As I approached the cottage, its exterior gave me at once an idea of the wretched poverty of the inhabitants; the thatch of the decayed roof was pervious in many places to the rain of heaven,

"And all the pelting of the pitiless storm."

The windows, of which there were two, one in each story, retained scarcely any unbroken panes of glass, and their many apertures were imperfectly stopped with straw, hay, and many-coloured rags.

The shattered door stood open; on entering I beheld, seated on a little stool, which, with a broken chair, and an old oaken table, composed the whole furniture of the miserable hovel, an object whose external appearance was expressive of greater wretchedness than even that of the habitation itself; and in spite of the favourable idea I had conceived of him before, excited in my frame a shuddering of mingled pity and horror.

His countenance appeared to be that of a man about thirty years old, pale and squalid, his head, of an immoderate size, formed a shocking contrast to his withered limbs, which were not larger than those of a child of ten years old, distorted and deformed by several curvatures, both in the legs and spine: sad consequence of neglect suffered in his infancy, from the carelessness and brutality of an ignorant and drunken mother.

He was reading when I came in pursuant to a design I had formed, of knowing his sentiments and character from himself, without discovering my own, I accosted him with a very careless and indifferent air, "William, how do you do? What book is that you are reading?" He raised his head to look at me, and replied, with a look and tone of seriousness and affection, which instantly removed all those unpleasant sensations his appearance had excited in my mind, "The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

"Ha!" said I, "I have heard your religious people say, that a great deal of good may be got from that book; perhaps you can tell me if it is so; for I am sure I am bad enough, and if it will make me better, I'll read it too." He replied, very gravely, "If the same Spirit who moved holy men of old to write it, open your heat to understand

it, then it will do you good; but not else, for the natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

"But," rejoined I, still affecting ignorance of his meaning, "how, then, came you to understand them? surely you cannot be a learned man?"

Eyeing me with a solemn and piercing attention, he returned, "Sir, I don't know you, nor do I know why you came in here; but this I know, that I am commanded by this book to be ready to give to every man that asketh reason of the hope that is in me, and I pray God that I may be enabled of him to do it with meekness and fear; you see, Sir, what a cripple I am, but you do not know what a sinner I am."

"You a sinner!" exclaimed I, "how can that be? you are not able to get about to drink, game, dance, and carouse, as the rest of us can; how, then, is it possible that you should be a sinner ?”

66 True," said he, "I could not; but yet I am one of the very vilest of sinners, for I believe no son of Adam ever sinned in the way I have done; for I thought, because God Almighty had made me such a poor lame cripple, and punished me so much, I supposed for nothing, that therefore I might take the liberty to sin without fear; for I thought that he would never be so hard as to punish me here and hereafter too; so, because that was the sin I could most easily indulge, I delighted to curse and swear, and I am sure I made such new oaths and curses, that even if you have been used to swear yourself, they were so very dreadful that they would make you tremble to hear them.

"However, blessed be God, about three years ago, as I was walking on my crutches in a fine sunshiny day, near the door, I was seized all at once with a violent pain in my stomach; I cried out, and fell down, and I really thought I was going to die presently; at first I did not seem to have any fear of death, for the reason I told you before, but as I continued in violent pain, a thought came across my mind, what good work have I done in my life! Alas, none! Then I shall not go to heaven now; and if not, why I must go to hell at last. Now I was miserable in

deed, for I did not know any other way to heaven than by my own works."

"Dear me," interrupted I, "what other way can there be than doing all the good we can, in order to gain the favour of God Almighty ?"

He answered me, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

- 66 But," " continued he, "in this distress I tried to pray; but of all the prayers you ever read in your life, if ever you read any, or all that you ever heard, if you ever heard any body pray, I believe you never heard any thing like it; I don't think it was the prayer of faith, and yet I believe that God heard and answered it. I do not know why, but it was as it pleased him; this was it, as near as I can remember:

"Lord, I am a poor sinner that never did any good in my life, and now I am afraid I must die and go to hell; but, O Lord, if thou canst save me, pray do; though I don't know how it can be. O try me once more, and I will be better than David; for he prayed seven times a day, but I will pray eight times, and read twelve chapters.' But by praying, I only meant reading eight collects out of my mother's Prayer Book."

"Well," interrupted I again, "what can be better praying than reading those excellent collects ?"

"Ah, Sir!" said he, very earnestly, "you might read all the prayers over that ever were made by man: you might make very good prayers for yourself, or you might make prayers for other people, which they might pray in reading, and God might hear them, and yet never pray yourself in your life."

"Well," said I, "this is very strange; what is praying, then ?"

He replied, "Praying is telling the great God what we feel that we want of him."

Returning to his narrative, he proceeded thus: "It pleased God that I soon got somewhat better, and I set

about my task as I had promised; but alas! in a little time I found that I did not pray. I could not believe that I could not love God, that I could not repent of sin; and at last I left off reading my prayers, because I was afraid of mocking God any longer; but, blessed be his name, he did not suffer me to leave off reading the Testament, though the more I read the worse I was, for I read it all through, and all seemed to condemn me; now I can see in it exceeding great and precious promises, but I could not see any of them then; I could only attend to such awful words as these:

"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

"The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.

666 'Thou, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel.'

"Yet I began to read it over again, and when I came the second time to the blessed first chapter of the first epistle of John, and read these precious words, 'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin,' I felt that precious blood relieve my wounded conscience, and I seemed to myself as if I was in a new world. Í could now repent, I could believe, I could love God, and if I had a thousand lives, I could have laid them all down for Christ." "These are very wonderful things," said I, "that you tell me, but what was the reason why God showed them to you? Was it because you were so zealous and so earnest in reading the Testament ?"

He returned, with inexpressible energy, "who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose, and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

"What," exclaimed I, "can you possibly make me believe that the great God ever thought any thing about such a poor, insignificant crippled man as you are, before he made the world?"

"Yes," said he, "else why is it said, 'Chosen in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love?'”

," said I, "you have never sinned since that

Surely,"

time."

He replied, "In many things we offend all. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

"But," said I, "if you should sin so much as to go to hell after all this, you had better have remained as ignorant as I am."

66 Being confident," he replied, "that he who hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.

"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

"Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree.'"

"Do I understand you rightly," asked I, "that it does not signify what sins you commit, or how you live, now he is become your Saviour?"

He replied, with a look and accent of animated and holy indignation, "God forbid! how shall we who are dead to sin, live any longer therein? for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not any longer live unto themselves, but to him that died for them and rose again." Glancing his eye on my face, while he was thus speaking, he discerned a rising tear, which I could no longer suppress, and instantly cried out, "I am sure, Sir, you are not what you

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