them), was fo pleased by the manner in which the pfalms were fung at the fchool, that he promifed Mrs. Jones to make her a prefent of half a fheep towards her firft May-day feaft. Of this feaft fome account shall be given hereafter; and the reader may expect fome further account of the Sunday School next month, in the history of Hefter Wilmot.

Z.

THE

HISTORY

OF

HESTER WILMOT;

OR THE

SECOND PART OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

HE

ESTER WILMOT was born in the parish of Wefton, of parents who maintained themselves by their labour; they were both of them ungodly, it is no wonder therefore they were unhappy. They lived badly together, and how could they do otherwise, for their tempers were very different, and they had no religion to fmooth down this difference, or to teach them that they ought to bear with each others faults. Rebecca Wilmot was a proof that people may have fome right qualities, and yet be but bad characters, and utterly deftitute of religion. She was clean, notable, and induftrious. Now I know fome folks fancy that the poor who have thefe qualities need have no other; but this is a fad miftake, as I am fure every page in the Bible would fhew; and it is a pity people do not confult it oftener. They direct their plowing and fowing by the Almanack, why will they not confult the Bible for the direction of their hearts and lives? Rebecca was of a violent ungovernable temper; and that very neatnefs which

is in itself so pleasing, in her became a fin, for her affection to her husband and children was quite loft in an over-anxious defire to have her house reckoned the niceft in the parish. Rebecca was alfo a proof that a poor woman may be as vain as a rich one; for it was not fo much the comfort of neatnefs, as the praise of neatnefs, which fhe coveted. A fpot on her hearth, or a bit of ruft on a brafs candlestick, would throw her into a violent paffion. Now it is very right to keep the hearth clean and the candlestick bright, but it is very wrong fo to fet one's affections on a hearth, or a candlestick, as to make one's felf unhappy if any trifling accident happens to them: and if Rebecca had been as careful to keep her heart without spot, or her life without blemish, as fhe was to keep her fire-irons free from either, fhe would have been held up in this hiftory, not as a warning but a pattern, and in that cafe her nicety would have come in for a part of the praife. It was no fault in Rebecca, but a merit, that her oak table was fo bright you could almoft fee to put your cap on in it; but it was no merit but a fault, that when John, her husband, laid down his cup of beer upon it fo as to leave a mark, she would fly out into fo terrible a paffion that all the children were forced to run to corners: now poor John having no corner to run to, ran to the alehoufe, till that which was at firft a refuge, too foon became a pleasure.

Rebecca never wifhed her children to learn to read, because she faid it only ferved to make them lazy, and fhe herfelf had done very well

Be

without it. She would keep poor Hefter from church to stone the space under the chairs in fine patterns and whim-whams. I don't pretend to fay there was any harm in this little decoration; it looks pretty enough, and it is better to let the children do that than do nothing. But ftill these are not things to fet one's heart upon, and befides Rebecca only did it as a trap for praise; for fhe was fulky and difappointed if any ladies happened to call in and did not feem delighted with the flowers which she used to draw with a burnt stick on the white wafh of the chimney corners. fides, all this finery was often done on a Sunday, and there is a great deal of harm in doing right things at a wrong time, or in wafting much time on things which are of no real ufe, or in doing any thing at all out of vanity. Now I beg that no lazy flattern of a wife will go and take any comfort in her dirt from what is here faid againft Rebecca's nicety; for I believe, that for one who makes her husband unhappy through neatness, twenty do fo by dirt and lazinefs. All exceffes are wrong, but the excefs of a good quality is not fo common as the excefs of a bad one.

John Wilmot was not an ill-natured man, but he had no fixed principle. Inftead of fetting himfelf to cure his wife's faults by mild reproof and a good example, he was driven by them into ftill greater faults himfelf. It is a common cafe with people who have no religion when any cross accident befals them, instead of trying to make the beft of a bad inatter, inftead of confidering their trouble as a trial fent from God to purify them, or instead of confidering the faults of others as a

punishment for their own fins, what do they do but either fink down at once into defpair, or elfe run for comfort into evil courfes. Drinking is the common remedy for forrow, if that can be called a remedy, the end of which is to deftroy foul and body. John now began to spend all his leifure hours at the Bell. He ufed to be fond of his children, but when he could not come home in quiet, and play with the little ones, while his wife dreffed him a bit of hot fupper, he grew in time not to come at all. He who has once taken to drink, can seldom be faid to be guilty of one fin only. John's heart became hardened; his affection for his family was loft in felf-indulgence. Patience and fubmiffion, on the part of his wife, might have won much upon a man of John's temper; but instead of trying to reclaim him, his wife feemed rather to delight in putting him as much in the wrong as fhe could, that fhe might be juftified in her conftant abuse of him. I doubt whether fhe would have been as much pleafed with his reformation as fhe was with always talking of his faults, though I know it was the opinion of the neighbours, that if fhe had taken as much pains to reform her husband by reforming her own temper, as fhe did to abuse him and expofe him, her endeavours might have been bleffed with fuccefs. Good chriftians, who are trying to fubdue their own faults, can hardly believe that the ungodly have a fort of favage fatisfaction in trying, by indulgence of their own evil tempers, to leffen the happiness of those with whom they have to do. Need we look any farther for a proof of our own corrupt nature, when we fee mankind delight in