"A True Relation"

Following the Starving Time, God shows His mercy upon a madman:

"Finding of five hundred men we had only left about sixty, the rest being either starved through famine or cut off by the savages, and those which were living were so meager and lean that it was lamentable to behold them, for many, through extreme hunger, have run out of their naked beds, being so lean that they looked like anomalies, crying out “we are starved, we are starved”; others going to bed as we imagined in health were found dead the next morning. And among the rest one thing happened which was very remarkable wherein God showed his just judgment, for one Hugh Pryse being pinched with extreme famine, in a furious distracted mood did come openly into the market place blaspheming, exclaiming, and crying out that there was no God, alleging that if there were a god he would not suffer his creatures whom he had made and framed to endure those miseries and to perish for want of foods and sustenance. But it appeared the same day that the Almighty was displeased with him for going that afternoon with a butcher, a corpulent fat man into the woods to seek for some relief, both of them were slain by savages. And after being found God’s indignation was shown upon Pryse’s corpse which was rent in pieces with wolves or other wild beasts, And his bowels torn out of his body, being a lean spare man. And the fat butcher not lying above six yards from him was found altogether untouched only by the savages’ arrows whereby he received his death."

–George Percy, President of Jamestown (Sept. 1609 – May 1610)

God hath shown His ultimate mercy through death.