Page:The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.pdf/234

[ 190 ] in an instant all my trepidation was turned into unuttered bliss; and I most reverently bowed myself with gratitude, unable to express my feelings, but by the overflowing of my eyes, and a heart replete with thanks to God; while my true and worthy friend the captain congratulated us both with a peculiar degree of heartfelt pleasure. As soon as the first transports of my joy were over, and I had expressed my thanks to these my worthy friends in the best manner I was able, I rose with a heart full of affection and reverence, and left the room in order to obey my master's joyful mandate of going to the Register Officer. As I was leaving the house I called to mind the words of the Psalmist, in the 126th Psalm, and like him, 'I glorified God in my heart, in whom I trusted.' These words had been impressed on my mind from the very day I was forced from Deptford to the present hour, and I now saw them, as I thought, fulfilled and verified. My imagination was all rapture as I flew to the Register office: and, in this respect, like the apostle Peter, (whose deliverence from prison was so sudden and extraordinary, that he thought he was in vision), I could scarcely

believe