the fool, you must go and do it some where else; you shall not do it in my family. And as I have had no hand in your folly, so I will not be eternally suffering the mortification of it, that I am determined on.”

William, of course, was turned out of his father's doors. But though the admiral endeavoured to screen himself from the reproaches of his own conscience, and also from those of the world for this most unnatural act, yet it was abundantly plain, from his looks and motions, that INHUMANITY is a breach of the eternal law, (of love) never to be reconciled to the moral sense.- "HONOUR! HONOUR!" cries the infuriated duellist, as he is about to murder his fellow man; but does the monster ever enjoy sweet peace afterwards? So, no plea that pride can prefer will ever silence that voice of God in the soul of man, which ceaselessly cries against cruelty. The admiral was a proof of all this. Even in the act of driving William from home his every look evinced the torture of a soul engaged in the horrid work of self-murder. Nor did the rolling in his bosom subside with the storm that had excited it. For after the son was gone, the father was seen striding about the apartment dark and angry in his looks; and often stroking down his whiskers, as it is said he was wont, when going into battle. Nor was his anguish diminished by the melancholy looks of the servants as they passed by him in silence, and still less by the cries of his lady, in the adjoining room, bewail ing her "poor exiled son!" After some time he went into her chamber where she lay a crying on the bed, her face muffled up in the clothes. He sat down by her side to console her; but she turned her face still more away. He repeated his tender efforts; but with no better success. Such treatment from an elegant wife whom he doted on, stung him to the quick. At length after a gloomy silence, he clasped his hands and lifting his eyes of mingled grief and rage, he exclaimed-" My God! what a life is this!"

She making no reply, he still went on-" and here have I been all my miserable days, striving through toils and tempests, through fightings and blood, to raise my poor family to something: and after all have only got to a serious doubt, whether I had not better be dead than alive; whether I had not better at once cut my throat than bear this cursed state any longer."

Alarmed at such expressions, Mrs. Penn half raised herself from the bed, and turning to the admiral with much of wildness in her red, tear-bathed eyes said, "why, Mr. Penn, why will you make use of such dreadful language."

Mortal man, replied he, never had better right to use such language; yes, and ten times worse if I but knew where to find it. I wanted to make my son, my only son, a great man, but he won't hear of it. I wanted to comfort you and you wont allow me to comfort

you.

"Comfort!" answered she, with a deep sigh, " don't talk to me of comfort. I was never born to enjoy comfort in this world. I had but one child, and he every thing that my heart and soul could desire, and yet his life and mine too have been made bitter to us both ever since he was born."

"Well, whose fault is it," cried the admiral, furiously, "whose fault is it but his own, a poor, sneaking, mean-spirited blockhead !"

"Don't call him so," said Mrs. Penn, "for I have heard you say, a thousand times, he was a boy of genius."

"A boy of genius! yes, the boy has genius; and a fine genius too; but what signifies his genius? what signifies his education, and all his other rare advantages, if, like a poor fool as he is, he won't improve them, won't let them make a great man of him?" "A great man of him!" exclaimed she. Ah my God! there's what I fear will be the downfall of us all. A great man of him indeed !"

"Yes," replied the admiral, "I want to make a great man of your son. And pray what can be more natural? Isn't that the aim of the whole world? An't the poor constantly aiming to become rich? and the rich to become nobles? and the nobles to become kings? and kings to become greater and greater still ?"

"Yes, Mr. Penn, and it is the aiming at this sort of greatness that has filled the earth with so many wretched beings."

"What do you mean by that?"

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Why, do not the holy scriptures assure us, that it was by aiming at a greatness of this sort that our first parents lost Paradise, and filled the world with sin and death? Nay, was it not by aiming at this sort of greatness that Satan and his angels lost their high place in heaven and sunk to hell ?"

"But how does that apply?" "

"Why, Mr. Penn, is not this greatness of riches, and pomps, and places, all from PRIDE, and not for HAPPINESS-which is the only end that rational creatures should propose to themselves in all their actions? And, therefore, did not that dear child, whom you just now turned out of doors, did he not ask you • what is the true end of greatness but happiness?' And if he thought that the greatness you so press upon him would not make him happy, was he not in the right to despise it?"

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Despise greatness !" exclaimed the admiral.

"Yes, Mr. Penn, such greatness as that. I honour my son for despising it; for what is the greatness that consists merely in possessing great town houses and country houses-in entertaining great lords and ladies -in having our gates constantly thronged with coaches and chariots-wasting the day in idle visitings, and the night in plays and cards-not an hour to call our own, out all swallowed up in one continued round of hurry and dissipation-and all this, too, among the VAIN and WORTHLESS, whose manners are childishly frivolous;

whose conversation is about nothing but fashions and slander ; whose looks ever wear the simper of folly or the sadness of discontent and envy ; and who court us not from friendship, as we well know, but from vanity and convenience because we are rich; and would desert us on the first reverse of our fortunes."

"You draw a very pretty picture of the great, I think, madam."

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Yes, Mr. Penn, but not one shade too black, nor. indeed, half black enough. For, contemptible as such a life may seem, yet there are thousands who, when enslaved to it, like poor drunkards to their cups, will sacrifice every thing to keep it up; will gamble, and forge, and even rob on the highway! yes, and will beggar and disgrace their wives and children, to preserve only a show of such pitiful greatness. And, because our dear boy was blessed with the rare wisdom and fortitude to discover and abhor such madness, you could turn him out of doors, even in the tender and helpless morning of his days!"

Here the admiral begged his wife to talk no more at that rate, for that he loved William very dearly, though he had turned him out of doors. Nay, that he had treated him in this way altogether out of love, that he might constrain him into his views, and make something of him.

"Make something of him!" cried Mrs. Penn, "O my God! that you should possess one of the richest blessings in all this world, and yet not know it; I mean a PIOUS child. For O! what on all this earth can be matter of such joy and triumph to a fond parent as a PIOUS CHILD?" To me it was every thing. thought of nothing else. I prayed for nothing else. Vain, delusive riches and honours! I said, come not near my son. You are not one ten thousandth part good enough for him. Only let my son love God. Only let him have this, the sweetest spur to every virtue, the strongest curb from every vice, the best cordial under

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Well, God, in
He gave me

every affliction, and I ask no more! his infinite mercy, heard my prayer. that which I esteem above all worlds-a PIOUS SON. And lo! you turn him out of doors! He has not ambition enough! he won't be RICH enough! nor GREAT enough to please you! O what millions would not many of our rich and great friends here in London give if their sons had but half his virtues!-There's the rich lord Sterling!-His eldest son and heir of all, can't dine abroad, but he must be brought home drunk! and his face is now so bloated and fiery, that his friends are ashamed to look at him!-There's the great lady Warwick !-Her only son crippled and shortly to die, mortally wounded in a duel!-There's the earl of Coventry!-His only son sneaking about the house, like a blackguard, for losing at cards in a single week fifty thousand pounds left him by an aunt!And there's young lord Spencer! though heir to a dukedom, and covered over with stars and garters, yet eaten up in youth, of foul diseases -In short, what with drunkenness, or duelling, or gambling, or raking, or some other detestable vice, there's hardly one in ten of all our great families but is shrouded in. melancholy. Fathers, mothers, and sisters, throughout the town, mourning their disgraced and ruined sons and brothers. And here, amidst all this shame and sorrow, our child, our only dear child, not only not disgraced with such vices, but adorned with all the opposite virtues-harmless as an infant! temperate as a saint! devout as an angel! and yet, in place of shouting incessant praises to God on his dear account, you turn him out of doors! O Mr. Penn, Mr. Penn, can you ever forget that look he gave you when taking up his hat to go away, as you ordered him, he said, "Father, had I been turned out of your doors because of any crimes I had done, I should be wretched indeed. But, thanks to God, I go away with a conscience unstained by an act that should cause you or my dear mo

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