have been enough; I should have staid at home; I should have gone to church; I should have kept all my resolutions.' Yes, he might say of you as Adam did of Eve, when he was sore pressed by the questions of his great Almighty Judge, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I did eat;' she encouraged rather than opposed my bad appetites, and if I vowed a vow, she induced me to break it; she is the cause of my standing here."

I paused for an instant, that she might deny my hypothesis, if she thought fit to do so. She did not do it, and I concluded again that I had conjectured rightly. Meanwhile, however, she seemed often to curb herself with great difficulty, and often I expected to be interrupted with an attempt on her part to contradict me, or to defend the propriety of her conduct. But, whatever might be the cause, she was silent throughout, and even when I stopped; yet she champed the bit, like a steed impatient of restraint, and eager to let loose his force. Presently I continued thus: " Then, as concerns myself, Mrs. Turner, may I ask, whether you have aided and abetted, or not, in lowering my character, and in representing all the pains which I have taken for you, as mere professional trade, without any serious view to your temporal and eternal welfare?" "No, that I have not, Sir," she cried out vehemently; " I never

thought of such a thing as that. I was always sure enough that you were in earnest, and that you intended us the greatest good." "When I brought you the money, for instance," I said, “which your kind neighbours subscribed to restore your ruined affairs, you thought me in earnest, perhaps; did you

not?" This keen reproach she could not bear; she burst into tears, and exclaimed, "You need not have reminded me of that, Sir; I considered you to be equally in earnest in every thing." "Why, Mrs. Turner," I said, "if I had not been very much in earnest, I suppose that I need not have visited you so often, nor talked with you at such great length, nor have pressed you, as I did, against your inclination, to take the Sacrament, and to walk in all the ordi

nances of the Lord blameless. It is plain that you would have been contented with much less, and that a more sparing, quiet, official way of discharging my duty would have pleased you better, without any life or spirit in it to awaken some of my own seriousness in your breast also. But, perhaps, whilst you gave me credit for being in earnest, you pitied my mistaken zeal. Some new lights have broken in upon you, and you can now see, that the Master whom I wished you to serve, either existed not at all, or existed only to deceive us; that we want no Saviour of any scription; in short, that we have nothing to save ; that this world is the be-all and the end-all, and, therefore, that we may safely join with those who say, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

66

de

"Those are not my opinions, I assure you, Sir," she exclaimed again. My opinions are of a different sort. I know very well that I have a soul to be saved, and it will be hard work for them to make me think otherwise. My blood runs cold, Sir, sometimes, when I hear them talk, as they do, about burning all the bibles, and things even worse than that." "But why should you hear them talk in that manner, my good woman?" I said. keep out of their way.

"It would be better to If what they say is so

odious to you, I should think that the sight of them must be odious too, and that you would fly from them as you would from a serpent, whose bite is deadly. Indeed they do the work of the old serpent, the devil himself. If you are wise, and really wish for the comforts of the Gospel, you should never suffer such persons to pass your threshold."

66

At my first sentences she held down her head, as if she were convicted of not disliking such conversation so much as she pretended to do; but by the time I had finished, she was prepared with an answer, and she said with seeming grief, "Ah! Sir, I cannot do as I would. In that respect it is the same nearly with me as with my husband. Business must be done, and we must do it with those who choose to do it with us. Nor can we prevent them from coming to the house, or from speaking what they will." "But at all events," I rejoined, you need not encourage them, by appearing to listen to them with satisfaction. And I should think that, if they met with no encour agement, and, much more, if you shewed that such conversation was disagreeable to you, they would soon leave it off, and plague you no further. Your husband, it seems, goes by choice into this nest of hornets, and, of course, he must expect to hear the same subjects talked of by the same persons in other places, as well as in the alehouse. But they have no claim upon you, unless you yourself concede it to them by a tame submission to their impieties. How is it, Mrs. Turner? Do you contend with them when they broach their doctrines, and endeavour to fortify your husband in his Christian principles; or what?'

66

"Oh! Sir," she answered at once, my husband

wants none of my fortifying; he knows more of the matter than I do by far; I cannot contend with any body; I am puzzled immediately." "Then," I said,

66

you have an additional motive for keeping out of the way, and not exposing your faith to such a shock. It will soon be shaken, and perhaps overthrown altogether, if you sit to hear objections raised against the Gospel, which you cannot answer yourself, and which, in consequence, they will call unanswerable, and endeavour to persuade you to think the same. You are wrong, Mrs. Turner, very wrong indeed; and if you do not break through this system, it will end in your becoming an infidel, take my word for it." “No, Sir," she replied positively, "there is no danger of that, I am sure. I shall never become an infidel; no, nor a jacobin neither. I abhor such characters."

Notwithstanding this declaration, I must confess that my suspicions in regard to Mrs. Turner's principles were now considerably increased; and a fact occurred in the following week which confirmed them in a very high degree. On the present occasion I said but little more to her before I took my leave, except to warn her, over and over again, of her own and her husband's danger, and to exhort her to take especial care that the remorse which he appeared to feel when he left the house, should not be rendered ineffectual by any fault of hers. Keep him at home," I added, "according to my advice, and read my books, and, above all, your Bible, together; and pray that your faith fail not; and come to church."

66

§ 4. Mr. Barking, the Stranger, and the Same.

Guilt

WE parted by no means satisfactorily, and I augured very ill of the result. The only chance of anything like success seemed to me to depend upon her wishing to retain my favour, and to avoid the imputation of assisting in her husband's ruin. What passed privately between them I know not; but on the following Sunday he was at church, and unaccompanied by her. I saw him enter long after the commencement of the service, when we were all standing up. was visibly marked in his countenance. He looked like one who thought that every eye was fixed upon him; that his fall was known to every body; and that the surprise was universal to see him there. Sa he appeared anxious to find a seat as soon as possible, and would have thrust himself in amongst the poorer people who occupied the open benches in the passages; but they did not make way for him, and he was obliged to move onwards and onwards, more and more distressed, till I made a signal to the beadle to provide for him a pew; which was at length accomplished; but he never seemed to recover his serenity. What a contrast between his behaviour now, and when he came first after his sickness! Then he came with a face betokening gratitude, and hope, and joy: now with one of shame and fear, which betrayed the consciousness of mercies abused, and of vengeance provoked. But I thought it proper that he should be encouraged; so I directed the beadle to stop him, when the service was over, and I commended him for his attendance, and enquired after his wife. “I hoped," I said, "to have seen you both together." In