was worse with them than the beginning" (2 Pet. ii. 20, 22.) By this I see plainly that all profession that begins in the flesh will surely end there. I continued with them for more than two years, and this was long enough to see an end to their reading the Bible, their pretended prayers, and singing hymns, which had been kept up for some time in the house. Ah! where should I have been, were it not for rich, free, sovereign grace.

After I left this place, I worked with any of the farmers that would employ me. At last I went to live with Mr. J. Gest, where there were four more boys of different ages: I was the youngest except one. Here, almost every species of wickedness was carried on, for there was no fear of God before our eyes; and I have thought and believe, that none in heathen countries can be more heathenish than they were then in these farm-houses. While in this house we had a sad disease; and by its long standing it took such deep root in us, that it was with much difficulty we were cured: in order to cleanse the bedding and our clothes, we boys had to sleep six successive nights in the hay loft; this, together with the disorder, brought me into a state that I cannot forget. The bloody flux ensued, and reduced me to such a state of weakness, that my life was despaired of. But, blessed be the Lord, he preserved me, although my digestive powers had ceased, and the little food I could take passed through the bowels just in the state I had taken it. My restoration to health was a miracle of mercy, for all means and skill were baffled to effect a cure; but there is nothing too hard for the Lord. I remember full well, how I used many times to sit down on a dunghill and weep for very weakness, wishing to die; but the fear of hell would so arrest my mind, that I shrank from the thought of dying; yet I had no fear of God. After some months had passed in this hopeless case, the Lord in tender mercy healed my disease, and restored me to

health, though I knew not then it was the Lord; yet now I look back with pleasure on the displays of his loving-kindness and compassion towards me, and can say from my heart, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" (Psalm ciii. 1).

Although I was thus preserved and delivered from death by the Lord, yet neither the sickness nor the deliverance made any alteration in my life and actions. I only lived to rebel, and to manifest my hatred against God, his name, and his mercies; for there was no fear of God before my eyes, and God was not in all my thoughts. Ah! who can give a full development of man by nature, dead in trespasses and sins? I must say, and with pleasure, to the honour of my much abused Lord, that he was longsuffering towards me, and would not let me perish in my sins, having loved me with an everlasting love (Jer. xxxi. 3); he loved me when dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. ii. 4); and thus, according to his good pleasure, watched over me and preserved me; and this clearly proves, that the purpose of God according to election must stand (Rom. ix. 11). I can now see what I was then blind to, that the hand of the Lord was in all this; and that neither judgments nor mercies will ever bring the sinner to serve and fear the Lord, unless he be born again (John iii. 3, 5); and I now find it blessed, and it humbles me down in the dust before the Lord, in every renewed remembrance of the way he hath led and fed me, as he did the Israelites, for more than forty years in the wilderness, as recorded in Deut. viii. 2; and I freely ascribe all to the praise of the glory of his grace, that made me accepted in the beloved (Eph. i. 6).

I must relate another wonderful deliverance, by the Lord, from death and hell. It was a custom for one of the younger boys, on the Monday morning, to arise with the maidens and washerwomen at an early hour, to keep the fire in for heating the water for washing.

C

It was my turn one morning; we got up about three o'clock; I had made the water boil, and was sitting on the top of the brick-work around the copper wherein the water was, and having no thought of danger, I caught hold of one of the maidens to have a little play with her: she unthinkingly pushed me backward, and I was plunged into the copper of boiling water, and my lower parts were immersed in the boiling water. I cried out for help, and they pulled me out, but not unhurt, for my right thigh was very much scalded, I may say boiled. "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord," (Psalm cvii. 43). I was laid up for sixteen weeks, and was at times in great agony; my thigh-bone was laid open to view, and many times I lost my senses while the wound was dressing. I was now about sixteen years old: "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life" (Psalm xxiii. 6). I even know what it is to be brought naturally through fire and water, and my life to be preserved. These deliverances prove to me the faithfulness and love of my ever-blessed Lord, whose eye was over me for good (Jer. xxiv. 6); who watched over me when I despised him, and was Satan's willing servant, and when I had no will or desire to thank the Lord for such mercies, because 1 was dead in sin the flesh can never rise higher than its source; and although this deliverance was so great, it did not change my heart, nor did it make me walk circumspectly. I have now the mark in my thigh, and shall carry it with me to the grave.

When I am led to reflect on these things, they give me fresh cause to thank, praise, and bless my gracious Lord, for his goodness and distinguishing mercy towards me, a poor lost and hell-deserving sinner in myself. "How great is his goodness" (Zech. ix. 17), "and his ways past finding out !" (Rom. xi. 33). After I was restored to health and to my former employment, I was as a wild ass that snuffeth up the

wind at her pleasure (Jer. ii. 24). I still went on sinning against the Lord, with a seeming determination to gratify the lusts of the flesh, taking pleasure in wickedness, "having no hope, and without God in the world" (Eph. ii. 12). "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?" (Psalm viii. 4).

In recording the tender mercies of my blessed Lord, I desire to bless his holy name that he preserved me amidst all evil, for I was capable of performing it with a greedy appetite; there was nothing before my eyes but scenes of wickedness, and every abomination, in which I felt a pleasure to join; and I wonder at the Lord's long-suffering, when I think of what was practised in that house. Indeed it is very marvellous in my eyes, for I never heard of the Lord's sovereign mercy manifested towards any of them but myself, and the whole of us in the house were sixteen in number; some of them are dead, and the others are in the state they were born. Here I pause and say, "What hath God wrought!" (Num. xxiii. 23); and I rejoice before him, saying, "Though we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. ii. 13).

I shall now inform my reader how I was brought out of this house. It was in the year 1804, Ladyday, one Sunday, the volunteers being then embodied, I, contrary to my master's commands, went to see them exercise in the forenoon, and neglected to clean my master's shoes and boots, as was my usual custom. My master was offended, and I went home to my father, who was very angry with me for leaving my master, and used every entreaty for me to go back again; but I would not: and I now believe that it was my Lord's will I should not go.

The Lord, according to his eternal purpose, opened a way for me to learn the business of a mason and slater. On April 23, being seventeen years old, I went with one John Lee, a mason, to serve him for four years: I was to receive of him four shillings

a-week the first year, five the second, six the third, and eight the fourth; so that I had not a very great income to maintain myself; and my parents were very poor. It was during this time that convictions of conscience would frequently take place with me, on account of my vile course of living; and I resolved and promised the Lord that I would amend my ways, and try to please him. Under these touches of conscience I used to read my Bible, sing hymns and psalms, go to church, and also to hear the methodists preach. For a little season I seemed religious ; but it soon wore off, and I launched out again deeper than ever in sinning and rebelling against my much abused Lord. Sometimes thoughts about hell and wrath to come would take place, and at night I feared I should awake in hell before the morning. I used to say the Lord's prayer, and a few scraps of the church prayers to calm conscience, and I promised the Lord if he would spare me until such a time I would do better, and break off my vile ways: : but these things were all in the flesh, which is as weak as grass; I had no power of withstanding one allurement, and being of a light, trifling, and jesting mind, was easily caught by every bait of Satan, as a fly is in a spider's web. Let Arminians say what they will about the power of the creature to turn to the Lord, I find to this day that there never was such a thing in me, for I often tried, "but the flesh profiteth nothing" (John vi. 63), and "no flesh shall glory in the Lord's presence" (1 Cor. i. 29.)

As I was growing up towards manhood, I wanted to have my fill of sin and pleasure, and in full vigour pursued them. I found continually snares laid for me, and was delighted to have it so; nevertheless I had at times, in the midst of these things, such checks of conscience, that I was restrained from doing the things that I would; which things would have proved a trouble, burden, and disgrace to me as long as I lived. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great