her continual desire. I therefore, continued she, told my kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Levi, and my dear sister, (taking hold of the young lady's hand,) that I must go to England.

We all congratulated Miss Levi on her safe arrival among us; and my father said, that next to his own Eusebia, no person could have arrived whom he should have been more happy to see. Miss Levi replied, that the friends of her beloved sister could not but be dear to her, and that her parents desired, their kind respects to the family of her friend.

Dinner being announced, we went into the dining-room, and Mr. Neville remarked that this was the happiest birthday he had ever seen; and that God having in great mercy restored his child to him as it were from the dead, he could now die in peace.

As Eusebia had not answered Mr. Clifford's question concerning his son, Mr. Neville repeated the inquiry ; but we found that she had left New-York before his arrival.

The servants did not partake last nor least in the general joy. No sooner likewise was it known that our dear Eusebia was arrived, than the bells of the village church began to ring; and last night all the windows in Thornton were illuminated. Mr. Neville has always had at heart the interest of his tenants and of the poor, and is by all of them greatly beloved.

The company broke up; but my father, Mr. Clifford, and Dr. Mildmay, repeated their visit this morning.

Eusebia presents her kind respects to you, and desires me to say, that as soon as she shall have recovered rom the fatigue of her journey you shall hear from her.

I am, my dear aúnt,

Your dutiful niece,

MIRANDA NEVILLE.

LETTER XCIV.

From Miss Eusebia Neville to Mrs. Worthington,

DEAR MADAM,

I BLESS God that I am again in my father's house, and that I am writing to my dear Mrs. Worthington from my own closet, not as formerly with fear and trembling, but with the full consent and approbation of my family. These are great mercies; but I hope I shall not forget, that the dangers attending prosperity are far greater than those which attend adversity.

My last letter, Madam, informed you of my being at Mrs. Bethune's, with Mrs. Levi and her daughter. We enjoyed much pleasure in this valuable family, and were greatly edified by their conversation and example. I was delightfully situated, and I enjoyed much happiness. In numerous excursions two or three miles round with my young friends, I pointed out to them the wisdom of God in the works of creation; and while we admired the fruitful country around us, and the charming prospects of the sea and Long-Island at a distance, I conversed with them concerning the important truths of divine revelation.

On the Lord's day Mr. Bethune conducted the worship of God in a neat building which had been erected for the purpose. Most of the people in the neighbourhood attended, and some from a considerable distance.

One day Mr. and Mrs. Bethune and Mrs. Levi returned from a walk, accompanied by a Jewish merchant, who had known Mr. and Mrs. Levi in Holland. He dined, and spent the afternoon with us. He attacked Mr. Bethune upon the subject of the trinity.

Pray, Sir, said he, how do you understand these words, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God? Did not the writer believe that there were at least two Gods, one of whom was with the other? Did not Jesus intimate the same thing when he said, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was ? VOL. II. S 2

And do not Christians, in consequence of this manner of speaking, plead for the eternity of the Son, as well as of the Father and of the holy Spirit ?

Mr. Bethune. You have no more right to attribute the belief of two Gods to John or Jesus, than to Moses and the prophets. Moses often gives the name of Jehovah to the Angel of the Lord, and the prophets ascribe divine names and characters to the Messiah. This implies a plurality of persons in the divine essence, but not a plurality of Gods.

Jew. How can these things be?

Mr. B. God can be comprehended by himself only. None by searching can find him out. We see his natural perfections in his works, and his moral perfections in his providence and his word. Beyond this neither angel nor man can go. If the New-Testament maintain the unity of God, and yet sometimes speak as though in the divine essence there were more persons than one, the Old Testament does the same: you have, therefore, no ground of objection on this score to the one which is not equally applicable to the other.

Jew. Pray what do you mean by a plurality of persons in the divine essence? A person signifies a being distinct from all other beings. If this was not the case with Jesus, he was not a person at all, according to the common acceptation of the word.

Mr. B. The term person is used in different senses. As applied to the sacred Three, it is not used according to its common acceptation. Three human persons are three beings': the three divine Persons are only one Being. I, do not maintain the personality of the Father, Son, and Spirit, in such a sense as infringes upon the unity of the divine essence.

Jew. In what sense, Sir, do you understand it?

Mr. B. To confess the truth, my ideas upon this subject are not clear and distinct. This is owing not to the falsehood of the doctrine of the trinity; of the truth of that doctrine I am fully convinced ;-but to that incomprehensibility which attends all the attributes, operations, and designs of the Deity, as well as to his having made only a partial revelation of it, which is the case also with respect

to the mysteries of providence, for the exercise of our humble and submissive faith. Yet I think it right to inves tigate, with religious humility, every part of divine revelation, and therefore the nature of the personality of the three divine Persons. In this inquiry, although I cannot attain to a full comprehension of the subject, yet by two different restraints I am kept from error. As by one restraint a planet is kept from falling into the sun, and by another from wandering into the boundless regions of space; so my belief of the unity of God, and of the doctrine of the trinity, restrains me from holding either doc trine in such a sense as is incompatible with my belief of the other. If I begin to deviate towards the common acceptation of the word person, my belief of the divine unity recalls me to the path in which I ought to move; or if, in maintaining the doctrine of the divine unity, I find myself wandering from the doctrine of the trinity, those passages of scripture which you have mentioned cause me to return the way by which I came.

Mrs. Levi closed the conversation by saying, I wish, Sir, you would read the Christian Scriptures. The morality of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is beyond all praise. And the Christian Messiah is the very Messiah that was predicted by the prophets. To receive him, therefore, cannot but be safe, while to reject him must be infinitely dangerous.

Mr. Charles Clifford has powerful advocates in my friends at Thornton, and in you also, Madam, as I perceive by those letters in which you mention him. I cannot tell what is the design of Providence. He has certainly given more than common proofs of his esteem for me, of which I entertain a grateful sense. But, God only knows, I may never see him any more. Although I have providentially been preserved twice in crossing that great ocean, yet it cannot be said that so long a voyage is attended with no danger. I pray that he may be preserved, and the more so, as I have been the occasion, though the innocent one, of his running these hazards.

I am, dear Madam,

Your sincere friend,

And very humble servant,
EUSEBIA NEVILLE.

LETTER XCV.

From Mrs. Neville to Mrs. Worthington.

MY DEAR AUNT,

My father dined with us yesterday, as did also Mr. Clifford. The former gave us an account of his wife; the lat ter of his son, from whom he has received a letter relating that he had a very pleasant voyage to Boston, and how greatly he was disappointed when he did not find his Eusebia at New-York.

The box containing the treasure was not missed till cap tain Dulverton and Mrs. Barnwell arrived in London at the inn; for, as the captain had undertaken to see the luggage shifted at the end of every stage, she entertained no doubt respecting the safety of the box; and he, having never seen it, could not miss it. When, however, it was missed, there was no small bustle. She was positive they had been robbed of it on the road, since she saw Wake, she said, >put it into the chaise, than whom there was not an honester man in the world. He, on the other hand, was as positive that there was nothing which resembled either box or trunk when they arrived at the first stage; so that it was unnecessary to return and inquire about it, as she wanted him to do. This was a tragical beginning.

He had told her that an uncle who had resided in Kent was dead, and left him a noble house and a good estate. The plan which they had formed was, to spend a couple of months in London, and then to go and take possession of the estate, and live happily together till the death of my father, when he was to make her his wife. They had not been above a fortnight at ready-furnished lodgings in Covent Garden, for the benefit of being near the playhouses, before the cash ran short, in consequence of which she teased him daily, and almost hourly, to go and take possession of his estate, judiciously observing that it would be disgraceful to borrow money of their tenants at their first arrival among them. After much altercation, he told her in plain terms, that the estate in Kent was not so large