ance.

up with me) yet I detested indecent vulgarities in the company of women. However, the man gently warned me from his house; and, as I deemed myself a man of considerable consequence, I went home greatly offended at it, and fully determined never to renew the acquaintSome few days after this the mother of the maiden sent a boy to me, desiring to speak with me; but I refused to go. Some time after the mother came herself, and gave me to understand that she had no desire to see me herself, but that her daughter had; and, in apparent trouble, she said that she was entirely ignorant of there being any courtship between us. I told her I was entirely ignorant of it also, for I had never courted any one, nor did I ever mention any such thing to her daughter; nor had I any thought of it, nor could I believe the girl had any affection for me; for, though I was both proud and conceited, yet pride itself could never persuade me to think that any such thing as beauty had ever fallen to my share: and, to be honest, my being destitute of this vanishing shadow has been matter of grief to me in the days of my vanity. But to return-I went with the woman to the house, and waited till she had got her daughter up; and, when she came down stairs, I saw the reality of her affection. I was much moved. I took her on my knee, and endeavoured to cherish her all that I could; and

while I was performing the part of a tender nurse, the patient performed the part of a conqueror, and insensibly took me prisoner. Having assuaged the grief and cheered up the drooping spirits of my patient, I went home, but soon found that I was as effectually entangled in the labyrinth of love as my patient could be; for she had shot me through the heart, and killed me to all but herself; and I believe I could have served as many years for Susan Fever as Jacob did for Rachel. I loved her to such a degree, that I could not bear her out of my sight; and I, who had just before used the skill of the faculty, was now obliged to go to my patient for medicine.

From that time the father and mother of the damsel were very agreeable to my coming as a suitor to their daughter: not that there was any expectation of my ever being able to keep a wife; but they did it chiefly out of regard to her, for she was their darling as well as mine. I believe at that time I was about seventeen years of age, or something more; and the young woman was somewhat younger, consequently there was no time lost. However, I found my heart so involved in love, that my head was swarming with all the pleasing thoughts and cutting disappointments of matrimony.. A wife appeared to be the one thing needful, and I thought it was high time for me to think of engaging in the ties of

wedlock. I fretted because I was of no trade; and to marry a wife, without any thing to depend upon but hard labour, was involving myself and darling too in all the wretched distresses of poverty. I was continually thinking which way I could contrive to keep her if I married, but I found none; therefore my foolish heart was continually upon the rack. I perceived I was in as much danger on the account of her beauty, as Abraham and Isaac were on the account of the beauty of Sarah and Rebecca, when they were in Egypt and Gerar, who called them sisters for fear of being robbed of them. So it was with me-I found there was no likelihood of my ever being able to keep her, and I was as fully persuaded that her beauty would gain her a husband: the thought, too, of missing the prize was a double death, and I often fancied myself in the strong hold of jealousy as a disappointed lover. But all these cutting considerations were fetched in from futurity, for I was by no means an injured lover; as I found her the most chaste, affectionate, constant, prudent, indulgent soul that I ever met with; and would have made an excellent wife, if Providence had cast her into the lap of a person worthy of her. But I am fully convinced that persons are coupled in heaven; for never did two souls love each other more than we did, nor could any bind themselves to each other stronger with mutual promises and

vows; but every effort proved abortive-for whom God hath not joined together a mere trifle will put asunder.

Since I have been more capable of judging, I have often put her in the balance; and, of a moral person, I never saw a more amiable character: and though Solomon found not one faithful in a thousand, yet I found the first faithful to me-and certainly she had her share of beauty. But I have quite other notions of beauty now than I had then; for I find real beauty to consist in the image of Jesus Christ drawn on the soul by the Holy Ghost, and that image attended with the divine graces of the blessed Spirit of truth and love; and the internal faculties bespangled with apparent purity of mind, chastity of converse, and gospel modesty. This is beauty in the judgment of infinite divinity, and has got the testimony of God himself on its side; and it will ever appear engaging, attracting, and admirable in the eyes of all good-and no less forbidding, dismaying, and convicting, in the eyes of all bad men. But, as for personal beauty, I believe God has given it to thousands as a curse and a trap. It is a net set by God himself; and Satan has, by permission, caught his thousands in it. And that heaven sets no store by it, is plain; witness the profusion of it on the many thousands in this metropolis who, like Peninnah, hire themselves out for bread, 1 Sam. ii. 5;

and who, I think, are sharply reproved by thenatural instinct in every species of the brute creation. God often spreads a net, and permits the infernal fowler to catch sinners in it-" I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare," Ezek. xvii. 20. God has given some statutes to rebellious and self-righteous souls, that minister nothing but evil; and judgments to others, that minister nothing but death: and he has often given the gifts of beauty and progeny, that graceless souls might pollute themselves in the former, and be nurses for devils in the latter; as it is written, "Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts," Ezek. xx. 25. I have often observed how few celebrated earthly beauties stand enrolled in the divine list of heaven's favourites. The Bible is very sparing of the number of toasts. The offspring of Cain are said to be fair, Gen. vi. 2; and their countenances deceived the carnal, and perhaps some real, professors; but no mention is made of their grace. We read of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, being well favoured, and yet gracious; but we read of very few besides. And as for the time of the apostles, when divine beauty shone so conspicuous, we hardly hear of natural beauty being mentioned. It is with beauty as it is with many other things-that which is highly