In an assembly of learned youths, whose faith in Christianity had been shaken by polished and bewitching recommendations of infidelity, it would be proper to take off the varnish, and discover the futility and inconclusiveness of such essays; and this ought to be done with wit, vivacity, ingenuity, address, and point, superior if it were possible in salt and savour to the style of unbelievers. On the contrary, in an assembly all made up of rustics, who never saw any charms in schools, whose ears are not accustomed to honeyed accents, and who have only vulgar prejudices against Christianity, the method of recommending it should be quite different. The objections of the learned lie against the supposed philosophy of Christianity, and point at what are called the doctrines of it: but the objections of the uneducated are vulgar prejudices, which rise out of the love and the practice of sin. These people do not object against the doctrines; indeed they are apt to err on the other side, and to believe too much, sinking into a torpid state through credulousness as their opposites do through unbelief. They have no objection against any thing in the Gospel, except the virtue of it. To remove their prejudices against evangelical virtue is the peculiar work of their teachers. It is easy to see that either of these assemblies, taken separately, may be addressed with great propriety in their own way; but should a few of the one sort mingle themselves in the assemblies of the other, it would become necessary to treat them all with justice and respect, and consequently to direct a part, a line or two, a sentence,

a hint, a word, or an argument to the edification of each. Should it even not answer the end, the good intention of the teacher ought to be allowed.

As to the manner of treating of the subjects of religion, that ought to be formed as nearly as possible on the manners of the hearers. Indeed, what does it signify by what sounds, or by what sentences, or by what similitudes we set men a thinking, and convey information to their understandings? From the melody of a nightingale to the croaking of a frog, from the eloquence of Cicero to the vulgar gabble of Mrs. Quickly, the renowned hostess of the knight of inexhaustible humour, from the manly reasoning in Butler's Analogy, to the doleful dialogues between Epenetus, the devil, and Mr. Hobbes, all are, in some sense, indifferent. Many great masters have given rules, which have their use to teach boys at school, how to practise a pace, which it may be proper for them to go in some even paths in future life: but there are some rugged roads in which rules would be an hindrance, and it may become necessary for travellers to scramble along as well as they can. The great end of teaching is to enable men to get above the want of teaching; and if that end be answered, the manner, it should seem, is an article of no very great consequence.

Petilian had an only son, who disgraced his family, wasted his property, half broke his father's heart, and fled, all profligacy and diseases as he was, abroad. Petilian never forgot he had a son, often wept at recollecting it, and grew grey with hoping against hope

that he should live to clasp,his penitent son in his arms. After twenty-five years, in which he had often been informed that his son was alive but become worse and worse, Rufus, a rough but honest and benevolent captain of a ship came to pay Petilian a visit . . ." Pardon me, Petilian, if I ask, when you heard of your son" The old gentleman took out his handkerchief

...

and wiped his eyes

"I can give you some intelligence of him," added Rufus," and on the whole not unpleasant"... Petilian looked hard at him, his jaw quivered, he drew himself forward, and sat on the edge of the front of his chair... Rufus added, "He is become a Quaker"... Petilian lifted up one hand, the tears ran down from both his eyes, and he exclaimed, “Is he alive!"... "He is alive and well"... "My son !" "Yes, your son. I have seen him and conversed with him, and what I tell you is true". . . Petilian fainted. Rufus recovered him, and when he was cool told him : "I have been abroad. One day a shipwright, a rough blunt man, came on board, and told me that he had reproached your son with his conduct, in a manner so forcibly that he could not resist it, and that in consequence of the remonstrances of his own conscience, excited by his conversation, he had laid aside the practice, and quenched the love of vice, and that he now for four years past had lived a life of devotion, temperance, and justice. After his reformation he had gone to work with this shipwright, and had married his daughter, and was led by that family into that mode of Christianity, which we here call Quakerism, for the shipwright himself was a Friend, and held forth

on the nature and practice of virtue in a little assembly of his own people. I was curious to see him, and went with my informer on shore. There I found him, with his broad brim, eating his morsel with his Abigail, one of the neatest of women, and two children, the eldest of whom is the picture of yourself, and called friend Petilian, after thee. I proposed an interview with you, which he refused with tears of the most unaffected repentance for his sins, and expressions of esteem for your virtue. He said, "I ought to ask pardon of my father, and I would, but, recollect, Captain, my father is a man of birth, fortune, and fashion, and of the Roman catholic religion. Thou wilt forgive me if I say, I fear the prejudices of that very virtuous man will not allow him to take pleasure in me now that a change, so barbarous in his eye hath taken place in me; for virtue, unaccompanied with the gaiety of the world and the ceremonies of the church, hath no being, much less beauty, in the eyes of such men. I think, therefore, on the whole, that it would be an act of cruelty to disturb the peace of my father; perhaps he hath long ago buried me in imagination, and it would revive his grief to raise me from the dead. I trust, at the resurrection of the last day the infinite mercy of God will make the sight of me an addition to his joy"... Rufus paused... Petilian wept, and exclaimed, "O that I could see him; probably I might engage him to lay aside his garb of virtue without endangering his virtue itself"... "O no,” said Rufus," it would be dangerous to make the attempt; beside, I can tell you he is an inconvertible man. You must either see him as he is, or never see him at all"...

C

"It is. I have prevail

"Is it possible to see him?" ed with him, and brought him and his family over". . . "Holy virgin!" exclaimed Petilian. "Where is he? I must see him. I have forgiven him. I feel I love him. I long to embrace him. I have already forgotten, and I will never recollect the impropriety of any means made use of to recover a sinner from the error of his way, and to fill a father with a joy like that of God, when he embraces a long lost, once prodigal, but now penitent son." "Come then," said Rufus, "give passage to the finest emotions of the human heart. Your son saith, in language canonized by both your churches, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants: and he is now saying this, all heretic as he is, in a room in this house where I have desired him to wait. You have compassion, Petilian. Go, run fall on his neck and kiss him, and then let us all, in spite of forms, eat and be merry, for

"Pleasure and praise run through God's host

To see a sinner turn;

Then Satan hath a captive lost,

And Christ a subject born."

To people who have any interest in the knowledge and virtue of their fellow-creatures, though it be not so great as that of a parent, yet we cannot but think that all modes of communicating virtue are comparatively indifferent. Let the reader think of this, and forgive whatever may have the air, and in some cases the nature, of impropriety, in these discourses, which were intended to edify many, and to give offence to none