countenance, good appetite, sound sleep, a clear and powerful understanding, a green old age; are not these the things which Nature intends, and wishes?"

"I suppose they are," he replied. "Would it not be a proof, then, of a strange perversion of intellect and feeling in any man who did not desire them?" It was impossible for him to deny it. "And if those contrary things, betokening the decay of health and strength, came upon him accidentally, must he not lament it as excluding him from the main functions and purposes of life?" He granted it. "And what,” I said, "if they came upon him by his own fault? Must he not accuse and condemn himself for his imprudence, or whatever the occasion might be?" -"Perhaps he would," replied the sick man. "And grieve," I said, "and repent that he had not chosen a different system of life; and wish, although in vain, to have the power of choosing and beginning again?” "Some people might do so," he answered. Yes, all," I said; "all that have a single spark within them of the true feeling of a man; all that do not basely degrade themselves below the level of their own proper nature; all these must grieve and repent, that they are no longer what men should be, but wretched, contemptible creatures, useless to their country, a disgrace to their connexions, a burden to themselves."

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Here I stopped for a moment, to see if he would make any remark; he made none; so I continued in this manner. "I have not so mean an opinion of you, Mr. Marsden, as not to be quite sure, that, if you had now your free choice to begin again, you would adopt, or at least resolve to adopt a different mode of life from that which has destroyed in you

the intentions of Nature, and the perfections of a man; and consequently, that you regret the past, and wish it, if possible, undone; even upon those temporal and worldly considerations alone, which I have yet brought forward to convince you. For I cannot induce myself to think that you will now affirm that such a mode of life, followed by such fatal effects, has pleasures immediately attending upon it, to counterbalance all those effects, and to render them worth enduring for the sake of those pleasures. When it was uncertain whether such effects would follow or not, you might have embraced the pleasures, and run the risk of the consequences; but now you have the power of comparing the two things together, the pleasures and the consequences, by your own actual experience; and you must indeed be utterly bereft of all the understanding of a man, if you could maintain with sincerity, that the effects and consequences, although a 'mighty evil, are still less evil than the pleasures were good. Besides, I call them pleasures only for the sake of giving them a name; but they are not real pleasures; nor, be they what they may, is there any real good in them at all, or any real happiness resulting from them. Pray what do you think of me, Mr. Marsden? Do you consider me a less happy man, because I never drink to intoxication; or sit, smoking tobacco and singing lewd songs, in public houses? On the contrary, do you not know assuredly, that such practices would be misery to me instead of happiness?"

"Yes, Sir," answered the sick man, rather to my surprise, after being silent so long; "it might be so with you; but I have seen a man of your cloth as deep a drinker as I have ever been; aye, and as fond

of a smutty song too; and I suppose he found such a life to be a pleasant one." "And were you not even yourself ashamed of him, and scandalized at him?" I asked. "Why, that is true enough," he confessed. "Then," I said, "you bore testimony, by that very feeling, that such pleasures ought not to have been pleasures to him at least. But I ask you besides, did he not come skulking into the alehouse, and go skulking out again?"-"Yes," he said, "I believe he did not wish to be seen.""Then," I rejoined, "he also bore testimony, by his own desire of secrecy, that he was pursuing things which nothing but low passions and a depraved appetite could make him consider in the light of pleasures. In his case, therefore, and in my case, Mr. Marsden, you would see the matter clearly enough; and you would pronounce, without hesitation, that we had mistaken the true nature of pleasure; and, in short, that there must be something low, and perverted, and depraved about us, to lead us into such a mode of life. Now, what is there in your own case to produce so great a difference as to make you imagine, that, what is a mistaken notion of pleasure in us, may be a right notion of it in you?"

Why, the clergy," he said immediately, “have a trade of preaching up temperance and sobriety; and of threatening all people, who follow contrary practices, with I know not what horrible punishments; it would be therefore both strange and disgraceful in them, if they were given to those practices, themselves."-" That is true, undoubtedly," I rejoined; "but it does not alter the nature of the case to others. Why do the clergy preach, that men should be sober, and temperate in all things; and why do

they unfold the terrors of the Lord against the gluttons, and the drunkards, and other sensualists? If they were to choose a profitable trade, as you call it, they should rather preach in favour of all indulgence, and bid men follow the bent of their own several inclinations. But they do the very reverse; because they know, that the laws of Nature and of God, who is the lord and author of Nature, require the former mode of conduct, and forbid the latter; and, whenever God and Nature forbid any thing, it is because the thing is wrong in itself, and the cause of misery to individuals, families and nations; and, consequently, any pleasurable feeling arising from indulgence in that thing, is a vicious feeling, perverted from truth and from real purity of taste and principle. This, you see, applies to all alike; and observe besides, that whenever God and Nature make laws, they will to a certainty punish the breach of them, either here or hereafter, or in both the stages of our being; in both, if the punishment inflicted here do not produce repentance and amendment. It is

God's wish that they should, as you heard in those prayers which I read to you; but if those punishments in this world only harden men's hearts, and they die incorrigible and impenitent, then will God pour out upon them a ten-fold vengeance in the next world. Knowing all this, we preach as we do; and nothing can be worse for the clergy themselves than to set a bad example to others, by acting differently from what they preach; but I tremble for those, who, when they stand at the last dreadful seat of judgment, will have nothing to plead in their own excuse, but an example, which they knew to be bad and vicious. Will not God say to them, you had my holy Book to

go to, and there you might have read my will; but you might have read it besides in the miseries which I ordained to follow your practices. You might neglect my Book, or contradict it; but you could not neglect or contradict these miseries; you felt them to your cost, and you saw from whence they came; but still you did not become humble and contrite towards me; you did not lament that you had broken my laws and offended me; you did not ask me to forgive you in my Son's name, whom I sent to die in your stead, that I might be able to forgive you consistently with justice; you did not resolve, if I spared your life, to live differently, under the guidance and with the help of my Holy Spirit; what have you now therefore to say, in bar of everlasting punishment about to fall upon you? Plead not before me the example of the wicked, or the customs and fashions of a corrupt world; you knew how to do good, and you have done evil; you sinned not in ignorance, but with your eyes open; and you would not relent. Your sins therefore remain, and cry out against you. You died in them; and there is no redemption left for you. Can any reasonable answer be given to this?"

At first, when I stopped, he was silent; and I was afraid that it was his intention not to speak to this point at all; but at length he said, "Yes, Sir; but you talked of gnawing worms and stinging scorpions, and furious devils; can anybody believe such things as these, except some crazy or superstitious old woman?"-" Attend," I replied; "when the Scriptures would excite us to endeavour to obtain the joys of the next world—as we are not capable in our present state of forming any idea about them-they