It would seem that, as time went on, the watchman who patrolled the neighbourhood at night took over the duty of performing the midnight exhortation. By that time it had been crystallised into poetic form, and was no doubt, when delivered with due solemnity under the frowning walls of Newgate at that midnight hour, a very impressive thing. Twelve o'clock sounded slowly from the belfry of St. Sepulchre, and then, heard through barred windows in those massive walls of rusticated masonry, came that deliberate recitation:
All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near,
When you before the Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent;
Forswear your sins, trust in Christ's merit,
That Heavenly grace you may inherit;
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,