Under date of April 23d he writes:  “Every hour, in this frightful dungeon seems endless to me.  For many weeks have I sat idle in this durance, with no occupation but prayer and communion with God.”  His appeals to civil authority and to the Primate of Hungary procured him no redress, but only subjected him to additional annoyances and hardships.  His aged father, a man of four-score years, wept to see him, though of sound understanding, locked up among madmen; and when urged to make his son recant, would have nothing to do with it, and returned the same day to his sorrowful home.  As he had been notified that he was to be imprisoned for life, he prayed most earnestly to the Father of mercies for deliverance; and he was heard, for his prayers and endeavors wrought together.  The sinking of his health increased his efforts to escape; for, though he feared not to die, he could not bear the thought of dying imprisoned in a mad-house, where he knew that his enemies would take advantage of his mortal weakness to administer their sacraments to him, and give out that he had returned to the bosom of the church, or at least to shave his head, that he might be considered as an insane person, and his renunciation of Romanism as the effect of derangement of mind.  Several plans of escape were projected, all beset with much difficulty and danger.  The one he decided upon proved to be successful.

On Saturday, the 13th of October, at half-past nine in the evening, he fastened a cord made of strips of linen to the grate of a window, which grate did not extend to the top.  Having climbed over this, he lowered himself into a small court-yard.  He had now left that part of the establishment reserved for the insane, and was now in the cloistered part where the brethren dwelt.  But here his fortune failed him.  He saw at a distance a servant of the insane approaching with a light; and with aching heart and trembling limbs, by a desperate effort, climbed up again.  He returned to his cell, concealing his cord, and laid himself down to rest.

On the following Monday, he renewed his efforts to escape.  He lowered himself, as before, into the little court-yard; but being weak in health and much shaken in his nervous system by all he had suffered in body and mind, he was seized with palpitation of the heart and trembled all over, so that he could not walk a step.  He laid down to rest and recover his breath.  He felt as if he could get no further.  “But,” he says in his affecting narrative, “My dear Saviour to whom I turned in this time of need, helped me wonderfully.  I felt now, more than ever in my life, His gracious and comforting presence, and believed, in that dismal moment, with my whole soul, His holy word;” “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”