‘ [23] gnawing of the worm, the sight of devils, and the yells and outcries of the damned.’ His mind at this period was evidently shaken in some degree from its balance. He was troubled with strange, wicked thoughts, confused by doubts and blasphemous suggestions, for which he could only account by supposing himself possessed of the Devil. He wanted to curse and swear, and had to clap his hands on his mouth to prevent it. In prayer, he felt, as he supposed, Satan behind him, pulling his clothes, and telling him to have done, and break off; suggesting that he had better pray to him, and calling up before his mind's eye the figures of a bull, a tree, or some other object, instead of the awful idea of God. He notes here, as cause of thankfulness, that, even in this dark and clouded state, he was enabled to see the ‘vile and abominable things fomented by the Quakers,
’ to be errors. Gradually, the shadow wherein he had so long
Walked beneath the day's broad glare,passed from him, and for a season he was afforded an ‘evidence of his salvation from Heaven, with many golden seals thereon hanging in his sight.’ But, ere long, other temptations assailed him. A strange suggestion haunted him, to sell or part with his Saviour. His own account of this hallucination is too painfully vivid to awaken any other feeling than that of sympathy and sadness.
A darkened man,
I could neither eat my food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine eye to look on this or that, but still the temptation would come, Sell
