Confessions of a Justified Sinner (27 page)

‘Great and magnificent prince,’ said I humbly, ‘let me request of you to abandon a poor worthless wight to his own wayward fortune, and return to the dominion of your people. I am unworthy of the sacrifices you have made for my sake; and, after all your efforts, I do not feel that you have rendered me either more virtuous or more happy. For the sake of that which is estimable
in human nature, depart from me to your own home, before you render me a being either altogether above or below the rest of my fellow creatures. Let me plod on towards Heaven and happiness in my own way, like those that have gone before me, and I promise to stick fast by the great principles which you have so strenuously inculcated, on condition that you depart and leave me for ever.’

‘Sooner shall you make the mother abandon the child of her bosom; nay, sooner cause the shadow to relinquish the substance, than separate me from your side. Our beings are amalgamated, as it were, and consociated in one, and never shall I depart from this country until I can carry you in triumph with me.’

I can in nowise describe the effect this appalling speech had on me. It was like the announcement of death to one who had of late deemed himself free, if not of something worse than death, and of longer continuance. There was I doomed to remain in misery, subjugated, soul and body, to one whose presence was become more intolerable to me than aught on earth could compensate. And at that moment, when he beheld the anguish of my soul, he could not conceal that he enjoyed it. I was troubled for an answer, for which he was waiting: it became incumbent on me to say something after such a protestation of attachment; and, in some degree to shake the validity of it, I asked, with great simplicity, where he had been all this while?

‘Your crimes and your extravagances forced me from your side for a season,’ said he, ‘but now that I hope the day of grace is returned, I am again drawn towards you by an affection that has neither bounds nor interest; an affection for which I receive not even the poor return of gratitude, and which seems to have its radical sources in fascination. I have been far, far abroad, and have seen much, and transacted much, since I last spoke with you. During that space, I grievously suspect that you have been guilty of great crimes and misdemeanours, crimes that would have sunk an unregenerated person to perdition; but as I knew it to be only a temporary falling off, a specimen of that liberty by which the chosen and elected ones are made free, I closed my eyes on the wilful debasement of our principles, knowing that
the transgressions could never be accounted to your charge, and that in good time you would come to your senses, and throw the whole weight of your crimes on the shoulders that had voluntarily stooped to receive the load.’

‘Certainly I will,’ said I, ‘as I and all the justified have a good right to do. But what crimes? What misdemeanours and transgressions do you talk about? For my part, I am conscious of none, and am utterly amazed at insinuations which I do not comprehend.’

‘You have certainly been left to yourself for a season,’ returned he, ‘having gone on rather like a person in a delirium than a Christian in his sober sense. You are accused of having made away with your mother privately; as also of the death of a beautiful young lady, whose affections you had seduced.’

‘It is an intolerable and monstrous falsehood!’ cried I, interrupting him. ‘I never laid a hand on a woman to take away her life, and have even shunned their society from my childhood. I know nothing of my mother’s exit, nor of that young lady’s whom you mention. Nothing whatever.’

‘I hope it is so,’ said he. ‘But it seems there are some strong presumptuous proofs against you, and I came to warn you this day that a precognition is in progress, and that unless you are perfectly convinced, not only of your innocence but of your ability to prove it, it will be the safest course for you to abscond, and let the trial go on without you.’

‘Never shall it be said that I shrunk from such a trial as this,’ said I. ‘It would give grounds for suspicions of guilt that never had existence, even in thought. I will go and show myself in every public place, that no slanderous tongue may wag against me. I have shed the blood of sinners, but of these deaths I am guiltless; therefore I will face every tribunal, and put all my accusers down.’

‘Asseveration will avail you but little,’ answered he, composedly. ‘It is, however, justifiable in its place, although to me it signifies nothing, who know too well that you
did
commit both crimes, in your own person, and with your own hands. Far be it from me to betray you; indeed, I would rather endeavour to
palliate the offences; for, though adverse to nature, I can prove them not to be so to the cause of pure Christianity, by the mode of which we have approved of it, and which we wish to promulgate.’

‘If this that you tell me be true,’ said I, ‘then is it as true that I have two souls, which take possession of my bodily frame by turns, the one being all unconscious of what the other performs; for as sure as I have at this moment a spirit within me, fashioned and destined to eternal felicity, as sure am I utterly ignorant of the crimes you now lay to my charge.’

‘Your supposition may be true in effect,’ said he. ‘We are all subjected to two distinct natures in the same person. I myself have suffered grievously in that way. The spirit that now directs my energies is not that with which I was endowed at my creation. It is changed within me, and so is my whole nature. My former days were those of grandeur and felicity. But, would you believe it?
I was not then a Christian.
Now I am. I have been converted to its truths by passing through the fire, and, since my final conversion, my misery has been extreme. You complain that I have not been able to render you more happy than you were. Alas! do you expect it in the difficult and exterminating career which you have begun? I, however, promise you this — a portion of the only happiness which I enjoy, sublime in its motions, and splendid in its attainments — I will place you on the right hand of my throne, and show you the grandeur of my domains, and the felicity of my millions of true professors.’

I was once more humbled before this mighty potentate, and promised to be ruled wholly by his directions, although at that moment my nature shrunk from the concessions, and my soul longed rather to be inclosed in the deeps of the sea, or involved once more in utter oblivion. I was like Daniel in the den of lions, without his faith in Divine support, and wholly at their mercy. I felt as one round whose body a deadly snake is twisted, which continues to hold him in its fangs, without injuring him, further than in moving its scaly infernal folds with exulting delight, to let its victim feel to whose power he has subjected himself; and thus did I for a space drag an existence from day to day, in utter
weariness and helplessness; at one time worshipping with great fervour of spirit, and at other times so wholly left to myself as to work all manner of vices and follies with greediness. In these my enlightened friend never accompanied me, but I always observed that he was the first to lead me to every one of them, and then leave me in the lurch. The next day, after these my fallings off, he never failed to reprove me gently, blaming me for my venial transgressions; but then he had the art of reconciling all, by reverting to my justified and infallible state, which I found to prove a delightful healing salve for every sore.

But, of all my troubles, this was the chief: I was every day and every hour assailed with accusations of deeds of which I was wholly ignorant; of acts of cruelty, injustice, defamation, and deceit; of pieces of business which I could not be made to comprehend; with lawsuits, details, arrestments of judgment, and a thousand interminable quibbles from the mouth of my loquacious and conceited attorney. So miserable was my life rendered by these continued attacks that I was often obliged to lock myself up for days together, never seeing any person save my man Samuel Scrape, who was a very honest blunt fellow, a staunch Cameronian, but withal very little conversant in religious matters. He said he came from a place called Penpunt, which I thought a name so ludicrous that I called him by the name of his native village, an appellation of which he was very proud, and answered everything with more civility and perspicuity when I denominated him Penpunt, than Samuel, his own Christian name. Of this peasant was I obliged to make a companion on sundry occasions, and strange indeed were the details which he gave me concerning myself, and the ideas of the country people concerning me. I took down a few of these in writing, to put off the time, and here leave them on record to show how the best and greatest actions are misconstrued among sinful and ignorant men:

‘You say, Samuel, that I hired you myself — that I have been a good enough master to you, and have paid you your weekly wages punctually. Now, how is it that you say this, knowing, as you do, that I never hired you, and never paid you a sixpence
of wages in the whole course of my life, excepting this last month?’

‘Ye may as weel say, master, that water’s no water, or that stanes are no stanes. But that’s just your gate, an’ it’s a great pity aye to do a thing an’ profess the clean contrair. Weel then, since you havena paid me ony wages, an’ I can prove day and date when I was hired, an’ came hame to your service, will you be sae kind as to pay me now? That’s the best way o’ curing a man o’ the mortal disease o’ leasing-making that I ken o’.’

‘I should think that Penpunt and Cameronian principles would not admit of a man taking twice payment for the same article.’

‘In sic a case as this, sir, it disna hinge upon principles, but a piece o’ good manners; an’ I can tell you that, at sic a crisis, a Cameronian is a gay-an weel-bred man. He’s driven to this, and he maun either make a breach in his friend’s good name, or in his purse; an’ Oh, sir, whilk o’ thae, think you, is the most precious? For instance, an a Galloway drover had corned to the town o’ Penpunt, an’ said to a Cameronian (the folk’s a’ Cameronians there), “Sir, I want to buy your cow,” “Vera weel,” says the Cameronian, “I just want to sell the cow, sae gie me twanty punds Scots, an’ take her w’ ye.” It’s a bargain. The drover takes away the cow, an’ gies the Cameronian his twanty pund Scots. But after that, he meets him again on the white sands, amang a’ the drovers an’ dealers o’ the land, an’ the Gallowayman, he says to the Cameronian, afore a’ thae witnesses, “Come, Master Whiggam, I hae never paid you for yon bit useless cow that I bought. I’ll pay her the day, but you maun mind the luck-penny; there’s muckle need for ‘t” — or something to that purpose. The Cameronian then turns out to be a civil man, an’ canna bide to make the man baith a feele an’ liar at the same time, afore a’ his associates; an’ therefore he pits his principles aff at the side, to be a kind o’ sleepin’ partner, as it war, an’ brings up his good breeding to stand at the counter: he pockets the money, gies the Galloway drover time o’ day, an’ comes his way. An’ wha’s to blame?
Man mind yoursel
is the first commandment. A Cameronian’s principles never came atween
him an’ his purse, nor sanna in the present case; for, as I canna bide to make you out a leear, I’ll thank you for my wages.’

‘Well, you shall have them, Samuel, if you declare to me that I hired you myself in this same person, and bargained with you with this same tongue and voice with which I speak to you just now.’

‘That I do declare, unless ye hae twa persons o’ the same appearance, and twa tongues to the same voice. But, ’od saif us, sir, do you ken what the auld wives o’ the clachan say about you?’

‘How should I, when no one repeats it to me?’

‘Oo, I trow it’s a’ stuff — folk shouldna heed what’s said by auld crazy kimmers. But there are some o’ them weel ken’d for witches, too; an’ they say, “Lord have a care o’ us!” They say the deil’s often seen gaun sidie for sidie w’ ye, whiles in ae shape, an’ whiles in another. An’ they say that he whiles takes your ain shape, or else enters into you, and then you turn a deil yoursel.’

I was so astounded at this terrible idea that had gone abroad, regarding my fellowship with the Prince of Darkness, that I could make no answer to the fellow’s information, but sat like one in a stupor; and if it had not been for my well-founded faith, and conviction that I was a chosen and elected one before the world was made, I should at that moment have given in to the popular belief, and fallen into the sin of despondency; but I was preserved from such a fatal error by an inward and unseen supporter. Still the insinuation was so like what I felt myself that I was greatly awed and confounded.

The poor fellow observed this, and tried to do away the impression by some further sage remarks of his own.

‘Hout, dear sir, it is balderdash, there’s nae doubt o’t. It is the crownhead o’ absurdity to tak in the havers o’ auld wives for gospel. I told them that my master was a peeous man, an’ a sensible man; an’, for praying, that he could ding auld Macmillan himsel. “Sae could the deil,” they said, “when he liket, either at preaching or praying, if these war to answer his ain ends.” “Na, na,” says I, “but he’s a strick believer in a’ the truths o’ Christianity, my master.” They said, sae was Satan, for that he was the
firmest believer in a’ the truths of Christianity that was out o’ Heaven; an’ that, sin’ the Revolution that the Gospel had turned sae rife, he had been often driven to the shift o’ preaching it himsel, for the purpose o’ getting some wrang tenets introduced into it, and thereby turning it into blasphemy and ridicule.’

I confess, to my shame, that I was so overcome by this jumble of nonsense that a chillness came over me, and, in spite of all my efforts to shake off the impression it had made, I fell into a faint. Samuel soon brought me to myself, and, after a deep draught of wine and water, I was greatly revived, and felt my spirit rise above the sphere of vulgar conceptions and the restrained views of unregenerate men. The shrewd but loquacious fellow, perceiving this, tried to make some amends for the pain he had occasioned to me by the following story, which I noted down, and which was brought on by a conversation to the following purport:

‘Now, Penpunt, you may tell me all that passed between you and the wives of the clachan. I am better of that stomach qualm, with which I am sometimes seized, and shall be much amused by hearing the sentiments of noted witches regarding myself and my connections.’