The Captain looked at the title, but finding it related to the defence of Christianity, after keeping it some weeks, returned it, not having read a single page. His friend asked him what be thought of the book; his jocose reply gave him to understand that he thought the Major had the best of the argument; meaning that the deist personated by the Major, had the advantage of the Christian, represented by the Captain. This so completely foiled Captain Sims, that he admitted of a parley, and gave up the contest. The fact was, Captain Wilson had no desire for investigation, and preferred to have his mind kept in a state of casy indifference, rather than to be agitated by the important and rousing subjects of revelation. He had obtained an easy competency, was about the age of thirty-six, possessed a cheerful mind, and a constitution unsubdued by an eastern climate. He was accustomed to company, and what worldly men call the cheerful habits of a man of fashion. The design was formed in India of returning to his native country, according to the common phraseology, and as he expressed it, to enjoy himself; it was therefore too soon for him to have his mind disturbed by considerations about the moral government of the divine Being, a state of future retribution, and the methods of acceptance with God. His mind was elated by recent prosperity, contrasted with a former train of most unparalleled misfortunes and inexpressible sufferings. His heart was not softened by personal affliction, nor broken by adversity; like the rich man in sacred history he said to his soul, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for thou hast goods laid up for many years." His mind was made callous by some years residence in India, that school of deisin, that temple of vice, where Asiatic idolatry and European infidelity unite their baleful influence to obliterate a sense of the government of God from the human mind, and to transform the

man into a systematic rebel against his Maker. His mind was also deeply entrenched in his selfcomplacent admiration of his own goodness; he considered that he had so conducted himself in Indostan as to merit the congratulations of his own mind, and to secure the righteous approbation of the Deity. He had behaved towards some connexions he had formed in India, in such a manner as induced him to glory in his own righteousness, and when compared with many of his countrymen in that part of the world, he considered that he ought to be celebrated as a man of exalted virtue, rather than to be regarded as a sinner.-Besides all this he was under the influence of another, often fatal, mistake, as it is a serious preventative to reflection and conviction; his many near escapes from death, the rapid success attending his mercantile engagements, after being stripped of all he possessed, and the conscious integrity and goodness of his own heart, led him proudly to imagine that he was a high favorite of the Deity. He had not sufficiently considered, that many of the greatest and most cruel tyrants of the earth, have often been wonderfully preserved amidst the most perilous circumstances, and extensively prosperous in the most unjust and oppressive enterprises, and therefore his mode of reasoning was very inconclusive. Such, however, was his state of mind, that it would be difficult to conceive of one more unlikely to be engaged by the subjects of revelation. There were numerous and mighty objections in his heart against receiving a book as a revelation from God, the design of which, was to teach him that his heart was deeply depraved-that he had been a rebel through life against his Maker,- that he had incurred his sore displeasure, and must expect happiness in a future world solely from the unmerited mercy of him he had offended. He soon discovered these sentiments, from what he heard from his niece and

his friend the Captain. He perceived that if Christianity were from God, his plan of life was altogether wrong, his estimate of himself erroneous, and his hopes of future felicity fallacious. He saw that he must abandon the romantic scheme of happiness which he had proposed to himself, must renounce the fond opinions he had entertained of his superior goodness, and must change his worldly maxims and the connexions he had formed, for those which appeared to him unsatisfying and disgusting. Some transient convictions like the flashes of lightning, which cross the way of the benighted traveller, would strike his conscience at intervals; but whatever his judgment might occasionally suggest in favor of a serious investigation of the subject, his heart rose with indignant opposition to a sentiment, that was at complete variance with the system of his whole life.

It is worthy of remark, that though God has often disappointed the benevolent wishes of his people, in aiming to do good by some special method, he has caused the same object to be accomplished in some other way, and frequently by means which most clearly evince the superintending hand of Providence; perhaps for this reason, that the instrument might not take the glory due to the efficient cause.

Captain Sims invited the young minister, who officiated at the place of worship he was accustomed to attend, to spend a few days with him in the country, and Captain Wilson had invited a female friend of his niece from Portsea to spend a day with him, and by a coincidence of events, totally out of the sphere of any designed arrangements, the minister's friend, Captain Sims, was engaged to dine with Captain Wilson, on the day when his minister visited him. On this casual circumstance turned the conversion

of Captain Wilson to God, and the commencement of the most endeared friendship between him and the minister, which lasted for twenty years, and continued till death.

While at the table, Captain Sims introduced the subject of the evidences of the divine authenticity of the Scriptures, to Captain Wilson, to which he pleasantly replied, "You know, Captain, I have foiled you on that subject;" but Captain Sims as pleasantly returned, "if I was not equal to the contest, my minister is, and I refer the cause to him.” -The minister fearing that the Indian captain would suspect that he was present by some secret management of his friend, and that the way in which the subject was introduced would confirm it, and excite a prejudice in his mind, interfered rather seriously by saying to Captain Wilson, "Sir I am obliged by your polite attention to me, and it is not my wish to obtrude my sentiments upon the attention of anygentleman; I admit, the subject is of the greatest importance, and I am ready according to my abilities. to defend it; yet I think it too serious to comport with the pleasant conversation of a dinner ta ble."-The Captain smiled at the gravity of the young minister, and jocosely rejoined, "It will be no obtrusion of the subject upon me, I assure you, sir, I am glad of the opportunity to converse on it, for I have never met with a clergyman yet, and I have conversed with several, that I could not foil in a quarter of an hour." The minister now appealed to the company, if that were not a challenge that every man of honor under the color of his cloth, was bound to meet, and turning to Captain Wilson, said, "Sir, it will afford me great pleasure to enter into this interesting subject with you, but I must beg a truce till we can honorably relax in our attention to the ladies at the table." This pleasantness of conversa

tion interested the Captain, disarmed his prejudices, and drew him into the debate. It was then proposed by Captain Sims, that he should accompany the other friends at the table to his garden and pleasure grounds, and leave the minister and Captain to an uninterrupted argument.

When the company had retired, Captain Wilson proposed that the minister and he should resort to a shady bower in his garden, in one of the finest evenings that the month of July affords, and coolly debate whether the Scriptures are a revelation from God. The minister cheerfully acceded, and when they had taken their seats, with great seriousness entered into the conversation, having but a little before gone through a course of reading on the evidences of Christianity. The benign influence of a deelining sun, rendered salubrious and cheering by the soft breezes which gently played amidst the pliant leaves of the bower, and wafted around them the delightful odors of an extensive flower garden, and a richly variegated green-house, served to calm the spirits and to elevate the thoughts to the God of providence and universal goodness, and offered to the minister's mind a beautiful emblem of that ineffable serenity and pleasure enjoyed by the regenerated spirit, while regaling itself beneath the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and the soul-reviving motions of the Spirit of God. In this frame of mind, with many fervent ejaculations to the Spirit of light and influence, he prayed unto his God—and he then said to the Captain, "Will you, Sir, propose your own mode of argument; if you will be opponent, I will be respondent; or if you will be respondent, I will be opponent; but let us be serious, the subject is of the greatest importance to us both, for if the Scriptures do not contain a revelation from God, there are no other writings in the world that do." He