Page 551 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

CHAPTER I. EXTRACTED

FROM THE DIARY OF THE

REV. JAMES NORTH.

B athurst, February 11th, 1846.
In turning over the pages of my journal, to note the
good fortune that has just happened to me, I am struck by
the utter desolation of my life for the last seven years.
Can it be possible that I, James North, the college-hero,
the poet, the prizeman, the Heaven knows what else, have
been content to live on at this dreary spot—an animal, eat-
ing and drinking, for tomorrow I die? Yet it has been so.
My world, that world of which I once dreamt so much, has
been—here. My fame—which was to reach the ends of the
earth— has penetrated to the neighbouring stations. I am
considered a ‘good preacher’ by my sheep-feeding friends.
It is kind of them.
Yet, on the eve of leaving it, I confess that this solitary
life has not been without its charms. I have had my books
and my thoughts— though at times the latter were but grim
companions. I have striven with my familiar sin, and have
not always been worsted. Melancholy reflection. ‘Not al-
ways!’ ‘But yet’ is as a gaoler to bring forth some monstrous
malefactor. I vowed, however, that I would not cheat myself

0 For the Term of His Natural Life