whom I might relate my perplexities, and lay open my difficulties, what consolations and encouragements should I then experience!" But while the Almighty saw good to deny him this consolation, he gave him one which was as infinitely superior, as that which is heavenly is above that which is earthly. After God had permitted him for awhile to sigh for these earthly consolations, he led him to feel that the Christian who seeks comfort or encouragement from a fellow-creature, rests his support on that which may break and pierce his hand; but that he who makes the Lord the Spirit his guide, his friend, his comforter, rests on that rock which is able to support him when all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens themselves shall be rolled together as a scroll. (Isaiah xxxiv. 4.) By meditating long and in solitude on this subject, he was, at length, made fully sensible, that for him who had the privilege of having the Lord as his friend and his spiritual guide, it was absolutely sinful to desire any other, excepting in subordination and entire subservience to the will of the Almighty. He was moreover taught, that he who seeks and desires the approbation of man for any service which he has been enabled to perform towards the promotion of the kingdom of Christ on earth, is as truly and decidedly derogating from the honour and power of the Holy Spirit, as that man who denies his being and attributes. The more he meditated on this subject, and the more he considered the special office of the Spirit in the Church of Christ, the more he became convinced of the exceeding sinfulness of desiring the praise of men; as well as of the vanity of expecting any blessing to attend his labours, while he remained in any measure under the influence of this carnal and idolatrous temper. "The days are past," he would say to himself, "in which our kings, heroes, and great men, actually set themselves up as gods to be worshipped; we can see and condemn the blasphemous conduct of Cyrus and Alexander, when they allowed their subjects to pay them divine honours; and yet I myself lament my solitary situation, because it excludes me from the notice and praise of man."

Thus he was led on from reflection to reflection, till,

by the divine help and through the study of the Scriptures, he acquired such a view of the work of man's salvation, from first to last, and of the various parts taken in that mighty work by the three glorious persons of the blessed Trinity, that he almost trembled with horror, on perceiving the possibility, had he been in the society of professing Christians, that he might have taken some praise to himself on account of the conversion of certain of the heathen in his little district: insomuch that he was even, at length, brought to thank God for the retirement by which he had been preserved from receiving that incense of praise which is due only to the Almighty, but which blind and erring man is too frequently arrogating to himself.

After Mr. Eliot had been working for some years in his solitary situation with great faithfulness, he was visited by a gentleman who had much the same Christian views with himself. This gentleman was, of course, much pleased with all he saw and heard of Mr. Eliot's conduct; and on returning to his friends, he failed not to give a relation, though with much Christian simplicity, of the blessed work which was going on in the jungles.

This relation was by far too interesting to be slightly passed over, by those who take delight in such sacred reports, and, in consequence, it soon spread from one to another, till at length it reached the mother-country, where it offered a desirable article to many of the religious periodical papers of the day. In this manner, though unknown till a long time afterward by the person himself, the name of James Eliot became celebrated in the religious world: and he was particularly commended for his conduct at a time when his people were visited by a very severe and dangerous fever, during which he hazarded his own life by visiting the miserable huts of the sick, and administering to them that relief, both spiritual and temporal, which their situations required.

In the mean time, this pious man, while his character became more and more known and admired in the religious world, was daily growing in grace and humility in his retired jungle: the praise and blame of the world, the

commendation or condemnation of his fellow men, no longer occupied his thoughts, but had passed away from his recollection among other fancies of his unconverted state. Through the infinite power of the Holy Spirit, he had been brought to consider the salvation of man's soul as the one only thing worthy of a moment's anxiety, and to esteem that as the only evil which interfered with man's spiritual good.

It was the intention of Mr. James Eliot to have spent the remainder of his days, under the divine permission, with his little Church in the wilderness: but at the very time when he seemed to be most deeply engaged and interested in this blessed work, by one of those remarkable dispensations of Providence which we often see without being able to comprehend, he was cut off from further usefulness by a severe illness, which left him in such a state, that a voyage to his native country was thought to be his only remaining chance of life.

Mr. James Eliot yielded to this appointment of Providence with Christian resignation, though not without much sorrow; and his separation from his schools and native congregation was as the tearing asunder of soul and body. He became, however, much reconciled to an immediate return to England, from being able, during a short stay in Calcutta, to make such arrangements as secured a Christian teacher for his congregation, together with proper supplies for his schools and other charitable establishments. And since he was himself in a state of high affluence, he would on no account allow the liberality of others to be solicited for such assistance as his own purse could abundantly supply.

Mr. Eliot's health was so greatly benefited during the voyage, that it would have been difficult to believe, at the end of it, that he had been in so very feeble a state at its commencement. He was, however, in the mean while convinced, notwithstanding these favourable appearances, that he must never again expose himself to that climate by which his life had been so greatly endangered. The old gentleman on this account believed it his duty to take up his abode in England, though his heart still remained with the poor heathen whom he had left behind him.

This being the case, as soon as he arrived in England he wrote to two single ladies, elderly persons, who resided in a certain town in one of the inland counties, who were nearly related to him, and whom he recollected in early life, informing them of his arrival, and requesting them to procure him neat lodgings in some respectable pious family in their neighbourhood; adding, that he wished also to board in the same family, in order that he might be delivered from the cares of providing for himself.

Before Mr. James Eliot had been enabled to get his goods passed through the East-India House, he received an answer to this letter, expressed in terms of great regard and respect, and containing a proposal from the ladies in question of providing their cousin apartments in their own house.

It happened, that Mrs. Anne and Mrs. Esther Clinton, the ladies just mentioned, were among the number of those self-tormented persons, who had, during a life of considerable duration, been always labouring to keep up an appearance somewhat above that to which their rank, as the daughters of a respectable farmer, and their small fortune, entitled them. Thus they had contrived to pass their days in a state of perpetual and painful effort; and although they had succeeded in forming some few connexions somewhat above them, they had been frequently exposed to petty mortifications.

During the earlier part of their lives, the pleasures of the world had formed the sole object of their pursuit ; in connexion with which they always pretended to be exact judges of all matters of form and etiquette, as well as of all that which was elegant and fashionable in dress and manners: they had also affected a kind of instinctive horror of any thing low and vulgar; and had talked of the dignity of their own family, till they had actually argued themselves into the belief, that it was superior to any other in the neighbourhood which was not decidedly noble. Within a few years past, a revolution-we will not say a reformation-had been effected in the minds of these ladies, by the general prevalence of religious professions in the town and neighbourhod; and especially by what had been called the conversion of a

certain great lady in the vicinity, who had been many years the oracle of the Misses Clinton, being the only daughter of a nobleman with whom they had been very long acquainted.

This lady, the honourable Mrs. Essington, had in her younger days been a beauty, and, in consequence, an object of great attention to the other sex. When time put an end to her pretensions of this kind, she suddenly became a wit, and kept the country alive by getting up amateur plays at the mansion-house, and presiding over certain mask-balls, puppet-shows, archery-meetings, and other conceits of the same nature; all of which she had the art of making as agreeable to her friends and neighbours as things of this kind are capable of being made; the town about that period of her life being a station, and there being, in consequence, many smart officers in the neighbourhood who were glad of such a house as Essington-Hall wherein to spend an idle hour. But when, owing to some new regulations among those who had the management of these things, the military were removed from the town, these balls, and other amusements, lost their zest, and the restless spirit of Mrs. Essington took another direction. She suddenly became a very high religious professor; running from one place of worship to another, frequenting religious meetings, establishing schools, patronising missions and missionaries, and going through all the usual routine and bustle of these matters: but whether with or without a proper feeling we do not presume to decide. It was, however, the general belief of those who knew this lady best, that, although her professions were loud and noisy, and her movements rapid and unsettled, yet that there were times and occasions in which she gave evidence that somewhat of a real change of heart had commenced, and that the good seed had taken some root, although much choked by the weeds and rubbish of this world.

But leaving these things to one who knows them better than we can do, certain it was, that this lady's religion made much noise in the town and country; and that the two Misses Clinton, soon after Mrs. Essington was said to have renounced the world, declared that they began to see things in a new light, spoke of their past