We may now mention an instance of the utility of reading the bible freely and undauntedly to others. A gentleman, who had been in the practice of reading in the cottages, went into one for this purpose on the evening of a fair held in the neighbourhood. He found the old woman on whom he had called gone to bed, but five or six rough-looking men were sitting round the fire, and hesitatingly he asked, if they would let him read a chapter to them. They, with at least equal hesitation, assented, and our friend asked for a bible. They brought him first a Latin testament, but at last a large bible was brought from another cottage, and he read to them the 26th chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel, and spoke to them on the injunctions there given. They all became attentive. One of the men who had been a smuggler, and much addicted to drinking, and who would probably have finished his evening by intoxication at the fair, appeared particularly struck by what he then heard. On his going home, his wife was astonished at his altered demeanor, but dared not speak to him; his daughter, however, asked him, “what he had been doing?” On which, he answered her in his uncouth way, that he had “been praying and would pray again, for so the gentleman had told him from the book.” The man entirely changed his habits from this time. The following harvest he was seen by the same gentleman, coming out of a farm house with a party of fellow-labourers, and his kind friend spoke to him, fearing he had as formerly indulged himself. The poor man replied, “I have been doing, sir, what I never in my life did before, I have refused a pint of beer, for I did not want it;” and his companions confirmed his words. His resolution was put to a severer test the next summer, for being lame he was set to keep the birds from a field directly opposite one of the new public-houses. “Was it not a temptation to you?” said the same gentleman. “A sad temptation, sir, and very hard it is; but I have resisted and kept out.” The poor man’s conduct to his family was equally improved; and we have perhaps the more pleasure in giving this little history, as it happened that the bible, which was rendered the instrument of convincing this poor man of the error of his ways, was furnished by our association.