"I went home to Horningsham as fast as I could travel, to see my father, and mother, and sister; for I had not seen them for many years. I got there about five o'clock in the evening, and when I opened the door, I saw a stranger sitting in the chimney-corner, who turned out to be my brother-in-law; but poor sister Susan was dead. I was afraid to ask about father, for I began to think that death had been on board, and capsized all of them. I saw his stick hanging over the mantle-piece; and after a while (tears falling as he spoke), I asked if he were alive. 'No, William,' said my brother-in-law, 'your father has been dead five years.' 'Is mother alive?' 'She is alive, but I fear she won't live till the morning.' 'Then I'll put on shore, and see her before she goes down.' So I went up stairs, and as soon as mother saw me, she knew me, and she wept for joy to see me back; and as soon as she had given me a salute, she asked if brother George were living; and when I told her of his death, she wept again, but they were not tears of joy. She died in about three hours after I got home; and I staid there a few weeks after she was buried, but the place being deserted by those I loved, I made up my mind to slip my cable and sheer off. I couldn't lay at anchor in such a deserted port." "Was you with your mother when she died?" "Yes, and please your honour; I hove to as soon as I saw her, and I did not leave her until she went down." "How did she die?" "Just in the same way as I hope to die, when it pleases God to call me. She said, 'William, I am now going to heaven, and I hope you will follow me.'" "Well," said Mr. Stevens, "I hope you will; but what do you intend to do for a livelihood?" "Why, please your honour, I don't know what to do." "Can you work in a garden?" "I think I can, and I'm willing to try. I used, when a lad, to work in the Marquis of Bath's garden, along with my father, and I have not quite forgot what he learned me." Mr. Stevens, being in want of an under-gardener, took the sailor into his service, and he long remained with him, a very faithful and industrious servant; an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. After the sailor left the parlour, Mr. Lewellin remarked, that the adaptation of the gospel to man, of every order of intellect, of every shade and complexion of character, of every age and of every country, was to him a most decisive evidence of its Divine origin. Had it been a human invention it would have been incumbered with some local or national customs, and hence it would have discovered some radical defect; but instead of this, the closer it is examined the more its adaptation to the moral condition of humanity is perceived; its rites are such as all may practise; its precepts are as suited to an Asiatic or an African as to an European; and its leading fact, "_that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners_," is "_worthy of all acceptation_."