How Strange A Checker-work Of Providence Is

It Happen'd One Day About Noon Going Towards My Boat, I Was Exceedingly Surpriz'd With The Print Of A Man's Naked Foot On The Shore.

And Of All Plagues With Which Mankind Are Curst, Ecclesiastic Tyranny's The Worst.

I Had Been Tricked Once By That Cheat Called Love, But The Game Was Over.

Now, Said I Aloud, My Dear Father's Words Are Come To Pass: God's Justice Has Overtaken Me, And I Have None To Help Or Hear Me: I Rejected The Voice Of Providence.

This Grieved Me Heartily ; And Now I Saw, Though Too Late, The Folly Of Beginning A Work Before We Count The Cost, And Before We Judge Rightly Of Our Own Strength To Go Through With It.