured.

J went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found
a cure both for soul and body. I opened the chest and found
what I looked for, namely, the tobacco; and as the few books I had