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Then a miser, whom hunger and hoarding had worn to skin and bone, crept forward, and praised the sentence passed on this extravagant youth. Surely," said he, "since he is condemned, I am the man that may make some plea to favor.—I was never idle or drunk, I kept my body in subjection. I have been so self-denying, that I am certainly a saint: I have loved neither father, nor mother, nor wife, nor children, to excess; in all this I have obeyed the book of the law." Then the judge said, “but where are thy works of mercy, and thy labors of love? See that family which perished in thy sight the last hard winter, while thy barns were overflowing; that poor family were my representatives, yet they were hungry, and thou gavest them no meat. Go to, now, thou rich man, weep and howl for the miseries that are come upon you. Your gold and your silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.”

There came up next, one with a most self-sufficient air. He walked up boldly, having in one hand the plan of an hospital which he had built, and in the other the drawing of a statue which was erecting for him in the country that he had just left, and on his forehead appeared in gold letters, the list of all the public charities to which he had subscribed. He seemed to take great pleasure in the condemnation of the miser, and said, Lord, where saw I thee hungry, and fed thee not, or in prison and visited thee not? I have visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Here the judge cut him short by saying, "True, thou didst visit the fatherless, but didst thou fulfil equally that other part of my command, to keep thyself unspotted from the world? No, thou wert conformed to the world in many of

its sinful customs, thou didst follow a multitude to do evil; thou didst love the world and the things of the world; and the motive to all thy charities was not a regard to me, but to thy own credit with thy fellow-men. Thou hast done every thing for the sake of reputation, and now thou art vainly trusting in thy works, instead of putting all thy trust in my Son, who has offered himself to be a surety for thee. Where has been that humility and gratitude to him which was required of thee? No, thou wouldst be thine own surety: thou hast trusted in thyself: thou hast made thy boast of thine own goodness: thou hast sought after, and thou hast enjoyed, the praise of men, and verily, I say unto thee, thou hast had thy reward."

A poor, diseased, blind cripple, from the very hospital which this great man had built, then fell prostrate on his face, crying out, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner! on which the judge, to the surprise of all, said, well done good and faithful servant. The poor man replied, "Lord, I have done nothing !" "But thou hast suffered well," said the judge; "thou hast been an example of patience and meekness, and though thou hadst but few talents, yet thou hast well improved those few; thou hadst time; this thou didst spend in the humble duties of thy station, and also in earnest prayer, even for that proud founder of thine hospital, who never` prayed for himself; thou wast indeed blind and lame, but, it is no where said, 'My Son, give me thy feet or thine eyes, but, give me thine heart;' and even the faculties I did grant thee, were employed to my glory; with thine ears, thou didst listen to my word, with thy tongue, thou didst show forth my praise; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

There were several who came forward, and boasted of some single and particular virtue, in which they had been supposed to excel. One talked of his generosity, another of his courage, and a third of his fortitude; but it proved, on a close examination, that some of those supposed virtues were merely the effect of a particular constitution of body; that others proceeded from a false motive, and that not a few of them were actual vices, since they were carried to excess; and under the pretence of fulfilling one duty, some other duty was lost sight of; in short, these partial virtues were none of them exercised in obedience to the will of the king, but merely to please the person's own humour, and they would not, therefore, stand this day's trial, for he that had kept the whole law, and yet had wilfully and habitually offended in any one point, was declared guilty of breaking the whole.

At this moment, a sort of thick scales fell from the eyes of the multitude. They could now no longer take comfort by measuring their neighbor's conduct against their own. Each, at once, saw himself in his true light, and found, alas ! when it was too late, that he should have made the book which had been given him, his rule of practice before, since it now, proved to be the rule by which he was to be judged. Nay, every one now thought himself even worse than his neighbor, because, while he only saw and heard of the guilt of others, he felt his own in all its aggravated horrors.

To complete their confusion, they were compelled to acknowledge the justice of the judge who condemned them; and also to approve the favorable sentence by which thousands of other criminals had not only their lives saved, but were made happy and

glorious beyond all imagination, and all this was in consequence of their sincere repentance, and their humble acceptance of the pardon offered to them by the king's son. One thing was remarkable, that whilst most of those who were condemned, never expected condemnation, but even claimed a reward for their supposed innocence or goodness; all who were really rewarded and forgiven, were sensible that they owed every thing to a mere act of grace, and they cried out with one voice, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise !!!

Allegory III.-Bear ye one another's Burthens; or, The Valley of Tears.

ONCE upon a time, methought I set out upon a long journey, and the place through which I travelled, appeared to be a dark valley, which was called the Valley of Tears. It had obtained this name, not only on account of the many sorrowful adventures which poor passengers commonly meet with in their journey through it, but also because most of these travellers entered it weeping and crying, and left it in very great pain and anguish. This vast Valley was full of people of all colors, ages, sizes, and descriptions. But, whether white or black, or tawney, all were travelling the same road; or, rather, they were taking different little paths, which all led to the same common end.

Now, it was remarkable, that notwithstanding the different complexions, ages, and tempers of this vast

variety of people, yet all resembled each other in this one respect, that each had a burthen on his back, which he was destined to carry through the toil and heat of the day, until he should arrive by a longer or shorter course at his journey's end. These burthens would, in general, have made the pilgrimage quite intolerable, had not the Lord of the Valley, out of his great compassion for these poor pilgrims, provided, among other things, the following means for their relief:

In their full view over the entrance of the Valley, there were written in great letters the following words:

Bear ye one another's burthens.

Now I saw in my vision that many of the travellers hurried on without stopping to read this instruction, and others, though they had once read it, yet paid little or no attention to it. A third sort thought it very good advice for other people, but very seldom applied it to themselves. In short, I saw that too many of those people were of opinion that they had burthens enough of their own, and that there was therefore no occasion to take upon them those of others; so each tried to make his own load as light, and his journey as pleasant as he could, without so much as once casting a thought on a poor over-loaded neighbor. Here, however, I have to make a rather singular remark, by which I shall plainly show the folly of these selfish people. It was so ordered and contrived by the Lord of this Valley, that if any one stretched out his hand to lighten a neighbor's burthen, in fact he never failed to find, that he at that moment also lightened his own. Besides, the obligation to help each other, and the benefit of doing so, were mutual. If a man helped his