agony of her mind. I engaged in prayer with her, but under the same depressed feelings as above mentioned. Circumstances afterwards prevented my seeing her. A few days subsequent to my last visit the deep-toned bell announced the fearful fact of the poor creature's death. Her remains were committed to the melancholy grave by the officiating minister, as in "sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection."

My hand seems palsied as I write, and my blood chills in my veins when I think that she died as I had seen her, peaceless and hopeless! Whatever, therefore, be the language of man, the decree of God is irreversible: “They that have done evil shall come forth to the resurrection of damnation!”

Reader! "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

4. THE APOSTATE.

"O treacherous conscience! while she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the slacken'd rein,

And gives us up to license unrecall'd,

Unmark'd, see from behind her secret stand,
The sly informer minutes every fault,

And her dread diary with horror fills."-YOUNG.

THE writer, who communicated these sad facts, was well acquainted with RA, late of Maryland, whose brief history is here given. At the age of about twenty he became anxious for his soul, and convinced that the course he had hitherto pursued, if persisted in, would lead to endless misery. With this conviction he resolved

to seek the Lord while he might be found; and it was not long before he thought he had obtained an interest in him, and joined the Church. For some time his life was apparently consistent with his profession. At length he formed an acquaintance with a gay young lady, of great personal attractions, but an entire stranger to religion; and although she was not pleased with his religious profession, yet his family and personal appearance were such, that she consented to marriage, thinking that in due time she would be able to cure him of his religious frenzy.

She soon commenced the attempt. At first she urged that, if they wished to be thought well of by their friends, they ought not to refuse to join them at places of diversion and amusement; that he must know how persons of his inclination were despised by people of respectability; and that he had so much reading and praying in his house, the neighbours laughed at him. In fine, said she, "I married you to be happy; but I utterly despair of happiness, unless you give up your religion and be like other people."

He told her that happiness was what he wanted, but he had never found it in the way she proposed; that the happiness which sprung from the customs and pleasures of this world was not substantial; though for the present it might be sweet, in the end it would be bitter as death.

Having found these efforts unavailing to obtain her purpose, she refused to attend family devotion. He wept, grieved, and in secret often prayed for her. She continued to employ every stratagem which her wicked. imagination could invent. At length, wearied by her constant opposition and persecution, he resolved he would try to get to heaven alone, as she would not go with him; and determined to attend to his private devotions, and omit those of the family. His wife, however,

pursued him to his closet; and succeeded in driving him to the relinquishment of every religious duty. And now that he forsook God, God forsook him; the native corruptions of a wicked heart began to stir within him, and raged, till they broke out in greater excesses than he had ever been guilty of before.

Some time after this he heard a sermon, in which his sins were brought fully to his remembrance. He then renewedly promised to serve the Lord, let him meet with ever so much opposition. But the obstacles were greater than he supposed. He found himself in the hands of the enemy with less ability to resist temptation than he had before. He was like a man, who, bound while asleep, struggles, but cannot free himself; groans under his bondage and strives for liberty, but strives in vain. At this juncture his wife redoubled her efforts, and gained her point a second time. He continued sinning with little remorse, till, having lost all desire for the means of grace, and entirely forsaking the company of the people of God, he gave himself up to the customs and maxims of the world, having not the least regard to external morality; when at length he was laid on a bed of affliction, and his life was despaired of.

Now his fears were alarmed; his sins appeared in dreadful colours before him; and such was the sense of his guilt, that he dared not look to God for mercy. "How can I," said he, "expect that God will pardon me, when I have run contrary to his will, grieved his Spirit, sinned away all the peace I once enjoyed, and have gone farther since my apostasy than I ever did before I named his name? O that I had my time to live over again! O that I had never been born!"

His disorder increased, and his fears were wrought up to terror. "If," said he, "God would give me another trial, I would amend my ways. If God will not hear me, perhaps he will hear the prayers of his people on my

behalf. O, send for them, that they may pray for me; for how can I stand before the avenger of sin in this my lamentable condition !"

His Christian friends visited him; God appeared to answer their prayers, and, contrary to expectation, he recovered. But as his bodily strength increased, his convictions subsided; and by the time he was fully restored to health, he forgot his danger, and actually returned to all his former vices.

Some years after his recovery, I fell in company with him, and we entered into close conversation on the state of his soul. I asked him what he thought would be his destiny if he died in his present state?

"Why," said he, "as sure as God is in heaven I should be damned."

“Well,” said I, “do you mean to die in this state? Do you never think of changing your course of life?"

"My friend," said he, "I have no desire to serve God; I have no desire for anything that is good: to tell you the truth, I as much believe that my damnation is sealed as that I am now conversing with you. I remember the very time when the Spirit of God departed from me; and what may surprise you more than all, I am no more troubled about it than if there were no God to punish sin and no hell to punish sinners in."

I was struck speechless at his narration; it is not in my power to describe my feelings. The bold indifference which marked his features, and the hardness of heart displayed by him, were truly shocking. After I parted with him, my meditations were engaged upon the awful subject. "Lord," thought I, "with whom have I been conversing? An immortal spirit, clothed with flesh and blood, who appears to be sealed over to eternal damnation! A man who once had a day of grace and the offer of mercy, but now appears to be lost, forever lost! To him the door of heaven is shut, never more to be

opened. He once had it in his power to accept salvation, and because he did not improve his time and talents, God has judicially taken them all away, and given him over to blindness of mind. He is neither moved by mercy nor terrified by judgment."

About two years after this he was laid upon the bed of death. His conscience roared like thunder against him, and his every sense appeared to be awake to torment him. His sickness was short, and his end was awful. His Christian friends visited him, and desired to administer comfort, but he was comfortless. They told him that perhaps he was mistaken-it was not so bad with him as he imagined.

"Ah," said he, "would to God I was mistaken; happy would it be for me. But can I be mistaken about my sickness? Is it imagination which confines me here? Are my pains imaginary? No, no! they are a reality; and I am as certain of my damnation as of my pains." Some persons offered to pray with him. But he forbade it, and charged them not to attempt it. "For," said he, "that moment that you attempt to lift up your hearts to God on my behalf, I feel the flames of hell kindle in my soul: you might as well pray for Satan as for me; you would have as much success. Do you think to force God? Do you think to force the gates of heaven, which are barred by justice against me? Never. Your prayers shall return upon your own head; I want none of them."

The distress of his mind seemed to make him forget the pains of his body, and he continued in nearly the same situation till the day of his death. All that Christians or Christian ministers could say to him, made no impression. He never asked one to pity or pray for him.

Just before his departure, after he had been rolling from side to side for some time, with horror depicted in