Wife. But what mortification, what regret, what havoc, has it made in my soul! Here I have been an undutiful child, a terror to my relations, a grief to my father and mother, the ruin of my brother! [Tears stopped her speech for a while, at the mention of her brother.] Husb. Do not mention that now, my dear. Wife. Not mention it! yes, I must mention it; he is undone and I was partner with him in his sin! nay, I was worse than he! Why has God ruined him, and spared me? I was a rebel to my father! I have been a traitor to thee, my dear! and, above all, a forsaker of God, and a despiser of religion, and all that was good! And why am I not destroyed, rather than my dear brother? Husb. But God, that gives repentance, gives also pardon; and blessed be God thou art ncw rejoicing in hope! Wife. Aye, my dear; but what work is here for repentance, not towards God only, but to every one else! I have asked forgiveness of thee, my dear, and I ought to do it of my brother, and of my father, and they ought all to refuse me. Husb. But I am sure we are all too glad of the occasion to entertain such a thought: where God is pleased to pardon, who is man that he should resent? I dare say thy father forgives thee freely. Wife. Well, whether he will or not, it is my duty to acknowledge my fault to him. Husb. My dear, thou hast done it already, and he is satisfied; he will be here to visit us to-night. Wife. But that is not sufficient to me. Her father knocks at the door, and comes in; she runs to him, falls on her knees, and cried, My dear father! but fainted again, and could not speak a word more, and continued so ill afterwards, that she was obliged to be carried to bed, which put the family into a great disorder, fearing the return of her distemper. After she had lain some time, and was a little refreshed, she desired her father and husband to come up to her chamber. While she lay indisposed on her bed, her husband had related to her father all the discourse that passed between them; which so affected her father, that he could not bear giving her the uneasiness of farther confessions; and, therefore, when she sent for them up, the father spoke to her husband thus: "Son, I desire you will go up first, and tell her, word for word, what I say to you, as near as you can remember. First, tell her you have related to me the discourse that has been between her and you; and that I am fully satisfied with, and rejoice in the acknowledgment she has made of her former carriage to me, and of her design to acknowledge it farther;-that I already think it more than enough; that as neither her weakness, on the one hand, can bear it, so neither can my affection to her, on the other hand, bear any more submissions; and therefore I will not come up to her, unless see will promise not to speak one word to me of it more; but only hear what I shall say to her, and so put an entire end to it." Her husband did so, and with much difficulty prevailed with her to promise: upon which her father, being brought in, went to her, and kissed her as she lay; and praying earnestly in a few words to God to bless her, and continue his goodness to her, he comforted her in the following manner: "My dear child," said he, "I have acknowledgments enough, and I am fully satisfied; my joy and comfort is, that God has given you a due and deep sense of your of fences against him, and I hope has pardoned you also. Your offence against me is nothing, but as it was a sin against him; nor had I ever any other resentment of it, but That my common affection could have prevailed over. 1 rejoice that God has given you repentance; and I think it is as much my duty to forgive you now, as I thought before I was obliged not to do it, till you had acknowledged it; therefore I freely and heartily forgive you, as if you had never offended me; and I make but this one condition of my forgiveness, which I oblige you to comply with, viz. that you say not one word more by way of asking pardon; for as you cannot bear to do it, so neither can I bear to hear it." She kept her werd as to speaking, but abundance of tears testified how sensible she was of what her father had said to her, and thus an entire reconciliation was made of all that was past; and she proved ever after a sober, religious, and shining Christian;-a dutiful and affectionate daughter to her parents, a tender and obliging wife to her husband,--and a careful instructing mother to her children, The tragical part of this story remains, and will make the conclusion of this work. The subject is, the miserable wretched case of the young gentleman, the brother to this lady; and who had gone abroad, as has been said, but was partly by his wounds, sickness, and misfortune, but principally by his vices and extravagance, reduced to the last extremity of misery, had wasted his estate, sold his commission, lost one of his arms, and was brought to the necessity of writing to his father for subsistence, and for money to bring him over to England; of which the particulars will appear in the next dialogue. THE FIFTH DIALOGUE. In the last dialogue you have some account of the condition the young gentleman formerly mentioned was reduced to, in a letter to his sister, dated from Cambray, where he was under cure of his wounds. It seems his extravagance had reduced him to the last extremity; and having had his arm cut off, and falling into a long fit of sickness after it, though he was exchanged by virtue of the cartel for exchange of prisoners, and so had his freedom, yet he could not be removed, and was at last obliged to sell his commission; after which, seeing himself reduced to great extremities, and the utmost misery, even of wanting bread, being in his view, he wrote a second letter to his father; which being brought by a person who gave a particular account of his condition, moved his father to take compassion on him, and relieve him. His letter to his father was thus: "SIR, "As I have little reason to expect any relief from you, so duty ought to have moved me not to have given you the affliction of knowing my condition. Perhaps, however, while you may be moved with my disasters, it may be some satisfaction to you to see, that he who went away without your blessing is brought to the necessity of seeking to you for his bread. If it be your pleasure, that I shall perish here in misery, and friendless, I am ready to submit to the sentence from your mouth, as a just punishment; but if you have so much concern for my life, as to cause me to be brought over, that I may die in my native country, the bearer will acquaint you, how such undeserved bounty will be received by, &c." The tender compassionate father, though he resented his son's treatment of him deeply enough, and steadily adhered to the resolution of never receiving him into his family, unless he acknowledged his first crime, viz. of withstanding the reformation of his father's house; yet being by no means obliged by that resolution, not to relieve him in distress, or to let him starve in a strange country, having inquired into the particulars of his circumstances, from the gentleman who brought over the letter, and understanding by him, that his son was reduced to the utmost distress, he immediately remitted money over to a Dutch merchant at Lisle, with orders to give him present subsistence, and to bring him from Cambray thither, in order to his being sent over to England; all which the said merchant effectually performed, and the poor reduced gentleman arrived at London soon after. It was the very same day of his arrival when he caused his father to have notice, that he was coming to lay himself at his door; but the father, though he had relieved him, and designed to take care that he should not want, yet judging it needful to let him know that his resentment had been very just, and that he was to be satisfied further, with relation to things past, before he could be restored to the state of an eldest son, if ever that was to be done at all, gave him the mortification of signifying to him by a messenger, that he was not to be admitted to see his father, or to come into his house yet; but that he was to go to such a place, not far off, where a lodging was provided for him. This afflicted him extremely: at first it threw him into a violent passion, expostulating with the messenger, in such words as these. What! has my father brought me thus far, but to trample on my misery, and to make his resentment sink the deeper? or has he brought me like a criminal to the place of execution, thus, as he may think, to do justice upon me! Why has he not suffered me to perish where I was, rather than come hither to die, with the |