tom of the many, who still happily range themselves on the side of virtue and religion, and by checking or keeping aloof those through whom the publican is in danger of losing his property, his license, and his character.

Why must an inn be made a school for vice, for infidelity, and insubordination? Why must the labouring man, if at the close of his day's toil he feels the need of some beverage more supporting than what his cottage affords, be exposed to the corrupting atmosphere, the pestilential moral vapours, which usually fill the tap-room of a public house? Would that the masters and mistresses of these places of common resort seriously reflected, that they are to no inconsiderable extent responsible for the doings and the sayings of their guests; and that in the great day of universal account, they, if "weighed in the balance and found wanting," will be exposed to no small aggravation of the sentence pronounced on their personal delinquencies, from having been partakers of and gainers by other men's sins.

The last recollection I have of incidents in the life of this worthy man is, perhaps, not the least worthy of being recorded. He was pursuing another journey on foot, and in the heat of the day had retired to the shady recesses of a thicket for an hour's rest and meditation. He loved the solitary hour which

many shun; and with a taste refined by long and intelligent study of those pages, from which poets often borrow their finest images, and catch a portion of their fire, desecrated as those images too frequently are to aid an impure and infidel fancy, and destined as that fire is to burn upon an unhallowed altar, he delighted to follow CowPER'S Christian

"To regions where, in spite of sin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still seen below;

Where mountain, river, forest, field, and grove,
Remind him of his Maker's power and love."

There, as he ate a plain morsel which he carried with him, his heart was filled with sentiments of gratitude correspondent with those of the poor widowed tenant of an Irish cabin, who was overheard by an eminent prelate to say, while sitting at her oaken table with a brown loaf upon it, "What all this, and Christ besides!" Again he fell musing on the ways and works of God, and particularly upon the many occurrences of his own life, wherein he had witnessed the un equivocal interferences of the Almighty. Affectionate love and adoring admiration pervaded his soul, and in the supposed solitude of the woody glen he was on the point of giving utterance to his emotions, when he heard the sound of footsteps and a human voice. It was a voice of distress. He looked round and observed a man at a short distance walking in a

manner which betrayed great mental agony. He was wringing his hands, and venting in broken sentences the sorrows of his burthened heart. His whole appearance was the true portrait of despair. Prose from his seat, and walked gently towards him. The stranger started as he approached, and with a hurried step turned to another part of the wood. He was stopped by the kind voice of P--, who apologized for intruding upon him, and, in a manner which won the stranger's heart, begged to know the cause of his distress. The heart that knoweth its own bitterness, and is loth to let a stranger intermeddle either with its joy or its grief, is like a casket of exquisite workmanship, whose secret spring yields to a gentle and delicate pressure, but eludes the hand of violence. "Your heart seems bursting with anguish, my friend." "Yes, I am the most unhappy wretch under that sun. I am weary of a life that proves only a quick succession of miseries." "But sorrow told, is sorrow lessened. Though we are unknown to each other, you need not fear to tell me your griefs. I am no novice in the school of affliction, and I have there learned what can be learned no where else, to feel for and with the oppressed and labouring soul. I can weep with them that weep." "Oh! Sir, you overcome me. I had resolved to seal my woes in silence never to be broken. You seem to have pro

Loss suc

fited by lessons which I have thrown away. And shall I tell you my distresses? My soul shudders as I attempt the recital. Yet there is a something in you that draws it forth. I am a tradesman in the town whose lofty steeple you may discern from the adjoining hills. There for many years I pursued a lucrative trade, and the blessing of God abundantly crowned my pursuits. A rising family around me filled my house with domestic enjoyments. I loved the ways of God, and endeavoured to lead my children in those ways to heaven. But at length my worldly affairs took an unfavourable turn. ceeded loss. Affliction, instead of driving me to God, drove me from him. I sought to forget him, who, I was tempted to think, had forgotten me; and I strove to drown the sense of my daily increasing troubles by intemperance. I lived in a bewildering dream, till a fresh tremendous blow roused me to an overwhelming consciousness of my misery. Divine and human resources all appeared to fail me. I had no earthly friend who was able to rescue me from my troubles. I had forsaken God, and he had forsaken me. I thought hell itself more tolerable than earth, and in an hour of gloomy despondency I tore myself from my family, and hastened to this wood, where, when you just now discovered me, I was about to put an end to my present intolerable existence.

Your appearance has delayed the execution of my design but it has not quieted my mind, or altered my ultimate resolve." "Be calm, my friend, be calm, and let me reason the matter with you." "I gratefully acknowledge your kindness: but I am fully persuaded that I am rejected of God, and that in the whole of my present circumstances, not one thing can encourage hope, and rescue me from despair. I have sunk in temporal sorrow below the reach of any human hand. I have sunk in sin below the reach even of divine mercy. Justly excluded from the favour of a holy God, I have no refuge left. It is better for me to die than to live, and at once to feel the whole amount of that misery which is my inevitable lot. Every object in the present world, and even the loveliest scenes amidst the works of God frown upon me, and seem to reflect the wrathful countenance of my justly offended Maker." “ Nay, your case is not so desperate as you suppose. hope yet, with God's blessing, to calm your mind." "Kind as you appear, you can never do that, unless you can point some more solid ground of hope, than I am able to perceive: unless you can shew me some evidence that I am not a cast-away.” "I do not despair of leading you to the discovery of that ground of hope, and of some satisfactory testimony that God has not cast you off. Only hear me patiently. You

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