the street was filled with sots of every degree, from the simple stagger to the dead drunk. Among the rest, he beheld his Indian convert, poor Dick, under full sail in the street, reeling and hallooing, great as a sachem. Mr. Tenant strove hard to avoid him; but Dick, whose quick eye had caught the old pie-balled horse that Tenant rode on, instantly staggered towards him. Tenant put forth all his horsemanship to avoid the interview. He kicked old Pie-ball in one flank, and then in the other; pulled this rein and then that; laid on here with his staff, and laid on there; but all would not do; unless he could at once ride down the drunken beasts, there was no way of getting clear of them. So that Dick, half shaved as he was, soon got along side of old Pie-ball, whom he grappled by the rein with one hand, and stretching forth the other, bawled out, how do? how do, Mr. Tenant?”

Tenant could not look at him.

Still, Dick, with his arm full extended, continued to bawl, "how do, Mr. Tenant, how do?" Finding that there was no getting clear of him, Mr. Tenant, red as crimson, lifted up his eyes on Dick, who still, bold as brandy, stammered out, "High, Mr. Tenant! d-d-d-don't you know me, Mr. Tenant? Don't you know Indian Dick? Why, sure, Mr. Teñant, you are the man that converted me?"

"I converted you!" replied Tenant, nearly fainting. "Yes, roared Dick, I'll be d-d-d-nd, Mr. Tenant, if you an't the very man that converted me."

"Poor fellow!" said Tenant, with a heavy sigh, "you look like one of my handiworks. Had God Almighty converted you, you would have looked like another guess sort of a creature."

From Ben's constantly relating this story of old Tenant and Indian Dick, whenever he mentioned the aforesaid case of Ralph's baseness, many of his acquaintance were of opinion, that Ben thereby as good as acknowledged, that at the time he took Ralph in hand, he did not altogether understand the art of converting; or, that at any rate, it would have been much better for Ralph, if, as Mr. Tenant said of Indian Dick, God Almighty had converted him. He would hardly, for the sake of a harlot, have so basely treated his best friend and benefactor.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Ben resolves to return to America—Anecdote of a rare character.

"A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod,

An honest man's the noblest work of God."

BEN used, with singular pleasure, to relate the following story of his Quaker friend Denham. This exeellent man had formerly been in business as a Bristol merchant; but failing, he compounded with his creditors and departed for America, where, by his extraordinary diligence and frugality, he acquired in a few years a considerable fortune. Returning to England, in the same ship with Ten, he invited all his old creditors to a dinner. After hauling them for their former kindness and assuring then that they should soon be paid, he begged them to take their seats at table. On turning up their res, very an found his due, principal and interest uner his date, in exning gold.

This was the an after men's own heart. Though he never found in Denham any of those flashes of wit, or floods of eloquence, which used so to dazzle him in Ralph, yet he contracted such a friendship for him, on account of his honesty and Quaker-like meekness, that he would often steal an hour from his books at night, to go and chat with him. And on the other hand, Ben's steady and persevering industry, with his passion for knowledge, had so exalted him in Denham's esteem, that he was never better pleased than when his young friend Franklin, as he always called him, came to see him. One night Denham asked Ben how he would like a trip to America?

"Nothing on earth would so please me, replied Ben, if I could do it to advantage."

"Well, friend Benjamin, said Denham, I am just agoing to make up a large assortment of goods for a store in Philadelphia, and if fifty pounds sterling a year, and bed and board with myself, will satisfy thee, I shall be happy of thy services to go and live with me as my clerk."

The memory of his dear Philadelphia, and the many happy days he had spent there, instantly sprung a something at his heart that reddened his cheeks with joy. But the saddening thought of his total unacquaintedness with commerce, soon turned them pale again. "I should be happy indeed to accompany you," replied he with a deep sigh, if I were but qualified to do you justice."

"O, as to that, friend Benjamin, don't be uneasy," replied Denham: "If thou art not qualiñed now, thou soon will be. And then as soon as thou art fit, I'll send thee with a cargo of corn and flour to the WestIndies, and put thee in a way wherein, with such talents and industry as thine, thee may soon make a fortune."

Ben was highly delighted with this proposal, for though fifty pounds a year was not so much as he could earn at printing, yet the prospects in other respects were so much greater. Added to this, he was getting heartily tired of printing. He had tried it five years at Boston, three at Philadelphia, and now nearly two in London. At all these places he had worked without ceasing; had lived most sparingly; had left no stone unturned; and after all was now, in his twenty-first year, just as indigent as when he began! "Scurvy, starving business!" thought he to himself, "tis high time to quit you! and God be thanked for this fair opportunity to do it; and now we will shake hands and part forever." Taking leave now of the printing business, and as he believed and wished, for ever, he gave himself up entirely to his new occupation, constantly going from house to house with Denham, purchasing goods and packing them. When every thing was safe on board, he took a little leisure to visit his friends, and amuse himself. This was a rule which he observed through life—to do business first, and then enjoy pleasure without a sting.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ON the 23d of July, 1726, Ben, with his friend Denham, took leave of their London acquaintance, and embarked for America. As the ebbing current gently bore the vessel along down the amber coloured flood, Ben could not suppress his emotions, as he looked back on that mighty city, whose restless din was now gradually dying on his ear, as were its s:noke-covered houses sinking from his view, perhaps for ever. And as he looked back, the secret sigh would arise, for the many toils and heart aches he had suffered there, and all to so little profit. But virtue, like the sun, though it may be over-cast with clouds, will soon scatter those clouds and spread a brighter ray after their transient showers. 'Tis true, eighteen months had been spent there, but they had not been misspent. He could look back upon them without shame or remorse. He had broken no midnight lamps— had knocked down no poor watchman-had contributed nothing to the idleness and misery of any family. On the contrary, he had the exceeding satisfaction to know, that he had left the largest printing-houses in Londen in mourning for his departure-that he had shewn them the blessings of temperance, and had proselyted many of them from folly to wise and manly living. And though, when he looked at those eighteen months, he could not behold them, like eastern maidens, dowered with gold and diamonds, yet, better still, he could behold them like the "Wise Virgins," whose lamps he had diligently fed with the oil of wisdom, for some great marriage supper-perhaps that between LIBERTY and his COUNTRY.

After a wearisome passage of near eleven weeks, the ship arrived at Philadelphia, where Ben met the perfidious Keith, walking the street alone, and shorn of all the short lived splendors of his governorship. Ben's honest face struck the culprit pale and dumb. The reader hardly need be told, that Ben was too magnanimous to add to his confusion, by reproaching or even speaking to him. But as if to keep Ben from pride, providence kindly threw into his way his old sweet-heart, Miss

Read. Here his confusion would have been equal to Keith's, had not that fair one furnished him with the sad charge against herself-of marrying during his absence. Her friends after reading his letter to her, concluding that he would never return, had advised her to take a husband. But she soon separated from him, and even refused to bear his name; in consequence of learning that he had another wife.

Denham and Ben took a store-house, and displayed their goods; which, having been well laid in, sold off very rapidly. This was in October, 1726. Early in the following February, when the utmost kindness on Denham's part, and an equal fidelity on Ben's, had rendered them mutually dear, as father and son; and when also, by their extraordinary success in trade, they had a fair prospect of speedily making their fortunes, behold! O, vanity of all worldly hopes! they were both taken down dangerously ill. Denham for his part,.actually made a die of it. And Ben was so far gone, at one time, that he concluded it was all over with him; which afforded a melancholy kind of pleasure, especially when he was told that his friend Denham, who lay in the next room, was dead. And when he reflected that now, since his good patron had left him, he should be turned out again upon the world, with the same hard struggles to encounter, and no prospect of ever being able to do any thing for his aged father, he felt a secret regret, that he was called back to life again.

CHAPTER XXX.

SOME people there are, who tell us that every man is born for a particular walk in life, and that whether he will or not, in that walk he must go; and can no more quit it than the sun can quit his course through the skies. This is a very pleasing part of faith; and really there seems much ground for it. Certainly, scripture, in many places, has a powerful squinting that way. And in the lives of many of our greatest men, we discover strong symptoms of it. The great Washington was, a dozen