'With all thy gettings, get wisdom: length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace!'"

CHAP. XIV.

MR. H. arrived in safety at his nephew's. His sister was exceedingly glad to see him. The next day, mindful of his promise to his son, he wrote him the following letter.

"MY DEAR EDWIN,

"From this habitation of affliction I write you a few lines.

"You will be happy to hear that your cousin is a little better, though by no means out of danger. In a few lucid moments, last evening, soon after my arrival, he knew me, and stretched his hand to grasp mine. My uncle! my dear uncle!' was all he could say, and relapsed into his former state, that of insensibility or delirium.

"This morning I have had a little conversation with him. Oh,' said he, I wish, uncle, 'I I had hearkened to your counsel, and that of my mother! How foolishly, how madly have I acted! Is it not now too late? Tell me, is it not now too late?' I would not permit him to fatigue himself: I endeavoured to soothe him, and to encourage the hope, that it was not too late to repent and turn to his heavenly Father, from whom he had indeed deeply revolted.

"He is evidently the subject of much mental anguish. Among many incoherent things he uttered yesterday, there were some, his brother Richard tells me, of a most painful nature. 'What a wretch have I been!' said he, as he saw his brother weeping by his bed-side. I have indeed afflicted you; but this is not the worst. I have murdered my mother! I have ruined my soul!'

"This is a case, my dear Edwin, full of instruction. I hope you will be altogether unlike poor George. Oh, supplicate divine grace, that you may conscientiously and habitually attend to those duties so frequently inculcated on you, even from your earliest infancy. Should this be the case, as I fondly hope it will, I shall indeed rejoice. And though the world should frown, and adverse circumstances should arise, and professed friends forsake me, and even

my health and spirits, and life itself decay, it shall still be matter of unfeigned joy, of per petual and devout thanksgiving, that I have a son whom I need never be ashamed to own; and I shall bless God, even in my dying moments, that I have not lived in vain.

"There is one question which I hope will frequently and seriously, and, indeed, through the whole of your life, have a large share of your especial attention, since it includes in it all I can recommend to your notice, and all that can ever be valuable to you: it is, How can I most please God, and glorify his venerable name? The spirits of the just made perfect, who stand before the throne in glory, cannot propose to themselves a nobler object. Nor can you ever be happy, no, not even if the world were to shower down on you a profusion of her most distinguished honours, and riches, and pleasures, unless you are sincerely and constantly anxious to answer this great end of your existence. The immortal mind can never be satisfied without the favour and friendship of God. Where these are enjoyed, there will be the most affectionate concern to converse with, to honour, and please him. Such an individual may justly pity the possessor of a throne who is destitute of this superior bliss. He may take his stand on the margin of the immeasurable

deep, and say, 'He who holds the mighty waters in the hollow of his hand, is my Friend and my Father. The enjoyments of the votary of the world,' he may exclaim, 'satiate, but never satisfy: mine satisfy, but never satiate.' He may elevate his eyes to the heavens, and say: 'He who stretched abroad the mighty expanse as a tent to dwell in, deigns to visit and to bless me, and to call me his child! How large the condescension! How boundless the grace! How unspeakable the bliss!'

"Oh, my dear Edwin, if you would please God, you must avoid iniquity! Sin will destroy your respectability, and usefulness, and health, and comfort, in the present world; and ruin your soul for ever in that which is to come. Let it be written on your heart, (oh that it may be so, by the Holy Spirit of God, who alone. can teach you to profit!) that it is utterly impossible to gain any thing by sin. I deny not, indeed, that the depraved heart may occasionally find momentary advantage and enjoyment in passing over the boundaries assigned by almighty wisdom and goodness; but these are always infinitely outweighed by the loss of all that is most valuable. Oh, think how much poor George has sacrificed for his vices! Sin is a cruel and an accursed tyrant. Even in the present world, a wicked man cannot be happy:

he carries in his bosom a perpetual accuser, and his own heart tells him, that the accusations, awful as they are, are just.

"Their rock,' the Christian may say, in the language of holy triumph, when referring to the ungodly,' their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges.' It is remarkable, that bad men, in their expiring moments, never, never (my dear boy, treasure up the sentiment in your bosom) recommend their children or friends to imitate their example: you know, that they generally charge them to tread in an opposite path. I have stood by the side of many a dying bed, and I never heard a single person say to those who have been around them, 'Be as worldly, as wicked, as prayerless, as regardless of the salvation of your soul, as I have been. Put off thinking of eternity, as I have done, till you are entering on it.' Every one knows that their language has usually been the reverse of this.

"Pious persons, on the contrary, have uniformly left the world regretting, perhaps, that they have loved God no more, and served him no better; yet rejoicing that they have had the happiness of belonging to his family, and anxious that their children and friends should tread in the same path, and follow them even as they followed Christ.'