have I spent in her charming company. Before I came to this place we mutually engaged to marry one another, and ever fince have held an agreeable correfpondence. You will find in my defk two large bundles of letters that have paffed betwixt us. After my death, I beg you will burn all those written by me, and convey all thofe directed by her to me, to herfelf: but if you incline, you may amufe yourself with reading them. They contain only effufions of love and friendship, and fome articles of news nowife interefting. In the height of my fenfuality, I often reflected on the vile part I was acting, in pursuing a vitious course, and wasting my time and ftrengthin beaftly gratifications; while this amiable girl was living virtuously, and preferving her honour for me. Since I fell ill, I have had very fevere checks of conscience for the injury I had done to fuch a compound of virtue and beauty, who will mourn bitterly for my untimely fate. But curfed luft obtained the dominion over me; and the wholesome admonitions of a fair monitor, and the regard I should have had to a worthy and lovely girl, as my deftined fpoufe, were ineffectual to reftrain me from lewd purfuits, which have iffued in a fatal disorder. But I will write to this dear creature before I die, as well as to my worthy and honoured parents, my next youngest brother, and to a dearly beloved and worthy gentleman, nearly related to our family; and, God willing, I will begin to-morrow.

There

after I will make my will, on purpofe to leave my lovely Charlotte the annuity I have by my uncle, as a lafting monument of my affection and regard to that amiable young lady.

Containing feveral letters written by Mr T-s on his death-bed, with fome claufes in his laft will.

ACcordingly next morning, after our privaté

and facial devotions were over, my dear

friend addreffed me as follows.

"You will remember, that yesterday I refol. ved to write feveral letters to my friends, and to begin this day. But how fhall I write to perfons of fo religious a character, and fo well acquainted with the Chriftian life? Shall I entertain them with a recital of my bafe and abominable life, to draw tears from their eyes; and plunge them in forrow at the shocking narrative? or fhall I conceal my hellish impiety and lewdnefs, and give them only an account of my fatal illness, and the joyful profpect I have of dying in the Lord Jefus ? No; I think it is more honeft, and will tend more to illuftrate the glorious riches of fovereign grace and mercy, to give them a true account of all that has befallen me; which, though it may unlock all the fprings of forrow and grief for a life fo abandoned, yet will minifter confolation for an untimely death, that, I hope, through the mercy and merits of my adorable Redeemer, will iffue in joy unfpeakable and full of glory. I fhall write the letters, which I will commit to your care unfealed; and, when I am dead, you will feal them with my own feal, and tranfmit them, with an account of my death, all in one packet addreffed to my father; and it will be particularly obliging, when you return to the country, as you fay you will not continue any time here after my deceafe, if you will vifit my relations, and give them all the comfort you can amidft the

grief which fuch an unexpected event will occafion to them; and especially vifit my dear Charlotte, and inform her of the love I bore to her, and my affectionate prayers to the God of all grace for her eternal falvation, as well as her happinefs in time." I promised punctually to execute his orders; with which he expreffed his great fatisfaction. The letters he wrote on that and the following day are as follows.

I

LETTER I. To Mr

SIR,

Received your kind letter; wherein you give me many excellent advices, very proper for one in my fituation; and at the fame time you exprefs an earnest defire of my recovery. But this cannot be expected, confidering I am brought to the brink of the grave by this long illness, this wafting distemper t.

You afk me to give you an account of my life from the time I left my father's house till now. I fhall readily comply with your requeft, though I am very unable to write; as I doubt not you will make a good improvement of the melancho

བ

*This and the following letter were published, but incorrectly, in a monthly Magazine in 1751, fome time after the writer's deceafe; and were highly acceptable to the friends of religion. Some paragraphs were fuppreffed; but the letters are now published entire, and the errors corrected, from the original copies.

† Mr T-s had wrote feveral letters to his friends, acquainting them with his illnefs, but concealing the worst part of it, to prevent their exceffive grief; bur taking fpecial notice of the goodness of God to him, and his hopes of a recovery, and assuring them of his return home in that event.

ly

ly narrative, and exhort my brothers and fifters to observe a contrary conduct.

The manner of my youth you was well acquainted with; and you could not but obferve it was fpent in vanity and folly; the fad remembrance whereof has pained me not a little fince my confinement. Though I had the benefit of a religious education, yet I gave a loose to my own perverse inclinations, and followed unreftrained the ways of fin. After I left the grammar-school, I was fent to the college here, without the finalleft experimental acquaintance with religion. I was not remarkably wicked during the first year. But the next year I got into the acquaintance of fome young wicked fellows of wit and humour. By them, alas ! I was feduced to vice and profanenefs. For a time indeed they fpoke honourably of religion and virtue; but the mask was foon laid afide, and they appeared in their proper characters. Religion and virtue were ridiculed, and reprefented as unworthy the notice of fuch a noble creature as man. I was invited to parties of pleasure, where I foon learned to drink to excefs, and imbibed the wicked tenets of my companions. When difordered with liquor, I was carried to a bawdy-houfe, which I had always formerly declined when fober, and fpent nights in the impure embraces of lewd women. After a night spent in such debauchery, I remonftrated to my comrades against the fin, the folly, and the fatal confequences of fuch lewdnefs. They, who had been much longer verfant in impiety, anfwered me with a loud laugh, that my head was filled with enthufiaftic notions, and that I had fomehow learned the cant of fickbrained fools. They then told me plainly, that religion was all a jeft, the gospel a cunningly-devifed fable, and nothing but prieft-craft; that

men

men were at liberty to follow the dictates of their own minds, and not accountable to any being whatever; that men were to pursue or retrain from pleasures according to the conftitutions of their bodies, without regard to any other motives of action; fo that if a man impaired his health by drinking and whoring, his conftitution then directed him to abftain, or follow thefe fparingly; but if a man can drink and whore without hurt to himself, there was no harm in the matter; that, on the contrary, as men have ftrong defires after good liquors, and violent paffions to the fair fex, nothing could be more innocent than fuch gratifications, and the pleasure attending them was most exquifite; and, at any rate, if there was any fin in the matter, it could not be imputed to us, who were born with fuch paffions, which it was not in our power to refift; and as the Author of Nature had implanted in us, fuch pleafing paffions, it could not be criminal to indulge them freely *. They further told me, I would foon fee cn, and fome flaming de votees to religion, employed as they were. With this wicked fophiftry, enforced with all the plaufible arguments that hellish wit could invent, was I feduced; especially as I foon faw fome of the young cy, and others who profeffed to be religious, haunt lewd houfes, though very fecretly, I learned to fwear, to drink, to whore; I foon commenced a debauchee; and would undoubtedly have gone to far greater excefs of riot, if my finances would have anfwered my extravagance,

*If the reader will look back to the fpeech of a young country girl, p. 65. and that of a virtuous lady, p. 143. he will find a very good answer to this hellish fophiftry; and will prefer the good reafoning of the ladies, to the unphilofophical and unfcriptural arguments of depraved and infidel wit. ....

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