quit their society as they attain to years of discretion, or as their judgment is better informed.

"Love or anger, ambition or avarice (says a great man) have their root in the temper and affections, which the soundest reason is scarce able fully to correct; but superstition, being founded on false opinion, must immediately vanish, when true philosophy has inspired juster sentiments of superior powers."

I am, dear friend, yours.

LETTER VIII.

Religion's lustre is by native innocence
Divinely fair, pure, and simple from all arts;
You daub and dress her like a common mistress,
The harlot of your fancies; and by adding

False beauties, which she wants not, make the world'
Suspect her angel face is foul within."

Rowe's Tamerlane.

"Be careful to destroy the book of James.
Substantial virtues that vile papist claims;
Forgetting Paul, he spurns at faith alone,
And bids our saintship by our lives be known:
All Cato's virtue was not worth a pin,
And Phocion's exit but a shining sin.'

DEAR FRIEND,

THE enthusiastic notions which I had imbibed, and the desire I had to be talking about religious mysteries, &c. answered one valuable purpose; as it caused me to embrace every opportunity to learn to read, so that I could soon read the easy parts of the bible, Mr Wesley's hymns, &c. and every leisure minute was so employed.

In the winter I was obliged to attend my work

from six in the morning until ten at night. In the summer half year I only worked as long as we could see without candle; but notwithstanding the close attention I was obliged to pay to my trade, yet for a long time I read ten chapters in the bible every day : I also read and learned many hymns, and as soon as I could procure some of Mr Wesley's tracts, sermons, &c. I read them also; many of them I perused in Cloacina's temple, (the place where my lord Chesterfield advised his son to read the classics; but I did not apply them, after reading, to the farther use that his lordship hints at).

I had such good eyes, that I often read by the light of the moon, as my master would never permit me to take a candle into my room, and that prohibition I looked upon as a kind of persecution, but I always comforted myself with the thoughts of my being a dear child of God; and as such, that it was impossible for me to escape persecution from the children of the devil, which epithets I very piously applied to my good master and mistress. And so ignorantly and imprudently zealous (being a real Methodist) was I for the good of their precious souls, as sometimes to give them broad hints of it, and of the dangerous state they were in. Their pious good old minister, the reverend Mr Harrison, I called "a blind leader of the blind;" and I more than once assured my mistress, that both he and his whole flock were in a state of damnation; being without the assurance of their sins being pardoned, they must be "strangers to the hope of Israel, and without God in the world." My good mistress wisely thought that a good stick was the best way of arguing with such an ignorant infatuated boy as I was, and had often recourse to it; but I took care to give her a deal of trouble; for whenever I was ordered in my turn to read the bible, I always selected such chapters as I thought militated against Arians, Socinians, &c. and such verses as I deemed favourable to the doctrine of original sin, justification

by faith, imputed righteousness, the doctrine of the trinity, &c. On such parts I always placed a particular emphasis, which puzzled and teazed the old lady a good deal.

Among other places I thought (having so been taught by the Methodists) that the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel very much favoured the doctrines of original sin, imputed righteousness, &c.; that chapter I often selected and read to her, and she has often read the eighteenth chapter of the same prophecy, for the sake of the parable of the father's eating sour grapes.

Whenever I read in St Paul's epistles on justification by faith alone, my good mistress would read in the epistle of St James, such passages as say that a man is not justified by faith alone, but by faith and works, which often embarrassed me not a little. However, I comforted myself with the conceit of having more texts of scripture on my side of the question than she had on her side. As to St James, I was almost ready to conclude, that he was not quite orthodox, and so at last I did not much mind what he said.

False opinions rooted in the mind,

Hoodwink the soul and keep our reason blind.
In controverted points can reason sway,
When passion or conceit hurries us away?"

Hitherto I had not frequented the Methodist meetings by the consent or knowledge of my master and mistress; nor had my zeal been so great as to make me openly violate their commands. But as my zeal increased much faster than my knowledge, I soon disregarded their orders, and without hesitation ran away to hear a methodistical sermon as often as I could find an opportunity. One Sunday morning at eight o'clock my mistress seeing her sons set off, and knowing that they were gone to a Methodist meeting, determined to prevent me from doing the same by locking the door, which she accordingly did; on which,

in a superstitious mood, I opened the bible for direction what to do, (ignorant Methodists often practise the same superstitious method,) and the first words I read were these, "He has given his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shouldest dash thy foot against a stone." This was enough for me; so without a moment's hesitation, I ran up two pair of stairs to my own room, and out of the window I leaped, to the great terror of my poor mistress. I got up immediately, and ran about two or three hun-· dred yards towards the meeting house; but alas! I could run no farther, my feet and ancles were most intolerably bruised, so that I was obliged to be carried back and put to bed; and it was more than a month before I recovered the use of my limbs. I was ignorant enough to think that the Lord had not used me very well, and resolved not to put so much trust in him for the future.

This my rash adventure made a great noise in the town, and was talked of many miles round. Some few admired my amazing strength of faith, but the major part pitied me, as a poor ignorant deluded and infatuated boy.

"The neighbours star'd and sigh'd, yet blessed the lad, Some deem'd him wondrous wise, some believed him mad." DR BEATTIE.

I am, dear friend, yours.

LETTER IX.

"One makes the rugged paths so smooth and even
None but an ill-bred man can miss of heaver.
Another quits his stockings, breeches, shirt,
Because he fancies virtue dwells in dirt:
While all concur to take away the stress
From weightier points, and lay it on the less."
STILLINGFLEET on Conversation.

"'Gad, I've a thriving traffic in my eye.
Near the mad mansions of Moorfields I'll bawl;
Friends, fathers, mothers, sisters, sons and all,
Shut up your shops, and listen to my call!"

DEAR FRIEND,

FOOTE.

In the fourth year of my apprenticeship my master died. Now although he was a good husband, a good father, and a good master, &c., yet, as he had not the methodistical faith, and could not pronounce the Shibboleth of that sect, I piously feared that he was gone to hell.

My mistress thought that his death was hastened by his uneasy reflections on the bad behaviour of his sons, after they commenced Methodists; as before they were converted each was dutiful and attended to his trade, but after they became saints they attended so much to their spiritual concerns that they acted as though they supposed they were to be fed and clothed by miracles, like Mr Huntingdon, who informs in his book called "The Bank of Faith," that the Lord sent him a pair of breeches, that a dog brought him mutton to eat, fish died at night in a pond on purpose to be eaten by him in the morning; money, and in short everything he could desire, he obtained by prayer. Mr Wesley used to cure a violent pain in his head the same way, as he relates in his journals. Thus, as Foote says,