all my religious feelings were grounded on the supposition of his single divinity.

So, then, I thought to myself, I have been guilty of contemning and denouncing a sentiment which all the time I ignorantly held, and of thoughtlessly using language which implied a faith different from my actual opinion. This discovery humbled me to the dust. I could scarcely bear the burden of shame and reproach which my conscience heaped upon me. I have since found that this thoughtlessness is by no means uncommon. Inexcusable as it is, yet many have I known in precisely the same situation with myself. Indeed, I have reason to believe that the large majority of those educated in the orthodox faith are no more truly Trinitarian than I was, though they imagine themselves to be so; and I have accordingly found that, wherf they allow themselves to look fairly into the matter, they discover themselves to have been Unitarians all their lives without knowing it.

Had I been acquainted with this fact at the time of which I speak, it would have saved me much unhappiness. As it was, I had a long and painful labor to go through, in ascertaining whether my language or my opinions were the truth of revelation on this subject. The one or the other must necessarily be rejected as wrong. For two years I pursued the inquiry, with all the anxiety and impartiality of a conscientious mind. It would take too much room to detail the progress of my experience at this time. Suffice it to say, that I obtained complete satisfaction at last, and have been, ever since, happy in the simplicity and consistency of my Unitarian belief. I have known many pass through the same process, with an equally happy result; and many, I may add, with a result still more happy, because their minds were relieved by it from the distressing burden of other

ungenerous doctrines, which had preyed upon their spirits, and disquieted their lives, but from whose bondage I had been redeemed some time earlier. I cannot but remark here, how much is effected by the light of a good conversation. I was led to thinking, and won to the knowledge of the truth, by observing one man's Christian deportment. It would be well if Christians were generally aware, that they can produce no argument in their favor so powerful as a holy life. Thousands will understand it, and be convinced by it, whom no reasoning, though it were demonstrative, would at all affect. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.'

CHAPTER XIV.

IT was in the summer of.

that Mr. Garstone took

up his residence in our village. It occasioned no little surprise and speculation in that retired place, that a stranger of education and property should select it for his abode. He built a commodious but small house, upon a little hillock by the side of a beautiful pond, which lay about a mile from the meeting-house. I never had seen him; but as soon as he had taken possession of his place, I felt it my duty to call and bid him welcome.

The room into which I entered impressed me at once with respect for the owner of the mansion; and, as I cast my eyes around on its neat and elegant comforts, I thought that I saw indications of taste and refinement beyond any thing to which I had been accustomed. A piano-forte rarer luxury then than now stood open on one side, and

a

opposite to it a book-case, well and handsomely filled. I could give but a hasty look, when Mr. Garstone entered. He was apparently about fifty years of age, thin and pale, with a settled melancholy upon his countenance which sometimes approximated to sternness, and a manner reserved and cold. His appearance rather repressed the warmth with which I was disposed to greet him; and, after several ineffectual attempts to throw off the restraint which his manner imposed, I left him, disappointed and sad.

I looked in vain for his entrance to the meeting-house on Sunday, though his two daughters were there. They were dressed in deep mourning; and this, I thought, might account for their father's manners, though he had made no allusion to any affliction. I soon visited him again, and gradually we became a little acquainted. His wife, I found, had died about ten months previous; he had lost his only son just before, and had now bid farewell to the world, intending to spend the remainder of his life with his daughters in retirement. He attended to their education; he studied and read, and amused himself with the cultivation of his lands. He had an extensive acquaintance with books and subjects, and oftentimes would delight me with his animated and intelligent conversation. I derived much instruction from his society, and he seemed to take pleasure in mine. But all attempts to introduce religious conversation he uniformly set aside, and never attended public worship. This made me uneasy; and I longed to know why it was, that a man who was evidently unhappy, was yet willing to be a voluntary stranger to the consolations of religion.

It was not so with his daughters. They were little instructed in religion, but they took an interest in it. Indeed, as far as they had been taught, they felt its great truths

deeply, and exercised a profound piety. They were glad to converse when it happened—which was very seldom that their father was not present; and I often thought that their countenances expressed sorrow that the subject must be dropped on his entrance. I one day expressed my surprise to them that their father should habitually absent himself from public worship. They replied that, it had been so ever since their memory; and that they believed he did it from principle.

"Has he no sense of its importance and value?" said I; "does he feel nothing, think nothing, of the great truths of religion?"

"Alas!" replied the eldest, whose name was Charlotte, "I fear he thinks but too much, and feels too much. I have reason to suppose, although he never speaks of it, that it is this which lies at the bottom of his unhappiness, and that, if this burden could be removed, he would be a cheerful and happy man."

I looked at her for explanation. "Unreflecting men," said she, "may be happy without religious faith; for their habitual thoughtlessness excludes the subject from their minds. But a man who is in habits of reflection, and who cannot keep from his mind the thoughts of the Author of his being, and the great concerns of futurity, must be often wretched without a settled faith."

"It is true, then," said I, " as I have suspected, that your father is not a believer in the Christian religion?"

"It is," she replied; "and to you, who know him, this will account for all his appearance and habits. For how can such a man, who longs and pants for the refuge of its truths, be happy without them? He may have every thing else; but the want of these will leave an aching void, which nothing else can fill. O, what a blessed day it would be to

us all, which should make him a believer! He has every thing else to render himself and us happy; but for want of this, there is a bitter taste to every enjoyment, and discontent in every scene."

"Is he not aware of the cause of his dissatisfaction?" I asked.

"He is," replied Charlotte, " and yet he is not. That is to say, he acknowledges the power of the Christian faith in others, and I believe is truly happy that we possess it. But he will not allow that it would do any thing for himself. He insists that, in his literary and philosophical pursuits, he has all the satisfaction that the human mind can attain, and that nothing could add to his happiness. But it is very seldom he speaks on the subject. Indeed, he is so strongly prejudiced, that we avoid any allusion to it altogether. For I think he is the more violently positive from the very feeling he has, that there is an essential thing wanting. He tries in this way to stifle his feelings, and to convince himself that he wants nothing."

"I have seen something like this," said I, "in other cases; but I should not suspect it in your father. How is it that he is thus prejudiced?"

"It is partly," she answered, "his misfortune, and partly his fault his misfortune, because in early life he was thrown into the midst of fanaticism and bigotry, which disgusted him, and rendered the whole system incredible to him; his fault, because he suffered prejudice to sway him, and did not deliberately institute an inquiry which should separate the false from the true, and show him that the system itself may be true and excellent, notwithstanding the follies of its friends."

"Can you state to me at length," said I, "the circumstances under which these indelible impressions were made?"