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accepted the offer; though Mr. Trifling seldom attended his church, for he was an Antimonian in principle, and went to the meeting belonging to the particular Baptists. Charles, knowing the irregularity of this man's conduct and his high professions of religion, was glad of an opportunity to talk with him on his errors, and remonstrate with him on his sins, against light and knowledge. Sir," said Trifling, "I am glad to help you on the road; for I respect you for your work's sake. You preach the Gospel in part, but you do not go far enough." “Why, how is that?" said Charles; "Do I not preach the depravity of man-the efficacy of Christ's atonement to all who apply to him, and the necessity of God's Holy Spirit to help us; and that 'without holiness, no man shall see the Lord?" " "Yes; but this is legal preaching! None will come to Christ but the elect, and they cannot perish;' for, once a child of God, always a child of God. The elect cannot sin; the immortal seed is in them all their sins are taken and borne by Christ. God sees no iniquity in his Jacob, nor perverseness in his Israel;' he looks to Christ, and sees their sins all centred and pardoned in his cross. Where sin abounds' in them grace will much more abound."" "Ah! neighbour," said Charles, " you have forgotten, then, all the precepts addressed to man, to excite him to exertion. Strive to enter the strait gate.' 'Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure.' 'Labour not for the bread that perisheth, but for that bread which endureth with everlasting life.' Attend to these before you say you are elected to salvation. Prove your election by your calling, and live worthy of your high calling. Do not think you may go on in sin, and throw the whole burden of your wilful and presumptuous sins on Christ, and escape the charge of guilty negligence of duty and deliberate commission of sin. Remember the Apostle's

06

Why,

caution, If ye sow to the flesh, ye shall of the flesh reap corruption.' 'Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father.' 'He that heareth my sayings, and doeth them not, I will liken him to a foolish man that built his house on the sand, and the floods came and it fell; and the ruin of that house was great,' this," said Trifling, "is sending us to ourselves, our works our watchings. It is like the popish fastings and penances, or, like the Methodists every day's work; or, as their phrase is, 'Do not tell me what you were a year, or a week since, what are you now? On this plan there is no certainty of salvation at all-no assurance! Oh if I were to give up the comfortable doctrines of election and reprobation, I should have no comfort-no hope!" "Ah! well does our church observe, in her article on election," said Charles, "That the doctrine of election may give comfort to the true people of God, but may be abused by others, to promote vile wretchlessness of living.' Well might St. Peter say, that in St. Paul's writings there are many things hard to be understood, which some wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.' But I must ask you a question, Mr. Trifling-there inay be some comfort in the doctrine of election to the true and sincere people of God, who shew the evidence in their tempers and lives, that they are chosen to eternal life; but what comfort can there possibly be in the dreadful doctrine of reprobation-in the belief that some are doomed from eternity to be damned?" Why," said Trifling, "the thought that we are chosen to eternal life, while so many are left in reprobation as 'vessels of wrath,' gives 'joy." "But do you never have fears respecting yourself ?” said Charles, "when you have been drawn into sin? "Oh yes; I confess I am miserable. But I believe, whatever

my falls may be, God will not cast me off!" They arrived safe at home. The next day Trifling was persuaded to join some drunken companions, and while in a state of intoxication, he ran up with the ringers to the belfrey, ascended among the bells which had been left by them, after a wedding peal on the sally-or suspended, inverted, and touched, it is supposed, the wheel, and a bell instantly came down, fifteen hundred weight, broke his back, and killed him in a few minutes! "What an awful end!" said Charles, as he heard it; "to talk with such confidence of his election and salvation, and to be cut off in the act of badene an unrepented sin !"

AS CHARLES frequently visited his friend, Mr. Rendoch, young Barking became attached to him; and with a view of leading him into a preference of good society and sober habits, he invited him to take an excursion with him. "I propose, ," he said, "to spend a fortnight with my friend, Lord Gallendon. We were old school-fellows at W at the Rev. Mr. P

-'s, and I have not seen him some

time; he has pressed me to spend a fortnight with him, at least, and as I know the openness and friendship of his disposition, I may, without offence to his lordship, invite you, my friend Barking, to accompany me. I promise you, Barking, plenty of sport in his park, which is very extensive, for his lordship never shoots himself, but liberally allows all his noble friends in the neighbourhood to take their pastime in his domain-a privilege which they are highly delighted to make use of, when their skill and exertions have a little exhausted their own manors of the game. Barking, there is another reason why I wish you to go, viz, that his lordship is one of the most domestic gentlemen I know-has a lively perception of the beauty of scenery, a refined taste for rural pleasure, and has displayed much skill in picturesque gardening, lawns, woods, parterres, bowers, walks, rivers, statuary, classic temples, grottos, and alcoves. You will also be introduced to

Lady Gallendon, who possesses great refinement, and has displayed much taste in the arrangements of her flower garden and the decorations of her drawing-room. You will also meet with Lord Gallendon's two accomplished sisters, the honourables Miss Lucilla and Miss Phœbe; in their society and pursuits you will have opportunity to be convinced that moral life in the country is preferable to a life of dissipation in town."

"Prodigious!" said Barking, "you have opened a path that rouses my ambition-you have set before me a prospect, the distant sight of which enkindles a rapture." "Not so fast," said Charles, "Do not presume, rash and vain boy, that any love-scheme will follow this. Lord Gallendon's sisters are not objects on which you are to fix the most distant hopes; they have rejected the most flattering addresses already, and they are too attached to their noble and beloved brother, and to the dignified independence and happiness of a sequestered residence in his mansion. Can you entertain the slightest hopes of tempting them to quit it?" "Well, well," said Barking, "don't jump with such a bounding velocity to your conclusion from premises unestablished. I deny the premises—you have, therefore, no reason to found a syllogism upon my uttering the word ambition, drawn from me by your own glowing descriptions. I wish to see the proof of your boasted theorem about the happiness of rural life, in accompanying you to scenes of such charming novelty; but you may rely upon my entertaining no rash and presumptuous hopes, though it is difficult in imagination to contemplate such a second Lady Jane, walking amid embowering shades, and not feel something which the royal author of the King's Quay, King James of Scotland, felt when he had a glance of the daughter of Lord Somerset, walking with her two maids and sportive greyhound, amid the groves in the garden,