Christianity. Have not I always told you that you believe no more of it than I? And has not my young friend demonstrated it? What a vile imposition has priestcraft been in every age of the world! I don't mean in the least to reflect upon my friend Law; he does but as others do: but that consideration would not satisfy my conscience, though I am an infidel.

Mr. Clifford, replied Mr. Law, I have long determined to enter into no dispute with you, as I can neither impart any good to you, nor receive any good from you; and Mr. William Neville I see has formed his opinion; we must therefore agree to differ. If I am but as good as many gentlemen who have been members of the church of England, I need not wish to be any better.

For my part, said Mr. Barnwell, I would rather have been employed in shooting butterflies. Talking about religion is to me the most unprofitable, insipid, unintelligible thing in the world. Besides, if we talk for ever, can we be any thing more than honest? I beg, young gentleman, you will answer me that one question, by saying Yes or No.

I reply then, Sir, said I, by answering, No.

There then, cried he, you see what it all comes to when you can bring people to the point.

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Ah, my friend, said Mr. Clifford, be assured you are no nearer than you were before. Mr. William Neville may tell you that you have not behaved very honestly to your daughter, nor done to her as you would be done by. I pretend to no religion, and you have no religion; therefore being both upon a footing, I should imagine we should be induced to act alike. She is as fine a girl as any parent can boast of, and a sensible good girl. I have heard how you have used her: it came from one of your servants, and I blushed for you. Before I could have used my Charles so for one hour, I could have plucked my heart out with my own hands. You perceive how our friend Neville and his son compassionate her case, though they are not related to her. If she marry an honest man, (and if he be a man of their approving I have no doubt but he will be so,) I will add five hundred pounds to what Mr. Neville does for her, whether you give her any thing or not.

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Here, Madam, I rose hastily, and went out; for I found myself so exceedingly moved, that like Joseph I was obliged to go and weep in secret. Those words occurred to my mind, And the earth helped the woman; by which I think we are taught, that when the church is oppressed by wicked Christians, or by the man of sin, God will raise it up friends from among men of the world, who make no profession of Christianity.

I learned from my father that all that Mr. Clifford and himself could say respecting my dear Miranda, made no impression on her cruel parent. The sum of what he replied was, that he hated all pretenders to religion; that she was welcome to come home, and behave as she used to do; but that her refusing Mr. Clifford, on a religious account, was what he never could forgive.

As Mr. Charles Clifford did not return home while we were there, his father promised that he should call on us the next day. I expect him every minute. My father invited all the company to dine with us this day fortnight, which will be your niece's birthday. If any thing should occur worth relating, my good Mrs. Worthington will hear from me. My dear girl, and all our family, know of my writing, and unite in the most sincere respects. The first moment I have any leisure, I will do what you desire: it will recall to my remembrance some very bitter, and some very happy moments.

I am, dear Madam,

Yours, very affectionately,

WILLIAM NEVILLE.

LETTER LVII.

From Mr. Neville to Mrs. Worthington.

DEAR MADAM,

I OUGHT not any longer to omit informing Mrs. Wor thington, under my own hand, how much I consider both my family and myself indebted to her. What a treasure have I lost and lost through my own guilty ignorance! I repeat it, through my guilty ignorance; for having the oracles of truth in my hand, I ought to have consulted them, and to have yielded an implicit obedience to those infallible directors. I bless God, I now endeavour to do so with my whole heart, so far as I know that which is justly said to be deceitful above all things. What would I not be willing to do or to suffer, if I could but live the time over again in which I persecuted my dear child. Let superstitious bigots and persecutors take warning by me. Let them hear my unhappy tale, and tremble, lest like me they make bitter work for repentance when it shall be too late. Paul bewailed all his lifetime his having persecuted the friends of the Redeemer: but he did not persecute a dutiful child. I can compare myself to none but Jephthah, whose superstition occasioned the death of his beloved daughter. But alas! he did not consider his child as God's enemy. She too was willing to fall a victim to her father's rash vow. But the mercy of God is equal to my crime. That mercy manifested in Christ Jesus has been my only refuge. Oceans of water would not have cleansed me; nitre and much soap would not have purified me. O that my repentance did but equal that of M. de Barreaux. He seems to have had the deepest sense of his vileness, and a glorious view of the mercy of God manifested in Jesus Christ. This is my own case. I had fainted under the sense of my guilt, unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Henceforth may I determine to know nothing, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.

My dear friend, cannot you make it convenient to pay us a visit? If you will make such an addition to the fa

yours I and mine have already received, either my daughter or your niece shall go to London and accompany you down. I do not mention the time of your stay, since, if we could render it agreeable to yourself, I should wish it to be as long as you have any thing to do with time, being sensible that Mrs. Worthington will be a blessing to any family wherein she resides.

I account it no small mercy that my son has been directed by Providence to the choice of a woman for a wife who I believe sincerely loves him, and which is of greater importance, who loves God. Your niece meets with every kind of respect in my family. I love her for her own, as well as for my son's sake; and my daughter esteems her as much as if she were her sister. I used formerly to think she had too much vivacity. But the brutal treatment she has received from her parent has pruned every exuberance of that kind; or it is possible the just sense she now entertains of eternal things has given her that becoming gravity, which is an ornament to persons of every age, and in every station.

When I was in the church of Rome, I misunderstood the nature and design of Christianity. I now see that the wound made by sin is an alienation of mind from God, or in other words a hatred of him. In vain might I have fasted till I had been a skeleton, and in vain have given all my goods to feed the poor; for mere self-love was the principal motive that influenced my actions; at best, what good I did proceeded from tender feelings, and natural sympathy. I did not perceive that the death of Christ was intended to show us the infinite evil of sin, the infinite love of God to a perishing world, and the impossibility of purchasing or meriting the divine favour, and by all these considerations to reconcile us to God. I have been obliged to unlearn almost every thing which I had learned while I was in that communion.

In my dear Eusebia's closet I met with archbishop Leighton's works, which I found by the correspondence between her and her friends were your valuable gift. I have read the four volumes with unspeakable pleasure and profit. The writings of that great man breathe the same spirit with the gospels and epistles, and also with the re

ligion of Abraham and the patriarchs, and of David and the prophets. How different is that spirit from the heathen divinity which we find in the Greek and Roman writers. Almost every page carries in it a demonstration of its own truth, and of the truth of that divine revelation which dwelt in him in all wisdom and spiritual under standing. I feel the truth of what he says. I have that in myself which answers to it as face answers to face in a mirror. In vain would it be to try for days and months and years to make a man born blind comprehend the nature of light and colours; but if his eyes be opened, he will immediately understand it. Much has been said concerning the time when the epistles and gospels were writ ten, both by those who have maintained, and by those who have denied the authenticity of those writings; and many are the arguments which have been offered to prove their divine origin. But if I may judge of others by myself, all these things are like music to the deaf, or paintings to the blind, if the same Spirit be not received who dictated them. I have been a blind man, having eyes, and a deaf man, having ears. I say not this to excuse myself: my blindness was a moral, a guilty, and not an innocent blindness.

The letters which passed between you, Madam, your niece, and my daughter, were blessed to me by the Spirit of God. They convinced me first of all, that till that time my hopes of eternal life had been founded upon my own excellence, although I deserved everlasting destruction. At the same time I saw a door opened into the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus, capacious enough to admit the chief of sinners. The next thing of which I was convinced was, that Christ's kingdom is not of this world. All my popery was hereby slain. I read that divine prophecy, the revelation of John, with new eyes. I could not doubt who was denoted by the woman riding upon a scarletcoloured beast, and drunken with the blood of the saints; nor who are the daughters of this mother of harlots. What church, said I, is that which has committed forni cation with the kings of the earth? Who are so likely to strip her of her possessions as those who first endowed her with them? And who will bewail her fall, except those VOL. II.

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