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could to ward it off, not merely by industry, but by trying to win her husband's affection by gentleness and sensible forbearance, that so she might establish a useful influence over him, and wean him by degrees from his bad habits. If she saw that this was her part, her violent temper prevented her from acting up to her knowledge. She could not govern that unruly member, the tongue,-and it proved in this case, what it always will prove when it gets its own way, a world of iniquity.* All that was said or done in that miserable cottage, had something of bitterness mixt with it.. and Adam, being a man of no principle and without a home, became a regular sot. A family came on-and he was obliged to work sometimes; but still the old Poor Law stood his friend; paid him so much a head for each child as it came; and from this allowance and such wages as he got now and then, he contrived to have mostly a few pence to spend on the bad ale and worse principles of the Laxton Arms.

Things were not quite so bad with Wortley. He was almost as poor, and almost as idle as the other; but his wife was a very different woman from Sally Brent. They had always been poor; and though Mary Wortley had lost the happy spirits, that had made her the life of her parents' cottage, yet she was one of those to whom all things work together for good. She had learnt to love and obey God, whilst she was yet a child: old Betty Newton, her good mother, would set her on her knee in the dark winter evenings, when they were too poor to light a candle, and tell her in her homely way, but with a deal of truth and meaning, about God and his faithful servants of old time; and especially about Jesus Christ, and his holy nature, and wonderful miracles; and how he was rejected and slain by wicked men, but raised again by the power of God, to be a King and a Judge over men and angels: and she would tell her how that this wonderful being was God as well as man... and would send his Holy Spirit to dwell in the heart of every Christian who had been given to God in baptism, and would try to do His will. Mary had grown up in the fear of God, but her marriage with Wortley had been a false step. He had come to the village with a good character, and she was put off her guard by his cheerful open manner. Her parents were always indulgent to her... she was the child of their old age,

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they were anxious to see her settled before they died, for she had no near relations who might take her when they were gone. In fact there was a very common, but a very improper want of caution and due enquiry; and Mary Newton became the wife of William Wortley.

The difference of temper between the two wives never showed itself more plainly than on the evening after their husbands' application to the Board of Guardians. Sally made

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matters worse by her reproaches; provoked her husband till he rushed to the ale-house, after having all but struck her in his passion and there she remained at home, with hardly a mouthful to give the poor children for supper, and with nothing to buy a loaf with for the next day. Wretched and full of care, she had no trust in Him who careth for us: she had never learnt to cast all her care upon Him: she had never sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and therefore had never earned a Christian's claim to have all such things as food and raiment added unto her.

To Mary Wortley the refusal of relief to her husband was hardly a disappointment: at first she had enough to do to calm him, and keep him from making bad worse by going to the Laxton Arms. She did however succeed at last: .. and even prevailed upon him to apply to Mr. Burton for work next day, and to Squire Harmer for one of the allotments, which he was about to let out for gardens to the industrious poor. Heartily did she thank God in her prayers that night, and fervently did she implore Him to give her husband strength to keep the resolutions he had formed.

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Well-work was found; and at last Wortley was admitted as one of Mr. Harmer's tenants. That kind-hearted man, and real, but judicious friend of the poor, was very unwilling to let him have a garden, when he first applied. But, for Mary's sake, whose worth he knew, and for the sake of her poor children, he was at last induced to try him. William," he said, I am afraid that the garden will do you no good';' because I have seen nothing in you, that gives me any hope of your being able to keep a good resolution. I have made up my mind however to give you a trial; and I am sure, that if you choose to look out for regular employment, and to work after hours in your garden, you may earn money enough

to support your wife and children in comfort. I have put a very low rent upon the garden; but this rent must be paid to the day. I know that it is better for a poor man to have some rent to pay, than to have a garden given him for nothing: and I tell you plainly, as I tell all my tenants, that I will not allow you to get behindhand. . and that nothing shall induce me to keep a tenant who is known to be a drunkard, or of notoriously bad character."

William promised to pay his rent punctually; and he went home a happier man than he had been for months.

The plan of letting some land in small portions as cottage gardens, had been lately taken up by several gentlemen of that neighbourhood. It had been recommended by the Committee of an Industry Society at N, and the example and persuasion of his neighbours had induced Mr. Wescott of the Grange to come into the plan. Wortley's garden had answered so well the first year, that Adam Brent, whose idle habits had been something checked by the steady refusal of the Board of Guardians to support any who would not work, resolved to apply for a garden himself. Mr. Wescott let him one immediately, without troubling himself to ask him many questions: but as the Committee had strongly recommended the insisting upon a punctual payment of the rent, he declared his resolution to act upon this recommendation : and in making this declaration he used much stronger language than Squire Harmer, or at least, if he did not speak with the Squire's serious earnestness, he was much louder and noisier.

Unfortunately Brent's garden was very near Wortley's, and the road to both of them passed by the Laxton Arms. The summer was very hot; so that after a day's work it required some resolution to go on with two or three hours of extra labour. The ale at the Laxton Arms was better than usual that summer; and that Richard Perkins, with his glib tongue and vile character, came into the village the Lady-day before. Poor Mary Wortley! her hopes soon began to fall. Crops were forgotten altogether, or put in so late that they came to nothing. It was not as the year before, when Mary

used to walk down evening after evening with her eldest boy, when the young ones were put to bed, and was always sure to find William there; and happy was she, poor thing, to help him to rake or water: and the boy too could do something... hindrance or help, or something between both, ... and they returned together in the dusk, happy and contented, though tired. Then too William was in Church almost every Sunday; and Mary began to have some hopes, that it had pleased God to answer her prayers for his amendment.

Poor Mary! the tears that had been dried up for one year of hope, began to flow again. Again her life was a life of anxiety and painful shifts; and again William's temper was soured, because he was no longer at peace with himself. Things went on worse and worse: though now and then his wife's gentle influence, and the recollection of the last year's comfort and almost easy circumstances, would make him work actively for a few days; so that the garden, poorly as it was now cultivated, was still some help to them. But rent day was drawing near, and Mary's heart sank within her when she thought of it: hers was industry that could not be much increased: she tried indeed to increase it, but her health gave way under the attempt: and the day she had dreaded, came at last; and William had to go up to the Hall, not with his rent in his hand, as last year, but with poor excuses, which he knew to be nothing better. Instead of cheering words, he received a severe but kind rebuke from Mr. Harmer; who declared again that he would not try him long, but would certainly take away the garden, if he did not pay some portion of his rent in a month. In the bitterness of his heart, William promised his wife to work hard to save the garden. He kept his word for a week or ten days-but Brent soon got hold of him, and told him that he was sure Squire Harmer wouldn't be so strict as that came to; every body gave him a good word, and said the poor had no better friend than the Squire. Old Wescott, he said, had been in a glorious passion with him, swearing at him and almost turning him out of the house; but still he thought even he would not go to turn a poor man out for being a little behindhand with his rent. What was

eighteen shillings to Squire Harmer? why, he GAVE Bet Harrisson three pounds, when she lost her cow the year before.

Though Wortley was not quite convinced by this reasoning, yet he didn't know how to answer it, and he did think that the Squire would not press hard upon a poor man with a large family.

Some months went on, and there was no improvement in Wortley; though he was less boldly wicked than Brent and others. There was something still within him, that occasionally struggled and held him back. Mr. Harmer saw that he was not quite hardened; and by often coming to the cottage, he got to know Mary better, and so to be more anxious to save her husband. Nothing that a kind, but firm and judicious friend could do, to help one that wouldn't be helped, was left undone by him: but it was all in vain; and at last he felt it to be his duty to take away the garden, and give it to an industrious man of good character, who was struggling to keep his family off the parish.

About six weeks after the garden was taken away from Wortley, Mr. Fenton, the clergyman of the parish, was sent for one morning to visit him. He found him to all appearance a dying man: but he lingered for many weeks; and there was not a day that he did not receive some kindness from Squire Harmer. The clergyman discovered, in the course of his long attendance, that he had joined a set of poachers; and being weak and ill fed, had caught a terrible cold, which he had taken no care of till it was too late. The poor man was, by God's grace, brought to a state of sincere contrition: the instruction and prayers of Mr. Fenton were followed up, hour after hour, by Mary Wortley, whose deep and genuine piety could hardly fail to win its way, at such a time, into the heart of one that loved her, and that had todeath before his eyes.--Her prayers for her poor husband were heard ;-but a turning to God upon a death-bed, is always

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thing of misery and fear. Such conversions are very rare; and their sincerity is hardly ever certain. They who Mare so saved, are saved so as by fire: an entrance into heaven cannot be ministered abundantly* unto them; their case cannot be the case of those who have long sought for glory and honour and immortality, by a PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN * WELL DOING.t

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