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Mast. Well, your business these; the occasion of your going so early; how you employed yourself there; and with whom? These are the questions.

Tom. You will not take it ill, Sir, I hope then, if my answers may seem not to become me, or less dutiful or re spectful to you, than you may think they ought to be.

Mast. Not at all, if you speak truth, Thomas.

Tom. I hope I shall satisfy you of that, Sir, by the consequence. You know, Sir, I have been brought up under my father, with a religious education, and in his family, where the worship of God has been constantly kept up; and coming hither, Sir, as an apprentice, where I found you were not pleased to permit me, or to let me come up when you, I doubt not, went to prayers, and reading with your family; it made me afraid, either that you did not think me worthy to be reckoned one of your family, or that it was a judgment of God upon me, to be shut out from his worship! This, Sir, made me very sad, which is the discontent you speak of; but hearing of that other good family over the way, and that Mr. the clothier went constantly to prayer every morning and night, I got acquaintance with the young man, his apprentice, and got him to ask his master to give me leave to come there at those times.

Mast, Well, Thomas, this is a well contrived story truly; you want not cunning, I find. But what is this to six o'clock in the morning, Thomas? which at this time of. the year is alway before day, and before he is up, to be

surc.

Tom. If you please to inquire, Sir, into the order of his family, you will find that he is up every morning in the year by six o'clock, and calls them all to prayers, before they go to work.

Mast. And what mean you by getting that boy to do this for you? That does not hang together at all. Why, he is the most profligate young villain that ever came into any good man's house. His master was talking, in my

hearing, but the other day, of sending him to the house of correction, and spoke to me for a warrant; your acquaintance with such a boy as that, is not likely to be for so good a purpose; and this part makes all the rest unlikely, and to be suspected.

Tom. He was so, Sir, that is true; but if you inquire, you will find he is another thing now. God's grace has made a strange change in that boy in a few weeks past. If you please to inform yourself of it, Sir, you may hear it from other hands.

Mast. And is this the whole truth, Thomas? Has this been your whole business there?

Tom. Indeed it has, Sir.

Mast. You must not think much if I inquire, in order to be better satisfied..

Tom. I cannot expect any other, Sir.

Mast. I shall talk with your father about it, it is late

now.

[The master, bitterly stung with the boy's account of himself, puts off the rest of the discourse.]

Notes on the Third Dialogue.

There seems to be more circumlocution in this dialogue, than in any of the rest: but they will be found not only useful, but necessary, at least, to preserve the cadence of things, and introduce the substance of the real story, by necessary gradations. The boy's shifting off so many ways, before he directly tells his master the whole of his business, is a mark of commendable modesty in a servant: his shyness of speaking what he knew, touched his master's behaviour more than his own, may be very instructing to servants, if they please to mark it, in things where their master's character may be concerned. But, above all, it may be noted that all these things tend to bring the conviction

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home with more energy and force upon the conscience of the master.

The master's discourse with the young man's father contains a great many useful hints about the duty of masters to their servants-1. That they ought to reckon them under their care, as well as under their government. 2. That the charge of the souls of our servants lies upon us, as well as those of our children. The just distinction between a parent and a father, is fruitful of many useful observations: the last is tied by nature, the first by the God of nature; the last by affection, the first by duty: but both are tied to discharge the part of a Christian parent to the souls' under their charge, whether servants, children, or relations: that a servant, taken into the family, becomes a child of the family, and ought, equally with our children, to partake of every part of our religious duties, such as prayer, exhortation, examination, instruction, reproof, restraint, and correction. This is farther plain, from what God says to Abraham, Gen. xviii. 19-" That he will command his children and his household;" that is, he will discharge faithfully the duty of a parent, or guide and governor of a family; which is shown in his commanding his whole house to walk in the ways of God.

Note. How custom has wickedly of late years seemed to discharge masters of this duty.

1. By the pride of servants, who, bringing large sums of money, much greater than formerly, seem to expect not to be so much at command as they used to be; a wicked and abominable custom, which, as no religious parent can be easy in, so no religious master ought to be subjected

to it.

2. By the negligence of parents who really seem less to concern themselves about the souls of their children, when they put them out as apprentices, than about their learning trades, doing their business, and the like.

3. By the universal backwardness of masters, who think, as this man did, that they have no concern upon them about

their servants' souls, or any thing but just to see that their business is done, and then to let them go where they please, and do what they please.

4. Observe here a most ridiculous argument, or excuse, which the master brings, viz. that he was ashamed to go about the instructing or praying with his apprentices and journeymeu, because they would laugh at him.

Note. We are easier to be laughed out of our duty, than persuaded into it.

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From the whole, masters of families may observe, the duty of instructing and religiously guiding their servants lies indispensably upon them, as much as that of instructing and educating their children. They are parents, that is, guides and governors to their whole house, though they are fathers only to their children.

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THE FOURTH DIALOGUE.

The master of the young man aforesaid now makes a visit to his neighbour the clothier, who lived over against his house. Whether he had any doubt of the truth of what the boy had said to him, and had a mind, as he had said to the lad himself, to find out the bottom of it; or perhaps to satisfy himself farther about the alteration of the wicked boy, which his own servant had acquainted him of, or to please his own curiosity, or directed by Providence for his farther conviction, is not material; but here discoursing of other things with the good man and his wife, he begins the following dialogue thus, talking of their servants:

I remember, neighbour, you were once complaining of a very bad servant you had, and talked as if you wanted a warrant of me to send him to the house of correction.

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Clo. Yes, an't please your worship, I did so.

Note. He was an alderman in the county-town, so a magistrate at that time.

Ald. Well, and pray, how does he behave himself now? Shall you want a warrant neighbour? You know I shall always be ready to serve you in any thing I can. It shall cost you nothing if you have any such occasion.

Clo. I hope not now, Sir. I think the lad is much reformed: though I have had many bad servants, I never had a worse than he was; but he is wonderfully changed: however, I thank your worship for your kind offer.

Wife. You are very happy, Sir, in that part, for you have good servants.

Ald. Truly, but indifferent. I have had my share of trouble that way, as well as you.`

Wife. I am sure you have some very good ones.

Ald. Well, but I am very glad to hear that your bad one is mended.

Clo. I thank you, Sir, indeed he is very much mended. Ald. It is very rare that bad servants grow better. I have often heard of good servants that have grown worse. I am sure with me they do so.

Clo. Indeed, Sir, I hope this lad of mine will prove a very good young man.

Ald. Good! why, you represented him to me as one of the worst wretches that ever came into your house. If I remember right, you said he was given to lying, and swearing, scoffing at religion, and every thing that was good; and was himself every thing that was bad..

Clo. Indeed he was so, Sir.

Ald. I doubt not but you did all you could to reclaim him, I know you did.

Clo. I endeavoured, Sir, to discharge my conscience towards him; but I had no satisfaction in it, only so far, that I had done my duty; I could do no more, and I was quite tired out with him: indeed, I resolved to put him away; for I could not bear him among my children, he was enough to spoil all the children in the parish.

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