REMARKABLE PRESERVATION FROM DEATH. 339 



long fingers clutching at my legs, and made violent 

 efforts to escape, dragging after me, as I thought, the 

 body of some drowning wretch. On rising to the 

 surface, I recollected in a moment what had befallen 

 me, and uttered a cry of horror which is in my ears 

 to this day, and often makes me shudder, as if it 

 were the mad shriek of another person in the extrem- 

 ity of perilous agony. Often have I dreamed over 

 again that dire moment, and the cry I utter in my 

 sleep is said to be something more horrible than a 

 human voice. No ship was to be seen. She was 

 gone for ever. The little happy world to which, a 

 moment before, I had belonged, had swept by, and I 

 felt that God had flung me at once from the heart of 

 joy, delight, and happiness, into the uttermost abyss 

 of mortal misery and despair. Yes ! I felt that the 

 Almighty God had done this that there was an act, 

 a fearful act of Providence ; and, miserable worm that 

 I was, I thought that the act was cruel, and a sort of 

 wild, indefinite, objectless rage and wrath assailed me, 

 and took for a while the place of that first shrieking 

 terror. I gnashed my teeth, and cursed myself, 

 and with bitter tears and yells blasphemed the name 

 of God. It is true, my friend, that I did so. God 

 forgave that wickedness. The Being whom I then 

 cursed was in His tender mercy not unmindful of me, 

 of me, a poor, blind, miserable, mistaken worm. 

 But the waves dashed on me, and struck me on the 

 face, and howled at me ; and the winds yelled, and 



