uninformed to have any thing to produce; and I was resolved not to risk my happiness with a woman who could not contribute her full share towards spending a wet winter cheerfully in the country.

The next day, all the hours from breakfast to dinner were devoted to the harp. I had the vanity to think that this sacrifice of time was made in compliment to me, as I had professed to like music; till I found that all their mornings were spent in the same manner; and the only fruit of their education, which seemed to be used to any purpose, was, that after their family devotions in the evening, they sung and played a hymn. This was almost the only sign they gave of intellectual or spiritual life. They attended morning prayers if they were dressed before the bell rang. One morn. ing when they did not appear till late, they were reproved by their father; Mrs. Ranby said, "she should be more angry with them for their irregularity, were it not that Mr. Ranby obstinately persisted in reading a printed form, which she was persuaded could not do any body much good." The poor man, who was really well disposed, very properly defended himself, by saying, that he hoped his own heart went along with every word he read: and as to his family, he thought it much more beneficial for them to join in an excellent composition of a judicious divine, than to attend to any such crude rhapsody as he should be able to produce, whose education had not qualified him to lead the devotions of others. I had never heard him venture to make use of his understanding before; and I continued to find it much better than I had at first given him credit for. The lady observed, with some asperity, that where there were gifts and graces, it superseded the necessity of learning.

In vindication of my own good breeding, I should observe that, in my little debates with Mrs. Ranby, to which I was always challenged by her, I never lost sight of that becoming example of the son of Cato, who, when about to deliver sentiments which might be thought too assuming in so young a man introduced his admonitions with this modest preface,

Remember what our father oft has taught us.

I, without quoting the son of the sage of Utica, constantly adduced the paterna! authority for opinions, which might savour too much of arrogance without such a sanction.

I observed in the course of my visit, that self-denial made no part of Mrs Ranby's religious plan. She fancied, I believe, that It savoured of works and of works she was evidently afraid. She talked as if activity were useless, and exertion unnecessary, and as if, like inanimate matter, we had nothing to do but to sit still and be shone upon.

assured her that though I depended on the mercy of God,

through the merits of his Son, for salvation, as entirely as she could do, yet I thought that Almighty grace, so far from setting aside diligent exertion, was the principle which promoted it. That salvation is in no part of scripture represented as attainable by the indolent Christian, if I might couple such contradictory terms. That I had been often awfully struck with the plain declarations, "that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence"-" strive to enter in at the strait gate"-" whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might"—" give diligence to make your calling sure" -"work out your own salvation." To this labour, this watchfulness, this sedulity of endeavour, the crown of life is expressly promised, and salvation is not less the free gift of God, because he has annexed certain conditions to our obtaining it.

The more I argued, the more I found my reputation decline; yet to argue she compelled me. I really believe she was sincere, but she was ill informed, governed by feelings and impulses, rather than by the plain express rule of scripture. It was not that she did not read scripture, but she interpreted it her own way; built opinions on insulated texts; did not compare scripture with scripture, except as it concurred to strengthen her bias. She considered with a disproportionate fondness, those passages which supported her preconceived opinions, instead of being uniformly governed by the general tenor and spirit of the sacred page. She had far less reverence for the preceptive, than for the doctrinal parts, because she did not sufficiently consider faith as an operative influential principle; nor did she conceive that the sublimest doctrines involve deep practical consequences. She did not consider the government of the tongue, nor the command of her passions, as forming. any material part of the Christian character. Her zeal was fiery, because her temper was so; and her charity was cold, because it was an expensive propensity to keep warm. Among the perfections of the Redeemer's character, she did not consider his being "meek and lowly" as an example, the influence of which was to extend to her. She considered it indeed as admirable, but not as ïmitable; a distinction she was very apt to make in all her practical dissertations, and in her interpretation of scripture.

In the evening Mrs. Ranby was lamenting in general and rath-er customary terms, her own exceeding sinfulness Mr. Ranby said, "You accuse yourself rather too heavily, my dear; you have sins to be sure." "And pray what sins have I, Mr. Ranby?" said she, turning upon him with so much quickness that the poor man Started. "Nay," said he meekly, "I did not mean to offend you; so far from it, that hearing you condemn yourself so grievously, I intended to comfort you, and to say that, except a few faults, "And pray what faults?" interrupted she, continuing to speak. however, lest he should catch an interval to tell them. 66 defy you, Mr. Ranby, to produce one." "My dear," replied he, "as

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you charged yourself with all, I thought it would be letting you off cheaply by naming only two or three, such as-." Here, fearing matters would go too far, I interposed, and softening things as much as I could for the lady, said, "I conceived that Mr. Ranby meant, that though she partook of the general corruption--" Here Ranby interrupting me with more spirit than I thought he possessed, said, "General corruption Sir, must be the source of particular corruption. I did not mean that my wife was worse than other women."-" Worse, Mr. Ranby, worse?" cried she by for the first time in his life, not minding her, went on, “As she is always insisting that the whole species is corrupt, she cannot help allowing that she herself has not quite escaped the infection. Now, to be a sinner in the gross, and a saint in the detail; that is, to have all sins, and no faults, is a thing I do not quite comprehend."

Ran

After he had left the room, which he did as the shortest way of allaying the storm, she apologized for him, said, "he was a well meaning man, and acted up to the little light he had;" but added, "that he was unacquainted with religious feelings, and knew little of the nature of conversion.”

Mrs. Ranby, I found, seems to consider Christianity as a kind of free-masonry, and therefore thinks it superfluous to speak on serious subjects to any but the initiated. If they do not return the sign, she gives them up as blind and dead. She thinks she can only make herself intelligible to those to whom certain peculiar phrases are familiar; and though her friends may be correct, devout, and both doctrinally and practically pious; yet if they cannot catch a certain mystic meaning, if there is not a sympathy of intelligence between her and them, if they do not fully conceive of impressions, and cannot respond to mysterious communications, she holds them unworthy of intercourse with her. She does not so much insist on high moral excellence as the criterion of their worth, as on their own account of their internal feelings.

She holds very cheap, that gradual growth in piety which is in reality no less the effect of divine grace, than those instantaneous conversions which she believes to be so common. She cannot be persuaded that, of every advance in piety, of every improvement in virtue, of every illumination of the understanding, of every amendment in the heart, of every rectification of the will, the spirit of God is no less the author because it is progressive, than if it were sudden. It is true, Omnipotence can, when he pleases, still produce these instantaneous effects, as he has sometimes done; but as it is not his established or common mode of operation, it seems vain and rash, presumptuously to wait for these miraculous interferences. An implicit dependance, however, on such interferences, is certainly more gratifying to the genius of enthusiasm, than the anxious vigilance, the fervent prayer, the daily struggle, the sometimes scarcely percepti

ble though constant progress of the sober-minded Christian. Such a Christian is fully aware that his heart requires as much watching in the more advanced as in the earliest stages of his religious course, He is cheerful in a well-grounded hope, and looks not for ecstacies, till that hope be swallowed up in fruition. Thankful if he feel in his heart a growing love to God, and an increasing submission to his will, though he is unconscious of visions, and unacquainted with any revelation but that which God has made in his word. He remembers, and he derives consolation from the remembrance, that his Saviour, in his most gracious and soothing invitation to the "heavy laden," has mercifully promised "rest," but he has no where promised rapture.

CHAP. VI.

BUT to return to Mrs. Ranby's daughters. Is this consisten cy, said I to myself, when I compared the inanity of the life with the seriousness of the discourse; and contrasted the vacant way in which the day was spent, with the decent and devout manner in which it was begun and ended? I recollected, that under the early though imperfect sacred institution, the fire of the morning and eve ning sacrifice was never suffered to be extinguished during the day. Though Mrs. Ranby would have thought it a little heathenish to have had her daughters instructed in polite literature, and to have filled a leisure hour in reading to her a useful book, that was not professedly religious, she felt no compunction at their waste of time, or the trifling pursuits in which the day was suffered to spend itself. The piano-forte, when they were weary of the harp, copying some indifferent drawings, gilding a set of flower-pots, and netting white gloves and veils, seemed to fill up the whole business of these immortal beings of these Christians, for whom it had been solemnly engaged that they should manfully fight under Christ's banner.

On a farther acquaintance, I was much more inclined to lay the blame on their education than their dispositions. I found them not only good humoured, but charitably disposed; but their charities were small and casual, often ifl applied, and always without a plan, They knew nothing of the state, character, or wants of the neighbouring poor; and it had never been pointed out to them that the instruction of the young and ignorant made any part of the duty of the rich towards them.

When I once ventured to drop a hint on this subject to Mrs. Ranby, she drily said, there were many other ways of doing good to the poor, besides exposing her daughters to the probability of catching diseases, and the certainty of getting dirt by such visits,

Her subscription was never wanting when she was quite sure that the object was deserving. As I suspected that she a little over rated her own charity, I could not forbear observing, that I did not think it demanded a combination of all the virtues to entitle a poor sick wretch to a dinner. And though I durst not quote so light an authority as Hamlet to her, I could not help saying to myself, give every man his due, and who shall 'scape whipping? O! if God dealt so rigidly with us; if he waited to bestow his ordinary blessings till we were good enough to deserve them, who would be clothed? who would be fed? who would have a roof to shelter him?

It was not that she gave nothing away, but she had a great dislike to relieve any but those of her own religious persuasion. Though her Redeemer laid down his life for all people, nations, and languages, she will only lay down her money for a very limited number of a very limited class. To be religious is not claim sufficient on her bounty; they must be religious in a particular way.

The Miss Ranbys had not been habituated to make any systematic provision for regular charity, or for any of those accidental calamities, for which the purse of the affluent should always be provided: and being very expensive in their persons, they had often not a six-pence to bestow, when the most deserving case presented itself. This must frequently happen where there is no specific fund for charity, which should be included in the general arrangement of expences; and the exercise of benevolence not be left to depend on the accidental state of the purse. If no new trinket happened to be wanted, these young ladies were liberal to any application, though always without judging of its merits by their own eyes and ears. But if there was a competition between a sick family and a new broach, the broach was sure to carry the day. This would not have been the case, had they been habituated to visit themselves the abodes of penury and woe. Their flexible young hearts would have been wrought upon by the actual sight of miseries, the impression of which was feeble when it reached their ears at a distance, surrounded as they were with all the softnesses and accommodations of luxurious life. "They would do what they could. They hoped it was not so bad as was represented." They fell into the usual way of pacifying their consciences by their regrets; and brought themselves to believe that their sympathy with the suffering was an atonement for their not relieving it.

I observed, with concern, during my visit, how little the Chris tian temper seemed to be considered as a part of the Christisn religion. This appeared in the daily concerns of this high professor. An opinion contradicted, a person of different religious views commended, the smallest opposition to her will, the intrusion of an unseasonable visitor, even an imperfection in the dressing of some dish at table; such trifles not only discomposed her, but the discomposure was manifested with a vehemence, which she was not