At last he had a severe fever; and when he fancied himself dying, had a vision.

He saw a grating in the floor, close by his bed, and through it the torments of the lost.

Two souls he remembered specially; one 'like a singed hog,' the other 'all over black like a charcoal spade.' He looked in fear, and heard a voice cry, 'Behold your sins.' He prayed; promised, if he recovered, to try and do better: and felt himself forgiven at once.
This was his story, which I have set down word for word; and of which I can only say, that its imagery is no more gross, its confusion between the objective and subjective no more unphilosophical, than the speech on similar matters of many whom we are taught to call divines, theologians, and saints.
At all events, this crisis in his life produced, according to his own statement, not merely a religious, but a moral change.

He became a better man henceforth.

He had the reputation, among those who knew him well, of being altogether a good man.