The two shortest years of my life were now drawing to a close. My brother had completed his studies, passed his examination, and was under orders to join his regiment in Ireland. Oh how my heart rose in prayer, that where I had found a spiritual blessing he also might receive it. I could not understand the state of his mind on the most vital of all points: he had imbibed a prejudice so strong against the class of people called evangelical, that nothing but his generous affection for us would have induced him to receive under his roof two of that proscribed body, to say nothing of Jack. He confessed to me, laughing, not long after we became his inmates, that he supposed we should be falling on our knees half a dozen times a day, singing psalms all over the house, and setting our faces against every thing merry or cheerful. He had never been acquainted with any serious person before going to Portugal, nor during his short leaves of absence at home: none of that class ever crossed his path abroad, and he came home prepared to believe any thing that was told him of the supposed fanatics, whom he understood to be a sort of ranting dissenters. At Clifton, extremes then ran far; the gay people most violently denouncing their sober neighbors, and making up all sorts of scandal concerning them. Hannah More was pointed out as "queen of the Methodists," and a most infamous lie, wholly destructive of her moral character, circulated among a narrow but dissipated clique as a known fact; while the small fry of fanatics were disposed of by dozens in a similar way. The faithful clergyman, whose ministry we attended, was absolutely persecuted; and his congregation could expect no better at the same hands. I am very far from charging this upon the generality of even worldly people there; but it did exist, visibly and sensibly; and my dear brother evidently had fallen in with some of these wholesale calumniators, before he could possibly judge for himself. A visit to Barley Wood, and a very prolonged interview with the "queen," greatly staggered his prejudices; he was perfectly charmed with her, and remarked to me that if all her subjects were like her, they must be a very agreeable set of people. Still he apprehended an outbreak of extravagance when we should be fairly installed in his abode; and though he soon became undeceived, and learned to take the greatest delight in the society of General Orde, Mr. Sandford, and others equally decided; though he punctually attended the faithful ministry of Mr. Hancock at the college chapel, besides his regular appearance at the usual military service, and would not allow one disparaging word to be uttered in his presence of that zealous preacher or his deeply spiritual discourses; though he chose from among his brother officers a bold, uncompromising Christian as his most intimate associate, and gave many unconscious indications that he had received the doctrine of man's total corruption,