her to make me her husband, and with some difficulty she did, to my unspeakable felicity. She had no money worth mentioning: but her house was pretty and comfortable, and her land had grain and cattle; and as I threw into her lap my five hundred pounds, a little before we were married, to be by her disposed of and managed, according to her pleasure, she soon made some good improvements and additions, and by her fine understanding, sweet temper, and every Christian virtue, continues to render my life so completely happy; so joyous and delightful ; that I would not change my partner and condition, for one of the first quality and greatest fortune. In her I have every thing I could wish for in a wife and a woman, and she makes it the sole study and pleasure of her life to crown my every day with the highest satisfactions and comforts. Two years have I lived with her on these wild mountains, and in that time I have not had one dull or painful minute, but in thinking that I may lose her, and be the wretched survivor. That thought does sometimes wound me. In sum, my friend, we are the happiest of wedded mortals, and on this small remote farm, live in a state of bliss to be envied. This proves that happiness does not flow from riches only: but, that where pure, and perfect love, strict virtue, and unceasing industry, are united in the conjugal state, they can.

make the Stainmore mountains a Paradise to mortals

in peace and little.

"But it is not only happiness in this world that I have acquired by this admirable woman, but life eternal. You remember, my friend, what a wild and wicked one I was when a school-boy, and as Barbadoes of all parts of the globe is no place to improve a man's morals in, I returned from thence to Europe as debauched a scelerate as ever offended Heaven by blasphemy and illiberal gratifications. Even my losses and approaching poverty were not capable of making any great change in me. When I was courting my wife, she soon discerned my impiety, and perceived that I had very little notion of hell and heaven, death and judgment. This she made a principal objection against being concerned with me, and told me, she could not venture into a married connexion with a man, who had no regard to the divine laws, and therefore, if she could not make me a Christian, in the true sense of the word, she would never be Mrs. PRICE.

"This from a plain country girl, surprised me not a little, and my astonishment arose very high, when I heard her talk of religion, and the great end of both, a blessed life after this. She soon convinced me that religion was the only means by which we can arrive at true happiness, by which we

can attain to the last perfection and dignity of our nature, and that the authority and word of God is the surest foundation of religion. The substance of what she said is as follows. I shall never forget the lesson.

"The plain declarations of our Master in the Gospel restore the dictates of uncorrupted reason to their force and authority, and give us just notions of God and of ourselves. They instruct us in the nature of the Deity, discover to us his unity, holiness, and purity, and afford certain means of obtaining eternal life. Revelation commands us to worship one Supreme God, the Supreme Father of all things; and to do his will, by imitating his perfections, and practising every thing recommended by that law of reason, which he sent the Messiah to revive and enforce that by repentance, and righteousness, and acts of devotion, we may obtain the divine favour, and share in the glories of futurity; for, the Supreme Director, whose goodness gives counsel to his power, commanded us into existence to conduct us to everlasting happiness, and therefore teaches us by his Son to pray, to praise, and to repent, that we may be entitled to a nobler inheri tance than this world knows, and obtain life and immortality, and all the joys and blessings of the heavenly Canaan. This was the godlike design of

our Creator. That superior agent, who acts not by arbitrary will, but by the maxims of unclouded reason, when he made us and stationed us in this part of his creation, had no glory of his own in view, but what was perfectly consistent with a just regard to the felicity of his rational subjects.

"It was this made the apostle shew Felix the unalterable obligations to justice and equity; to temperance, or a command over the appetites; and then, by displaying the great and awful judgment to come, urge him to the practice of these, and all the other branches of morality; that by using the means prescribed by God, and acting up to the conditions of salvation, he might escape that dreadful punishment, which in the reason and nature of things, is connected with vice, and which the good government of the rational world requires should be inflicted on the wicked; and might on the contrary by that mercy offered to the world through Jesus Christ, secure those immense rewards, which are promised to innocence and the testimony of an upright heart. This faith in Christ, St. Paul placed before the Roman governor in the best light. He described the complexion and genius of the Christian faith. He represented it as revealing the wrath of God against all immorality; and as joining with reason

and uncorrupted nature, enforcing the practice of every moral and social duty.

ร

"What effect this discourse had on Felix," continued MARTHA, "in producing faith, that is, morality in an intelligent agent, we are told by the apostle. He trembled: but iniquity and the world had taken such a hold of him, that he dismissed the subject, and turned from a present uneasiness to profit and the enjoyment of sin. He had done with St. Paul, and sacrificed the hopes of eternity to the world and its delights.

"But this," concluded MARTHA," will not I hope be your case. As a judgment to come is an awful subject, you will ponder in time, and look into your own mind. As a man, a reasonable and social creature, designed for duty to a God above you, and to a world of fellow-creatures around you, you will consider the rules of virtue and morality, and be no longer numbered with those miserable mortals, who are doomed to condemnation upon their disobedience. Those rules lie open in a perfect gospel, and the wicked can have nothing to plead for their behaviour. They want no light to direct them. They want no assistance to support them in doing their duty. They have a gospel to bring them to life and salvation, if they will but take notice of it; and if they will not walk in the