As far as my memory serves me, for my wits
were whirling as I listened, the following is an epitome of his
narrative:
He had been a man of sin--not only in the vague ecclesiastical
sense, but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed
every imaginable crime, save the odd few that lead to penal
servitude and the gallows. He drank, he betrayed women, he
cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation on the turf. His
companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery of the
civilised world. He had lured Judith from her first husband,
thus breaking his heart, poor man, so that he died soon after.
He had married Judith, and had deserted her for a barmaid whom in
her turn he had abandoned. He wallowed, to use his own
expression, in the trough of iniquity. He was, as I had always
understood, about as choice a blackguard as it would be possible
to meet outside a gaol. One day a pretty girl, whom he had been
following in the street, unwittingly enticed him into a
revivalist meeting. He described that meeting so vividly that
had my stupefied mind been capable of fresh emotions, I too might
have been converted at second hand by the revivalist preacher.
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