And when death does come, our lot may be the most racking pains and diftempers, to faften us down to our fick beds, till we refign our fpirits to fome ftrange region, our breath to the common air, and our bodies to the duft from whence they were taken. Dismal fituation! If in the days of our health, we did not make our happiness and moral worth correfpond-did not labour, in the time of our ftrength, to escape from wrong opinion and bad habit, and to render our minds fincere and incorrupt; if we did not worship and love the fupreme mind, and adore his divine adminiftration, and all the fecrets of his providence. If this was not our cafe, before corruption begins to lay hold of us, deplorable must we be, when torments come upon us, and we have only hopeless wishes that we had been wiser, as we defcend in agonies to our folitary retreat; to proceed from thence to judgment. Language cannot paint the horrors of fuch a condition. The anguish of mind, and the torture of body, are a scene of mifery beyond description. Or if without torment, we lie down in filence, and fink into the land of forgetfulness, yet fince the Lord Jefus is to raise us from the regions of darkness, and bring us to the feffions of righteoufnefs, where all our actions are to be frictly tried and examined, and every one fhall be judged according to G the Left the If the deeds done in the body, whether they University, my father 14. Having thus loft Mifs Noel, and my and went good old friend, her worthy father, I left the down to fee univerfity, and went down to the country, in the after five years and three months abfence, country, to fee how things were pofited at home, and very mife- pay my refpects to my father; but I found them very little to my liking, and in a fhort time, returned to Dublin again. He and bad a rable re ception. had lately married in his old age a young wife, who was one of the most artful, falfe, and infolent of women, and to gratify her to the utmost of his power, had not only brought her nephew into his house, but was ridiculously fond of him, and lavishly gratified all his defires. Whatever this little brute (the fon of a drunken beggar, who had been a journeyman glover) was pleased, in wantonnefs, to call for, and that his years, then fixteen, could require, my father's fortune in an inftant produced; while fcarcely one of my rational demands could be anfwered. Money, cloaths, fervants, horses, dogs, and all things he could fancy, were given him in abundance; and to please the bafeft of women, and the most cruel stepmother that ever the Devil infpired to make the fon of another woman miferable, I was denied almost every thing. The fine allowance I had at the Univerfity was taken from me. Even a horfe to ride out to the neighbouring gentlemen, was refufed me, tho' my father had three ftables of extraordinary cattle; and till I purchased one, was forced to walk it, wherever I had a mind to vifit. What is ftill more incredible (if any thing of severity can be fo, when a mother-in-law is fovereign) I was not allowed to keep my horse even at grafs on the land, tho' five hundred acres of G 2 freehold freehold eftate furrounded the mansion, but obliged to graze it at a neighbouring farmer's. Nor was this all the hard measure I received. I was ordered by my father to become the young man's preceptor; to fpend my precious time in teaching this youngfter, and in labouring to make the little defpicable dunce a scholar. All this was more than I could bear. My life became infupportable, and I refolved to range even the wilds of Africa, if nothing better offered, rather than live a miferable flave under the cruel tyranny of those unrelenting oppreffors. My father, however, by the way, was as fine a gentleman as ever lived, a man of extraordinary underftanding, and a fcholar; likewife remarkably juft and good to all the world, except myself, after I left the University and to do him all the juftice in my power, and vindicate him fo far as I am able, I must not conceal, that great as the afcendant was, which my mother-in-law had over him, and as much as he was hen-pecked by that low woman, who had been his fervant maid, yet it was not to her only that my fufferings were owing. Religion had a hand in my mifery. Falfe religion was the fpring of that paternal refentment I fuffered under. 15. It was my father's wont to have prayers every night and morning in his read fa difpute father. family, and the office was the litany of the A religious common-prayer book. This work, on my with my coming home, was transferred from my fifter to me, and for about one week I performed to the old gentleman's fatisfaction, as my voice was good, and my reading distinct and clear: but this office was far from being grateful to me, as I was become a strict Unitarian, by the leffons I had received from my private tutor in college, and my own examinations of the vulgar faith. It went against my confcience to use the tritheistic form of prayer, and became at last fo uneasy to me, that I altered the prayers the first Sunday morning, and made them more agreeable to fcripture as I conceived. My father at this was very highly enraged, and his paffion arose to fo great a height, upon my defending my confeffion, and refufing to read the established form, that he called me the most impious and execrable of wretches, and with violence drove me from his prefence. Soon after however he sent me Lord Nottingham's Letter to Mr. Whillon, and defired I would come to him when I had carefully read it over. I did fo, and he asked me what I thought of the book. I answered, that I thought it a weak piece, and if he would hear me with patience, in relation to that in particular, and to the cafe in general, perhaps he might think my re G 3 ligion |