JANE D

On the borders of the parish of L. stands a single cottage, the outside of which, at the time I first visited it, showed the character of its inmates. The cottage stood in a little fenced garden, which showed any thing but marks of industry. A dunghill on one side, and a pig, basking in mud, on the other, gave evidence of dirt and sloth within. I was not mistaken in my opinion; there sat two children within, quarrelling with each other, and a little snarling dog. They were clothed in rags, and covered with dirt; while the walls were covered with filth, and the floor had apparently been unswept for many a year. On my appearance, both children raised a rude yell and ran to an inner room, whence there came forth presently, a young gipsy looking woman full as untidy and dirty as her children. She stared at me with surprise, which said, "What are you come here for?"

"I have lately become your minister," I said; "and as I wish to become acquainted with all my flock, I have called to see you." On this she asked me to come in and sit down. I did so; and after a few common inquiries, I asked if she could read. "A very little; she had only a Testament, which was hard reading." "Do you attend. church." "Now and then, when I can leave the children." I gave her a few tracts, and received a promise that she would come to church the next Sunday. Meantime, I learned from one of the neighbours, that Jane D., (the name of my new acquaintance,) was very bad tempered; she and her husband were always quarrelling and fighting; the children learned of their parents to do the same: and about a month before I came to L., she had actually turned her poor old mother out of doors, one night, in a rage. Here was conduct, of which the very heathen would have been ashamed-they support their parents as long as they think fit to live with them, except among some very barbarous tribes. Jane D. was born in a Christian country; she might have received instruction; she might have read in her Bible, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the

land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." But Jane had all this time chosen darkness rather than light.

Sometime after, I preached on 1 Tim. v. 8. "If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." I pointed out the duties of children to their parents, as well as parents to their children. I visited Jane the next week: she looked thoughtful, and I hoped conviction of sin had begun to work. It was not so. She had listened without application to herself, as David did when Nathan exclaimed, "Thou art the man." I read the third chapter of St. John's Gospel to her; and asked if she had ever known the change our Lord speaks of, as being born of the Spirit. She never had. “And yet you see," said I, "that without it no soul can be saved." O! how you ought to pray to God, that he will give you his Spirit, that you may be born again. If you were to die Jesus himself says, answer, "I suppose

to night, where would your soul be? not in heaven. She knew enough to

in hell," but it was with unconcern.

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'Hell," I repeated,

hell-fire, everlasting burnings with the worm that never dies." "I hope God will have mercy on me," she said.