ing to call on Mrs. Potter at the Lion, because I heard she was in some distress, and you remember, Sir, she was once so good as to lend me five shillings, and it was doing me a very kind turn, and I do not wish to forget it, and she now is in great distress, and the only way I can help her is to name it to you; but she wants so much more than I can do for her, that it is quite out of my power to do her any other service. She wants to borrow money, Sir, and you well know I have none to lend, she talks of sixty pounds.

Mr. W. (smiling.) For my part, my good woman, I would sooner give sixty pounds to put a public house down, than to set it up again. You may tell Mrs. Potter I'll call on her; but lest she should suppose I am coming with the money, you may tell her that I have no present sum in my disposal.

Mrs. Kemp departed on her unwelcome errand, and Mrs. P. received her, as might be expected. She had heard a great deal of the reverend's charities, for her part she had never tried him before, and now it was a clear case, he had no mind to show her favour. Well, a friend in need is a friend indeed. I'm the less obliged to him. I can't cant and whine and talk about what I do not understand, that is the way to the reverend's

heart I suppose. And now forgetting her sorrow in her spleen, "I suppose, Mrs. Kemp, you've had some pleasant talk this morning. I dare say the reverend said, I had brought my misfortunes upon myself. No, no, taxes and tithes and supervisors, oh, its enough to ruin any body." All this time poor Mrs. Kemp was standing in a fidgetty uneasiness, not knowing whether to go or to stay, the maid came in for her mistress's keys.

Mrs. Potter. My keys indeed, what before I'm dead?

Maid. Yes, Ma'am, the man says he must have them.

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What, is he going to pull all my papers about, and nobody knows how, please to give my service, and I should wish to keep my own keys." Here E. Kemp's natural good sense and kindness of heart induced her to offer her advice, "I think, Mrs. Potter, you had better let him have them; I think he can demand them by law, and perhaps it might make him uncivil." "Oh, its an easy matter for you, Mrs. Kemp, who don't know what it is to have affairs of consequence to lock up; it is an easy thing for you, I say, to talk of giving up keys; but my papers, all my accounts, all my private letters. My poor dear Mr. Potter's that is dead and gone. (Here Elizabeth Kemp looked involuntarily,

Mr. Potter was a common ostler, and could neither read nor write.) Mrs. Potter understood the look, and it increased her spleen; and she said, "people that could do no good, might as well take themselves away, and that for her part, she was sick of the world, more especially religious people; she had never had much to do with them, she pretty well knew what they were before she tried them!"

Poor Elizabeth Kemp was just departing as the maid returned, ushering in Mr. Walker. Mrs. Potter's face was become the prominent seat of envy and ill-temper, and she could not alter her countenance in a moment, this glance was useful to Mr. W., as it showed him the tone in which she ought to be addressed, "Well, Madam, I am come to offer you any advice in my power, and if I can be of any use to you, though I do not offer you money, still, I shall most gladly serve you in any other way, especially if you mean to give up this house, for we have too many public houses in this village, and though they are not open on Sundays, yet persons are admitted, and while that is the case, the reformation of the poor is greatly impeded. Well, now, Mrs. Potter, what are your future plans?" My plan, Sir," said Mrs. P. tossing her head, "is to pay Mr. Poole the distiller, if I could have got

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the money. Well, Madam, if you can, you are certainly the best judge of your own affairs; as the clergyman of this village, it is my duty to visit every one in distress, for distress sometimes brings thought and inquiry." Mrs. P. replied, "that as for thought, she had always had plenty of that, nobody could say but she'd always been thoughtful and careful." "I was going to say, Mrs. Potter," said Mr. Walker, "how very thoughtless and how very careless you have always been, you have lived without God in the world; I have never seen you at the church above twice since I married you; and with regard to the distiller's bill, I acquit my conscience, in saying, you have had but too large a share in it. No, stop, I am going on as your pastor. I am vested with authority from a power you have hitherto despised, but observe me, though unseen, he is irresistible; and I warn you, that your present course of life will not end in temporal ruin, it is full of eternal danger. I'm told by those who well know your habits, that you're rarely to be spoken with after three o'clock in the day, this is sad work, but he who commissions me to warn you, commissions me to encourage you if you break off your sins by right

eousness, and your iniquities by calling upon your God."

Mrs. P.'s patience had been sorely tried, she was endeavouring to speak repeatedly, but Mr. W. kept his post firm, and his eye fixed, and never ceased till he had ended all he meant to say, and then the storm broke out. "Was this the way that one Christian should speak to another? Was this the way to comfort people in their affliction? For her part, she never had much notion of the Methodists, she never had asked any favours of them, she never did expect much from them, and blessed was them as expected nothing, they should not be disappointed." She ran on in a long stream of abuse. Mr. Walker stood the pelting of the storm like a fine old castle, whose buttresses stand firm, unshaken by the blast; the howling of the winds and the fury of the tempest passes by, and it stands against the smiling sky in reverend majesty: so waited Mr. Walker, till Mrs. Potter's fury spent, a shower of tears, and a sort of hysterical scream subsided into sobs and moanings; still patient, he waited till her passion being entirely exhausted, she sat like a froward child, not knowing what to do, or what to say.

He still continued to look with a kind