As yet, however, he was only entering the Valley of the
Shadow of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated
before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran
through stench and fire, close to the mouth of the bottomless pit. He
began to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin,
and by a morbid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all the
forms which his disease took was a propensity to utter blasphemy, and
especially to renounce his share in the benefits of the redemption.
Night and day, in bed, at table, at work, evil spirits, as he imagined,
were repeating close to his ear the words, "Sell him! sell him!" He
struck at the hobgoblins; he pushed them from him; but still they were
ever at his side. He cried out in answer to them, hour after hour,
"Never, never! not for thousands of worlds--not for thousands!" At
length, worn out by this long agony, he suffered the fatal words to
escape him, "Let him go, if he will." Then his misery became more
fearful than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He had
forfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like Esau, he had sold his
birthright, and there was no longer any place for repentance. "None," he
afterward wrote, "knows the terrors of those days but myself." He has
described his sufferings with singular energy, simplicity, and pathos.
He envied the brutes; he envied the very stones in the street, and the
tiles on the houses.
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