served, they sailed for Antigua: and from thence to Charleston, in South-Carolina. In that place there were many serious people: but, at this time, Mr. N. was little capable of availing himself of their society; supposing that all who attended public worship were. good Christians, and that whatever came from the pulpit must be very good. He had two or three opportunities, indeed, of hearing a minister of eminent character and gifts, whom, though struck with his manner, he did not rightly understand. Almost every day, when business would permit, he used to retire into the woods and fields, (being his favourite oratories) and began to taste the delight of communion with God, in the exercises of prayer and praise: and yet so much inconsistency prevailed, that he frequently spent the evening in vain and worthless company. His relish, indeed, for worldly diversions was much weakened; and he was rather a spectator than a sharer in these pleasures; but he did not as yet see the necessity of absolutely relinquishing such society. It appears that compliances of this sort, in his present circumstances, were owing rather to a want of light than to any obstinate attachment. As he was kept from what he knew to be sinful, he had, for the most part, peace of conscience; and his strongest desires were towards the things of God. He did not as yet apprehend the force of that precept, abstain from all appearance of evil: but he very often ventured upon the brink of temptation. He did not break with the world at once, as might have been expected: but was gradually led to see the inconvenience and folly of first one thing, and then another and, as such, to give them up.

They finished their voyage, and arrived in Liverpool. When the ship's affairs were settled, Mr. N. went to London, and from thence he soon repaired to Kent. More than seven years had now elapsed since his first visit. No views of the kind seemed more

chimerical than his; or could subsist under greater discouragements: yet, while he seemed abandoned to his passions, he was still guided by a hand that he knew not, to the accomplishment of his wishes. Every obstacle was now removed he had renounced his former follies-his interest was established-and friends on all sides consenting. The point was now entirely between the parties immediately concerned; and, after what had passed, was easily concluded: accordingly, their hands were joined, February the 1st, 1750.

"But alas," says he, "this mercy, which raised me to all I could ask or wish in a temporal view, and which ought to have been an animating motive to obedience, and praise, had a contrary effect. I rested in the gift, and forgot the giver. My poor narrow heart was satisfied. A cold and careless frame, as to spiritual things, took place, and gained ground daily. Happy for me, the season was advancing: and, in June, 1 received orders to repair to Liverpool. This roused me from my dream; and I found the pains of absence and separation fully proportioned to my preceding pleasure.* Through all my following voyage, my irregular and excessive affections were as thorns in my eyes, and often made my other blessings taste

He wrote to Mrs. Newton from St. Albans, and in his letter inserted a prayer for his own health and that of Mrs. N. From his interleaved copy of his "Letters to a Wife," I extract the following remarks on this letter:

"This prayer includes all that I at that time knew how to ask for ; and had not the Lord given me more than I then knew how to ask or think, I should now be completely miserable. The prospect of this separation was terrible to me as death: to avoid it, I repeatedly purchased a ticket in the lottery; thinking, 'Who knows but I may obtain a considerable prize, and be thereby saved from the the necessity of going to sea?' Happy for me the lot which I then considered as casual, was at thy disposal. The money, which I could not with prudence have spared at the time, was lost all my tickets proved blanks, though I attempted to bribe thee, by promising, if I succeeded, to give a considerable part to the poor. But these blanks were truly prizes. Thy mercy sent me to sea against my own will.

less and insipid. But He, who doeth all things well, over-ruled this likewise for good: it became an occasion of quickening me in prayer, both for her and myself: it increased my indifference for company and amusement: it habituated me to a kind of voluntary self-denial, which I was afterward taught to improve to a better purpose." Mr. N. sailed from Liverpool in August, 1750, commander of a good ship. He had now the control and care of thirty persons; and he endeavoured to treat them with humanity, and to set them a good example.* He likewise established public worship, according to the Liturgy of the church of England, officiating himself twice every Lord's day. He did not proceed further than this, while he continued in that occupation.

Having now much leisure, he prosecuted the study of Latin with good success. He remembered to take a Dictionary this voyage; and added Juvenal to Horace and, for prose authors, chose Livy, Cæsar, and Sallust. He was not aware of the mistake of beginning with such difficult writers: but having heard Livy highly commended, he was resolved to understand him he began with the first page, and made it a rule not to proceed to a second till he understood the first. Often at a stand, but seldom discouraged,

To thy blessing, and to my solitary sea hours, I was indebted for all my temporal comforts and future hopes.

Thou wert pleased likewise to disappoint me by thy providence, of some money which I expected to receive on my marriage; so that, excepting our apparel, when I sailed from Liverpool on my first voyage, the sum total of my worldly inventory was-seventy pounds in debt."

* I have heard Mr. Newton observe, that, as the commander of a slave ship, he had a number of women under his absolute authority: and, knowing the danger of his situation on that account, he resolved to abstain from flesh in his food, and to drink nothing stronger than water, during the voyage; that, by abstemiousness, he might subdue every improper emotion: and that, upon his setting sail, the sight of a certain point of land was the signal for his beginning a rule which he was enabled to keep.

here and there he found a few lines quite obstinate, and was forced to give them up, especially as his edition had no notes. Before, however, the close of that voyage, he informs us that he could, with a few exceptions, read Livy almost as readily as an English author. Other prose authors, he says, cost him but little trouble; as in surmounting the former difficulty, he had mastered all in one. In short, in the space of two or three voyages, he became tolerably acquainted with the best classics. He read Terence, Virgil, several pieces of Cicero; and the modern classics, Buchanan, Erasmus, and Casimir: and made some essays toward writing elegant Latin.

"But, by this time," he observes, "the Lord was pleased to draw me nearer to himself, and to give me a fuller view of the pearl of great price-the inestimable treasure hid in the field of the Holy Scripture: and for the sake of this, I was made willing to part with all my newly acquired riches. I began to think that life was too short (especially my life) to admit of leisure for such elaborate trifling. Neither poet nor historian could tell me a word of Jesus; and I therefore applied myself to those who could. The classics were at first restrained to one morning in the week, and at length laid aside."

This, his first voyage after his marriage, lasted the space of fourteen months, through various scenes of danger and difficulty; but nothing very remarkable. occurred: and, after having seen many fall on his right hand and on his left, he was brought home in peace, November 2, 1751.

In the interval between his first and second voyage, he speaks of the use he found in keeping a sort of diary; of the unfavourable tendency of a life of ease, among his friends; and of the satisfaction of his wishes proving unfavourable to the progress of grace: upon the whole, however, he seems to have gained ground, and was led into further views of Christian

doctrine and experience by Scougal's "Life of God in the Soul of Man," "Hervey's Meditations," and the "Life of Colonel Gardiner.” He seems to have derived no advantages from the preaching he heard, or the Christian acquaintance he made; and, though he could not live without prayer, he durst not propose it, even to his wife, till she first urged him to the social practice of it.

In a few months, the returning season called him abroad again ;* and he sailed from Liverpool in a new ship, July, 1752. "I never knew," says he, "sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion, than in my two last voyages to Guinea, when I was either almost secluded from society on shipboard, or when on shore among the natives. I have wandered through the woods, reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me, in a place where, perhaps, there was not a person who knew me for some thousand miles round. Many a time, upon these occasions, I have restored the beautiful lines of Propertius to the right owner: lines, full of blasphemy and madness, when addressed to a creature; but full of comfort and propriety, in the mouth of a believer.”

Sic ego desertis possim benè vivere sylvis

Quo nulla humano sit via trita pede:
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atrá
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.

PARAPHRASED.

In desert woods with thee, my God,
Where human footsteps never trod,
How happy could I be!

Thou my repose from care, my light
Amidst the darkness of the night,

In solitude my company.

*Mr. N. had had an unexpected call to London; and, on his return, when within a few miles of Liverpool, he mistook a marle-pit for a pond, and, in attempting to water his horse, both the horse and the rider plunged in it overhead. He was afterward told, that, near that time, three persons had lost their lives by a mistake of the same kind.