1 child sees him every day practising worse things than those which be reproves for. Neigh. Besides, he was never in temper to reprove; how could he argue, persuade, convince, entreat, and then by gentle degrees enforce his persuasions by commands; threaten without anger; and [Here he made a little stop.] Fath. I understand you though you stop; and-and what? And correct without passion, that is what you would say. Neigh. Why indeed so it is; and what must a man do to correct a child, who when he does it, must be in a passion; and in that passion does not know whether he has killed his child or no? Fath. Nay, does not know whether be struck the door behind him, or his son before him; the case is lively enough to the purpose. Neigh. It is very true, such a man can never be fit to correct a child. Fath. No, nor any man in such a passion; I grant all you say. Neigh. It could not be, and therefore you cannot wonder, I say, that this violence of his temper and passion destroyed all his sense of duty, or at least utterly unfitted him for the performance of it. Fath. The consequence is very sad to consider of,-for without doubt it is so in proportion in all families, and I am sure it has been so with me. Neigh. It must be so in the nature of the thing; a man in a rage, heated with the fumes of his own distempered blood, discomposed by the fury of his passion, what is he Detter than a man drunk with wine, and out of himself by the frenzy of the liquor? Can such a man pray to God? Fath. You make me tremble at the reflection, it is so very natural, and is so much my own case; why, it has driven me from my duty, and kept off my performance for weeks together; besides the shame, the difficulty, the reluctance of coming to it again, when the whole family bas.known the reason of its being omitted. Neigh. Such things tend naturally to destroy the sense of duty, and must in the nature of the thing, destroy the performance. Fath. But pray,how did the good woman bear this? And how did she act? Neigh. It was a great affliction to her, that you may be sure of, and she had a hard task of it; however she consulted her own duty, and as she endeavoured to persuade her husband upon all occasions where she found room for it, when she found there was no hope to prevail, she kept up the settled worshipping of God in her own chamber or closet, where she retired with her children and maid-servants; and did her duty with them as well as she could, and as opportunity allowed. Fath. And would her husband bear her persuasions? Neigh. Truly, very indifferently; I could give you some of their discourses together on this head,-but as they always ended with unkindness, I forbear,-only telling you, that her prudence directed her so far, to avoid raising his passions, that whenever she saw him begin to fly out, she would forbear the discourse, and give him time to cool again, and so take another opportunity with him. Fath. That was very engaging, as well as a very wise, prudent part; was he not very sensible of it? Neigh. I cannot say he was always; for his temper grew so froward and peevish at last, that he was very impatient of the calmest reprehension, and sometimes would give her very unmanly as well as unmannerly re turns for it. Fath. That was barbarous; how could she bear that? Neigh. It was always very afflicting to her to be sure; but never broke in upon her temper,-neither did she return any thing like it, but, on the contrary, treated him with such tenderness, such obliging, and such an endearing earriage, on all occasions, as made her be admired by all that knew her. Fath. Those that approved her conduct so much, must needs greatly reproach his. Neigh. You may be sure of that, it not only exposed him, but it made him be abhorred, even by those that had no sense of religion upon their minds. Fath. Nay, religion rather gained than lost by them, take them together; for if he was a reproach to Christians, she was a double honour to them,—if he caused the ways of God to be evil spoken of, she adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour. Neigh. She was one that gave a full testimony to that truth in the scripture, that "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering," &c." Fath. She had great command of her temper. Neigh. She acted her reason to the highest extreme, and religion to an extraordinary degree; it was not that she was not flesh and blood, or that she had no passions to take fire, for she was of a warm temper too, in its place. Fath. How was it possible she could bear so much? Neigh. She did it by the method which you and I, and every Christian ought to do; but by a method, which if we may guess from the view we have round us, of all the passionate foolish things done in the world, we may say, very few practise,-I mean, she fully studied her duty, and strove to perform it. Fath. You do well to add the last,-there are ten know their duty to one that perform it; I acknowledge myself to be one of the first. Neigh. She knew her husband's temper; that he had given a loose to it, and that it had entirely gotten the mastery of him, she considered, if she should take the same liberty they must be all ruined; and she told me one day a passage, which I cannot but repeat to you: she had been often so provoked, that she was at the point of giving up her temper, and of flying out with the like violence at him; and at that time she was moved as she thought in an insufferable manner: she knew that she was no way the occasion of his ill conduct,-that he ought not to use her as he did; and she thought she was not obliged to bear it but in the juncture that she was thus going to begin with him, and give vent to her passion, that scripture came into her thoughts Prov. xiv. 1. "A wise woman buildeth her house, but a foolish woman pulleth it down with her hands." Immediately her passions cooled, she recovered her temper, and all he could say or do to her, was not able to put her into the least disorder. Fath. She was an excellent woman, and an excellent Christian. Neigh. Indeed she was so. Fath. Such a Christian as I fear I shall never be. Neigh. If you would pray for it, you would hope. Fath. But what came of this human fury you speak of, and of his family? How did it all end? Neigh. Truly it came to a melancholy end many ways,' and yet it was a better end by far than might reasonably have been expected; but it was all owing to the prudence and conduct of his wife,-and she really builded her house, when he, that should have been the stay of it, pulled it down with his hands. It was by her early conduct, that her children where instructed and preserved in their duty to God; and as well kept from a contempt of their father on one hand, as from imitating him in his ungoverned conduct, on the other. Fath. You give her the greatest of characters, for that part was so difficult, and so nice an article to manage, and of such consequence to the family, I should almost think it beyond the power of human prudence. Neigh. I will give you some short instances of it, which may serve as well to honour the conduct of the wife, as to leave an example to all masters of families not to give way to the violence of their own ungoverned follies. Her husband, by the violence of his temper, embroiled himself on several occasions, in very unhappy quarrels; I do not mean such as were to be decided by hand, or that required him to use the sword, as a gentleman; for being a citizen, he wore no sword, nor had he much occasion to deal with those that did. Fath. No, no; I do not understand you so,-if he had shown his passionate temper among gentlemen, as you say he did to others, he might have found a short way out of the world, and put his family soon out of their pain. Neigh. But he shewed it so among other people, that he brought innumerable law-suits upon his hands, and must have been ruined, if his wife's prudence had not put a stop to it. Fath. How could she do that? Neigh. Why, she got friends to go and make up breaches, and repair damages, where it was possible to make them up,-and that she did so often, till she was tired with it; and finding no end of the mischief, there being no hopes to put an end to the cause, she persuaded him first to take his eldest son into his business, and after some time, his second son, and then to leave it quite off, and retire. Fath. It was a wonder how she brought him to it. Neigh. Truly, not without many a rude scuffle with his temper, and indeed with her sons too,-for the father, though he was not insensible of his own passionate temper, yet was often uneasy, at being out of business, and seeing his two sons carry on the trade, while he seemed to be set by as an invalid. Fath. Why, truly it did look something hard,however as it was done deliberately, and from a mature sense that he was unfit to converse with the world, by reason of bis want of government of himself, and that it was finished and |