many devices in a man's heart, the counsel of the Lord alone shall stand. It was at this period, in the month of February, 1822, that he met with an accident, which had a material influence

upon his future course. While taking a solitary ramble among some of the wildest and most picturesque scenery in the neighbourhood, he suddenly found himself in a perilous situation: he had descended part of a rugged declivity near the sea shore, and discovered to his alarm that to return was impossible, and to proceed highly dangerous, as the precipice beneath him was nearly perpendicular; but it was necessary to proceed, and in doing so, he fell with great force on some rocks beneath. The shock, indeed, was so violent, that it materially injured his frame, and produced a concussion of the spine. This was the commencement of severe suffering, which lasted three years and a half, and then terminated in death.

He remained a fortnight in the country after this accident; and, finding his complaints daily assuming a more formidable aspect, he was removed to the neighbouring town of Ilfracombe. Now was the time for his philosophy to support

him, and with great firmness he determined to bear his misfortune, and for a long time he rested on his false principles for consolation. But of what use was his philosophy to him in the day of adversity? Its influence on his mind resembled that of a cold, gloomy November day on the body: his heart was more chilled, wretched, and comfortless than before; he could well apply to himself the following passage from the page of the Scriptures he despised:-"Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit," Eccl. ii. 17. "Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive," Eccl. iv. 2. His ideas of the Almighty now alarmed him; his life was a burden, and nothing but the fear of a future state, the probability of which he could not erase from his mind, prevented him from terminating an existence, that called for more than stoicism to enable him to bear.

CHAPTER II.

HIS ILLNESS-VISITED BY A FRIEND.

IN the town to which Mr. B. removed, he had a friend, who having heard of his disaster, and fearful of the consequences, hastened to speak to him on the subject of religion, and, if possible, to lead his mind dispassionately to consider those great truths of Scripture, which are able to make us wise unto salvation. This office of christian charity had frequently been before attempted, but always without success; and so distasteful to him was the subject of religion, that he afterwards confessed, "he considered his friend's arguments as powerless on his mind as water thrown upon a rock; that he thought Mr. S. had an eye upon him to make him a methodist; and that, however good his intentions were in so doing, he viewed him as altogether mistaken in his doctrines and religious princi

ples." It is evident from this that great caution was necessary, and that he was always on his guard when attacked in the strong-hold of his deistical notions. Mr. B. was not like many persons, who, as soon as the subject of religion is introduced, endeavour to evade and suppress it he had a mind of a different character; he would patiently listen to all that might be advanced, and then endeavour by argument to maintain his own ground.

His friend well knew that the conversion of the mind to Divine truth was entirely out of the province of human ability: when, therefore, he visited him, it was with humble dependence upon God to direct him as to the portions of Scripture he should advance, and with prayer that he would bless his otherwise utterly unprofitable labours. Thus considering himself merely as an instrument, he strove as clearly as he could to set before him the whole of the gospel, and then left his work in the hands of God. With this view he called on him one fine morning in the month of April, 1822; it was also the Sabbath he found his invalid friend lying on a sofa, having several volumes of some of the most

popular infidel writers spread open before him. After some allusion to the accident, his friend (Mr. S.) referred to the consolations derivable from the gospel in the hour of suffering and distress, but he evidently thought contemptuously of them, and seemed to adopt the maxim, that "the spirit of a man could sustain his infirmity;" and that, aided by philosophy, fortitude and resignation might easily be acquired. Referring to the infidel authors, whose works were on the table, he inquired, "If christianity be true, how can we account for so many men of extensive information, accurate reasoning, and patient investigation, rejecting it? How is it, that so few in all ages, among the learned, have embraced the Scriptures? How is it, with a desire to arrive at the truth, they have been forced to consider revelation as false ?"

In answer to this, his attention was directed to the first and second chapters of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, whence it is deducible, that these very characters are themselves among the standing evidences of the truth of the gospel; he was also referred to Sir Isaac Newton, Boyle, and other men eminent in science and