26 Young Man in Prison. [VOL. 4 when I recollected the expectations rific wildness that compelled me, for a which his youthful promise had raised moment, to turn away my eyes. I in all his relatives-when, too, the ex- could not bear to contemplate the cellent education which he had receiv- shocking image of suicide. He strug⚫ ed, and the talents which it had unfold- gled with the attendants to get his hands ed, occurred to me; and when I con- loose, that he might prevent the surtemplated the sad and piteous reverse geon from sewing up the wounded of all this which he now exhibited, I parts: this caused the blood to gush could not avoid regarding him as a afresh; at length, however, he sunk dreadful example of that subjugation fainting into that gentleman's arms, to evil, by which a youth, who discards who requested me to withdraw for a all restraints of pious and moral in- few moments, until he should adminisstruction, and opposes the perverseness ter the miserable patient a composing of his will to the advice of the wise, is medicine, if he should be able to receive induced to unite himself to the libertine it, upon his coming out of the fit. association of the wicked and the vile : I withdrew accordingly. When he at first, perhaps, without intending to recovered from this state of insensibility, go all lengths with them; but, at last, he made signs that he wished to write; compelled to do so, by an influence the materials were brought him; and which he cannot resist; and to which, he wrote the following words in a by the destructive habit of continued hurried and scarcely legible character. intercourse, he willingly surrenders all "For God's sake do not let Mr. his better prospects, and happier hopes. go away-I want him-I must see I had attended him as an old ac- him-bring him back-I will be, I quaintance of his family; and, I trust, am more composed." The surgeon's I may add, as the friend of his soul- assistant came for me, and telling me and I was the more disposed to use my that he feared the wound was too large most anxious exertions to reclaim him and deep to be effectually sewn up, from his guilty course, because I fear- recommended me to be prompt in whated, that in his then distracted state of ever I wished to say or do, as he had mind, despair might lay hold of him, little doubt of his going off in the next and precipitate him into a lower deep attack of faintness. of misery, in which he would find "no I re-entered the room; the blood place for repentance, none for pardon had ceased to flow, and his countenance left." My fears were too soon realized. appeared more calm and settled. He The letter addressed to me, informed pointed to a chair at the head of the me of the fatal fact. I scarcely stopped bed, and clasping his hands in an attito read it through, and instantly has- tude of prayer, seemed to implore me tened to the prison; I cannot describe with great earnestness, to supplicate the horror of the scene that presented the Throne of Grace in his behalf. I itself. Upon a bed, in the apartment complied with his desire. I had finishappropriated to the purposes of an hos- ed, and had seated myself upon the bed pital, lay the ill-fated votary of this nearly overcome with oppression of world's false delight. The bed-clothes heart, when turning towards him, I were covered with his blood, which, in saw his eyes lifted upwards, and fixed in spite of all the efforts of the surgeon to a trance of fervor, in which he seemed staunch it, still oozed from the wound to be wholly absorbed. His lips moved with which the poor wretch had pierced as he lay engaged in mental prayer, but his throat. He had nearly divided the no articulate sound proceeded from windpipe, and all power of speech was them. I watched him for some minutes, completely destroyed. When I ap- when, suddenly discovering that, I had proached him, he looked up, and shook ceased to pray, he lifted his head from his head. Never shall I forget the the pillow, and seeing me seated by ghastly countenance, in which the ago- him, he caught hold of my hand, and nies of despondence, remorse, and des- grasped it convulsively. The pain which peration, were all combined in a ter- the motion of his head had occasioned VOL. 4.] Young Man in Prison. 27 I took this opportunity of rising from the bed to depart, when, taking a dictionary, which he requested in writing might be handed to him, he turned over the leaves to find the principal words by which he might convey his meaning to me. By the means of this expedient, the following communication took place between us: forced him to resume his former pos- he shed tears. As they rolled down his ture, but he still retained his hold of cheeks, the surgeon carefully wiped them me, as if he dreaded to let go lest he off, that the dressings might not be should sink for ever. It was with dif- disturbed by his own effort to do it. ficulty that I could command myself; when, with a faultering voice, I entreated him to be tranquil-"I will come again to you in a few hours," said I, "when I hope in God you will be better able to attend to me." He lifted up his left hand and spread it upon his breast, by which I concluded that he meant to convey a grateful acquiescence in my design. I then gradually attempted to withdraw my hand from his; but as I moved it, he pressed it more closely; and when I had succeeded in disengaging it, he raised his own. and let it fall immediately, unable to support its weight. I left him with very little expectation of seeing him alive at the hour when I proposed to return. "Can I be forgiven? Is there any hope for such a sinner as myself? O speak! you are a minister of God! Dare you bid me hope?" 66 Yes, I dare bid you trust in the Divine Mercy, if your repentance be sincere." "How can I know that my repentance will be accepted?" 66 You have the warrant of your Saviour's words to justify your hope that it will be- I am come to seek and to save those that are lost.' "I fear I am lost for ever!" "O my kind friend! »uld I die in this hope, I have no dejare to live." The time arrived, and to my great astonishment I found him sitting up in his bed, supported by pillows. The surgeon still continued with him, under the apprehension that a hemorrhage "Not so! Gop is the judge! He would come on. As soon as the young looks upon the heart; and as he alone man saw me, he beckoned to me to can judge of the sincerity of your penicome near him; and writing upon a tence, he alone can give you hope of piece of paper, gave it me:-"O my forgiveness." dear sir! My worthy friend! Comforter of my soul! do not-O do not, I beseech you, let my rash action be ever "Do not mistrnst the Power and imparted to my afflicted mother, should Will of your GOD and Saviour. Even she regain her senses." I promised it now he has touched your soul with conshould be kept from her knowledge. He viction that you require his forgiveness. would have bowed his head to thank Meditate upon this conviction until I me, but the stiffness of the wound see you to-morrow, and in the mean checked him. He then again made while I commend you to his Grace and signs for me to pray with him, and pre- Mercy." pared himself to join me, by putting He then closed the book, and signihis hands together. When my voice fied to the attendants that he would lie ceased, he closed his eyes, and remained down again. I bade him adieu, which perfectly still for near a quarter of an he answered with a look of assent. hour; and then opening them again On the morrow I repaired to him full upon me, I was rejoiced to see that again. I found by the report of the their frantic stare was changed for a surgeon that he had slept for three mild and complacent gaze-a smile of hours, and had awaked much refreshed, grateful respect reposed upon his lips; but that from the appearance of the and he again took my hand, but with wound there was great cause to apless force than before. His pressure prehend that mortification had taken was gentle, and repeated at intervals. place. I learnt also that he had em. He laid his other hand upon it, and for ployed nearly two hours in writing the first time since the dreadful deed a letter to me. When I went to him 28 Young Man in Prison. [VOL. 4 he Lad the letter in his hand; he held the hand that I had taken fell lifeless upon the bed; and an inward groan was the last symptom of life that shewed itself. The next moment he was numbered among the dead! : it out to me, and putting it into mine, again had recourse to the dictionary and pointing to the word "resignation," I said "I would bave it so." He shook his head, and put his finger I returned to my house smitten with upon the word "rejected." I then grief, and subdued by the sad spectacle understood that he felt his resignation which I had witnessed. I know not, might be rejected, as he had attempted indeed, a more difficult, or a more tryto take away his own life. I asked him ing duty of the pastoral office, than that if this was what he meant? He pressed which calls him to the death-bed of the my hand in assent." If you feel re- self-murderer. In instances of insanity, signed, it is the effect of your repentant the question is not left to his decision; consciousness. The wound which you but in those which the overwhelming have inflicted upon yourself, was the force of disappointed pride and infuriresult of despair; but resignation is the ated passion produce, the responsibility companion of hope. You resign your- of a spiritual counsellor is fearfully imself to the merciful goodness of your plicated-He is conscious that he dares GOD-You acknowledge your unwor- not inculcate an unqualified hope, and thiness-You rely on the intercession of he feels that it is not for man to consign your Redeemer-You abhor the ini- his fellow creature to condemnation and quities of your life-You abjure the in- despair-He can only in such cases fidel principles which actuated you to wherein time is given, between the deneglect every religious duty--You shud- plorable act and the hour of death, exder with the deepest contrition at the cite the repentant reflections of the dydeed of self-destruction-You repulse ing man to an abhorrence of the rashevery idea of self-justification--You ness of the deed, and of the criminal cast away every plea-every argument which the unbeliever has advanced in defence of suicide. The death you have sought, you now dread as likely to deprive you of everlasting life. Do I interpret you, wind aright?" pursuits which have led to it. Yet as it generally happens, that, when reflection returns to the perverted mind, it brings with it a profound regret at having prematurely cut itself off from the continuance of life, it requires much He turned or the pages of the dic- penetration to discover whether the tionary with haste, and put his finger penitence avowed be the genuine soron the word "Yes," then upon that of row of a renewed heart:—and notwith"Believe"-"Saviour"—“Eternal"— standing the most faithful efforts on the "Blessedness." 66 Well, then, you would have me conclude that you die in this belief?" He placed his hand upon his breast, and raised his eyes to Heaven. I then told him, that he was in the hands of his Almighty Creator, and I committed him to his disposal, imploring a sentence of mercy for his soul. part of the minister to make this discovery, he is too frequently compelled to content himself with recommending the wretched offender to the Divine Mercy, and with assuring him that it is infinite, and extends beyond the contracted limits of human judgment--still, he trembles at the possibility of the affrighted soul's clinging to a presumptuous He stretched out his right hand to- dependence on the one hand, or on the wards me, and lifting his left to his other, sinking into the sinful desponhead, I saw that the surgeon's appre- dency of a repulsive mistrust. It is a hension was realized. A drowsiness most afflictive strait, both for the bewilwas already come upon him; and the dered patient, and for him from whom short convulsive twitches of the body, he looks for comfort and support in his which usually precede dissolution when last moments of remorse and dread. mortification takes place, became more The humane sympathies of the man frequent. At last, a general insensibil- may incline the minister towards the ity spread itself over his whole frame milder course of administering consola VOL. 4.] Young Man in Prison. 29 tion to the patient-but the godly faith- iniquity, which at once becomes the falness of the christian guide forbids limit of his crimes, and the cause of · him to temporize with the justice of their punishment. It is then that reHeaven. It is true, he calls to mind flection returns, and his conscience arins where it is written that "mercy rejoiceth itself against him-that couscience against judgment," but with the ac- which might have preserved him, had knowledgement of the one he is con- he listened in time to its seasonable adstrained to blend the convictions of the monitions, now persecutes him with other, and he knows there is no imme- maddening thought on what he has diate alternative. In the case before been, what he is, and what he might me, I beheld a young man, who, from have been. He now possesses no pow. the earliest period of expanding intel- er to remedy the past, no opportunity lect to the dreadful instant of self-mur- to secure the future, and no escape from der, had given the reins to his passions, the present. He feels that he is accurs. and had unhesitatingly violated the pu- ed by man, rejected by God, and haterest principles of moral, social, and reli- ful to himself. The burden of reflecgious restraint the profligate notions tion becomes too heavy for his mind to of the libertine, and the corresponding bear, weakened as it is in all its best insolence of the infidel, had supplanted energies, by a life of dissipation, and every just, honourable, and pious feel- overwhelmed by self reproach, no ing of the heart; the most lamentable strength is left for endurance, no forticonsequences ensued, and even before tude offers its aid to hold him up bebe bad contemplated the probable issue neath the pressure of that retribution -for it is repugnant to humanity to that crowds upon his soul in all the suppose, that, had this heedless criminal various shapes of personal disgrace, uniforeseen the destruction which his guilt versal execration, and a remorseful reproduced, he would have deliberately miniscence, fruitless of every other conpersevered in his evil ways-that, could sequence but such as leaves him in the he have contemplated, as the insepara- forlorn state of utter privation of alt ble certainties of his transgressions, a good, and a desolate consciousness that father's heart riven in twain, and a mo- he suffers the deserved recompense of ther's intellect overturned by his impla- bis iniquity, unpitied and disowned by cable disobedience-a friend's wife de- all who knew him. He awhile surveys graded to infamy and contempt, and his condition-he looks around him that friend himself murdered, by his li- from the brink of the precipice on which centious villainy-he would have delib- he stands--he sees the clouds of darkerately arranged his plans to effect the ness behind him, he hears the thunder progressive accomplishment of deeds so of wrath and judgment threatening him full of horror and perditi But, of on all sides, even now, the lightnings of all the delusions to which man is sub- divine vengeance burst upon bis devoject, those with which his own corrupt ted head! No kindly refuge presents heart obscures his judgment, are the itself--no friendly arm upholds him-most subtle and destructive-"So far no shelter, no defence within his reach! I will go, and no farther," is the decep- In every blast of the storm denunciation tve persuasive with which be satisfies astounds his ear. He casts a look bebimself at his first outset in vice. Vain, neath him-a fathomless abyss yawns presumptuous resolve!-Some other to receive him. He thinks no longer, allarement courts his senses, the gratifi- he rushes upon the terrible alternative, cation of which demands a farther for- and makes his woes eterna!! feiture of honour and virtue-this attained, another, and another still succeed, until he finds himself so enveloped in the maze of depraved enjoyment, that he loses all power to retrieve himself by retreat, and he plunges forward with a desperate ardour, to some enterprize in But, sir, I will no longer dwell upon so melancholy a picture, which there is too much reason to fear, bears the portraiture of the life and death of many a self-destroyer, among those victins of a faithless world, who bave sacrificed a life of early hope and future promise te 30 Ancient Customs-The Ducking Stool, &c.. [VOL. 4 And the contaminations of the lawless and mangled remains of mortality. the vile, and have involved in the mise- most fervently do I pray that it may ries of their fall, the happiness of pa- arouse the salutary emotions of earnest rents, and the consolations of all who consideration in the heart of every have relatively or socially been unfor- youth who reads it, and so induce him, tunately allied to and connected with before it be too late, to make the wiser them. I now subjoin the letter which choice of that path of life thro' which the individual whose death I witnessed, religion and virtue will guide his steps put into my hands a few moments be- in peace, into the happy possession of a fore his burthened soul shook off the glorious immortality. ANCIENT PUNISHMENT OF SCOLDS, &c. From the London Monthly Magazine. FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS IN THE 3d ducking stool, of plain oak, with an "TR BRITISH MUSEUM. DUCKING STOOLS. iron bar before it to confine the person RUMBELLUM is an engine of tice seems now to be laid aside. everie libertie that hath view of frank Cole, 48, 172. a Scarlet Gown. pledge, for the coercion of scoldes and An Act that every Alderman's Wife shall have unquiett women, vulgarlie called ducking stooles; but these tumbrills, as you may read in an auncient statute, were also ordayned for the punishment of bruers breaking the assize."* And that their Md. 7 Oct. 2d. Eliz. It was ordained that every alderman who has been mayde before Christmas next shall buy for his wife a gown of scarlet; and that When I was a boy, I remember to every mayor, before the Michaelmas have seen a woman ducked for scold- next, after his election, buy for his wife ing; the chair hung by a pulley fasten- a scarlet gown, upon forfeiture of 101. ed to a beam about the middle of the five pounds to the use of the town, 50s. bridge, in which the woman was con- to the poor man's box, and 50s, to the fined and let down under the water use of the mayor. three times, and then taken out. The wifes shall wear their gowns at the bridge was then of timber, before the feasts following Christmas day, Easier present stone bridge was built. The day, Ascension day, Whitsunday, &c. ducking stool was constantly hanging &c. To forfeit 20s. for every default; in its place, and on the back pannel of 5s. to the or's box, 5s. to the mayor, it was engraved, "devils laying hold and 10s. to the use of the town. of scolds," &c. Some time after a new chair was erected in the place of the old one, having the same devices carved on it, and well painted and ornamented. When the new bridge of stone was erected in 1754, this was ta- quently used in old deeds, means no The Gule of August, a term freken away, and I lately saw the carved more than the first of August, from the and gilt back of it nailed up by the Latin word gula, a throat; from a shop of one Mr. Jackson, a silversmith, person at Rome being cured of a disorin the Butcher-row, behind the town, der in that part by kissing the chains who offered it me, but I did not know of St. Peter, with which he was bound what to do with it. In Octob. 1776, in the persecution under Nero. The I saw in the Town-hall the old one; I mean behind, or rather partly on the ened by us from Loaf-mass; a mass of same is also called Lammas-day, softsoutherest corner of the modern one, a thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth, or of the corn, being anciently celebrat * Statute 51. Henry III. statute of assize. Ordinance for the town of Cambridge. THE GULE OF AUGUST. |