proverb which enabled me to assist my parents when I had but ten shillings a-week; and therefore it forgot me. My landlady also informed me, that it was the rule of her establishment for her lodgers to breakfast in the house, and with this proposal, also, I deemed it necessary to comply. I had begun to yield to circumstances, and when, in such a case, the head is once bent, the whole body imperceptibly becomes prostrate. But twelve months passed away, and instead of fifty pounds being sent to my parents, I found my entire eighty not only expended, but that I was ten pounds in debt. I called myself a fool, a madman, and many other names; for conscience burned within my bosom, and the glow of shame upon my cheek. But it was fruitless; a habit had been formed, and that habit was my master. I had involuntarily become its slave, and wanted resolution to become its master. On entering upon my second year, my employer, who still retained a favourable opinion of me, increased my salary to a hundred a-year. But even when it had expired, instead of having assisted my parents, I still found myself in debt. I had left my twenty pounds of additional salary to take care of themselves, and at the same time I had forgotten to take care not only of the shillings which composed them, but of the pence which made up my whole income. I forgot that a hundred pounds quickly disappears in a free hand, and leaves its owner wondering whither it has gone. At this period, the letters which I received from my parents sometimes indirectly hinted at the privations which they were enduring; but they never requested, or seemed to expect assistance from me. The consciousness of their circumstances, however, stung me to the soul; but it did not reclaim me, or turn me from the dark sea of thoughtless expenditure on which I had embarked. I experienced that a slight thread is sufficient to lead a man to temptation, but it requireth a strong cord and a strong hand to drag him again to repentance.