"It was, however, not my fate to pass safely through this fiery ordeal. Nothing but my destruction, final and entire, would satisfy my greedy persecutor--and artfully enough did he at length encompass it. In a few days, there arrived a third communication on the same subject, but from another hand. My mother became the correspondent, and she conjured me by my filial love and duty, not to disobey her. She desired to retire into privacy. She was growing old and it was time to make arrangements for another world. Her son, if he would, might enable her to carry out her pious wish--or, by his obstinate refusal, hurry her with sorrow to the grave. There was much more to this effect. Appeal upon appeal was made _there_, where she knew me to be most vulnerable, and the choice of action was not left me. To deny her longer--would be to stand convicted of disobedience, undutifulness, and all unfilial faults. From this period, I was lost. One word before I hurry to the end. I absolve my mother from all participation in the crimes of which boldly I accuse my uncle. She, poor helpless woman, was but his instrument, and believed, when she urged me, that it was with a view to my advancement and lasting benefit. I conveyed my mother's communication immediately to Anna. She made no observation on its contents--bade me seek counsel of her father; and with her eyes streaming with agonizing tears, left me to pray upon my knees for counsel and direction from on high. Her father--I could not blame him--a man who had struggled hardly for his bread as a clergyman and a scholar--and seen more of the dark shadows than the light of life--received my intelligence with unmingled satisfaction. He charged me, as I loved his child, and valued her future welfare, to accept the princely kindness of my friends--to see them instantly, and secure my fortune whilst time and circumstances served. And then, as if to appease his own qualms of conscience, and to justify his counsel, he reasoned about the usefulness which, even to a pious mind, was permitted in the exercise of trade. Infinite was the good that I might do. Yea, more, perhaps, than if I persisted in my first design, and remained for ever a poor clergyman; I might relieve the poor even to my heart's content. What privilege so great as this! What suffering so acute as the desire to help the sick and needy with no ability to do it! 'Be sure, young man, the hand of Providence is here; it would be sinful to deny it.' O _interest--interest!--self--self_!--words of magic and of power; they rendered my poor friend blind as they did me. I listened to his advice with eagerness and delight; and though I knew that to obey it was to cast myself from security into turmoil and danger, I laboured to persuade myself that he was right, and that hesitation was now criminal. Again I saw my betrothed, and I approached her--innocent and truthful as she was--with shame and self-abasement. I repeated her father's words, and