lately dead, and this little mountain farm the continued to occupy: therefore nothing could be more to my purpofe, if I could prevail on her to make me her husband, and with fome difficulty fhe did, to my unspeakable felicity. She had no money worth mentioning: but her houfe was pretty and comfortable, and her land had grain and cattle; and as I threw into her lap my five hundred pounds, a little before we were married, to be by her difpofed of and managed, according to her pleasure, the foon made fome good improvements and additions, and by her fine understanding, fweet temper, and every Chriftian virtue, continues to render my life fo completely happy, fo joyous and delightful, that I would not change my partner and condition for one of the first quality and greatest fortune. In her I have every thing I could wish for in a wife and a woman, and fhe makes it the fole ftudy and pleasure of her life to crown my every day with the highest fatisfactions and comforts. Two years have I lived with her on thefe wild mountains, and in that time I have not had one dull or painful minute, but in thinking that I may lofe her, and be the wretched furvivor. That thought does fometimes wound me.-In fum, my friend, we are the happieft of wedded mortals, and on this finall, remote farm, live,

in a state of bliss to be envied. This proves that happiness does not flow from riches only; but that, where pure and perfect love, frict virtue, and unceafing industry, are united in the conjugal ftate, they can make the Stainmore mountains a paradise to mortals, in peace and little.

But it is not only happiness in this world that I have acquired by this admirable woman, but life eternal. You remember, my friend, what a wild and wicked one I was when a school-boy; and as Barbadoes of all parts of the globe is no place to improve a man's morals in, I returned from thence to Europe as debauched a fcelerate as ever offended Heaven by blafphemy and illegal gratifications. Even my loffes and approaching poverty were not capable of making any great change in me. When I was courting my wife, the foon difcerned my impiety, and perceived that I had very little notion of hell and heaven, death and judgment. This The made a principal objection against being concerned with me, and told me, the could not venture into a married connection with a man, who had no regard to the divine laws; and therefore, if he could not make me a Chriftian, in the true fenfe of the word, he would never be Mrs. Price.

This, from a plain, country girl, furprised me not a little, and my aftonishment arofe very high, when I heard her talk of religion, and the great end of both, a bleffed life after this. She foon convinced me, that religion was the only means by which we can arrive at true happiness, by which we can attain to the laft perfection and dignity of our nature, and that the authority and word of God is the fureft foundation of religion. The fubftance of what she said is as follows. I fhall never forget the leffon.

The plain declarations of our Mafter in the Gospel reftore the dictates of uncorrupted reason to their force and authority, and give us juft notions of God and of ourselves. They inftruct us in the nature of the Deity, discover to us his unity, holiness, and purity, and afford certain means of obtaining eternal life. Revelation commands us to worship One Supreme God, the Supreme Father of all things; and to do his will, by imitating his perfections, and practifing every thing recommended by that Law of Reason, which he fent the Meffiah to revive and enforce; that by repentance, and righteousness, and acts of devotion, we may obtain the Divine favour, and fhare in the glories of futurity: for, the Supreme Director, whofe goodness gives counsel to his power, commanded us into existence to conduct us to everlasting. happiness, and therefore teaches us by his

Son

Son to pray, to praise, and to repent, that we may be entitled to a nobler inheritance than this world knows, and obtain life and immortality, and all the joys and bleffings of the heavenly Canaan. This was the godlike defign of our Creator. That fuperior Agent, who acts not by arbitrary will, but by the maxims of unclouded reafon, when he made us, and stationed us in this part of his creation, had no glory of his own in view, but what was perfectly consistent with a juft regard to the felicity of his rational fubjects.

It was this made the Apostle fhew Felix the unalterable obligations to justice and equity; to temperance, or a command over the appetites; and then, by displaying the great and awful judgment to come, urge him to the practice of these, and all the other branches of morality; that by using the means prescribed by God, and acting up to the conditions of falvation, he might escape that dreadful punishment, which, in the reason and nature of things, is connected with vice, and which the good government of the rational world requires fhould be inflicted on the wicked; and might, on the contrary, by that mercy offered to the world thro' Jefus Chrift, fecure thofe immense rewards, which are promised to innocence and the teftimony of an upright beart. This faith

in

in Chrift, St. Paul placed before the Romant governor in the beft light. He defcribed the complexion and genius of the Christian faith. He reprefented it as revealing the wrath of God against all immorality; and as joining with reafon and uncorrupted nature, enforcing the practice of every moral and focial duty.

What effect this difcourfe had on Felix (Martha continued) in producing faith, that is, morality in an intelligent agent, we are told by the Apostle. He trembled: but iniquity and the world had taken fuch a hold of him, that he difmiffed the fubject, and turned from a prefent uneafineis to profit and the enjoyment of fin. He had done with' St. Paul, and facrificed the hopes of eternity to the world and its delights.

But this (concluded Martha) will not, I hope, be your cafe. As a judgment to come is an awful subject, you will ponder in time, and look into your own mind. As a man, a reasonable and focial creature, defigned for duty to a God above you, and to a world of fellow-creatures around you, you will confider the rules of virtue and morality, and be no longer numbered with thofe miferable mortals, who are doomed to condemnation upon their difobedience. Thofe rules lie open in a perfect golpel, and the wicked can have nothing to plead for their behaviour.

They