Wife.—­What you put down the knee for?  What you hold up the hand for?  What you say?  Who you speak to?  What is all that?

W.A.—­My dear, I bow my knees in token of my submission to Him that made me:  I said O to Him, as you call it, and as your old men do to their idol Benamuckee; that is, I prayed to Him.

Wife.—­What say you O to Him for?

W.A.—­I prayed to Him to open your eyes and your understanding, that you may know Him, and be accepted by Him.

Wife.—­Can He do that too?

W.A.—­Yes, He can:  He can do all things.

Wife.—­But now He hear what you say?

W.A.—­Yes, He has bid us pray to Him, and promised to hear us.

Wife.—­Bid you pray?  When He bid you?  How He bid you?  What you hear Him speak?

W.A.—­No, we do not hear Him speak; but He has revealed Himself many ways to us.

[Here he was at a great loss to make her understand that God has revealed Himself to us by His word, and what His word was; but at last he told it to her thus.]

W.A.—­God has spoken to some good men in former days, even from heaven, by plain words; and God has inspired good men by His Spirit; and they have written all His laws down in a book.

Wife.—­Me no understand that; where is book?

W.A.—­Alas! my poor creature, I have not this book; but I hope I shall one time or other get it for you, and help you to read it.

[Here he embraced her with great affection, but with inexpressible grief that he had not a Bible.]

Wife.—­But how you makee me know that God teachee them to write that book?

W.A.—­By the same rule that we know Him to be God.

Wife.—­What rule?  What way you know Him?

W.A.—­Because He teaches and commands nothing but what is good, righteous, and holy, and tends to make us perfectly good, as well as perfectly happy; and because He forbids and commands us to avoid all that is wicked, that is evil in itself, or evil in its consequence.

Wife.—­That me would understand, that me fain see; if He teachee all good thing, He makee all good thing, He give all thing, He hear me when I say O to Him, as you do just now; He makee me good if I wish to be good; He spare me, no makee kill me, when I no be good:  all this you say He do, yet He be great God; me take, think, believe Him to be great God; me say O to Him with you, my dear.

Here the poor man could forbear no longer, but raised her up, made her kneel by him, and he prayed to God aloud to instruct her in the knowledge of Himself, by His Spirit; and that by some good providence, if possible, she might, some time or other, come to have a Bible, that she might read the word of God, and be taught by it to know Him.  This was the time that we saw him lift her up by the hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as above.

They had several other discourses, it seems, after this; and particularly she made him promise that, since he confessed his own life had been a wicked, abominable course of provocations against God, that he would reform it, and not make God angry any more, lest He should make him dead, as she called it, and then she would be left alone, and never be taught to know this God better; and lest he should be miserable, as he had told her wicked men would be after death.