146 BETTER IN MIND AND BODY.

saved lay there too, I took out one of the Bibles which I men
tioned before, and which to this time I had not found leisure, 01
so much as inclination to look into—I say, I took it out, and
brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table.

What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distem-
per, or whether it was good for it or no; but I tried several
experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or
other. I first took a picce of a leaf and chewed it in my mouth,
which indeed at first almost stupified my brain, the tobacco being
green and strong and that I had not been much used to it; then
I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum, and
resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down; and lastly, I burned
some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close over the smoke
of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat as almost for
suffocation.

Jn the interval of this operation, I took up the Bible and began
to read; but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to
bear reading, at least that time. Only, having opened the book
casually, the first words that occurred to me were these, ‘“ Call
upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt
glorify me.”

The words were very apt to my case, and made some impres-
sion upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not
so much as they did afterwards; for, as for being delivered, the
word had no sound, as I may say, to me; the thing was so remote,
so impossible in my apprehension of things, that I began to say as
the children of Israel did, when they were promised flesh to eat,
‘“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” so I began to sav,
Can God himself deliver me from this place? and as it was not for
many years that any hope appeared, this prevailed very often upon
my thoughts; but, however, the words made a great impression
upon me, and I mused upon them very often. It grew now late,
and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head so much that I in-
clined to sleep; so I left my lamp burning in the cave lest I
should want anything in the night, and went to bed: but, before
I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life—I kneeled
down and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called