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106  JOHN WILLIAMS.

JOHN WILLIAMS, 
WHO WAS REMARKABLY AFFLICTED. 
by Robert Eastburn, of New Brunswick, N. J.

JOHN WILLIAMS, who lived and died between New Brunswick and Trenton, in New Jersey, served me as an apprentice, about four years. He was weakly, and subject to indisposition. He was a poor colored boy. Naturally intelligent, he learned to read.
2. Being disposed to use spirituous liquors to excess, and profane language to a dreadful degree, his conduct was a trial to me; yet at times, he appeared to have serious reflections about himself and the fruits of his ways: and by the medium of instrumental assistance, attended by Divine power and mercy, his conscience became deeply convicted of the sinfulness of his condition.
3. A state of awful despair ensued, that continued, as nigh as I can recollect, for some months. Abiding therein, the light of Truth so arose toward the conclusion of it, that the dread of wrath and punishment were removed, and a sense of pardon experienced, in which joy, and love to God and man, were shed abroad in his heart; so that now he rejoiced in the Saviour, and gave glory to God


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in the highest, having peace in his soul and good will to men.
4. Twenty years he was afflicted with rheumatism. And for about twelve years previous to his decease, he was wholly incapable of helping himself. His jaws were locked, his head was bent back as in tetanus, and he could not bear any thing under it to support it, but lay with the pillow under his shoulders.
5. His arm lay as if riveted across his body. One half of his head appeared as if dead: so that he had but one eye through which he could see, and one ear with which he could hear. All the rest of his body appeared to possess but little vitality, except his tongue. Nevertheless, he possessed his intellects to admiration; and it was believed, that his soul and spirit were daily and principally exercised in devotion, prayer, and thanksgiving, to the hour of his departure from time to eternity.
6. Amid the extreme sufferings, poverty, and helplessness, under which he was so long held in durance, he often expressed much cause for humble thankfulness to the divine Being, for the great and multiplied mercies conferred upon him; and more particularly for affording him time to repent, and abandon his sinful thoughts, words, and inclinations.  

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