O how I then regretted all
the sorrows I had ever caused her; how incessantly did busy memory
haunt me with all my misdeeds, and recall to mind the last moment I
had seen her! I never supposed I could have regretted her half so
much. My father stated that in her last moments she had expressed the
greatest solicitude for my welfare. She feared the career of life on
which I had entered would not conduce to my eternal welfare, however
much it might promise to my temporal advantage. Her dying injunctions
to me were never to forget the moral and religious principles in which
she had brought me up; and, with her last blessing, implored me to
read my Bible, and take it as my guide through life.
My father's letter was both an affecting and forcible appeal; and
never, in the whole course of my subsequent life, were my feelings so
worked upon as they were on that occasion. I went to my hammock with
an aching head and an almost broken heart. A retrospection of my life
afforded me no comfort. The numerous acts of depravity or pride, of
revenge or deceit, of which I had been guilty, rushed through my mind,
as the tempest through the rigging, and called me to the most serious
and melancholy reflections. It was some time before I could collect
my thoughts and analyse my feelings; but when I recalled all my
misdeeds--my departure from that path of virtue, so often and so
clearly laid down by my affectionate parent--I was overwhelmed with
grief, shame, and repentance.
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