struction to regulate its movements and secure its utility. Much am I indebted, whom nature made so ardent, and education so moulded to enthusiasm, much do I owe to the sober voice of scripture, for all the steadiness of faith, the sobriety of character, and the uniformity of action, which I have been enabled in some degree (yet imperfectly) to exemplify. "Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying NONE OTHER THINGS than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." Acts, 26: 22. My soul has often leaped for joy and thankfulness that the Great Shepherd hath so led and kept me!-So will he keep for ever all who truly trust HIM.

I would not here imply that sobriety and moderation were the early characteristics of my religion. I was impetuous; decisive; perfectly assured; extatically happy in God; resolved to confess Jesus Christ any where; anxious to show others the way to blessedness; totally inexperienced; and not properly impressed with the necessity of experience in order to usefulness; supposing I should always "walk in the light, as he is in the light," and anticipating no reverses; ignorant of the wanton enmity of men actually cherished against the gos-. pel; and often inconsiderate in the way, place, time, and style, of addressing them on the matters of religion. In principles, however, I have always been substantially the same: nor do I know that, since the period of spiritual nativity, I have ever had one deep deliberate doubt of the truth and excel

lence of christianity, or of the general meaning of the scriptures. Reverses however I did experience -just as extreme, pungent and complete, as the joys that preceded them were high! My hope left me after a few weeks, my joys all dried away, and the deepest melancholy of darkness that could be felt embowered me. I felt that I had been deluded, hypocritical, wild in my rejoicings ;-not that I doubted religion; I doubted only myself! Thus extremes and opposites succeeded, till "tribulation wrought patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope;" and thus "the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus," is wont to accomplish his people; "establish, strengthen, settle them; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." 1 Pet. 5: 10, 11. I have since compared my feelings in religion to the vibrations of the pendulum of an open clock, whose first movements, when energetically started, incline almost to cover one hundred and eighty degrees of the circle; but, gradually subsiding from extremes, and losing the momentum of extravagance, every movement becomes more regular; the deep central attraction influences more; its motions are more orderly and useful; and at last it assumes that state . of punctual and measured gravity which it keeps to the end of its "appointed time;" and without which, however costly its material, or polished its exterior, or comely its proportions, it would be of no utility. That I have gained the point of perfect regularity, I am very far from asserting; but that I have held my way, in the main, progressive, I do believe, just

as really as I know that I am still imperfect and have much to learn.

One characteristic of my early and subsequent religion, was derived from its connection historically with the tenets of Friends. I read the Bible, meditated, prayed, conversed, and agonized spontaneously for their salvation. Thousands of times, in thought, did I find myself in one of their meetings, with the Bible open in my hand, “expounding and testifying the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and of the prophets, from morning till evening." I did not intend to leave the society, if I could with peace of conscience continue in it; though I did intend, by the grace of God, to follow "the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." I accordingly put myself in the way of conversing with the most eminent Friends in New-York and its vicinity, from whom I received no satisfaction; and then began, more than ever, to suspect that the truth was not in them.

Some Friends in this city advised that I should visit their great oracle on Long-Island for the resolution of my difficulties, and offered to accompany me. I accepted the proposal, and went in the season of snow a journey of (I suppose) near thirty miles. We arrived when he was preaching in a Friends' meeting-house: as he had just begun, however, we heard almost all of it. It was a declamatory deistical piece of prosing against the resurrection of the body, the error that sin is an infinite evil, and the abomination of the "divines, as they call themselves," whom he charged with teaching all

these fooleries. He inveighed against the doctrine of atonement in the coarsest style, in connection with his thesis that sin is no such evil as they say! Among other things that elicited his oracular wrath, as I well remember, was this: some of the wicked, carnal young Friends had come to meeting that morning with bells by twenties on the gears of their sleigh-horses; these were tethered to the trees in the immediate grounds of the meeting-house, yet not so near as to interrupt the speaker, though their sounds were audible through the closed apartments. But the preacher took a holy umbrage at the distant clatter of the bells. Music of all kinds appeared to be his aversion; and he indulged in a terrible episode against the frequent noises of the bells, which he said were put there only for pride, and to do as others did; they were, he said, wholly from beneath; for, he had no doubt, it was the spirit of the wicked One himself that prompted the dear young Friends to such a departure from the principles of the society! If the matter of putting on the bells, which has been generally thought necessary to the safety of passengers, and on that account is sometimes required by law, had been an infinite evil, he could scarcely have denounced it with more inspired zeal or devotional nonsense! We may regard this as an instance of the stooping of inspiration, the very bathos of illumined and genuine preaching; which, the privileged hearers of such prophets know very well, may often be witnessed in the communications of the light within. Whether Friend Hicks was inspired just then, and

in what degree and kind precisely, are questions which I shall not venture to discuss. Others may resolve them. It might, however, assist the grave inquirer, to settle another question first: Was the prophet Zechariah, in the conclusion of his fourteen chapters of thrilling developement, and when speaking of the perfection and blessedness of the yet future and near approaching MILLENNIAL STATE— was he inspired? He speaks, without stooping indeed, on the very same topic, in a very different style, and to a very uncongenial end! He seems to think that there was no sin, at least intrinsically, in the bells of the horses! He says they shall all be consecrated, INSCRIBED, made subsidiary, to the glory of Jehovah! "In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD." Zech. 14: 20.

In the afternoon and evening of that day, I was at his house, in close and solemn conference. Many, say ten or twenty Friends, were present. They sat with their large hats on, all listening to the inspiration of their host, and exhibiting an appearance of solemnity by which I was well nigh overawed-the instinctive and heathenish awe of a Quaker! Aware of the danger, I was resolved to resist the evil; which I did to the astounding of the company, by venturing, at the pause of a paragraph, respectfully to ask some questions. These he always attempted promptly to answer; and always to my astonishment and grief. Our main topic was the death of Christ. He asserted most boldly that Christ made no atonement for our sins on the cross;