tions, and never seemed to understand what I said to them. If they had, they had been wiser than their teacher. Still I did my best. I scolded, preached, persuaded, remonstrated; stimulated them with emulation, which never failed to make them quarrel and urged them by comparisons, which never failed of making one party arrogant, and the other inveterate. Still for a while I was sanguine. The more difficulty, the more merit in the performance. As fast as my scholars forsook me, I got others; and every moment of time I could command was engrossed with teaching. But after some considerable time the benches thinned-the books wore out -the pinafores were unwashed-the friends ceased to come --and, though I would not own it myself, I was really weary of my task; weary of repeating what none cared to hear, and none remembered. With a poignancy of disappointment equal to the earnestness of my desire to be useful, I was compelled to perceive that the children did not understand anything better for the time and toil I had expended on them. My heart was very sad under this failure, and my spirit much discouraged. I thought that God refused to bless my undertaking—even that I was not his servant, since he refused my labours. Others' success added poignancy to my mortification, and sin perhaps to my sorrow. My distress was real; and so much was I at the moment humbled by it, it would have been happiness indeed had any one suggested that I might have mistaken my calling, and set myself to teach, at a period when I had better have been gathering in a store of knowledge for future distribution. However much my pride might have been wounded, I should have been relieved from the apprehension that God disowned my service.

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About this time my grandmother determined to remove into the country-for her health, she said-but I believed, because she was tired of the disturbance I made in her household economy and distressed by my perpetual absence from her. A house was taken for a twelvemonth at a watering-place on the coast, whither we removed. I felt little regret at abandoning an undertaking which had cost

me so much disappointment. My London society I did indeed regret, but was assured I should find great opportunities of usefulness in my new residence. This consoled

me.

"My first acquaintance was with two maiden ladies, advanced in life, and of a station in society lower than my own; but of that solid worth and unpretending simplicity of character which cannot be looked down upon. These worthy women, with means the most restricted, contrived to do an immense deal of good, by personal exertion and the influence they had obtained in their neighbourhood. Everybody knew Mrs Mary and Mrs Jane-the rich, who always gave money when they asked, without much caring what they did with it—the poor, whose troubles found always a compassionate hearing at their door. They might be seen in the morning in gray cloaks and close bonnets, scudding about the streets with baskets in their hands, filling them with contributions at one door, and emptying them with donations at another. You might find them in the evening in their little parlour in the back street, cutting out baby linen, mixing medicines, or casting up accounts. In every corner was a collecting-box-on every table piles of reports, cases of distress, and prospectuses of societies: there was not one, I believe, to which these active women did not send up their yearly pittance of collections. And Mrs Mary and Mrs Jane had always something to sell; something that their active hands-one might have thought they had a dozen each instead of two-had wrought for the advancement of their charities - garters, muffetees, and kettle-holders—a hundred articles, which, if nobody wanted, everybody bought out of respect to the manufacturers. These worthy women became the objects of my admiration -and with reason-for with little more for their whole ménage than I could command for pocket-money, they administered to the wants of hundreds, had a blessing under every cottage roof for five miles round, and sent help to the heathen of the equator and the pole. My heart grew sick with sadness when I compared their labours with my own

but there was a remedy-could I not go and do likewise? The resolution was soon taken. I begged my worthy friends to let me assist in all their undertakings, and collect for all their societies, being now a resident in the place, and having nothing to do. They were delighted with the proposal; they had scarcely any assistance; they believed they were not so young as they used to be; and the place increased every year; a great deal more might be done than they had strength for; nothing could be so acceptable as my services. My name was inserted as collector in all their books, and the necessary credentials put into my hands. And now again my untaught heart beat high with joy at the thought of the good that I should do. One morning as I was packing into my handsome French reticule, pencil, books, reports, &c., my grandmother asked me what I was going about. I answered that I was going to collect money for the societies. 'Collect money, dear child!' she said; 'had you better not give them what money they want and keep yourself at home?-you have more than you know how to spend properly-God bless you in the use of it.'

"I was now nearly twenty. With my profession of folly, I had put aside its garb, as to all affectation of fashion or useless expenditure in dress: but still there was a style in my appearance that is not easily put off, particularly where there are personal attractions and the fresh vivacity of youth. Nothing misgiving of any observations I might excite, I sallied forth, morning after morning: knocked at people's doors-so I had been bidden-asked for the mistress, asked for the servants, asked for the money; quite unembarrassed at first in the confidence of my good intentions. But some way or another, I knew not how it was, things by degrees went ill. The servants laughed and looked impertinent when they opened the doors. The ladies within carried themselves haughtily, asked a great many questions I was not prepared to answer, and made objections and insinuations which piqued my pride, and sometimes provoked my impertinence. On one or two occasions, where the hour of my coming was known, I per

ceived that preparation was made for satisfying curiosity, which, however gratifying it might be to my vanity, was not at all so to my delicacy. In short, I was as well known in the streets as the twopenny postman; but by no means so well received. With the poor, alas! I had but little success. I was not Mrs Mary nor yet Mrs Jane. I gave, it is true, a shilling for every penny I solicited, and when this was discovered I got subscribers plenty: but they paid no longer than I gave; they had new wants every time I appeared; and if these were not attended to, it was impossible to give money, they had not enough for themselves; and even if they were, I scarcely had a welcome. When I offered consolation, an eye was turned askance upon my dress-'It was very well for people to talk who had plenty of everything.' When I ventured admonition, 'Young gentlefolks knew little of what the poor had to go through.' I felt deeply at the time these seemingly hard returns for my intended kindness; but I know now that they were truths. I did not know-I had never suffered-I had never witnessed suffering-I had never even deeply reflected upon it. I knew nothing of its near affinity to vice, and consequently I knew not how to administer to either. I reproved in the wrong place-I offered consolations unsuitable to the mind that was to receive them. From want, not of feeling, but of knowledge of the human heart, I wounded when I meant to soothe, and was imposed upon and misled perpetually. Besides all this, I know not how it happened, but it always rained or snowed when I went out: not more, I suppose, than it did upon Mrs Mary and Mrs Janethey never stopped, neither would I; but I had been delicately brought up, and was always taking cold. My grandmother became seriously uneasy-my waiting-maid declared that Miss had need collect a good deal of money to pay for the refreshing and retrimming of all the bonnets and pelisses she spoiled with rain and mud. At length, it was not till her patience had lasted nearly a year, my grandmother asked me how much in the week I collected. I replied, 'Why, dear grandmamma, as much as five shil

lings a week, all in pennies.''Well, then, dear child,' she said, 'I do not know what you want with it-there were no such things in my days-but I'll pay the five shillings to keep you at home; and if you add to it all that it costs you, I warrant you will double the sum, and let everybody dispose of their own.' Mortified as I was with this balance of account, I could not dispute its accuracy, and was not, I believe, altogether sorry to resign my task. But there was a feeling attending it of deep distress. Again my hope of usefulness had been defeated. Surely I should take my portion at last with the unprofitable servant, and God would not acknowledge me as his. I poured out my heart, in all its bitterness, to Mrs Mary and Mrs Jane--they did not understand me, either in my reasons for withdrawing, or my distress in doing so-with their usual tone of benevolence, they said, 'Well, well, never mind, God will provide for his own work-young people are apt to get tired—but I should be older by and by.' In thus seeming to cast the blame upon me, to which, in this moment of humiliation, I was myself sufficiently inclined, they added poignancy to my regret; one hint, that what was their calling, might not be mine, would have relieved it,

"Soon after this I married, and again resided in the metropolis. The circumstances of my married life brought me into a different society from that I had been accustomed to; chiefly of pious and literary men and women of superior and cultivated minds. Among these I first began to feel my own want of cultivation-my absolute ignorance of everything; my incapability of taking part in the conversation at my table, or even of profiting by it, when it passed beyond the gossip, religious or otherwise, of the day. For though on the subject of religion I had been perpetually and incessantly hearing, I was truly in the condition of those of whom the apostle speaks-'Ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.' I had been hearing and teaching, but neither studying nor reflecting.

Of the discussions to which I was now so frequently a party, biblical criticism, and nice distinctions of doctrine,