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prostitution to every comer. But I must quit this abominable fubject, and can never reflect upon it but with the greatest remorse, and the most piercing contrition, for my hainous fin in feducing many girls, for whom I daily pray they may be rescued from eternal ruin,

I should have observed before, that my dear friend and companion, Mr T-s, was the eldest fon and heir-apparent of a gentleman in a northern county in England, a man of an amiabre character for religion, charity, and every good quality. He had a numerous family of children, and was poffefsed of a good eftate. He was a Protestant diffenter, and gave all his children a liberal and religious education. His son J-h, while at home, was remarkably sober, of a very cheerful disposition, and of an engaging address,. so that he was beloved by every body. He was well acquainted with the principles of Chriftianity, and the holy scriptures. He constantly attended divine worthip on Sundays, before and after his defection to vice, and often took me along with him. His father spared no expense on his education, allowing him 100 1. a-year; beside which he had an annuity of 50 1. left him by an uncle, which he received regularly for the three years immediately preceding his death. He never went home from the time he came to the univerfity; and though his father commissioned a gentleman to watch his behaviour, yet he managed fo artfully, that he was never suspected of being a rake, as he still plied his studies, never absenting himself from the classes or the church. He always made a very genteel appearance, and was universally beloved.

This amiable gentleman, it seems, was often stung with remorse of confcience for the finfulness of his lewd life; particularly after being infected

with the venereal taint; and at that time refoive d to be fober. He did not inform me of this circumstance till long afterwards. Indeed I cannot fay I was smitten with any conviction. Such was my ignorance, and so far had the corrupt doctrine of my companions perverted my judgment, and corrupted my natural principles. What confirmed me in my vitious course, was the feeing married men of sober character, and even certain c-n, often haunting stews; and I have obferved men who had been at the facramental table on a Sunday, careffing whores in the evening, and wallowing in horrid debauchery. Hence I concluded that there was no reality in religion, when men who professed and taught it acted so unbecoming a part. And I remember very well, that on a Sunday afternoon, I heard a young c deliver a pretty fermon againft fornication; and yet I saw him that very evening in disguise, in my own prefence, go to bed, at different times, with two strumpets, and went away flustered with liquor. My friend run into greater excess of sensuality after his recovery above ove mentioned, than before. So much did he confide in his fine constitution, that he often faid to me, he had no doubt but he would live many years, and indulge bodily pleasures, the only thing worth living for! He was so precipitated with lust, that, as he owned to me afterwards, he frequently went to lewd houses without me, and disguised himself in mean apparel, that he might pursue lewdness in its lowest shapes: and I have heard him say, he had been as agreeably regaled with the embraces of a cinder-wench, an orange-girl, or a milk-maid, 'as ever he was with a fine lady of the most exquifite beauty. These mean courses he pursued, as he alleged, out of lenity to me, whose constitution

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was naturally weak, and not able to fupport under constant diffipation.

But health will not always continue; luft and pleasure must one day cease; the human constitution is too weak to serve all the unfatiable cravings of unbridled appetite; death will put a period to all the joys and gallantries of the vitious, though they would bribe it with tears, and stave off its approaches with all the virtues of medicines. Lust and ebriety indulged to excess, will waste the firmest strength, and enervate the strongest body. Poor T-s must sigh out a farewell to luft and wine; his fine constitution, his blooming face, and charming air, must give place to weakness, to paleness, and ghastly looks! the enlivener of conversation, the favourite of the ladies, the eloquent, accomplished lover, the charming youth, must bid adieu to all pleasurable scenes, groan on a fick-bed, and die! Who can bear the thought! Death! How melancholy is the found! What! must the gay youth! the fine gentleman! the man who gloried in his excellent constitution! the man who seemed to be the pride of human nature! and formed to please, whom? the ladies, the elegant, the polite ladies, who triumph in their charms, their bewitching beauty, their graceful shape, their transporting air, their musical voices, their sparkling eyes, their, be no more! must he be numbered among the dead, and reckoned among those who have been? - A consumption at last seized Mr T-s. With the utmost reluctance was he forced to abandon his favourite pleasures, and spend some months in sighs and groans. But, ah! I could not eafily refrain. Impiety is foon learned; fin is natural, vice is intoxicating; a whore is a deep pit. A retreat is no easy affair, where inclination is wanting. But divine grace will conquer all difficulties;-the drunkard, the sensualist, the fornicator, &c. at the touch of God's Spirit will tremble;-the fool will become wife, the debauchee reform, and the lewdest woman will be modest!

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My friend foon fell under the most dreadful agonies and horrors of confcience that words can express. He often declared to me, that he was deeply sensible of the evil and danger of his former course of life, and had the most pungent and excruciating throes of confcience for that diffolute and abandoned life he had led for fome years; and that nothing gave him greater uneasiness than his having been the wicked instrument of feducing me to the same impiety. You know," faid he, with great emotion, " that in the days of health and strength, I gloried in my fine constitution, and vainly flattered myself with the hopes of a long continued tranquillity. I thought I was in so firm a state of health, that nothing could shake or impair it; that therefore I could run no risk by intoxicating myself at times with generous wine, and fatiating my lust with women. I put the evil day far away, and placed sickness and death at the remotest distance. I excluded God from my thoughts, fuppreffed the admonitions of confcience, and thought my course of life was the most happy a man could pursue, the only heaven on this fide the grave. I disguised my impiety with hypocritical pretences to religion and virtue, and by a regular attendance on public worship on the Lord's day; though I devoted the reft of that facred day, for the most part, to all the extravagances of debauchery. But the evil day has overtaken me; fickness has now laid fiege to my once vigorous conftitution, and is likely to storm it foon. Death is advancing towards me, and will speedily complete my destruction. Igrow

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every day worse and worse. No medicines are of use for checking the progress of the devouring distemper. But a wounded spirit who can bear?> God, the great God, whom I have dishonoured, is become mine enemy, and his terrors fet themselves in array against me. His hand of wrath and indignation has touched me, and the invenomed arrows of his vengeful fury have pierced me to the quick. What can I look for but wrath, everlasting wrath? what can I expect, but to fall a facrifice to vindictive justice, and descend to the bottomless pit, whence the smoke of my torment shall afcend for ever? I have had my day of finning, of wallowing in beastly pleasure, and of multiplying my tranfgreffions; the Lord has now begun to take vengeance, and I fear will cause his wrath come upon me to the uttermoft. I dread the worst; I tremble at death; the thoughts of hereafter, a black, an unknown hereafter, stun and confound me. The Bible, which I have bo-. gun to read, speaks nothing but terror to me; in it I see my fatal doom; I tremble and stand aghaft at the awful threatenings contained in it. Pray I cannot; and what do prayers and tears avail? The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord; and will a holy God regard the cries of a drunkard, a debauchee, a swearer, an atheift, a, what shall I call myself? O that I had never been born! Wo's me! what shall I do? to whom shall I fly? God is my enemy; Satan hath deceived me; and I have destroyed myfelf! Hell from beneath is moved for me; Tophet is ordained for fuch an impure wretch; and justice, incenfed justice, shall triumph in my ruin! The Lord is just and righteous, though he should this moment hurl me down to hell. Against him I have finned; I have broke his laws, tranfgreffed his commandments, defied his power, affront

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