suffice; so that the expense would be almost nothing to the giver, while to the receiver it would bring health, and strength, and comfort, and recruited life. And it is with regret I must observe, that young women in our station are less attentive to the comforts of the poor, less active in visiting the cottages of the sick, less desirous of instructing the young, and working for the aged, than many ladies of higher rank. The multitude of opportunities of this sort which we neglect, among the families of our father's distressed tenants and workmen, will, I fear, one day appear against us.

"By the time I was tolerably recovered, I was forced to leave the house. I had no human prospect of subsistence. I humbly asked of God to direct my steps, and to give me entire obedience to his will. I then cast my eyes mournfully on my child; and though prayer had relieved my heart of a load, which, without it, would have been intolerable, my tears flowed fast, while I cried out in the bitterness of my soul, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger!' This text appeared a kind of answer to my prayer, and gave me courage to make one more attempt to soften you in my favour. I resolved to set out directly to find you, to confess my disobedience, and to beg a scanty pittance, with which I and my child might be meanly supported in some distant country, where we should not, by our presence, disgrace our more happy relations. We set out, and

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travelled as fast as my weak health and poor George's little feet and ragged shoes would permit. I brought a little bundle of such work and necessaries as I had left, by selling which we subsisted on the road." "I hope," interrupted Bragwell, there were no cabbage-nets in it?" least," said her mother, "I hope you did not sell them near home?" "No; I had none left," said Mrs. Incle, "or I should have done it. I got many a lift in a waggon for my child and my bundle, which was a great relief to me, as I should have had both to carry. And here I cannot help saying, I wish drivers would not be too hard in their demands, if they help a poor sick traveller on a mile or two; it proves a great relief to weary bodies and naked feet; and such little cheap charities may be considered as the cup of cold water,' which, if given on right grounds, 'shall not lose its reward."" Here Bragwell sighed to think, that when mounted on his fine bay-mare, or driving his neat chaise, it had never once crossed his mind that the poor way-worn traveller was not equally at his ease, nor had it ever occurred to him that shoes were a necessary accommodation. Those who want nothing, are apt to forget how many there are who want everything.-Mrs. Incle went on: "I got to this village about seven this evening, and while I sat on the churchyard-wall to rest, and meditate how I should make myself known at home, I saw a funeral; I inquired whose it was, and learnt it was my sister's. This was too much for me. I sank down in a fit, and knew nothing that happened to me from that moment, till I found myself in the workhouse, with my father and Mr. Worthy."

Here Mrs. Incle stopped. Grief, shame, pride, and remorse, had quite overcome Mr. Bragwell. He wept like a child, and said, he hoped his daughter would pray for him; for that he was not in a condition to pray for himself, though he found nothing else could give him any comfort. His deep dejection brought on a fit of sickness: "Oh!" said he, "I now begin to

feel an expression in the sacrament which I used to repeat without thinking it had any meaning, the remembrance of my sins is grievous, the burden of them is intolerable.' Oh! it is awful to think what a sinner a man may be, and yet retain a decent character! How many thousands are in my condition, taking to themselves all the credit of their prosperity, instead of giving God the glory! heaping up riches to their hurt, instead of dealing their bread to the hungry! Oh! let those who hear of the Bragwell family, never say, that vanity is a little sin. In me it has been the fruitful parent of a thousand sins,-selfishness, hardness of heart, forgetfulness of God. In one of my sons, vanity was the cause of rapine, injustice, extravagance, ruin, self-murder. Both my daughters were undone by vanity, though it only wore the more harmless shape of dress, idleness, and dissipation. The husband of my daughter Incle it destroyed, by leading him to live above his station, and to despise labour. Vanity ensnared the souls even of his pious parents; for while it led them to wish to see their son in a better condition, it led them to allow him such indulgences as were unfit for his own. Oh! you who hear of us, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God; resist high thoughts; let every imagination be brought into obedience to the Son of God. If you set a value on finery, look into that grave; behold the mouldering body of my Betsey, who now says to Corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my nother and my sister.' Look to the bloody and brainless head of her husband. Oh! Mr. Worthy! how does Providence mock at human foresight! I have been greedy of gain, that the son of Mr. Squeeze might be a great man he is dead; while the child of Timothy Incle, whom I had doomed to beggary, will be my heir. Mr. Worthy, to you I commit this boy's education; teach him to value his immortal soul more, and the good things of this life less, than I have done. Bring him up in the fear of God, and in the government of his passions. Teach him that unbelief and pride are at the root of all sin. I have found this to my cost. I trusted in my riches; I said, 'To-morrow shall be as this day, and more abundant.' I did not remember, that for all these things God would bring me to judgment.' I am not sure that I believed in a judgment: I am not sure that I believed in a God."

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Bragwell at length grew better, but he never recovered his spirits. The conduct of Mrs. Incle, through life, was that of an humble Christian. She sold all her sister's finery, which her father had given her, and gave the money to the poor; saying, "It did not become one who professed penitence to return to the gaieties of life." Mr. Bragwell did not oppose this; not that he had fully acquired a just notion of the self-denying spirit of religion, but having a head not very clear at making distinctions, he was never able, after the sight of Squeeze's mangled body, to think of gaiety and grandeur, without thinking, at the same time, of a pistol and bloody brains; for, as his first introduction into gay life had presented him with all these objects at one view, he never afterwards could separate them in his mind. He even kept his fine beaufet of plate always shut; because it brought to his mind the grand unpaid-for sideboard that he had seen laid out for Mr. Squeeze's supper, to the remembrance of which he could not help tacking the idea of debts, prisons, executions, and self-murder.

Mr. Bragwell's heart had been so buried in the love of the world, and

evil habits were become so rooted in him, that the progress he made in religion was very slow; yet he earnestly prayed and struggled against sin and vanity; and when his unfeeling wife declared she could not love the boy, unless he was called by their name, instead of Incle, Mr. Bragwell would never consent, saying, he stood in need of every help against pride. He also got the letter which Squeeze wrote just before he shot himself, framed and glazed; this he hung up in his chamber, and made it a rule to go and read it, as often as he found his heart disposed to VANITY.

"TIS ALL FOR THE BEST *.

"IT is all for the best," said Mrs. Simpson, whenever any misfortune befell her. She had got such a habit of vindicating Providence, that, instead of weeping and wailing under the most trying dispensations, her chief care was to convince herself and others, that however great might be her sufferings, and however little they could be accounted for at present, yet that the Judge of all the earth could not but do right. Instead of trying to clear herself from any possible blame that might attach to her under those misfortunes which, to speak after the manner of men, she might seem not to have deserved; she was always the first to justify Him who had inflicted it. It was not that she superstitiously converted every visitation into a punishment; she entertained more correct ideas of that God who overrules all events. She knew that some calamities were sent to exercise her faith, others to purify her heart; some to chastise her rebellious will, and all to remind her that this "was not her rest ;" that this world was not the scene for the full and final display of retributive justice. The honour of God was dearer to her than her own credit, and her chief desire was to turn all events to his glory.

Though Mrs. Simpson was the daughter of a clergyman, and the widow of a genteel tradesman, she had been reduced, by a succession of misfortunes, to accept of a room in an alms-house. Instead of repining at the change, instead of dwelling on her former gentility, and saying, "How handsomely she had lived once; and how hard it was to be reduced; and she little thought ever to end her days in an alms-house;" which is the common language of those who were never so well off before; she was thankful that such an asylum was provided for want and age; and blessed God that it was to the Christian dispensation alone that such pious institutions owed their birth.

One fine evening, as she was sitting reading her Bible on the little bench shaded with honeysuckles, just before her door, who should come and sit down by her but Mrs. Betty, who had formerly been lady's maid at the nobleman's house in the village of which Mrs. Simpson's father had been minister. Betty, after a life of vanity, was, by a train of misfortunes, brought to this very alms-house; and though she had taken no care by frugality and prudence to avoid it, she thought it a hardship and disgrace, instead of being thankful, as she ought to have been, for such a retreat.

* A profligate wit of a neighbouring country having attempted to turn this doctrine into ridicule, under the same title here assumed, it occurred to the author that it might not be altogether useless to illustrate the same doctrine on Christian principles.

At first she did not know Mrs. Simpson; her large bonnet, cloak, and brown stuff gown (for she always made her appearance conform to her circumstances), being very different from the dress she had been used to wear when Mrs. Betty had seen her dining at the great house; and time and sorrow had much altered her countenance. But when Mrs. Simpson kindly addressed her as an old acquaintance, she screamed with surprise "What! you, madam?" cried she;" you in an alms-house, living on charity; you, who used to be so charitable yourself, that you never suffered any distress in the parish, which you could prevent?" "That may be one reason, Betty," replied Mrs. Simpson, "why Providence has provided this refuge for my old age. And my heart overflows with gratitude, when I look back on his goodness." "No such great goodness, methinks," said Betty; "why, you were born and bred a lady, and are now reduced to live in an alms-house." "Betty, I was born and bred a sinner, undeserving of the mercies I have received." "No such great mercies," said Betty. "Why, I heard that you had been turned out of doors; that your husband had broke; and that you had been in danger of starving, though I did not know what was become of you." "It is all true, Betty; glory be to God! it is all true."

"Well," said Betty, "you are an odd sort of a gentlewoman. If from a prosperous condition I had been made a bankrupt, a widow, and a beggar, I should have thought it no such mighty matter to be thankful for; but there is no accounting for taste. The neighbours used to say that all your troubles must needs be a judgment upon you; but I, who knew how good you were, thought it very hard you should suffer so much; but now I see you reduced to an alms-house, I beg your pardon, madam, but I am afraid the neighbours were in the right, and that so many misfortunes could never have happened to you without you had committed a great many sins to deserve them; for I always thought that God is so just, that he punishes us for all our bad actions, and rewards us for all our good ones." "So he does, Betty: but he does it in his own way, and at his own time, and not according to our notions of good and evil; for his ways are not as our ways. God, indeed, punishes the bad, and rewards the good; but he does not do it fully and finally in this world. Indeed, he does not set such a value on outward things as to make riches, and rank, and beauty, and health, the rewards of piety; that would be acting like weak and erring men, and not like a just and holy God. Our belief in a future state of rewards and punishments is not always so strong as it ought to be, even now; but how totally would our faith fail, if we regularly saw everything made even in this world! We shall lose nothing by having pay-day put off. The longest voyages make the best returns. So far am I from thinking that God is less just, and future happiness less certain, because I see the wicked sometimes prosper, and the righteous suffer in this world, that I am rather led to believe that God is more just, and heaven more certain: for, in the first place, God will not put off his favourite children with so poor a lot as the good things of this world; and next, seeing that the best men here below do not often attain to the best things, why it only serves to strengthen my belief that they are not the best things in His eye; and He has most assuredly reserved for those that love him such good things

as 'eye hath not seen nor ear heard.' God, by keeping man in Paradise while he was innocent, and turning him into this world as soon as he had sinned, gave a plain proof that he never intended this world, even in its happiest state, as a place of reward. My father gave me good principles and useful knowledge; and while he taught me, by a habit of constant employment, to be, if I may so say, independent on the world, yet he led me to a constant sense of dependence on God." "I do not see, however," interrupted Mrs. Betty, "that your religion has been of any use to you. It has been so far from preserving you from trouble, that I think you have had more than the usual share.”

"No," said Mrs. Simpson: "nor did Christianity ever pretend to exempt its followers from trouble; this is no part of the promise. Nay, the contrary is rather stipulated; 'in the world ye shall have tribulation.' But if it has not taught me to escape sorrow, I humbly hope it has taught me how to bear it. If it has not taught me how to feel, it has taught me not to murmur.-I will tell you a little of my story. As my father could save little or nothing for me, he was very desirous of seeing me married to a young gentleman in the neighbourhood, who expressed a regard for me. But, while he was anxiously engaged in bringing this about, my good father died."

"How very unlucky!" interrupted Betty.

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"No, Betty," replied Mrs. Simpson, "it was very providential; this man, though he maintained a decent character, had a good fortune, and lived soberly, yet he would not have made me happy." "Why, what could you want more of a man?" said Betty. Religion," returned Mrs. Simpson. As my father made a creditable appearance, and was very charitable, and as I was an only child, this gentleman concluded that he could give me a considerable fortune; for he did not know that all the poor in his parish are the children of every pious clergyman. Finding I had little or nothing left me, he withdrew his attentions." "What a sad thing!" cried Betty. No, it was all for the best; Providence overruled his covetousness to my good. I could not have been happy with a man whose soul was set on the perishable things of this world; nor did I esteem him, though I laboured to submit my own inclinations to those of my kind father. The very circumstance of being left pennyless produced the direct contrary effect on Mr. Simpson: he was a sensible young man, engaged in a prosperous business: we had long highly valued each other; but while my father lived, he thought me above his hopes. We were married; I found him an amiable, industrious, good-tempered man; he respected religion and religious people; but, with excellent dispositions, I had the grief to find him less pious than I had hoped. He was ambitious, and a little too much immersed in worldly schemes: and though I knew it was all done for my sake, yet that did not blind me so far as to make me think it right. He attached himself so cagerly to business, that he thought every hour lost in which he was not doing something that would tend to raise me to what he called my proper rank. The more prosperous he grew, the less religious he became; and I began to find that one miglit be unhappy with a husband one tenderly loved. One day, as he was standing on some steps to reach down a parcel of goods, he fell from the top, and broke his leg in two places."