Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/80

72 who had grown up in ignorance, or that in any respect he was more deserving of attention. He was never known to complain of neglect, but often expressed his surprise and gratitude that his friends should remember "old black Jacob," as he was accustomed to call himself. His humility was most of all manifested in his estimate of himself as a sinner. He never alluded to the history of his early life, or to his crimes, but with emotions the most deep and painful, and with expressions of the greatest self-abhorrence. In allusion to the character of the man that was murdered, he once remarked, "His conduct was no justification for me;" and though his act would not alone have proved fatal, yet he never felt himself any thing but a murderer, nor denied the justness of the sentence that condemned him to the gallows.

To the chaplain of the prison, he once said, "The man in the next cell to me always prays with his face toward the grate in the door, but," pointing to the