of the Lord, or my Lord,-or our Lord; for although there were other great men and people in authority dwelling in those parts, there were none, as I afterward found, worthy to be called Lord or Master, but the one into whose service I had been invited to enter; for though the call to me had been through the medium of my uncle, he was, as I afterward learned, but the instrument in the hand of the Master with whom the invitation had originated, and to whom in fact I owed my promotion. Hence, therefore, although I was indebted to my uncle for the readiness with which he had obeyed his Master's orders in sending for me, yet as my worthy kinsman took great pains to prove to me, I was not by any means to consider him as my benefactor or patron; seeing that the servants of the Master are, at the best, but as the moon shining with a borrowed light, and liable to variations and total eclipses, while the Master is as the sun shining in his strength, and shedding his glory through all creation. But although I have said that it is not my intention to give much account of my journey, yet I must not forget to say that I made it my business as I went along, to inquire what might be known respecting the Lord, in the countries through which I passed: I could however hear little of what I wanted to know. Many told me that they had never so much as heard of his name; others told me again, that they had indeed heard of him, but that he was much like others, an honourable man indeed, but not more than another, although in my uncle's letter he was described as one of a thousand;" and another sort laughed in my face, saying, that there never was such a person as I described; but as these last seemed to speak without understanding, I paid little regard to them, and so went on. At length I came, still following my uncle's direction, who had in his letter given me such marks for my road as I could not mistake, to the borders of my Lord's territory, or rather to the borders of that portion thereof which he had set apart for his own peculiar pleasure

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* "Call no man your Father upon earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, even Christ." Matt. xxiii. 9, 10.

† "My beloved is the chiefest among ten thousand." Cant. v. 10. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Psalm iv. 1. "The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." Isaiah XXXV. 8.

and service:* and truly, when I first obtained the prospect thereof, I could almost have felt that I was like Moses viewing the land of Canaan from the top of Pisgah, so fair and ravishing was the sight; for there was nothing to be seen to the right and left, and as far away as the eye could reach, but mountains and hills rising one above another, until those which were most remote, and which lay in the quarter of the east, were so high as to be covered with eternal snow, some of the sparkling summits of which were seen above the clouds, and seemed as if unattainable by the foot of man; † but the nearer hills being lower, were covered with fine trees, and were running down with brooks and fountains of waters. It was indeed a land of brooks gushing forth in he valleys; and there were rivers wandering among the meadows, and large pastures abounding with flocks and herds, and fragrant brakes, and copses filled with multitudes of birds, whose thrilling notes of joy|| filled the ear, and orchards of fruit trees, and fields rich with all manner of grain; and all these things burst upon my sight, as I might say, at once, as I emerged from a narrow strait, or pass of the road. Surely, I cried, I am come to a fair land, and fallen into a goodly heritage; and if in the countries which are very far off, they deny the existence of the Lord of this land, or mock at his name, there will be none here but such as will be ready to speak well of him, seeing how plenty is spread through all his domains, and how every man might dwell here under his own vine, and his own fig-tree, and enjoy a peace which the servants of other masters can but ill conceive. So I hastened onward, and in measure as I proceeded, other objects opened to my view. I saw many pretty cottages and little dwellings perched here and there on the sides of the hills, alone and single, or in groups and clusters, and soon afterward the towers of the castle or principal seat opened unto me, being, as I saw on a nearer approach, an edifice composed of strong timbers curiously wrought and fashioned, having

"My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill." Isaiah v. 1.

+ "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem." Psalm cxxv. 2. "A land of brooks." Deut. viii. 7.

"For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." Psalm i. 10.

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of

many windows and various galleries of lattice* work, the foundations being of stone, for the house stood upon a platform of rock-work,† and behold the sun was shining on some parts of this mansion, which I shall henceforth call the castle, and it looked exceedingly handsome, set as it was in beautiful gardens, with trees of lign-aloe, and cedar; but between me and the castle was a sort of little town or village, and I must needs pass through this town, for it lay directly in the road; there was, however, an air of comfort shed over the place as I saw it from the distance; so my spirits were high, and I thought all was smooth before me, and all troubles at an end; and in this temper I walked on, full of anticipations of the comfortable life I was to lead with my uncle, in the service of the best of masters; nevertheless, as I went on, I was struck with one or two circumstances which indicated less attention to order in the management of the estate than I had expected to find in the domain of such a one as the Lord. I had, indeed, built my expectations very high, and had filled myself with the notion, that as soon as I should set my foot on my Lord's land, I should find every thing arranged and ordered in such a way as that the most fastidious person should have no fault to find. Yet I cannot now say whereon I built my expectations; surely not from any expressions used in my uncle's letter, but (as he made it to appear afterward to me) from notions of my own hastily taken up. I have often since considered, it is surprising how apt we are when first meditating upon any new plan of life, to go beyond what we have grounds for, and thus very often to prepare stumbling-blocks for our own feet: accordbirds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

Cant. ii. 12.

"He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattices." Cant. ii. 9.

+ "Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner." 1 Peter ii. 6.

"And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong." Psalm XXX. 6, 7.

"But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by-and by he is offended." Matt. xiii. 20, 21.

ingly, when my uncle had in his letter invited me to enter into the service of the Lord, assuring me that he was indeed the best of masters, and one whose wages were beyond all price, ensuring in the long run the promotion of his servants beyond their most warm and sanguine expectations, for this was the very sense of his words, what must my busy fancy add to these promises, but a variety of present advantages and privileges, of which never a word had been spoken in the letter, for my uncle had made no promises whatever of any thing to be enjoyed just then, unless it were that sort of enjoyment which a man may derive from the assurance that his future concerns will be well looked to;* a sort of enjoyment which after all cannot well be too highly rated: however, as I before said, my imagination had made itself very busy, and I was expecting things incompatible with the present state of man on earth; neither had I then discovered that which afterward appeared, viz. that an enemy had invaded the Lord's territory, and like a wild bear of the wood, had broken down the fences, and brought confusion where order should have reigned; but more of this hereafter.

So I proceeded along the way, and passing between certain little farms and tenements ranged on this side and on that side of the road, I was continually offended with the unskilfulness of many things I saw, and truly I could not help thinking, that much more would be owing to the natural fertility of the land, if the people were not altogether starved, than to any great wisdom of the farmers; and they were slovenly too, letting the fences all run to ruin, and permitting the corn-fields to be choked with weeds, and, as far as I could judge, paying little heed to the signs of the sky; for although the morning was hot, and many of the fruits ready for gathering, I saw few labourers at work, though there were several lounging at the cottage-doors.

Nay, I was so much surprised at this, that I called across a slip of a field to a man who was walking up

* "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John xiv. 27.

"The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Luke xvi. 8.

"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few " Matt. ix. 37.

and down with his hand in his bosom,* saying, "Friend, why are not you at work this fine morning, gathering in of your good things?" but he took no heed of my question, only bidding me mind my own affairs; and so far he was right; I had matters enough of my own to attend to, and had no need to meddle with other people's concerns. So I went on, and came into the precincts of the village, which was without wall, and where I was not a little astonished by all I saw; for instead of the neat and orderly appearance which, as I before said, might have been expected within the domains of such a one as my Lord, there was not only a general appearance of slovenliness about some dwellings, but of much sordid poverty about others; and again there was as great a pretension to show and ostentation in one or two more, as if all the resources of the place had been spent on two or three homesteads, to the manifest diminution of the comforts of the rest. I had seen things of this kind in foreign lands, and I was well aware that while the world lasted in its present state, there must be different grades in society ;t yet I had expected, I must confess, to find things better ordered under the rule of such a man as I wished to find my future Lord. But I had worse things than these to encounter, for as I went on farther into the village, I fell in with many of the inhabitants, and also heard strange talk, for one was abusing another; one was endeavouring to overreach another; a third was cursing and swearing, and many were jeering and scoffing, just as one might have expected in any other place where any ordinary master was at the head of affairs; or, as I was going to say, where there was no master at all in the case; but there I should have been wrong, for a society cannot hold together at all without some sort of law, and if there were not a sort of method in men's madness, there would be no such thing as living at any rate, for creatures constructed as we are could not exist in a state of absolute chaos.

Well, but, thought I, as I walked sadly forwards, along the village street, having the houses on my right

"The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom, it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth: the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason." Prov. xxvi. 15, 16.

"The poor will never cease out of the land, therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." Deut. xv. 11.