corn; but the cheerful images of nature produced no effect upon a mind thus agitated; and the father was grievously troubled, believing verily that his son would run distracted. They returned home in time to attend the Church service; and, in the evening, as was their custom, John read aloud from some religious book, choosing one to his purpose. Seeing that his father approved of what he read, he ventured to speak to him in defence of his principles. The father grew angry, and spoke with bitterness. "I find," said the old man," thou art now entirely ruined. I have used every means I can think of, but all to no purpose. I rejoiced at thy birth, and I once thought thou wast as hopeful a young man as any in this town; but now I shall have no more comfort in thee so long as I live. Thy mother and I are grown old, and thou makest our lives quite miserable: thou wilt bring down our gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Thou intendest to make my house a preaching house, when once my head is laid; but it shall never be thine: no, I will leave all I have to the poor of the parish, before the Methodists shall have any thing to do with it." Pawson was exceedingly affected; and the father seeing this, desired him to promise that he would hear their preaching no more.He replied, when he could speak for weeping, that if he could see a sufficient reason he would make that

promise; but not till then. "Well," replied the old man, "I see thou art quite stupid-I may as well say nothing: the Methodists are the most bewitching people that ever lived; for, when once a person hears them, it is impossible to persuade him to return back again."

Pawson retired from this conversation in great trouble, and was tempted to think that he was guilty of disobeying his parents; but he satisfied himself that he must obey God rather than man. It was a great comfort to him that his brother sympathized with him entirely: they both strove to oblige their parents as much as possible, and took especial care that no business should be neglected for the preaching. This conduct had its effect. They used to pray

together in their chamber. The mother, after often listening on the stairs, desired at last to join them; and the father became, in like manner, a listener at first, and afterwards a partaker in these devotions.The minister of the parish now began to apprehend that he should lose the whole family: the way by which he attempted to retain them was neither wise nor charitable; it was by reviling and calumniating the Methodists, and in this manner inflaming the father's wrath against the son. This was Pawson's last trial: perceiving the effect which was thus produced, he wrote a letter to his father, in which, after stating his feelings concerning his own soul, he came to plain arguments, which could not but have their due weight. "What worse am I, in any respect, since I heard the Methodists? Am I disobedient to you or my mother in any other thing? Do I neglect any part of business" He asked him also why he condemned the preachers, whom he had never heard. "If you will hear them only three times," said he, "and then prove from the Scripture that they preach contrary thereunto, I will hear them no more." The old man accepted this proposal. The first sermon he liked tolerably well, the second not at all, and the third so much, that he went to hear a fourth, which pleased him better than all the rest. His own mind was now wholly unsettled: he retired one morning into the stable, where nobody might hear or see him, that he might pray without interruption to the Lord; and here such a paroxysm came on, "that he roared for the very disquietness of his soul."-" This," says Pawson, "was a day of glad tidings to me. I now had liberty to cast in my lot with the people of God. My father invited the preachers to his house, and prevented my turning it into a preaching house, (as he had formerly said,) by doing it himself. From this time we had preachings in our own house, and all the family joined the Society."

It might have been thought that the proselyte had now obtained his soul's desire; but he had not attained to the new birth: his prayer was, that the Lord would take away his heart of stone, and give him a

heart of flesh; and, ere long, as he was "hearing the word" in a neighbouring village, the crisis which he solicited came on. "In the beginning of the ŝervice," says he, "the power of God came mightily upon me and many others. All on a sudden my heart was like melting wax: I cried aloud with an exceeding bitter cry. The arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in my flesh, and the poison of them drank up my spirits; yet, in the height of my distress, I could bless the Lord that he had granted me that which I had so long sought for." It was well that his father had been converted before he reached this stage, or he might with some reason have believed that Methodism had made his son insane. He could take no delight in any thing; his business became a burden to him; he was quite confused; so that any one, he says, who looked on him, might see in his countenance the distress of his mind, for he was on the very brink of despair. One day he was utterly confounded by hearing that one of his acquaintance had received an assurance of salvation, when he had only heard three sermons; whereas he, who had long waited, was still without comfort. Public thanks were given for this new birth; and Pawson went home from the meeting to give vent to his own grief. As he could not do this in his chamber without disturbing the family, he retired into the barn, where he might perform freely, and there began to pray, and weep, and roar aloud, for his distress was greater than he could well bear. Presently he found that his brother was in another part of the barn, in as much distress as himself. Their cries brought in the father and mother, the elder sister, and her husband, and all being in the same condition, they all lamented together. "I suppose," says Pawson, "if some of the good Christians of the age had seen or heard us, they would have concluded we were all quite beside ourselves. However, "though the children were brought to the birth, there was not strength to bring forth." One Saturday evening, when "there was a mighty shaking among the dry bones" at the meeting, his father received the assurance, and the

preacher gave thanks on his account; but Pawson was so far from being able to rejoice with him, that, he says, "his soul sunk as into the belly of hell.”— On the day following the preacher met the Society, "in order to wrestle with God in behalf of those who were in distress." Pawson went full of sorrow, "panting after the Lord as the hart after the water-brooks." When the prayer for those in distress was made, he placed himself upon his knees in the middle of the room, if possible, in greater anguish of spirit than ever before. Presently a person, whom he knew, "cried for mercy, as if he would rend the very heaven."-" Quickly after, in the twinkling of an eye," says Pawson," all my trouble was gone, my guilt and condemnation were removed, and I was filled with joy unspeakable. I was brought out of darkness into marvellous light; out of miserable bondage, into glorious liberty; out of the most bitter distress, into unspeakable happiness. I had not the least doubt of my acceptance with God, but was fully assured that he was reconciled to me through the merits of his Son. I was fully satisfied that I was born of God: my justification was so clear to me, that I could neither doubt nor fear."

66

The lot of the young man was now cast. He was shortly afterwards desired to meet a class: it was a sore trial to him; but obedience was a duty, and he was obliged to take up the cross." "From the first or second time I met it," he continues, "I continually walked in the light of God's countenance: I served him with an undivided heart. I had no distressing temptations, but had constant power over all sin, so that I lived as upon the borders of heaven." Henceforward his progress was regular. From reading the homilies, and explaining them as he went on, he began to expound the Bible, in his poor manner. The people thrust him into the pulpit.. First he became a local preacher, then an itinerant, and, finally, a leading personage of the conference, in which he continued a steady and useful member till his death.

ALEXANDER MATHER was a man of cooler temperament and better disciplined mind than most of Wesley's coadjutors. He was the son of a baker, at Brechin, in Scotland: his parents were reputable and religious people: they kept him carefully from evil company, and brought him up in the fear of God: but the father was a rigid and severe man; and probably for this reason, while he was yet a mere boy, (according to his own account not thirteen,) he joined the rebels in 1745. Having escaped from Culloden and the pursuit, he found that his father's doors were closed against him on his return. By his mother's help, however, he was secreted among their relations for several months, till he thought the danger was over, and ventured a second time to present himself at home. The father, more, perhaps, from cunning, than actual want of feeling, not only again refused him admittance, but went himself and gave information against him to the commanding officer, and the boy would have been sent to prison, if a gentleman of the town had not interfered, and obtained leave for him to lodge in his father's house. The next morning he passed through the form of an examination, and was discharged. From this time he worked at his father's business, till, in the nineteenth year of his age, he thought it adviseable to see the world, and therefore travelled southward. The next year he reached London, and there engaged himself as a journeyman baker. Because he was, as he says, a foreigner, his first master was summoned to Guildhall, and compelled to dismiss him. This unjust law was not afterwards enforced against him, and he seems to have had no difficulty in obtaining employment. Before he had been many months in London, a young woman, who had been bred up with him in his father's house, sought him out: they had not met for many years, and this renewal of an old intimacy, in a strange land, soon ended in marriage.

Mather had made a resolution that he would live wholly to God whenever he should marry. For a while he was too happy to remember this resolution he remembered it when his wife was afflicted