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cious to tell them so: if by advice or example I revolted them, they would leave me for more dangerous companions. It was necessary to be cautious what I said to them, because they had connexions who were jealous of religious influence; above all things it was necessary to make religion inviting: and so well did I know how to accomodate others' circumstances as well as my own, I parted from everybody in better humour with themselves than I found them, and particularly avoided exciting suspicion that anybody connected with them could be wrong. In great things-yes, a few times in my life great things came to be determined: then there was too much at stake: God did not require the sacrifice my earthly happiness; my establishment in life; the keeping of my station in society: my means of usefulness; my very means of existing-of course God knows the circumstances of his creatures, and judges them accordingly. I always intended to make religion my chief object; but it so happened that I was always obliged to yield to circumstances.

Thus, day after day, day after day, went by. Think not it was an easy, unobstructed path. On the contrary, there never was a day but my conscience needed to be appeased for equivocation of opinion, and compromise of principle; the words judicious, expedient, conciliatory, indifferent, non-essential, were in perpetual requisition to reconcile me to myself. And difficulties how they increased!

"O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!".

The world, myself, and God--I had undertaken to please all, and as each stood opposed to the other, it could only be done by deceiving all. A thousand opinions I asked and controversies held, whether it

was lawful to do things, which to have left undone would have ended all controversy. To a thousand painful struggles and arduous contrivances I was driven to reconcile the word of God with the opinions of men; when to have chosen between them would have made the path of duty plain. Year after year, year after year, went on. If any would know the result, listen, and I will tell that too.

The sun is in the horizon. There are clouds about it that did not obscure the brightness of its meridian. The vigour of life is exhausted, and the activities of health are decayed. The spirits have lost the zest of being, and the quick interests of fresh-born existence. The greater part, perhaps nearly the whole, of life is gone; and all that I have gained by it, is to experience at last what I knew at first, that " one thing is needful," and all else is vain. I have proved it, because all other happiness has evaded me-because all other favour has discontented me-because my eye has not been satisfied with seeing, nor my ear with hearing; because I have taken of earth's joys, and found their emptiness; of earth's cares, and found their uselessness, and seen both absorbed in the prospect of eternity. But this, which I have expended so many years in learning, is no more than the first thing I was told, the first thing I believed. Meantime, those whom my connivance encouraged in their choice of earth, are gone to abide their preference in eternity. Those whom I might have warned and did not, are bitterly gathering the fruits of their mistake. They whom I disowned and defamed for the world's sake, are in man sions of glory at their God's right hand. They for whose sake I did it, have forgotten me, but are using still the pleas, and subterfuges, and accommodations I taught them. And the hours that I have suffered

to pass in mischievous discourse, which a word of disapprobation might have checked, can never be purchased back. And the days of ungodly compromise are more than the days that remain for devotedness to God. And now, when I would persuade any one to decision, they answer me, that I did not always think so. And when I speak with any one of the inferiority of earthly things, they answer, that it is indeed very true; but unhappily we none of us think so: and though my heart disclaims the ungodly fellowship, conscious memory seals my lips. And-worse consequence than all-He to whom I was devoted at my birth, in whose name I was brought up, whom, at my entrance on life, I hired myelf to serve-He, to whose gracious bidding I answered, "I go;" but went not-He has had nothing of me yet but treachery, equivocation, doubt, undecided preference, cavil, and evasion: and nothing remains to offer him but the diminished ca pacities of my diminished years!

THE STAGE COA С Н.

A LETTER TO the Listener.

ON a day-suppose it any day, excepting Sunday -I had occasion to travel by the coach from Leeds to Nottingham. I am an Englishman, I have never been abroad, I have no conversation, and I follow the example of my ancestors for generations back, of seldom speaking unless I have something to say. But nothing escapes my hearing or passes me unthought upon. In the coach, at its starting, there were three; another gentleman, a lady, and myself. We met as strangers; put ourselves each one in the position most easy to ourselves, without regarding the accommodation of each other: I pulled up my window, and the lady instantly let down hers, as much as to say, Are you going to stifle us? I put on my hat, as much as to say, Will you give me my death of cold? and our fellow-passenger took off his: a majority of two to one against me, in favour of air, decided without the interchange of a single word; nothing could be more in unison with my taste and feelings. The next thing to accommodating ourselves, was to inspect each other. This was performed on all sides without the least expression that could be perceived of pleasure or disappointment; and we returned to the prudent determination of not offering the first civility, lest it should be wasted on the undeserving. In one respect I had the advantage of my companions. I had seen the lady in

the north, and knew who she was. She was about five-and-twenty, she was polished, and she was cultivated. I would rather not be very particular as to her situation, lest I betray my original by too close description. It was one of responsibility, and she was considered a religious character.

All this I knew before, and should probably have added nothing to my knowledge in this interview, had it not occurred, that, after threading various streets and turnings in the good town of Leeds, as we were emerging from it, the coach stopped, and a young man edged his long person into the small remaining space; rubbing his hands with cold, and vowing it was the hottest day he ever remembered in December. It was immediately apparent that he and the lady had met before. He was of Irish blood, therefore not endowed with hereditary silence; and ladies, I believe, seldom obstinately persist in it, except in the drawing-room retirement after dinner. Speedily, therefore, they were engaged in such conversation as takes place between strangers, who have somewhere performed the ceremony of introduction. Excuse me, that my love of description has delayed me thus long from my point which it. self may be dismissed in much fewer words. My companions_talked of many people and of many things; much, especially, of books. The gentleman was one of those who never converse with a woman with sincerity; that is, from a mixture of folly, conceit, and dishonesty, they never say to her what they really think and mean; but what they judge most likely to make her betray and expose any folly, mistake, or extravagance, that may happen to belong to her; agreeing with or opposing her sentiments, not in the verity of their judgment, but as it may best serve the purpose of making her go on.

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