The Point Where Infidelity Breaks Down.
Two English gentlemen, Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Weld, were overtaken with a storm on board a vessel on one of the American lakes. In the same vessel was Volney the French atheist. The storm was violent, and the danger considerable. There were many female as well as male passengers on board, but no one exhibited such strong marks of fearful despair as Volney; throwing himself upon the deck, now imploring, now cursing the captain and reminding him that he had engaged to carry him safe to his destination, vainly threatening in case anything should happen. At last however as the probability of their being lost increased, he began loading all his pockets and every place he could think of with dollars, to the amount of some hundreds, and thus, as he thought, was preparing to swim for his life should the expected wreck take place. Mr. Bancroft remonstrated with him on the folly of such acts, saying that he would sink like a piece of lead with so much weight about him; and at length as he became so very noisy and unsteady as to impede the management of the ship, pushed him down the hatchways. Volney soon came up again, having lightened himself of the dollars, and in the agony of his mind threw himself upon the deck exclaiming, with uplifted hands and streaming eyes, 'Oh, my God! my God! what shall I do? What shall I do?' This so surprised Bancroft that he exclaimed, 'What, Mr. Volney, you have a God now!' To which Volney replied with trembling anxiety, 'Oh, yes! oh yes!'