Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/15

 it convenient to anticipate the time appointed, he went into his chamber to kill the tedious hour, perhaps with some amusing book, or some other way. But it very accidentally happened, that he took up a religious book, which his good mother or aunt had, without his knowledge, flipped into his portmantua: It was called, if I remember the title exactly, The Christian Soldier, or, Heaven taken by Storm; and was written by Mr. Thomas Watson. Guessing by the title of it that he should find some phrases of his own profession spiritualized in a manner which he thought might afford him some diversion, he resolved to dip into it; but he took no serious notice of any thing he read in it: and yet, while this book was in his hand, an impression was made upon his mind (perhaps God only knows how) which drew after it a train of the most important and happy consequences. There is indeed a possibility, that while he was fitting in this attitude, and reading in this careless and profane manner, he might suddenly fall asleep, and only dream of what he apprehended he sawː But nothing can be more certain, than that, when he gave me this relation, he judged himself to be as broad awake, during the whole time, as he ever was in any part of his life; and he mentioned it to me several times afterwards, as what undoubtedly passed, not only in his imagination, but before his eyes.

He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall upon the book while he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by some accident in the candle; but lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded on all sides with a glory; and was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him, to this effect (for he was not confident as to