212 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



word we mean virtuous actions, or the precepts which 

 enjoin or the considerations which enforce them. The 

 uncertainty of time and the certainty of death, the 

 guilt and madness of mis-spending time, and the sure 

 coming of judgment, all of these are topics extremely 

 commonplace for an author, but truths which to every 

 human creature are important in the highest degree. 

 I cannot look back upon the past year with a feeling of 

 pleasure, and yet I should look upon it with one of 

 thankfulness. I am certain I have not marked it by a 

 single meritorious deed, and yet, by the good mercy of 

 God, I have been preserved from actions notoriously 

 vicious. I have at times, I trust, by His help, cleared 

 my heart of its viler affections, and repressed its evil de- 

 sires. I have besought His assistance, and experienced 

 within me the workings of gratitude. But, alas ! at other 

 times I have wilfully opened the floodgates of passion ; 

 I have courted rather than resisted temptation ; I have 

 apologized for known sin in my heart ; and in thought 

 many times oftener than once indeed have I committed 

 evil/ 



Thus, by the 'little red flame,' in the chill hour 

 before the dawn, on the first day of 1827, does Hugh 

 Miller jot down for his friend his stern and sad com- 

 munings with himself. The drear glimmer of the lamp- 

 light is traceable on the page, and the remarks on the 

 festivities of Christmas and New- Year's Day are too 

 harshly Puritanic for his sunnier and wiser hour ; but the 

 severity of his self-judgment, and the deep and humble 

 piety which pervades the letter, make it valuable as a 

 revelation of his state of mind at the time. Let us there- 

 fore proceed : 



' In that awful day when things shall appear as they 

 really are, how shall I apologize for the evil I have com- 



