much greater sins; and that they undermine his principles as certainly, though not perhaps quite so fast.

Stock was too angry with what had happened, to answer Brown's letter, or to seem to take the least notice of him. However, he kindly and secretly undertook a journey to the hard-hearted old farmer, Brown's father, to intercede with him, and to see if he would do any thing for his son. Stock did not pretend to excuse Jack, or even to lessen his offences; for it was a rule of his never to disguise truth or to palliate wickedness. Sin was still sin in his eyes, though it were committed by his best friend; but though he would not soften the sin, he felt tenderly for the sinner. He pleaded with the old farmer on the ground that his son's idleness and other vices would gather fresh strength in a jail. He told him, that the loose and worthless company which he would there keep would harden him in vice, and if he was now wicked he might there become irreclaimable.

But all his pleas were urged in vain. The farmer was not to be moved. Indeed, he urged with some justice, that he ought not to make his industrious children beggars to save one rogue from the gallows. Mr. Stock allowed the force of his reasoning, though he saw the father was less influenced by this principle of justice, than by resentment on account of the old story of Smiler. People, indeed, should take care that what appears in their conduct to proceed from justice, does not really proceed from revenge. Wiser men than farmer Brown often deceive themselves, and fancy they act on better principles than they really do, for want of looking a little more closely into their own hearts, and putting down every action to its true motive. When we are praying against deceit, we should not forget to take self-deceit into the account.

Mr. Stock at length wrote to poor Jack; not to offer him any help, (that was quite out of the question,) but to exhort him to repent of his evil ways; to lay before him the sins of his past life, and to advise him to convert the present punishment into a benefit, by humbling himself before God. He offered his interest to get his place of confinement exchanged for one of those improved prisons, where solitude and labor have been made the happy instruments of bringing many to a better way of thinking; and ended by saying, that if he ever gave any solid signs of real amendment, he would still be his friend, in spite of all that was past.

If Mr. Stock had sent him a good sum of money to procure his liberty, or even a trifle to make merry with his wretched

companions, Jack would have thought him a friend indeed. But to send him nothing but dry advice, and a few words of empty comfort, was, he thought, but a cheap, shabby way of showing his kindness. Unluckily, the letter came just as he was going to sit down to one of those direful merry-makings which are often carried on with brutal riot within the doleful walls of a jail on the entrance of a new prisoner, who is often expected to give a feast to the rest.

When his companions were heated with gin, "Now," said Jack, "I'll treat you with a sermon, and a very pretty preachment it is." So saying, he took out Mr. Stock's kind and pious letter, and was delighted at the bursts of laughter it produced. "What a canting dog!" said one. 66 Repentance, indeed!" cried Tom Crew: "no, no, Jack, tell this hypocritical rogue that if we have lost our liberty, it is only for having been jolly, hearty fellows, and we have more spirit than to repent of that, I hope; all the harm we have done is, living a little too fast, like honest bucks as we are." "Ay, ay," said Jolly George, "had we been such sneaking miserly fellows as Stock, we need not have come hither. But if the ill-nature of the laws has been so cruel as to clap up such fine hearty blades, we are no felons however. We are afraid of no Jack Ketch; and I see no cause to repent of any sin that's not hanging matter. As to those who are thrust into the condemned hole indeed, and have but a few hours to live, they must see the parson, and hear a sermon, and such stuff. But I do not know what such stout young fellows as we are, have to do with repentance. And so, Jack, let us have that rare new catch, which you learnt of the strollers that merry night when you lost your pocket-book."

This thoughtless youth soon gave a fresh proof of the power of evil company, and of the quick progress of the heart of a sinner, from bad to worse. Brown, who always wanted principle, soon grew to want feeling also. He joined in the laugh which was raised against Stock, and told many good stories, as they were called, in derision of the piety, sobriety, and self-denial of his old friend. He lost every

day somewhat of those small remains of shame and decency which he had brought with him to the prison. He even grew reconciled to this wretched way of life, and the want of money seemed to him the heaviest evil in the life of a jail.

Mr. Stock, finding from the jailer, that his letter had been treated with ridicule, would not write to him any more. He did not come to see him, nor send him any assistance, thinking it right to let him suffer that want which his vices had

brought upon him. But, as he still hoped that the time would come when he might be brought to a sense of his own evil courses, he continued to have an eye upon him by means of the jailer, who was an honest, kind-hearted man.

Brown spent one part of his time in thoughtless riot, and the other in gloomy sadness. Company kept up his spirits; with his new friends he contrived to drown thought; but when he was alone, he began to find that a merry fellow, when deprived of his companions and his liquor, is often a most forlorn wretch. Then it is, that even a merry fellow says, "of laughter, what is it? and of mirth, it is madness.” As he contrived, however, to be as little alone as possible, his gayety was commonly uppermost, till that loathsome dis temper, called the jail fever, broke out in the prison. Tom Crew, the ringleader in all their evil practices, was first seized with it. Jack staid a little while with his comrade to assist and divert him; but of assistance he could give little; and the very thought of diversion was now turned into horror. He soon caught the distemper, and that in so dreadful a degree, that his life was in great danger. Of those who remained in health, not a soul came near him, though he had shared his last farthing with them. He had just sense enough left to feel this cruelty. Poor fellow! he did not know before, that the friendship of the worldly is at an end, when there is no more drink or diversion to be had. He lay in the most deplorable condition; his body tormented with a dreadful disease, and his soul terrified and amazed at the approach of death; that death which he thought at so great a distance, and of which his comrades had so often assured him that a young fellow of five-and-twenty was in no danger. Poor Jack! I cannot help feeling for him. Without a shilling! without a friend! without one comfort respecting this world! and, what is far more terrible, without one hope respecting the next!

Let not the young reader fancy that Brown's misery arose entirely from his altered circumstances. It was not merely his being in want, and sick, and in a prison, which made his condition so desperate. Many an honest man unjustly accused, many a persecuted saint, many a holy martyr, has enjoyed sometimes more peace and content in a prison, than wicked men have ever tasted in the height of their prosperity. But to any such comforts, to any comfort at all, poor Jack was an utter stranger.

A Christian friend generally comes forward at the very time when worldly friends forsake the wretched. The other

prisoners would not come near Brown, though he had often entertained, and had never offended them; even his own father was not moved with his sad condition. When Mr. Stock informed him of it, he answered, ""'Tis no more than he deserves. As he brews, so he must bake. He has made his own bed, and let him lie in it." The hard old man had ever at his tongue's end some proverb of hardness or frugality, which he contrived to turn in such a way as to excuse himself.

We shall now see how Mr. Stock behaved. He had his favorite sayings too; but they were chiefly on the side of kindness, mercy, or some other virtue. "I must not," said he, "pretend to call myself a Christian, if I do not requite evil with good." When he had received the gaoler's letter with the account of Brown's sad condition, Will Simpson and Tommy Williams began to compliment him on his own wisdom and prudence, by which he had escaped Brown's misfortunes. He only gravely said, "Blessed be God that I am not in the same misery. It is he who has made us to differ. But for his grace, I might have been in no better condition. Now Brown is brought low by the hand of God, it is my time to go to him." What, you!" said Will, "whom he cheated of your money ?" "This is not a time to remember injuries," said Mr. Stock. "How can I ask forgiveness for my own sins, if I withhold forgiveness from him?" So saying, he ordered his horse, and set off to see poor Brown; thus proving that his was a religion not of words, but of deeds.

Stock's heart nearly failed him as he passed through the prison. The groans of the sick and dying, and what, to such a heart as his, was still more moving, the brutal merriment of the healthy, in such a place, pierced his very soul. Many a silent prayer did he put up as he passed along, that God would yet be pleased to touch their hearts, and that now (during this infectious sickness) might be the accepted time. The gaoler observed him drop a tear, and asked the cause. "I cannot forget," said he, "that the most dissolute of these men is still my fellow-creature. The same God made them; the same Savior died for them; how then can I hate the worst of them? With my advantages they might have been much better than I am; without the blessing of God on my good minister's instructions, I might have been worse than the worst of these. I have no cause for pride, much for thankfulness; let us not be high-minded, but fear,"

It would have moved a heart of stone to have seen poor, miserable Jack Brown lying on his wretched bed, his face so changed by pain, poverty, dirt, and sorrow, that he could hardly be known for that merry soul of a jack-boot, as he used to be proud to hear himself called. His groans were so piteous, that it made Mr. Stock's heart ache. He kindly took him by the hand, though he knew the distemper was catching. "How dost do, Jack?" said he; "dost know me?" Brown shook his head, and said, faintly, "Know you! ay, that I do. I am sure I have but one friend in the world who would come to see me in this woful condition. O James! what have I brought myself to! What will become of my poor soul? I dare not look back, for that is all sin; nor forward, for that is all misery and wo."

Mr. Stock spoke kindly to him, but did not attempt to cheer him with false comfort, as is too often done. "I am ashamed to see you in this dirty place," says Brown. "As to the place, Jack," replied the other, "if it has helped to bring you to a sense of your past offences, it will be no bad place for you. I am heartily sorry for your distress and your sickness; but if it should please God by them to open your eyes, and to show you that sin is a greater evil than the prison to which it has brought you, all may yet be well. I had rather see you in this humble, penitent state, lying on this dirty bed, in this dismal prison, than roaring and rioting at the Greyhound, the king of the company, with handsome clothes on your back, and plenty of money in your pocket."

Brown wept bitterly, and squeezed his hand, but was too weak to say much. Mr. Stock then desired the gaoler to let him have such things as were needful, and he would pay for them. He would not leave the poor fellow till he had given him with his own hands some broth which the gaoler had got ready for him, and some medicines which the doctor had sent. All this kindness cut Jack to the heart. He was just ready to sob out, "My unnatural father leaves me to perish, and my injured friend is more than a father to me.' Stock told him that one proof he must give of his repentance was, that he must forgive his father, whose provocation had been very great. He then said he would leave him for the present to take some rest, and desired him to lift up his heart to God for mercy. "Dear James," replied Brown, "do you pray for me. God perhaps may hear you, but he will never hear the prayer of such a sinner as I have been." care how you think so," said Stock. "To believe that God cannot forgive you, would be still a greater sin than any you

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