ed it, it may be so, but what virtuous, happy, young and unspoiled nature, ever thought of hatred towards the God that made us? Fearlessness, indifference, forgetfulness, is natural, but not, surely not "enmity." Perhaps there are very few believers, looking back upon their days of gay and joyous godlessness, that can at all verify the Scripture statement in themselves; how should they have hated the Being they never thought about and cared for, who never crossed their path with present ill, nor marred their pleasures with fear of retribution? But here, in the bosom of a simple girl, brought up in all the virtuous regularity and real religious observance of a secluded country life-a stranger to all that is morally evil, to a degree, that it would not be credited if it were fully explained; with a mind solidly instructed, and unused to any manner of evil influence by books or company, hitherto a stranger to sorrows, wrongs, and fears, that tend to harden the ungracious heart-in this unvitiated, unworldly bosom, was manifested at that early age, clear and strong to her memory as if it was of yesterday, a living, active hatred to the very name of God. She persuaded herself there was no God, and thought she believed her own heart's lie; but if she did, why did she hate him?—why did she feel such renovated delight when his name was the subject

There

of the profane old poet's wit? "No God" was probably with her, as it probably is with every other infi del-the determination of the heart, and not of the judgment. Thus, while she thought herself above all religious doubts, she seized delightfully on every manifestation of infidelity in those around her, and laughed with the very utmost zest of gratified aversion, at every profanation of the holy name. was no such thing as religious discussion in society there, nobody talked about the gospel but those that believed it; and no so-called religious people were met with in ordinary society. All mention of religion therefore was casual and jocular; ridicule and not argument; nobody reasoned against the faith of Christ, everybody despised it, the most knew nothing about it. Its professors were too little known or heard of generally, in such society, to be the objects of malignity. No, it was the master, not the servants, then, on whom we spent our malice. Caroline recalls one instance only, it was just then that Mrs. H. More published her Colebs. It never reached this bookless mansion, but it was talked of everywhere, and almost everybody read it. It was a very unlikely book to commend religion to any worldly mind; and the general decision was not altogether unjust, that no such man should be or would be endured in polite

society; the existence of a world in which he could be acceptable, was wholly unknown to the circle in which Caroline was then placed.

The three years of vanity and folly and mental degradation had expired-the altered habits of her life had told on her body-habitual sickliness had taken place of the fresh bloom of health-the total want of air and exercise, inseparable from a London life, had unnerved the limbs and paled the cheeks, and damped the spirits while nervous sensitiveness and irritability bad increased in due proportion.

Conversion.

LIFE is very uncertain, and intellect precarious. She who writes the beginning may never write the end. There is an event in every Christian's life more important to ourselves, and more redolent with the glory of God, than all events beside" the new birth unto righteousness." Extraordinary as the manner of it was to her, and in its minute particulars known only to herself, ought she to postpone such a brief record of the circumstances as will secure to the sovereignty of divine grace, the praise and glory of this undeserved interposition of redeeming love? She will here narrate in brief, what may be amplified hereafter, should the writer live to complete her purpose.

It will be seen, if these pages are ever filled—if not, it might never have been known, that at twenty to twenty-five years of age, Caroline was an atheist in heart and only not quite one in understanding: she wished that there should be no God; but because she was not quite satisfied that there was none, she hated

the very utterance of his name, except when it was made a jest of. In what company that occurred may appear hereafter. She was no longer ignorant, thoughtless, uninformed upon religion. She had read books, heard preachers, known saints-several of her own family were already under the influence of divine grace --she knew and hated all, and most intensely Him of whom is all. Years had passed since she deigned to bend her knee in prayer. His word she never read except upon compulsion-being required to do so with her pupils--the most disliked of all her daily tasks. She never went to church but for decency or necessity, and made it a rule and a deliberate effort not to listen or join in the service; a systematic wickedness of which to this day she reaps the fruits, in the insurmountable difficulty she finds in keeping her attention to the service; now that with all her soul she loves it. The natural heart is said to be enmity against God-no doubt it is so always—but there may be few cases in which the fact was so palpable and demonstrable-so known to the heart itself, so actually in conscious operation, within herself; for it is not probable that any one ever heard it from her lips. Though talkative in trifles, she was exceedingly reserved as to her actual thoughts, and still more as to her feelings, and she had no bosom friend or kindred soul to tell them to. She