"I wish, Sir, you would come and see me. Your talk and prayer might do my family good, as it has done his." "I am glad to hear that you are turning your attention to the salvation of your soul." "Ah, Sir, I lived for many years, like most of the farmers in these parts, a sad heathenish life; and I should have lived on in this state till the hour of death, had it not pleased God to send me a godly servant. His plain and honest talk set me thinking, and reading my Bible, and then I went and heard the Rev. Mr. Ingleby preach, and the gospel came with great power to my soul. It opened before me a new scene of spiritual wonders, and a new source of spiritual comfort. But I am sorry to say that all my family are sadly opposed to spiritual things; they make light of them." "You may live to see a change." "I hope I may. But it is very painful, after being made alive from the dead, to see my wife and children living under the sentence of death. It makes my heart ache. What ought I to do?" "Persuade them, when they go to public worship, to go where the gospel is preached." "They object, Sir, and I cannot force them." "Try the efficacy of prayer--the prayer of faith and of importunity--and calmly wait the issue." We now parted, and when going by the church in which the Rev. Mr. Cole does duty, I picked up an elegantly bound prayer-book, and observing a fashionable couple at a distance, I quickened my pace, that I might restore what I presumed they deemed valuable, if their property. When I overtook them, I presented the book, and asked if they knew to whom it belonged. "O dear," said one of the ladies, "it is mine, but I had not missed it. I thank you, Sir; we have heard a very excellent discourse this morning from the Rev. Mr. Cole. O dear," said the lady, "I think he is one of the most heavenly preachers I ever heard." "Is his audience very large?" I asked. "O no, Sir; only a few genteel people attend, and a few poor old people, who receive the sacrament money, and some gifts at Christmas." "Then, I presume, there can be but little religion in the parish, for the population is very large." "O dear, Sir, I assure you there is a great deal too much religion in our parish, and it is on this subject that Mr. Cole has been preaching so eloquently this morning." "Why, Madam, you both puzzle and surprise me. Too much religion in a parish where the generality of the people forsake the church, and a minister preaching eloquently against religion, which he lives to inculcate and recommend!"