DISAPPOINTMENTS.

It was the law of Egypt, that every subject of the kingdom was, under pain, I think, of death, to follow the calling of his fathers. Whether this was a wise law, I know not. But there is another kingdom, wherein all is wise, of which it is a law, if I mistake not the statute-book, that every one should follow diligently his own calling. Of course it could not be in either of these kingdoms the following events occurred, as taken in short-hand by a Listener, from the lips of the uufortunate narrator.

"When I first became sensible of religious impressions, I was eighteen years of age. I had been politely brought up, had learned a great deal, and knew but very little-least of anything did I know myself. Next to myself, what I knew least of was my fellow-creatures. I had always resided with my grandmother, and had little intercourse but with my governess, a few distant relatives, and two or three genteel girls of my own standing in society. My grandmother was an old-fashioned Christian. That she was one, the more I learn of religion the more I am convinced, though at one time I doubted it. She had become so at a time when they were indeed the despised few, or only not despised because they were unheard of: when all they could do for the world was to sit apart and pray for it, and all they could do for themselves was to withdraw from its influences. I speak of a Christian of sixty years ago. When I

knew her, she was too old to receive any new impressions. Her mind had but little cultivation. I never saw her read any thing but the newspaper, Baxter, and the Bible. She seldom talked of religion, but she lived it every moment. Of the public demonstrations of piety, so prevalent in our time, she contented herself with saying, 'There were no such things in her day.' This retired piety, beautiful as it appears to me in the retrospect, was attended with considerable disadvantage to myself. Very little pains were taken to instruct my mind in the principles which hers reposed in. Having received them without human agency, she, perhaps, conceived it impossible to impart them. An education distinct and separate from the world, was among the things not heard of in her day.' I was brought up like other girls, and by other people. Her care was but to pray for me; which that she did with unwearied earnestness, in holy trust and confidence, I know most certainly; and to her prayers, perhaps, the blessings that I received were granted. In her journal I found many an earnest petition for the correction of faults she never reproved in me, and pardon for my iniquities at the time that she seemed to think me all perfection, and allowed me to think myself so.

"When, therefore, I became, on my approach to womanhood, strongly imbued with religious feelings, not having received the impressions from my grandmother, it was not to her I looked for example or advice. I doubted, indeed, the reality of her religion, because it was of a character so different to what I saw elsewhere. Elsewhere, therefore, I sought for counsel. She allowed me to go on unthwarted in good, as before in folly; and I began my course in all the confidence of a spirit yet untried, and all the

fervour, I believe, of an honest, though a new-born, purpose. I did not want advisers. As soon as my inclination to seriousness was perceived, I was taken up by some leading people in the religious world, as it is called, and introduced from one to another as a promising character, requiring to be led forward. I was an heiress-nobody knew to what, nor did Ibut on some unexplained understanding that I was in a capacity to receive and do a great deal of good, I became a person of importance in my sphereamong people whose attentions to me, whatever may have been their effect, had no motive but to promote my welfare. I was taken from party to party, and church to church, and meeting to meeting, in a perpetual round of religious dissipation. Nothing could be more delightful to me than this hurry of pious occupation: for, besides that I had a real and ardent pleasure in listening to the things of God, and an honest desire to learn them, there was in it a contrast to the monotony of my home, naturally pleasing to the youthful mind. I had been to a ball about six times in my life; I had yawned through a tea-party about once a-fortnight; I had driven round the parks for an hour every day: all the rest of my time I had been thrown upon my own resources, which were few enough, and the society of my grandmother, or that of about half-a-dozen intimates of my own age. But now there was somewhere to go every night: somebody to hear every morning; somebody to see; somebody to be introduced to everywhere: mingled all with the stimulus of first-awakened feeling, as new as it was delightful: for I was too young to have tasted of the excitements of earthly passion. My dear old grandmother looked on with a surprise that excited my mirth; and with an anxiety, which, though I then perceived it not, I think of now with pain

Sometimes she ventured to complain that the regularity of her house was destroyed: the family prayer was unattended, because the servants were out with the carriage. They were sent hither and thither, she knew not where; all sorts of people came about, she knew not whom. I was never at liberty to bear her company; or rather to sit silent by her side, which she so called. She never thought to see such fashionable doings in her house. Still I was to do as I liked; only things were not so in her day, when girls of eighteen stayed at home, read their books, and were happy with their parents.

"This went on a considerable time. But there was too much of the light of truth upon my mind, not to show me, after a while, that, however much I was gaining for myself, I was doing no good to anybody else. A spare shilling in the collection-box was all that was rendered for what I considered the much received; and I became uneasy under the first perception, that selfishness, that one great principle of nature's sin, is selfish still, whichever way indulged. I might have taken into account, also, the actual privation and discomfort of my grandmother and her household, as the cost of my indulgence. Eagerly, and I believe again with honest purpose, I began to ask everybody what I could do. I saw others doing, why should I be useless to my generation? Alas! had any one of my kind friends looked into my mind, and, seeing how light, how empty, how ignorant it was, advised me to devote the next five years to mental improvement and the study of myself, what defeat and disappointment they had spared me! But this they did not. My desire to do good was much approved, and many ways were suggested to me. I was taken to see a school, where I found a lady surrounded by fifty neatly-dressed girls, hanging with

fixed attention upon her words, gazing on her with mingled reverence and love, their little countenances seeming to gather the benevolence that beamed in hers. She was about twice my age. A calm and sober serenity of manner, a voice of tender interest, gave force to all she said. The simplicity of her expressions was only equalled by the correctness and carefulness of the thoughts she clothed in them. It seemed that, knowing everything, she remembered when she had known nothing; and from the depths of experienced truth, could reach the heart that had yet experienced nothing. There was not a whisper among her audience, but when they responded to her questions, and showed, in doing so, the extent and importance of the knowledge she had imparted. My heart burned within me to do the same-to be the instrument of Heaven's mercy to the children of poverty. Why should I not teach? Why should I not have a school? A thousand projects were afloat in my head, and not a single misgiving of my powers was in my heart. I knew I should not be restricted in pecuniary means, and returned home full of elevation in the prospect of being useful. So full, I could not help telling my grandmother I was going to teach a school. She only answered me, with something that was not quite a sigh, 'God bless you, dear child, and teach you in his own good time." It must be owned my spirit fell for a moment at this contemptuous speech, as I esteemed it; but my respect for the old lady's piety had long since expired; and my respect for her judgment was ready to follow, whenever it should come in contact with my own.

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'I soon recovered my self-complacency, and the next day prepared for my task-prepared to teach, at a time when I knew absolutely nothing: not God