480 ATKINS AND HIS REPENTANCE,

while, and who, we could easily perceive, was more than ordinarily
affected with it; —when being eager, and hardly suffering me to
make an end, “ T know all this, master,” says he, ‘and a great deal
more; but I han’t the impudence to talk thus to my wife, when
tod and my own conscience knows, and my wife will be an un-
deniable evidence against me, that I have lived as I had never
heard of a God or future state, or anything about it. And to talk
of my repenting—alas |’ (and with that he fetched a deep sigh,
and T could see that tears stood in his eyes) “tis past all that
with me.” “ Past it, Atkins!” said [; “what dost thou mean
by that?” “1 know well enough what [ mean,” says he; “T
mean ’tis too late, and that is too true.”

T told my clergyman word for word what he said. The poor
zealous priest (I must call him so; for, be his opinion what it will,
he had certainly a most singular affection for the good of other
men’s souls; and it would be hard to think he had not the like for
his own)—T say, this zealous affectionate man could not refrain
tears also. But recovering himself, he said to me, ‘Ask him but
one question—Is he easy that it is too late, or is he troubled and
wishes it were not so?’’ T put the question fairly to Atkins, and
he answered with a great deal of passion, “ How could any man be
easy ina condition that certainly must end in eternal destruction ?
—that he was far from being easy, but that, on the contrary, he
believed it would one time or other ruin him.”

“What do you mean by that?” said I. Why, he said, he
believed he should, one time or other, cut his throat to put an end
to the terror of it.

The clergyman shook his head with a great concern in his face
when I told him all this. But turning quick to me upon it, says
he, “If that be his case, you may assure him that it is not too
late; Christ will give him repentance. But pray,” says he, “ ex-
plain this to him, that as no man is saved but by Christ and the
merits of his passion procuring divine mercy for him, how can it
be too late for any man to receive mercy? Does he think he is
able to sin beyond the power or reach of divine mercy? Pray tell
him there may be a time when provoked mercy will no longer
strive, and when God will refuse to hear, but that ’tis never too late