vet still, I know not how, though I want to bluster a little, my heart is respondent only to softer emotions. Then tell them, sir, that after all, I love them affectionately; and be assured of my ever remaining your dutiful son."

In all our miseries, cried I, what thanks have we not to return, that one at least of our family is exempted from what we suffer! Heaven be his guard, and keep my boy thus happy to be the support of his widowed mother, and the father of these two babes, which is all the patrimony I can now bequeath him! May he keep their innocence from the temptations of want, and be their conductor in the paths of honour!—I had scarce said these words, when a noise, like that of a tumult, seemed to proceed from the prison below: it died away soon after, and a clanking of fetters was heard along the passage that led to my apartment. The keeper of the prison entered, holding a man all bloody, wounded, and fettered with the heaviest irons. I looked with compassion on the wretch as he approached me, but with horror, when I found it was my own son! My George! my George! and do I behold thee thus! Wounded! fettered! Is this thy happiness! is this the manner you return to me? O that this sight could break my heart at once, and let me die!

Where, sir, is your fortitude? returned my son, with an intrepid voice: I must suffer: my life is forfeited, and let them take it.

I tried to restrain my passion for a few minutes in silence, but I thought I should have died with the effort. O, my boy, my heart weeps to behold thee thus, and I cannot, cannot help it! In the moment I thought thee blest, and prayed for thy safety, to behold thee thus again! chained, wounded! And yet the death of the youthful is happy. But I am

old, a very old man, and have lived to see this day! To see my children all untimely falling about me, while I continue a wretched survivor in the midst of ruin! May all the curses that ever sunk a soul, fall heavy upon the murderer of children! May my he live, like me, to see

1

Hold, sir, replied my son, or I shall blush for thee. How, sir! forgetful of your age, your holy calling, thus to arrogate the justice of Heaven, and fling those curses upward that must soon descend to crush thy own grey head with destruction! No, sir, let it be your care now to fit me for that vile death I must shortly suffer, to arm me with hope and resolution, to give me courage to drink of that bitterness which must shortly be my portion.

My child, you must not die! I am sure no offence of thine can deserve so vile a punishment. My George could never be guilty of any crime to make his ancestors ashamed of him.

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Mine, sir, returned my son, is, I fear, an pardonable one. When I received my mother's letter, from home, I immediately came down, determined to punish the betrayer of our honour, and sent him an order to meet me, which he answered, not in person, but by dispatching four of his domestics to seize me. I wounded one who first assaulted me, and I fear desperately: but the rest made me their prisoner. The coward is determined to put the law in execution against me: the proofs are undeniable: I have sent a challenge; and as I am the first aggressor upon the statute, I see no hopes for pardon. But you have often charmed me with lessons of fortitude: let me now, sir, find them in your example.

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And, my son, you shall find them. I am now raised above this world, and all the pleasures it can produce. From this moment I break from my

heart all the ties that held it down to earth, and will prepare to fit us both for eternity. Yes, my son, I will point out the way, and my soul shall guide yours in the ascent, for we will take our flight together. I now see, and am convinced, you can expect no pardon here, and I can only exhort you to seek it at that greatest Tribunal where we both shall shortly answer. But let us not be niggardly in our exhortation, but let all our fellow-prisoners have a share. Good gaoler, let them be permitted to stand here, while I attempt to improve them. Thus saying, I made an effort to rise from my straw, but wanted strength, and was able only to recline against the wall. The prisoners assembled according to my directions, for they loved to hear my counsel: my son and his mother supported me on either side: I looked and saw that none were wanting, and then addressed them with the following exhortation.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The equal dealings of Providence demonstrated with regard to the happy and the miserable here below. That from the nature of pleasure and pain, the wretched must be repaid the balance of their sufferings in the life hereafter.

My friends, my children, and fellow-sufferers, when I reflect on the distribution of good and evil here below, I find that much has been given man to enjoy, yet still more to suffer. Though we should examine the whole world, we shall not find one man so happy as to have nothing left to wish for: but we daily see thousands, who by suicide shew us they have nothing left to hope. In this life, then,

it appears that we cannot be entirely blest; but yet we may be completely miserable.

Why man should thus feel pain; why our wretchedness should be requisite in the formation of universal felicity; why, when all other systems are made perfect by the perfection of their subordinate parts, the great system should require for its perfection parts that are not only subordinate to others, but imperfect in themselves;-these are questions that never can be explained, and might be useless if known. On this subject, Providence has thought fit to elude our curiosity, satisfied with granting us motives to consolation.

In this situation, man has called in the friendly assistance of philosophy; and Heaven, seeing the incapacity of that to console him, has given him the aid of religion. The consolations of philosophy are very amusing, but often fallacious. It tells us, that life is filled with comforts, if we will but enjoy them; and, on the other hand, that though we unavoidably have miseries here, life is short, and they will soon be over. Thus do these consolations destroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort, its shortness must be misery; and if it be long, our griefs are protracted. Thus philosophy is weak; but religion comforts in a higher strain. Man is here, it tells us, fitting up his mind, and preparing it for another abode. When the good man leaves the body, and is all a glorious mind, he will find he has been making himself a heaven of happiness here, while the wretch that has been maimed and contaminated by his vices, shrinks from his body with terror, and finds that he has anticipated the vengeance of Heaven. To religion, then, we must hold in every circumstance of life, for our truest comfort; for if already we are happy, it is a pleasure to think that we can make that happiness

unending; and if we are miserable, it is very consoling to think that there is a place of rest. Thus, to the fortunate, Religion holds out a continuance of bliss; to the wretched, a change from pain.

But though Religion is very kind to all men, it has promised peculiar rewards to the unhappy; the sick, the naked, the houseless, the heavy laden, and the prisoner, have ever most frequent promises in our sacred law. The Author of our religion every where professes himself the wretch's friend; and, unlike the false ones of this world, bestows all his caresses upon the forlorn. The unthinking have censured this as partiality, as a preference, without merit to deserve it. But they never reflect, that it is not in the power even of Heaven itself to make the offer of unceasing felicity as great a gift to the happy as to the miserable. To the first, eternity is but a single blessing, since, at most, it but increases what they already possess. To the latter, it is a double advantage for it diminishes their pain here, and rewards them with heavenly bliss hereafter.

But Providence is in another respect kinder to the poor than to the rich; for as it thus makes the life after death more desirable, so it smooths the passage there. The wretched have had a long familiarity with every face of terror. The man of sorrows lays himself quietly down, with no possessions to regret, and but few ties to stop his departure he feels only Nature's pang in the final separation, and this is no way greater than he has often fainted under before; for after a certain degree of pain, every new breach that death opens in the constitution, nature kindly covers with insensi'bility.

Thus Providence has given to the wretched two advantages over the happy in this life-greater