EDUCATION DEPT. 
 
THE PILGRIM BOY, 
 
 WITH 
 
 LESSONS FROM HIS HISTORY. 
 
 A NAKRATIYE OF FACTS. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
EDUCATION DEPT. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 His first school, 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 His second and third schools Closes his school education 
 at ten years old .11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Drowning the ground-squirrel Cruelty to animals, . 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 How he was taught to observe the Sabbath, . .21 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The partridge-trap and Sunday whipping, . . .29 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The second falsehood Fishing to get clear of work, . 42 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Death of the man with whom he lived, . . .48 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The pilgrim boy becomes profane, and learns to chew tobac- 
 co, .. 55 
 
 M69832 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The next step in vice Card playing, . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Universalism Bad books, 72 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Circumstances that led to his marriage, . . . . 83 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 He commences farming Severe sickness Resolutions to 
 repent and live better, 94 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 On grieving God's Spirit, 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 Joins the church His first communion, . . . 122 
 
 CHAPTER XV.- 
 His first Sunday-school efforts, 127 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 His labors in prayer-meetings Conversion of his wife, 136 
 
THE PILGRIM 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 HIS FIRST SCHOOL. 
 
 THIS boy was born in the early part of the 
 nineteenth century, in what was then called the 
 backwoods, where the howl of the wolf and 
 the scream of the panther were as common as 
 the snorting of the iron horse is now about 
 New York and Boston. In many places the 
 marks of the Indian's tomahawk were still to 
 be seen on the sugar-maples, and the graves of 
 many who had fallen victims to these cruel in- 
 struments of death were still fresh. When 
 friends met, tears flowed as they talked of 
 those loved ones who had been shot or toma- 
 hawked at their side by the red men of the for- 
 est, or as they related the sufferings they had 
 
6 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 endured while in captivity in the wilderness, 
 where they were sometimes called to witness 
 the cruel torture and death of those most dear 
 to them. Hearing these tales of murder and 
 hair-breadth escapes had, no doubt, much to do 
 with bracing the nerves of the pilgrim boy 
 for:t-ao stru^gl^s -0f life. Deprived in early 
 infancy ,of a fathers protection, at three years 
 oVi he was separated from his pious mother, 
 who was left without property ; but Providence 
 provided for her boy. An old gentleman and 
 his wife who had property and had no children, 
 took him and treated him with great kindness. 
 When he was five years old, he commenced 
 going to school to an old Scotch woman, who 
 was a strict seceder and a devoted Christian. 
 She boarded with the man with whom he lived, 
 and morning and evening was this good lady 
 to be seen leading this little boy along the 
 path to her school a mile distant ; and all the 
 way she was telling him little stories out of the 
 Bible and about Jesus Christ, warning him to 
 avoid sin and keep out of bad company. The 
 earnestness of her manner, and the deep inter- 
 est she manifested for him, led him to love her 
 as if she had been his mother. The impression 
 
HIS FIRST SCHOOL. 7 
 
 made on liis mind by this good woman never 
 forsook him, and often after she was dead 
 he thought he heard her yoice and felt the 
 gentle touch of that hand that led him to his 
 first school. In six months she taught him to 
 read the New Testament. The Testament and 
 the spelling-book were all the books in the 
 school, and all which were then supposed to 
 be necessary for boys who were to be farmers 
 or mechanics. 
 
 Let me say to any young friend who reads 
 the history of the pilgrim boy, Are you an or- 
 phan, without father or mother, houses or lands? 
 do not be discouraged. Perhaps you are the 
 son of a praying father or mother. If so, each 
 prayer of faith they offered up to God for you 
 is so much treasure laid up in heaven, and that 
 pious mother may now be a ministering angel 
 watching over you by night and day. If you 
 have had such parents or teachers, call to mind 
 the many kind words of warning they gave 
 you ; think of the prayers you heard them offer 
 to God for you, and that if you turn away from 
 God, and go on in sin, these prayers will for 
 ever sound in your ears in the world of woe ; 
 they will aggravate the gnawing of the worm 
 
8 THE P1LG-RIM BOY. 
 
 that never dies, and fan the flames that will 
 never be quenched. The pilgrim boy never 
 forgot the warnings from his pious teacher. 
 
 If you are a poor boy, resolve to be honest 
 and honorable ; make up for your poverty by 
 the dignity and purity of your character. The 
 wise man has said, "A good name is better 
 than precious ointment." While you keep clean 
 hands and an unsullied character God will pro- 
 vide you friends ; and to do this, you must al- 
 ways shun the company of bad boys : " Go not 
 in the way of transgressors." If you are seen 
 in their company, you will have to bear part of 
 the disgrace that follows their bad deeds, and 
 in this way will lose the confidence of good 
 men. A poor boy with a bad character is one of 
 the most pitiable objects to be found on earth. 
 Look at that poor ill-clothed boy breaking the 
 Sabbath by idle play, taking the name of God 
 in vain, telling lies, and perhaps stealing. Is 
 he not despised by all that see him? Good peo- 
 ple will not let their sons go near him. Select 
 your companions with great care, and if the 
 sons of the wealthy slight you because you are 
 poor, let it only stimulate you to become worthy 
 of the respect and confidence of all. 
 
HIS FIRST SCHOOL. 9 
 
 As a general rule, the rich of one generation 
 are the poor of the next. John Jacob Astor 
 and Stephen Girard were poor boys. Perhaps 
 the children of some who slighted them, have 
 since been their servants, or fed by their char- 
 ity. Many of the richest men of our cities were 
 once poor boys, but honest industry has made 
 them rich. Another class of poor boys have 
 ,filled the highest stations in our land. Frank- 
 lin was a poor boy, and he became the next 
 .man to Washington in his day. Henry Clay 
 was a poor boy ; many a day he rode to mill 
 on a pony with a sack of corn to get it ground, 
 yet he became one of the greatest statesmen in 
 our land. Go to all our colleges and semina- 
 ries, hunt up all the eminent ministers of the 
 gospel, and you will find, on inquiry, that more 
 than one half of them were once poor boys. Let 
 the success that has attended other poor boys 
 stimulate you to noble efforts ; set your stand- 
 ard high, aim at great things, resolve to be a 
 great good man, bend all your energies to that 
 end, and God will take care of the rest. He 
 may withhold riches from you for your good ; 
 many boys could not bear riches, and you may 
 be one of them ; and to save your soul, he may 
 
10 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 deprive you of them in love and mercy. Let 
 your motto be, truth, honesty, and candor ; read 
 the advice of Solomon in the book of Proverbs 
 to boys, and follow its divine teachings, and it 
 will guide you to honor on earth and glory in 
 heaven. 
 
SCHOOL EDUCATION CLOSED. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS SECOND AND THIRD SCHOOLS CLOSES HIS 
 SCHOOL EDUCATION AT TEN YEARS OLD. 
 
 THE pilgrim boy entered his second school 
 before he was six years old. The old lady who 
 first taught him died, and he was sent to an 
 old Scotchman, who daily pulled the ears and 
 thumped the heads of the boys to wake up their 
 ideas ; or applied a long rod, well laid on with 
 both hands, to quicken their perceptions in 
 grammar and vulgar fractions. In this school 
 there were more than fifty pupils, from five to 
 thirty years old. The pilgrim boy was one of the 
 youngest, and frequently he was not called on 
 to recite a lesson during the day, though gene- 
 rally he got his head bumped against the wall 
 once or twice each day for his edification. 
 But in consequence of cruelty and neglect, all 
 the small boys were taken away; so he only 
 went one month to that teacher. At the close 
 of three months the old man was dismissed and 
 an Irish sea-captain employed, a fine scholar, 
 but his discipline was nearly the same, with the 
 
12 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 addition of the cat-o '-nine-tails, which was often 
 well applied to the backs of disobedient boys, 
 the victim being supported on the back of 
 another boy during the process. 
 
 The pilgrim boy was a great favorite with 
 this teacher, and only once fell under his dis- 
 pleasure during three and a half years, and 
 that was for going with a number of boys larg- 
 er than himself to a creek a mile off to bathe. 
 He was the only one of them that could swim, 
 and they persuaded him to go to teach them. 
 Two of them ventured into deep water and 
 were nearly drowned. They were taken out 
 by the pilgrim boy, supposed to be dead ; but 
 after long exertions, were resuscitated. For 
 this act of disobedience all were severely pun- 
 ished. The school-house was eighteen feet 
 square, built of round logs ; the spaces between 
 the logs were stopped with small blocks of 
 wood, and daubed over with mortar ; the fire- 
 place was made by an offset in one end, built 
 up with poles about four feet high, with large 
 flat stones set up edgeways around the fire. 
 Often when a boy had offended the captain, he 
 would leap out at N tli fireplace, and the captain 
 after him. If he was overtaken, he was sure 
 
SCHOOL EDUCATION CLOSED. 13 
 
 to get a severe whipping ; but if he could keep 
 out of the way till the captain's wrath abated, 
 he would escape much easier. 
 
 Under the tuition of this heroic professor, the 
 pilgrim boy closed the theoretical part of his 
 education, in his tenth year. His intellectual 
 furniture consisted of reading, writing, arith- 
 metic, and a little geography. He ate one 
 small copy of a Latin grammar to get it out of 
 the way. 
 
 As he saw there was no hope of his going to 
 school any more, he determined to study by 
 himself, and as he had to work hard for his liv- 
 ing, the only chance he had was to borrow 
 books and read them at night by a hickory- 
 bark light, as he sat on the hearth-stone with 
 his back against the wall. 
 
 Every evening you might see him coming in 
 from his day's labor with a bunch of dry bark 
 under his arm, to make a light to read by. In 
 this way he read, in the course of three years, 
 a circulating library of more than three hun- 
 dred volumes. Of course he had but little 
 ballast to sail across the ocean of life, where 
 the waves are heaving and surging over the 
 quicksands beneath, and dashing against the 
 
14 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 rocks above. And he certainly would have 
 been wrecked, but for the fact that what little 
 he had was taken from an old book called the 
 Bible, given expressly for such voyages, which 
 we recommend to all the boys that are on this 
 voyage. 
 
 Forty years ago, a good hickory stick was 
 considered an indispensable part of school fur- 
 niture, and those who rebelled against author- 
 ity were either whipped in school or at home, 
 or both. Now they often rebel with impunity, 
 and the teacher who resorts to the use of a rod 
 has sometimes suffered for his faithfulness the 
 loss of his life. A case of that kind recently 
 occurred in Kentucky, and within a few days 
 another has been added to the list. 
 
 Let us trace the history of some of these 
 disobedient boys. In one school, the writer 
 knew a boy fourteen years old who had to be 
 expelled for his bad conduct. Soon he ran 
 away to avoid parental restraint, and in a few 
 weeks news came that while engaged with a 
 company of bad boys hunting squirrels on Sun- 
 day, he climbed a tree after one that was 
 wounded, and when forty feet above ground, 
 the limb on which he was standing broke ; he 
 
SCHOOL EDUCATION CLOSED. 15 
 
 fell on his head, and broke his neck. He was 
 one of those boys who would not be controlled, 
 but would do as he pleased. 
 
 In the history of many individuals whom the 
 writer knew in early life, a bad boy has usually 
 made a bad man, except in cases where the 
 Spirit of God has renewed the heart ; so it will 
 be found as a general rule, the world over. 
 You may train a wolf beside a flock of lambs, 
 but he will be a wolf still, unless his nature 
 be changed. 
 
 There is another class of teachers to whom 
 the young are much indebted : I mean Sabbath- 
 school teachers. They devote much of their 
 time to the study of God's word for the benefit 
 of children, without compensation. They often 
 hunt them up in the streets, in many cases 
 clothe them at their own expense, and then 
 sometimes have to bear with their wayward- 
 ness and sin. There are Sabbath-school boys 
 who, when fifteen or sixteen years old, leave 
 the school, thinking they have become too wise 
 to be taught any more. They have graduated 
 as Sabbath-school boys, and entered the street- 
 college, where on Sunday morning you will 
 hear them belching forth vulgar language, and 
 
16 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 find them disturbing the people as they enter 
 or return from the house of God 8 
 
 Such boys who can set at naught the author- 
 ity and respect due to pious, praying Sabbath' 
 school teachers, who slight the laws of God, 
 and treat his house with contempt, could scarce- 
 ly be trusted in their neighbor's store, or their 
 father's desk. There is but one hope left in 
 such cases, and the histoiy of the pilgrim boy 
 encourages that hope. The truth that had been 
 so faithfully taught him in early life, like good 
 seed retained its vitality, and by divine cul- 
 ture afterwards yielded fruit, although it had 
 been crusted over with sin. The dews of the 
 Spirit, accompanied by the ploughshare of afflic- 
 tion, softened and prepared the soil. God 
 grant it may be so with all that read this little 
 book. 
 
CEUELTY TO ANIMALS. 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 <v 
 
 DPcOWNING- THE aROUND- SQUIRREL CEUEL- 
 TY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 ONE morning as the pilgrim boy was on 
 his way to school to the Irish sea-captain, 
 when he was about seven years old, a little 
 incident occurred that had an influence on all 
 his after-life. Up to this time he had been in 
 the habit of killing and torturing little animals 
 for sport. The morning alluded to, he saw a 
 ground-squirrel run into its hole which it had 
 dug by the roadside near a large creek. In- 
 stantly he ran to the hole, and stopped it up, 
 and got troughs that lay at the raots of the 
 sugar-maples, and carried what water he sup- 
 posed would drown the squirrel. He then 
 commenced pouring in the water. He soon 
 heard the squirrel coming up, struggling for 
 life, and commenced talking to himself, and 
 saying, 0, my fellow, I will soon have you 
 now. 
 
 Before he was aware, a venerable Christian 
 
 Pa. Boy. 2 
 
18 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 man came up, and laid his hand on his head. 
 "Well, my boy, what are you doing here?" 
 " Oh, I am drowning a squirrel ; do n't you 
 hear him struggling now for air? I will soon 
 have him. 7 ' "My dear boy," said he, "I am 
 sorry to see you so cruel ; what harm has that 
 little innocent squirrel done you? Now you 
 see I am a big man, and you are a little boy. 
 If you were down in that hole, and I was here 
 pouring water on you, would you not think I 
 was cruel and wicked? Life is as sweet to 
 that little innocent creature, as it is to you. 
 God made it to be happy ; and why will you 
 try to kill it? When I was a little boy," said 
 he, " more than fifty years ago, I was engaged 
 one day drowning a squirrel, just as you are 
 this moment, when a good man came along and 
 said to me 'nearly the same I have said to you : 
 it so affected me that I never forgot it ; and 
 from that day to this, I never killed any inno- 
 cent creature unnecessarily." The pilgrim boy 
 left the squirrel, but never forgot the lesson. 
 When any little animal came in his way, he 
 thought of the good man's reproof, and always 
 respected him for it. " The words of the wise 
 are as goads." A reproof for cruelty given 
 
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 19 
 
 to a boy near one hundred years ago, is still 
 handed down for the benefit of others. 
 
 My dear boys, when you read this, think how 
 many innocent creatures you have wantonly 
 put to death ; and then think what the Bible 
 says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall 
 obtain mercy." Even a sparrow does not "fall 
 to the ground without our heavenly Father." 
 That little bird God made for some wise pur- 
 pose, and you killed it for mere sport. When 
 you saw it struggling in death, were you ben- 
 efited by it? Did it make you any happier? 
 If it did, you have a heart as hard as adamant 
 a heart that may lead you to shed the blood of 
 a fellow-man. That dying bird should have 
 led you to think of the day when you will lie 
 struggling in death, and that justly too, for sin 
 against God ; but that little bird had no sin, 
 it died innocently by your wicked hands. 
 
 Twenty years ago, young Prescott, who at 
 the age of nineteen years expiated his crimes 
 on the gallows, was asked, the day before his 
 execution, if he did not delight in killing and 
 torturing animals. "Oh, yes," he replied; "I 
 liked to kill them better than to do any thing 
 else." "Did you ever wish to kill people?" 
 
23 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 was the next question asked him. "I don't 
 know that I did ; but I wanted to kill cattle, 
 when they did not act to please me." He was 
 hung for murdering the wife of his employer, 
 who testified to his cruelty to cattle. Youth- 
 ful reader, when you take delight in cruelty to 
 any of God's creatures, think of young Pres- 
 cott think of the gallows. 
 
OBSERVING- THE SABBATH. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW HE WAS TAUGHT TO OBSERVE THE 
 SABBATH. 
 
 WE left the pilgrim boy at the close of the 
 last chapter in his tenth year, with a very small 
 stock of intellectual furniture for entering on 
 the duties of life. But there was one thing 
 which made up in part for this lack of educa- 
 tion, the strong religious restraints with which 
 he was bound. The old lady with whom he 
 lived was truly a mother to him, watching over 
 him with unceasing faithfulness day and night. 
 One thing in which she was rigidly strict was, 
 the observance of the Sabbath-day ; she kept 
 it sacredly herself, and made her boy, as she 
 called him, keep it too. 
 
 Two Sundays in each month she took him 
 to hear preaching, which was held mostly in 
 the woods. The minister stood in what was 
 called a tent, or rostrum, about six feet square, 
 covered with slabs ; the floor five feet above 
 the ground, with steps to go up. The clerk, 
 
22 THE PILG-RIM: BOY. 
 
 who lined out the psalm, one line at a time as 
 the people thought David used to do, when one 
 of Israel's old tunes was sung in the temple 
 sat in this tent with the minister. In front of 
 the tent there was a seat with the back against 
 the corner posts of the tent, on which the el- 
 ders sat, facing the people. It was their duty 
 to see that good order was observed, which 
 was very necessary, as most people let their 
 dogs follow them to church, and so many 
 strange ones coming together, their fighting 
 often created great disturbance. The place 
 selected for the tent was in the midst of a grove 
 of large trees ; and if a place could be found 
 where there were one hundred feet each way 
 without trees, and large ones with extended 
 branches all around it, it was considered a 
 providential arrangement for that purpose, and 
 generally thanks were returned to God each 
 Sabbath for it by the minister. The seats were 
 made by splitting logs, hewing the flat side, 
 and putting in legs by boring holes with an 
 auger ; some of the more wealthy families 
 would make their seats out of a thick plank, 
 and have a back to them. In front of the tent 
 was the communion-table, extending from the 
 
OBSERVING THE SABBATH. 23 
 
 elders' seat about fifty feet, with a seat at each 
 side for communicants. 
 
 The people in many cases came ten miles to 
 these places of worship. It was very common 
 for a mother to walk and carry her infant five 
 or six miles, and the father the next oldest one, 
 and all the rest to trot along after. When 
 they reached the preaching-place, all the fam- 
 ily sat together ; or, as the little folks were 
 much fatigued, they were laid down in the dry 
 leaves to sleep. In the winter season, the 
 preaching was held in private houses. 
 
 The pilgrim boy was led, by the good woman 
 whom he now called mother, regularly to one of 
 these places of worship till he was over twelve 
 years old, and sat by her side, with an old Bible, 
 printed in 1718, in which he hunted out the 
 proof-texts, and marked them by turning down 
 a leaf. In those days the minister quoted his 
 proof-texts, chapter and verse, giving the peo- 
 ple time to find and mark them. The Bible 
 the boy carried was ten inches long, five inches 
 broad, and three inches thick, covered with 
 deerskin, and bound round with a strong strap, 
 for its preservation. This boy was twelve 
 years old before he saw what was called a 
 
24 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 church, or building expressly for the worship 
 of God. 
 
 In those old-fashioned times, the first thing 
 the minister did was to read and explain the 
 portion of the Psalm to be sung, so that the 
 people might sing with the understanding, 
 which often took nearly an hour. In thoso 
 days, "all the people praised God/ 7 whether 
 they could sing by rule or not ; and as they 
 had but twelve tunes, they were soon learned. 
 Then followed the sermon, which was seldom 
 less than two hours long, and was often divid- 
 ed and subdivided into twenty or more divis- 
 ions. Then singing and prayer closed the 
 morning service. An interval was then given 
 of forty minutes, to take refreshments ; and the 
 people mostly collected at the spring, where 
 long-handled gourds were used to supply the 
 thirsty with water, and if the day was either 
 very hot or very cold, the head of the family 
 brought a pint flask of whiskey, which was 
 then thought necessary to prevent injury from 
 exposure. They then assembled again, and 
 had the same order of services, with the excep- 
 tion of explaining the Psalm, which was omit- 
 ted in the afternoon. The services began at 
 
OBSERVING- THE SABBA-TH. 25 
 
 ten A. M., and usually closed a little after four 
 p. M., so that most of the people might get home 
 by sunset. A cold dinner was then eaten, as 
 cooking was not permitted on the Sabbath. 
 
 After supper, the children were called to re- 
 peat the text, and give all the divisions of the 
 subject ; and the catechism was gone through 
 before retiring to bed. This closed the exer- 
 cises of the Sunday on which they had preach- 
 ing. The whole day was spent in the public 
 and private exercises of God's worship. 
 
 The preachers in those old-fashioned times 
 used to hold an examination in some quarter of 
 the congregation every month, which all were 
 expected to attend ; and the Christian charac- 
 ter of parents was estimated by the knowledge 
 of their children. Every pious household was 
 then a Sunday-school. 
 
 The writer has visited a number of prisons, 
 and talked with many convicts, confined for 
 various crimes, but he never found one who in 
 boyhood abstained from play and idleness on 
 the Sabbath, read God's word, and attended 
 preaching and Sabbath-school regularly. All 
 have testified that they set at naught God's 
 command, "Kernember the Sabbath-day to keep 
 
26 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 it holy." Let me entreat you, my dear boys, 
 as you value your own souls, to avoid this first 
 step on the road to ruin. Where do the gal- 
 lows and penitentiary get their victims, but 
 from the ranks of those who in their boyish 
 days spent their Sundays in fishing and hunt- 
 ing, or hanging about the corners of the streets 
 planning mischief ; or what is worse, in groups 
 at the church doors, interrupting the worship 
 of God, insulting their Maker to his face, and 
 bidding defiance to his laws. 
 
 The writer knew two boys, the sons of 
 wealthy irreligious men, who lived near a 
 church ; and from the age of ten to sixteen 
 they habitually came to the church door to 
 play tricks, and make others laugh. At length 
 they were sent to college ; but when they re- 
 turned home in vacation, they became more 
 bold, and would come into the church and in- 
 terrupt the whole congregation. The minister 
 reproved them again and again ; at last he 
 said, if those young men behaved so again, he 
 would call out their names in public. The 
 next Sunday they both came, took their seats 
 in a conspicuous place, and sat with their hats 
 on, reading newspapers; and as the services 
 
OBSERVING THE SABBATH. 27 
 
 went on, their conduct drew the attention of 
 all in the house. The minister stopped a few 
 moments, with his eyes turned heavenwards, 
 and the tears flowing, and then proclaimed, 
 " J. B and J. W , your doom is writ- 
 ten in heaven ; you will soon die in disgrace.' 7 
 They immediately left the church. In a few 
 days they left the country. Scarce three months 
 had passed before they committed murder to 
 obtain money. One was hung, and the other 
 put into solitary confinement for life, but he 
 died in less than a year. 
 
 Beware of all those who trifle with God's 
 holy day. The pilgrim boy did not like the 
 restraints that were thrown around him. On 
 his way to church, he used to see boys fishing 
 along the creek, and wished he could fish too ; 
 but his mother would not let him, and he has 
 often thanked God for it since. Boys who pro- 
 fane the Sabbath, are brought into contact with 
 the vilest characters in the community on that 
 day, and in addition to breaking God's law of 
 the Sabbath, they learn to swear, lie, and steal. 
 In some of our cities, the separation on the Sab- 
 bath reminds one of the separation that will 
 take place at the day of judgment. On other 
 
28 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 days of the week, the good and bad mingle to- 
 gether in business; but on the Sabbath they 
 separate from each other. Keep away from all 
 those who slight this sacred day of rest. They 
 are always vulgar and profane ; and hearing 
 their vile, filthy expressions will taint your 
 whole character. Even if you become a Chris- 
 tian afterwards, their vile sayings will remain 
 in your mind while you live, if they do not 
 escape your lips, and show to the world your 
 early associations. Evil communications cor- 
 rupt good manners. Show me your company, 
 and I will tell you your character, is an old but 
 true maxim. 
 
THE PARTRIDGE-TRAP. 29 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PARTRIDGE-TRAP AND SUNDAY WHIP- 
 P1NG-. 
 
 WHEN the pilgrim boy was about ten years 
 old, he began to think there was no use in fol- 
 lowing so closely the advice of an old woman ; 
 and as his acquaintance began to enlarge, ho 
 saw boys that did not go to church, who fished 
 on Sunday, and trapped partridges. He soon 
 tried to get loose from the old woman's leading- 
 strings, so that he might go with other boys and 
 enjoy their fun ; but he was well aware, from 
 past experience, that it would be no easy mat- 
 ter to escape her piercing black eyes. He some- 
 times thought the birds carried tales to her, for 
 she appeared to know every thing he did, good 
 or bad. 
 
 An opportunity soon offered for him to try 
 his skill in evading her vigilance. One Satur- 
 day in the winter of 1813, the snow fell about 
 six inches deep. In the evening he met a neigh- 
 bor boy of his own age, the son of an irrelig- 
 ious man, who neither regarded the Sabbath 
 
30 THE PILaEIM BOY. 
 
 himself, nor taught his sons to regard it. That 
 boy told him that the next day would be a fine 
 day to trap partridges, that there were a great 
 many of them in a thicket in their field, and 
 asked him to go home and make a trap, and be 
 ready to meet him in the morning as soon as he 
 had eaten his breakfast, and they would have 
 fine fun. He replied that he would like very 
 much to do it, but old mammy would make him 
 go to preaching. The other boy said, "I can 
 tell you how to come over an old woman like 
 her. Tell her you are sick ; don't eat any 
 breakfast, slip to the cupboard, fill your pock- 
 ets, and carry it to the barn, and hide it till 
 you are ready to start, and then eat it." 
 
 The plan seemed to be a good one, and all 
 the arrangements for meeting next morning 
 were made in a few minutes. The pilgrim boy 
 ran home, and was soon at work on his trap. 
 By the time the trap was done, it was near 
 dark, and the old lady was on the way to the 
 barn to milk her cows. As she passed by him, 
 she said, " Well, what are you making so late 
 in the evening?' 7 He told her there were a 
 
 great many partridges in Mr. F 's field, and 
 
 he wanted to catch her some of them. She 
 
THE PARTJUDG-E-THAP. 31 
 
 said, "It is too late to-night, and to-morrow is 
 the Lord's day, and we go to church f and 
 there was a look of her eye that seemed to say, 
 I will watch that trap pretty closely. The pil- 
 grim boy saw there was danger ahead, and to 
 avoid it told his frst lie, by saying he was mak- 
 ing it ready for Monday morning. 
 
 The trap, with all its appendages, was ready 
 by dark ; but that big lie was not done with. 
 He went to bed, but could not sleep for some 
 hours. Oh what feelings he had ! He tried 
 to pray, but could not ; a voice seemed to say, 
 "All liars shall have their portion in the lake 
 that burns with fire and brimstone;" and he 
 could not rest till he promised God and his 
 own conscience he never would tell another 
 lie. In the morning he rose early, thought of 
 the feelings of the past night, said his prayers, 
 and went out as usual. But the beautiful snow 
 and the cry of the bobwhites overcame all the 
 resolutions of the past night, and he soon set 
 about to invent another lie. God had not 
 taken vengeance on him for the one of the pre* 
 vious evening, and he reasoned, that as he had 
 promised the other boy to meet him, he must 
 now tell a lie either to his old mammy or to tho 
 
32 THE PiLG-frlM BOY. 
 
 boy by breaking that promise. His inclination 
 soon settled the question. A lie was a lie, he 
 thought, and he would take the course that 
 would give him the most fun ; so he set about 
 planning another lie to deceive his old mammy, 
 and no doubt Satan aided him. 
 
 The breakfast was soon ready, as there was 
 no cooking done on Sunday. He said he could 
 not eat; that he was sick; he drank a little 
 tea, moaned a good deal, and tried to look 
 pale ; but all the time was scanning closely his 
 old mammy's eyes, which seemed to say, I am 
 not quite sure about your sickness. It was 
 soon time to go to church. He put in his plea 
 of sickness and a hole in his slipe, and finally 
 succeeded in getting leave to stay at home, 
 by promising to read all day, and commit to 
 memory the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm, 
 Rouse's version. 
 
 The other boy soon came along, and gave 
 the signal-whistle to start. The old lady was 
 not gone yet. The pilgrim boy, to. get away 
 safe, took his psalm-book, and said he would go 
 out to the barn and learn his psalm ; but as 
 the other boy was waiting, he left the book in 
 the barn, and pushed on to the thicket with his 
 
THE PARTRIDOE-TRAP. 33 
 
 trap. While in the act of setting the trap, who 
 comes along but his old mammy. As she was 
 a little later than usual, she came across the 
 field to save distance, very unexpectedly to 
 him. She caught a glimpse of her boy ; his 
 name was called aloud. She came to the place, 
 found the trap just set, which she soon demol- 
 ished, broke off a birch limb four or five feet 
 long, took her boy home with her, shut the 
 door, and applied the birch till the red came 
 very freely. He promised very earnestly never 
 to tell another lie, or trap partridges again on 
 Sunday. He was soon washed and dressed, 
 and on the road to church, with a sermon on 
 the terrors of the law, two miles long, preached 
 to him by the way ; and a similar one on the 
 way home, in the presence of some of the good 
 people that went the same road, who fully ap- 
 proved of the whole. 
 
 The pilgrim boy never forgot that 'day's 
 preaching ; it was the best sermon he had ever 
 got ; he not only felt it on his skin, but in his 
 heart. He knew he had not only grieved that 
 mother, but had offended God ; he had told 4 
 one lie to hide another ; and if he had escaped 
 punishment in the commencement of this course 
 
 Pd. Boy. 3 
 
34 THE PILaRIM BOY. 
 
 of falsehood and crime, we know not what 
 might have been his end. 
 
 Thirty years after that time, the pilgrim boy 
 stood by the dying-bed of that good woman, 
 in the same room where the rod had been so 
 effectually applied, and with tears of gratitude 
 thanked her for that very whipping. If he had 
 succeeded in deceiving her by a falsehood that 
 day, the next time he wanted to stay at home, 
 another lie would have been told ; and we have 
 seen how one lie seems to make another neces- 
 sary in order to escape detection, till the heart 
 becomes hardened in sin. and the result is ruin 
 here, and eternal ruin hereafter. 
 
 Avoid lying and Sabbath-breaking. You 
 may deceive your parents, but you cannot de- 
 ceive an omniscient God, or your own con- 
 science. " Be sure your sin will find you out ;" 
 and better for it to find you out, and lead you 
 to repentance here, than to find you out in 
 hell, where there is no repentance. One or 
 the other is certain as the oath and promise of 
 'God can make it. Take warning; avoid the 
 first inclination to falsehood, and a liar's doom. 
 
 In this conduct of the pilgrim boy, he broke 
 three of God's commandments : he broke the 
 
THE PARTRIDGE-TRAP. 35 
 
 ninth by telling lies, the fourth by breaking the 
 Sabbath-day, and by disobedience he broke the 
 fifth : " Honor thy father and mother, that thy 
 days may be long in the land which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee." 
 
 This command of the decalogue stands first 
 in our duties to man. "Write it on the tablet 
 of your heart. It was written by God's own 
 finger on a table of stone on mount Sinai, when 
 the mountain quaked, as if warning of the awful 
 consequences that would follow its violation 
 from a sin-avenging God. Look again at the 
 first word: "Honor" your father and mother, 
 by obeying cheerfully all their commands, ex- 
 cept they command you to disobey God ; not 
 waiting for the command to be repeated not 
 saying, I can't do it, or I don't want to do it, 
 or delaying as long as you can, to avoid pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 Honor your parents, not only by strict obe- 
 dience when in their sight, but by your good 
 conduct when out of their sight. See that boy 
 cursing and fighting in the street. Listen to the 
 people as they pass by, saying, " I wonder what 
 kind of parents that boy has ; they must raise 
 their boys like heathen ; that boy is a candidate 
 
36 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 for the penitentiary." Sucli a boy is bringing 
 dishonor on his parents and disgrace on him- 
 self. Especially are the faults of the children 
 of pious parents taken notice of, as more is ex- 
 pected from them. When out of sight of their 
 parents, lest they should be thought religious 
 and be laughed at by wicked boys, they are 
 tempted to say and do many things for which 
 their own conscience bitterly accuses them, and 
 for which they intend to repent in the future. 
 It is an awful truth, that some boys, however 
 well trained, if they are unconverted, feel more 
 ashamed to be seen praying, than to be heard 
 cursing or lying in the presence of the wicked. 
 Let the sons of pious men keep it in mind, that 
 they are the representatives of their parents 
 when out of their sight. The good moral char- 
 acter of the son shows that he has respectable 
 parents, and thus his parents are honored. 
 
 Honor your parents by submitting to their 
 judgment, even when you think they may be 
 wrong. Their experience has taught them 
 many things of which you are still ignorant. 
 When the pilgrim boy was very small, he would* 
 listen for hours to old people talking, that he 
 might have the benefit of their experience. So 
 
THE PARTRIDGE-TRAP. 37 
 
 all that you learn from your parents is so much 
 practical capital for you to begin with. I do 
 not mean by this that, because your father 
 always rode on horseback, you should never 
 enter a railroad car ; or that if he was an un- 
 believer, you should be one too. But I mean, 
 that you should give due respect to all the opin- 
 ions of your parents. 
 
 But there is a large class of boys in every 
 community whose fathers are in their graves, 
 and a widowed mother has the responsibility 
 of their training. Do you obey the commands 
 of that mother ; or is she weeping and mourning 
 over your disobedience? Have you begun to 
 think you are too large to be directed by that 
 mother; that it is unmanly to be led by her, 
 and time for you to set up for yourself? If 
 you have any such feelings, banish them as you 
 would the thought of murder : they will lead 
 you to slight all her maternal counsels, and 
 mourn in sorrow over your disregard of her. 
 How painful the thought of a self-willed boy, 
 refusing to be controlled by that kind mother 
 who watched over his infant days, soothed 
 him in his little sorrows, and taught his infant 
 lips to pray. What a vile wretch such a boy 
 
38 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 is. Wonderful forbearance of God to let him 
 live! 
 
 I have seen such boys in the prison, and be- 
 fore the criminal court, and in the solitary cell. 
 Could we expect any thing else of a boy that 
 would not obey his mother? Could we expect 
 him to obey the laws of the land ? No ; the 
 will that is too stubborn to yield to the en- 
 treaties of a tender mother, will soon trample 
 on the laws of the land, and all legal enact- 
 ments. It has been a peculiarity of all great 
 men, that they revered their mothers. The 
 Saviour in his dying agony said to one of his 
 disciples, " Behold thy mother." Read the lives 
 of the best men that ever lived, and see if you 
 can find one that slighted the advice of his 
 mother. Look at the father of our country, 
 the immortal Washington, and Bonaparte the 
 hero, and hosts of others. They were not too 
 wise to be controlled by a mother. 
 
 Or are you, like the pilgrim boy, an orphan, 
 without father or mother, and taken care of by 
 those who act the part of a father or mother to 
 you? If so, you are bound to obey them with 
 the same fidelity as if they were your own par- 
 ents. In some respects, the obligation is even 
 
THE PARTRIDGE. TRAP. 39 
 
 greater. Your parents, while living, were 
 bound to take care of you ; but if you are an 
 orphan boy, without any property, and friends 
 are taking care of you upon whom you have no 
 claims beyond those of mere humanity, an in- 
 creased obligation rests on you to obey them. 
 The law of God requires it, and promises the 
 same rewards or punishments. 
 
 But how often do we see some poor penni- 
 less boy, taken home by some uncle, or aunt, 
 fed, clothed, and sent to school, breaking away 
 from their necessary restraints, and setting up 
 for himself; associating with wicked boys; 
 going to the grog-shop and card-table first, and 
 soon after wallowing in the gutter. 
 
 Not long since, a ragged, dirty-looking boy 
 called on a man in the state of Missouri to get 
 work, who asked him if he had parents living 
 to take care of him. The boy said, " No ;" but 
 he had been living with an uncle for some time, 
 who would not let him do as he wished, and he 
 had left him. The man advised him to go 
 back, but in vain. The next morning, Sunday, 
 the man saw him in a fight with another boy, 
 and separated them ; but though he was the 
 aggressor, he swore vengeance on the other 
 
40 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 boy if he ever met him again. He went to the 
 river near by, and persuaded boys to go in with 
 him to bathe ; he waded out into the current, 
 and sunk to rise no more. He would not be 
 controlled by an uncle; he did as he pleased. 
 
 Some disobedient boys have lived to be old, 
 but their old age has generally been unhappy. 
 When I was a little boy, I heard people often 
 tell of a man whom I knew well, that dragged 
 his old gray-headed decrepit father out of the 
 house by the hair of his head, kicking him as 
 he went. His sons have often kicked him since, 
 and he has become an outcast, despised by all 
 that knew him. To dishonor your parents and 
 those who have the care of you, is a sin which 
 God will not let go unpunished. You may live 
 to receive your pay back with interest from 
 your own children. The pay will be sure some 
 day. 
 
 Under the law of Moses, the disobedient son 
 was to be stoned to death in the presence of the 
 whole congregation, as a warning to other boys. 
 There was no escape from the penalty, or ex- 
 ceptions to the divine rule, under the Jewish 
 law ; and the Bible is full of curses against all 
 disobedient children. Read that awful decla- 
 
THE PARTRIDGE-TRAP. 41 
 
 ration in Prov. 30 : 17, " The eye that mocketh 
 at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, 
 the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out, and 
 the young eagles shall eat it." In Rom. 1 : 30, 
 they are classed with " backbiters and haters of 
 God." In 2 Tim. 3 : 2, they are classed with 
 proud blasphemers and unholy men. Such is 
 the character of disobedient children, given in 
 God's word, and the punishment to be inflicted. 
 Do you desire the favor of God and long 
 life? Obey your parents. Do you desire to 
 escape his judgments in this life, and his wrath 
 in the life to come ? Obey your parents. Do 
 you desire the favor and respect of all good 
 men in this world? Then obey your parents, 
 or those who have the responsibility of your 
 training, and save yourself disgrace here, or an 
 untimely end, with eternal banishment from 
 God's presence hereafter. 
 
42 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SECOND FALSEHOOD-FISHING TO GET 
 CLEAR OF WORK. 
 
 IT might naturally be supposed that what the 
 pilgrim boy had suffered, with the good instruc- 
 tion he had received, would have cured him of 
 lying. But no ; he had a desperately wicked 
 heart ; he loved the father of lies more than he 
 loved God, and all he cared for was to gratify 
 his evil desires. 
 
 At ten years old, he had to leave school and 
 commence hard labor, of which he was not very 
 fond at that time. When the season came for 
 planting corn, he was set to drop the seed in 
 the furrows. It was easy work, and he was 
 quite delighted witli it the iirst day. In the 
 evening, on his way home from the field, he 
 met the same boy who led him to break the 
 Sabbath and tell his first lie. That boy now 
 proposed that they should go a fishing the next 
 day. The pilgrim boy was anxious to go, but 
 there was corn to plant, and he did not see how 
 he could get off from his work. At last, by 
 
THE SECOND FALSEHOOD. 43 
 
 the aid of the other boy, a plan was laid. It 
 was this. The measles were prevailing in the 
 neighborhood, and he was to feign himself sick 
 with that disease, and after all hands were 
 gone out to their work, slip off to the creek 
 with his hook and line. All the plans were 
 laid to the best possible advantage for the day's 
 fishing. After he went to bed, the partridge- 
 trap came to his mind, and made him quite un- 
 easy ; but as it was not the Sabbath, he thought 
 he could escape, and it would not do to break 
 his promise with the boy. 
 
 When breakfast was ready, he said he was 
 sick, and could not eat ; that he had met a boy 
 who had the measles, and had caught them. 
 The old lady, who was one of the main doctors 
 of the neighborhood, said she could soon de- 
 cide that matter. She entered into a strict 
 examination of all his symptoms, and pronounc- 
 ed it all a fabrication to get clear of work, and 
 said she could soon cure him with a good hick- 
 ory. She took him in hand at once, and in less 
 than five minutes the symptoms were all gone, 
 except a redness of the skin occasioned by the 
 rod, and he was on his way to the corn-field to 
 work without any breakfast. This cured the 
 
44 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 pilgrim boy of lying. Among all the sins he 
 ever committed, none ever gave him so much 
 distress as that one, especially from the fact that 
 he was reminded of it almost every day by those 
 who saw him whipped and heard him tell the 
 lie. It led him to resolve never to tell any more 
 lies, and it brought into his soul the first real 
 convictions for sin he ever felt. He became so 
 alarmed in consequence of it, that he was afraid 
 to be alone at night, lest the devil should come 
 and carry him off alive. 
 
 You may not often have told such glaring 
 falsehoods as this boy did ; but have you not 
 dissembled to hide your faults? When asked 
 where you have been, and whom you have been 
 in company with, have you not practised de- 
 ception by holding back part of the truth? 
 Ananias and Sapphira his wife only withheld 
 part of the truth ; but they were smitten of 
 God, and died instantly, as a warning to all 
 liars. There is no sin that grows more rapidly 
 than this. If you tell a lie to-day, and gain 
 some indulgence by it, and escape punishment, 
 you will tell another to-morrow much easier, 
 and in a short time the habit will become so 
 strong that you can hardly speak the truth. 
 
THE SECOND FALSEHOOD. 45 
 
 Of all mean characters, none are more justly 
 despised than liars. The thief may take your 
 property, but the liar will rob you of your 
 character, and keep a whole community dis- 
 turbed. Lying will bring disgrace on your 
 parents, your brothers and sisters, and ruin 
 your own soul, if persisted in. Beware, then, 
 of the first lie ; always tell the truth, let it cost 
 you what it may. 
 
 Remember George Washington when he was 
 a little boy. His father had bought him a new 
 hatchet, and the next morning he cut down a 
 beautiful pear-tree his father very highly valued. 
 No one saw him do it, and it might readily be 
 supposed some of the servants did it. His 
 father was very much displeased, and called all 
 up to inquire who was guilty, and George re- 
 plied, "Father, I did it." The fault was cheer- 
 fully forgiven, and the father embraced his son 
 with a joyful heart. How many boys there are 
 who would have denied it, and laid the blame 
 on some one else, making the crime a two-fold 
 one. It grieves parents and friends much to 
 know that their boys do wrong ; but to know 
 that they do wrong, and then tell lies about it, 
 grieves them ten times more. 
 
46 THE PILG-E1M BOY. 
 
 Now, my dear boy, if you have been in the 
 habit of telling lies, when you read this, resolve 
 you will never tell another ; break off at once 
 from a habit that leads to disgrace, and makes 
 you a companion of the devil, who was a liar 
 from the beginning. Some boys get into the 
 habit of lying by relating every thing they see 
 and hear with some addition to it, making a 
 wonderful tale out of some trifle. They think 
 it makes them big to relate some strange thing, 
 and brings them into notice. Beware, then, of 
 boasting or exaggerating ; it will lead you to 
 downright lying. When you have told a lie, 
 and come to reflect about it, has it not given 
 you great distress? The pilgrim boy could not 
 sleep after his lies ; and 1 have known many a 
 boy that was afraid to lie down at night, after 
 telling lies. 
 
 The pain and shame of lying overbalances 
 all the pleasure any one can derive from it. 
 By contracting such a habit, you will get to 
 hate yourself. You will be carrying in your 
 bosom, while on earth, the worm that never 
 dies. You will be always dreading detection 
 and fearing exposure. You will gradually be- 
 come ashamed to look any one in the face, as 
 
THE SECOND FALSEHOOD. 47 
 
 no confirmed liar has a frank, open counte- 
 nance, but is down-looking. Let your motto 
 be, truth under all circumstances. Then you 
 can hold up your head like a man. Men of 
 truth may be respected, though they may have . 
 many other failings, but a liar never. 
 
48 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DEATH OF THE MAN WITH WHOM HE LIVED. 
 
 ABOUT this time a trying circumstance oc- 
 curred to the pilgrim boy. It was the death 
 of the old man with whom he lived, about 
 whom nothing has yet been said. He was a 
 very wicked man, and professed to be a deist, 
 but always said he would educate the pilgrim 
 boy for a preacher, arid at his death give him 
 half his estate, which was considerable. The 
 old man's custom was to rise early, and eat a 
 lunch as soon as he was dressed. One morn- 
 ing he rose before his usual time, and called 
 for some bread and meat. The pilgrim boy 
 was directed to bring it to him. He took one 
 mouthful, and fell dead without moving a mus- 
 cle. There was no one present but this boy. 
 It was the first death he had ever witnessed, 
 and it alarmed him terribly to see a wicked, pro- 
 fane man cut down in a moment. The old man 
 had wished himself in hell but a few minutes 
 before, in a fit of passion, and he seemed to be 
 
DEATH OF HIS PATRON. 49 
 
 taken at his word. This increased the alarm 
 of the boy, who cried at the top of his voice to 
 his wife, who was out of the house at the time. 
 In a moment she was at the side of her dead 
 husband, and closed his sightless eyes with her 
 own hands, and with the help of the boy laid 
 his dead body on the bed, before she warned 
 the neighbors. 
 
 This unexpected death blasted the hopes of 
 the pilgrim boy, both as to wealth and educa- 
 tion. The old man died without a will such 
 as he intended to make. He had made one 
 before he took this boy ; but he could neither 
 read nor write, and thought it was destroyed. 
 After his death it came to light, and gave his 
 estate to a distant relation. The boy now saw 
 no hope of rising in the world, except by his 
 own industry. He still lived with the old 
 lady, but had to stop going to school, and work 
 hard for his living. He was set to ploughing 
 before he was eleven years old. His lot seem- 
 ed to be a hard one. It led him to pray to 
 God for direction, and read his word for a 
 while ; and to others he seemed to be a relig- 
 ious boy. 
 
 At this time he felt a great desire to become 
 
 Pil Boy. 4 
 
50 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 a preacher, and tried many ways to satisfy him- 
 self whether he was a Christian. Sometimes 
 he would go away into the woods alone, and 
 ask God to speak to him in an audible voice, 
 and tell him whether he would be saved or lost. 
 Sometimes he would quit praying, lest, if he 
 should be lost, it should increase his misery. 
 At other times he would conclude to pray OD, 
 and do all he could, that if he should be sent 
 to hell, his sufferings might be less. He con- 
 tinued in this state of mind for nearly three 
 years, sometimes, deeply impressed about his 
 eoul, at other times careless. For a week or 
 two he would pray night and morning, often 
 for a long time, to make up for his neglect at 
 other times. During this period he read all 
 the books he could get, although he had no 
 time except in stormy weather, and at night 
 by fire-light. But with these very limited op' 
 portunities, before he was fifteen he had read 
 through a good circulating library that was 
 kept in the neighborhood, and had acquired 
 more general information than most boys in 
 the community where he lived. 
 
 But a still greater trial came on him before 
 lie was thirteen years old. A fearful epidemic 
 
DEATH OF HIS PATRON. 51 
 
 broke out in that part of the country, and his 
 own kind mother, who had married again, and 
 lived six miles from him, was one of the first 
 victims of it. He heard of her sickness but a 
 few hours before her death ; and so great was 
 the panic, he was not allowed to see her, or 
 even attend her funeral, except to look on at 
 a distance. When the funeral services were 
 over, he went into the woods alone, and rolled 
 on the ground in agony. No tongue could 
 express the deep sorrows of that boy's heart, 
 as he beheld the funeral procession move slowly 
 along to the last resting-place of the dead. He 
 was truly an orphan, without father or mother, 
 cast on the charities of a cold world, with no 
 property to depend on ; and worse than all, he 
 was an enemy to God. He prayed, and prayed 
 again ; night and morning his agonizing cry 
 went up to God, besides many times through 
 the day. Still his way was dark, and he felt 
 as if God was dealing hard by him, as all unre- 
 newed hearts feel when God afflicts them. He 
 felt that God was angry with him ; and in or- 
 der to please him, he read and prayed more. 
 While other boys were at their play, he was at 
 his books* On Sabbath he was always at 
 
53 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 church when there was preaching, and con- 
 stantly at the monthly examinations, and could 
 repeat several catechisms throughout. But 
 with all, he was an enemy to God ; he served 
 him through fear, and not from love. 
 
 But God's providences are often v^ery myste- 
 rious, and the greatest blessings we receive, 
 come in the shape of disappointment. Many 
 men who are now of no use to church or state, 
 had they been left to struggle in poverty in 
 boyhood, and been thrown upon their own re- 
 sources, might now have been filling high posi- 
 tions. The wealth of their parents proved 
 their ruin. " Come easy, go easy," is an old 
 proverb, and generally true ; and when their 
 property is gone, having no character, they 
 have nothing left. The poor boy depends on 
 his own energy, and by it, with God's blessing, 
 builds up his own fortune and character. The 
 death of the pilgrim boy's earthly benefactor 
 was doubtless the means of developing in him 
 a more noble character, and of drawing him 
 from trusting in man, to rely more on God. 
 The death of a praying mother must be regarded 
 as a great calamity, and we have to leave it 
 among the unexplained mysteries of God's 
 
DEATH OF HIS PATRON. 53 
 
 providence in this life. In eternity it will be 
 doubtless explained to our entire satisfaction. 
 
 This boy had been taught to call on God in 
 the day of trouble, arid when it came, he resort- 
 ed to prayer for relief. Have you been taught, 
 my dear boy, to pray, and do you still continue 
 this habit ; or are you beginning to forget, or 
 wilfully neglect it? If you neglected it last 
 night, it will be easier to omit it to-night, and 
 thus in a short time you will be a prayerless 
 boy ; you will lie down at night and rise in 
 the morning like a poor dumb brute, and live 
 as if there was no God. A little boy living 
 without prayer, is like a boat in the midst 
 of the mighty ocean without a rudder or pilot, 
 tossing before the furious waves, soon to sink 
 and rise no more. Beware of the first neglect 
 of prayer. 
 
 The prayer of the poor publican was among 
 the best prayers ever offered : " God be merci- 
 ful to me a sinner." He felt what he said, and 
 God answered him in mercy. And you must 
 look to God to make you feel that you are a 
 sinner, for before you feel this you will never 
 pray aright. But you must not make it an 
 excuse to neglect the duty because you cannot 
 
54 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 pray aright, for praying will make you quit 
 sinning, or sinning will make you quit praying. 
 The pilgrim boy often prayed while he was in 
 trouble very earnestly ; and so do many other 
 boys ; but as soon as the trouble is past, they 
 forget to pray till some new danger threatens 
 them. This shows that they have no real love 
 to God in their hearts, and without the heart 
 prayer cannot be acceptable to God. 
 
HE BECOMES PROFANE. 55 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PILGRIM BOY BECOMES PROFANE, AND 
 LEARNS TO CHEW TOBACCO. 
 
 IN the last chapter, we traced his history 
 through severe afflictions, which seemed for a 
 time to be sanctified to his good. He had be- 
 come prayerful, and even, hoped at times that 
 he was a Christian. But alas, he knew not his 
 own wicked heart. Being large of his age, 
 and making close application to reading and 
 study, he was said to be the smartest boy in 
 the neighborhood. Ho soon began to think so 
 himself, and became puffed up with pride, step- 
 ped out of his place, and spoke when he should 
 have held his tongue. Young men began to 
 associate with him, and even to look up to him 
 as a leader ; many of them were very profane, 
 and had no fear of God before them. 
 
 The pilgrim boy foolishly thought that if 
 he could swear and chew tobacco, he should 
 be a full-grown man, and fit for all classes of 
 society. He soon began, when in the company 
 of the profane, to imitate them. At first he 
 
56 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 swore so awkwardly that he was laughed at by 
 those who had long been addicted to this vul- 
 gar, God-insulting vice. Yet, when he was 
 alone, especially at night, he would be afraid 
 to lie down in a dark room, lest God should 
 cut him off, and send him to hell. He would 
 then try to pray, and promise God he would 
 swear no more ; but when he would meet his 
 profane companions, all his promises were for- 
 gotten, and he would even venture a little far- 
 ther, till by degrees conscience became almost 
 stifled, and he could outs wear most of his teach- 
 ers ; but he kept it secret from the mother who 
 had adopted him, and from religious people. 
 
 By the time he had learned to swear pretty 
 scientifically, he had also learned to chew to- 
 bacco. All this was accomplished in one win- 
 ter. He was so far schooled in these vices 
 by the spring he was fifteen and a half years 
 old, that he was fit for a ringleader ; and he 
 stepped out of his boy's clothes, booted and 
 spurred, as a companion of young men and 
 women. How different the prospects of the 
 pilgrim boy, to the mind of every reflecting 
 man, now from what they were at the close of 
 the last chapter. He began to be pointed at 
 
HE BECOMES PROFANE. 57 
 
 by wicked men as one of the boys who was 
 raised so strictly, and the Christian character 
 of his good old mother was made to suffer by 
 his wickedness. But was he happy ? No ; he 
 was at times the most miserable boy in the 
 community. While he appeared to enjoy his 
 wickedness, conscience would sting him like a 
 scorpion, and his agony at times was almost 
 insupportable. 
 
 Are you a boy that has had no religious 
 training? Do not judge the inward feelings 
 of those boys that have by their outward con- 
 duct. The seeds of truth sown by parental 
 culture, and watered by prayer, often occasion 
 them bitter sorrow for their sins when you 
 know nothing of it. The Spirit of God rouses 
 them to think of death, judgment, and eternity, 
 and echoes back on them the prayers of pious 
 parents, dead or alive. One hour of their bit- 
 ter sorrow outweighs all the sinful pleasures 
 they had in profaning God's name in your 
 company. I know that wicked boys are glad 
 when they can get the sons of pious parents to 
 join them in their wickedness. But what ben- 
 efit can you derive from their sins ? Will it 
 save your character from disgrace in the sight 
 
58 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 of good men ? Will it save you from the death 
 that never dies? No, my dear boy, it will be 
 no relief to you if you die in your sins. You 
 have to stand before God as if there was no 
 other being on earth but yourself. 
 
 It is also true, that the influence you have 
 exerted on others will have much to do with 
 your final account. That oath you swore has 
 been learned and repeated by some other boy, 
 and he has repeated it to others, and its con- 
 sequences will run on for ever. It is a fearful 
 thing to teach bad habits to others; it will 
 plant thorns in your dying pillow, and add fuel 
 to the fire that never dies. I knew a boy who 
 learned the habit of profane swearing from his 
 father. I lived near him, and often reproved 
 him for his awful profanity. He threatened 
 me with vengeance when he should become a 
 man, because I would not let a nephew of mine 
 associate with him. As he increased in years 
 he became more and more profane, till none 
 but vicious persons would be seen in his com- 
 pany. At the age of twenty, he brought on 
 himself a sickness which ended his days. He 
 had a pious mother, who saw with sorrow her 
 reprobate son declining rapidly. She proposed 
 
HE BECOMES PROFANE. 59. 
 
 to send for some one to pray for him. He 
 broke out with oaths and blasphemies ; told her 
 he should soon be in hell, that he felt the fire 
 that would never be quenched. He then turned 
 to his father, cursed him to his face for neglect- 
 ing to teach him to fear God, and for his pro- 
 fane example. He lingered a few days in awful 
 agony, often wringing his hands and gnashing 
 his teeth, cursing God and every thing around 
 him. At his dying-hour the scene was so awful 
 that one after another left the room, till even 
 his own mother fled from his dying-bed, while 
 he was crying, " mother, take away these 
 devils ; they are dragging me down to hell. 
 mother, save me ;" but he was left to die alone. 
 We could hear his blasphemies outside of the 
 house till his breathing ceased. The house 
 seemed to be surrounded by evil spirits ; every 
 face was pale, and every nerve unstrung, of all 
 that were within hearing. Many years have 
 passed since this sad occurrence, and most of 
 those then present are in their graves ; but my 
 heart still sickens while calling up the impres- 
 sions of that awful scene. 
 
 Do any boys who read this take God's name 
 in vain? If you do, he says he will not hold 
 
60 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 you guiltless. You must abandon such a dis- 
 graceful habit, so provoking to God, and hate- 
 ful in the sight of all good people. If any sight 
 on earth can make angels weep, I think it is 
 that of a boy strutting through the streets with 
 a segar in his mouth, belching forth vulgar 
 oaths, insulting the God who made him, and 
 treating the law written with his own finger 
 with contempt. Such a habit will be the cause 
 of deep and bitter repentance, and may cling 
 to you in future years, to your shame, and to 
 your final condemnation. 
 
 Did you ever think that every oath you utter 
 is a prayer to God to damn you ? Suppose he 
 should take you at your word, and answer your 
 prayer, how awful it would be in hell, to think 
 for ever that you received just what you prayed 
 for. Beware, then, of this sin. It was the 
 cause of much sorrow to the pilgrim boy. He 
 found by painful experience, that it was much 
 harder to abandon the practice than to contract 
 it ; and so will all that have ever learned to 
 take God's name in vain. 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. 61 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE NEXT STEP IN VICE CARD PLAYING-. 
 
 THE pilgrim boy having learned to swear 
 and chew tobacco, soon found there were other 
 accomplishments important in his estimation to 
 fit him for the enjoyment of life. About this 
 time a celebrated gambler came into the neigh- 
 borhood, with the first pack of cards this boy 
 had ever seen ; he soon began, with a few other 
 boys and young men, to take lessons in this 
 new science. He applied himself with unceas- 
 ing energy for six months, during which time 
 he made extraordinary progress, and felt him- 
 self fully equipped for all classes of society, 
 except in the want of money. To appear to 
 advantage among some of his companions, and 
 to engage in gambling, required a little means, 
 while all the money he had in the world was 
 one French crown worth a dollar and ten 
 cents which he had received for partridges he 
 had caught and sold. 
 
 Though these gambling operations had been 
 carried on with the utmost secrecy, sometimes 
 
62 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 in the barn, at other times in the woods, and in 
 the spring of the year at the sugar camps, yet 
 the news was carried to the ears of his old 
 mother. For a time a strict watch was kept 
 over him, and the number of psalms he had to 
 commit doubled, to prevent his having time to 
 spare for this new science. Her plan was to 
 fill the mind with God's truth, believing it 
 would ultimately cast out the evil of the heart, 
 through the operations of his Spirit. For some 
 months this process went on, but the inward 
 struggle was a very severe one; the force of 
 truth coming in contact with the inclinations of 
 an tmrenewed heart, often made him feel life a 
 burden, and destroyed every enjoyment. 
 
 Up to this period, the pilgrim boy was com- 
 pelled to attend church and all the catechetical 
 examinations regularly, besides daily fireside 
 lectures, which resembled very much the warn- 
 ing that Nathan gave David, " Thou art the 
 man." 
 
 How different the training of boys, in most 
 cases now. Some parents will go to church 
 and leave their sons behind ; and if children go 
 to Sunday-school, they too often, as soon as it 
 is over, seek their amusements. As to learn- 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. 63 
 
 ing the catechism, that is behind the age ; and 
 very few ministers are so old-fashioned as to 
 hold monthly examinations and expose parents 
 by their children's ignorance of Bible doctrines! 
 To send children to a schoolmaster who pos- 
 sessed authority to make them learn the Bible 
 and catechism, or be punished with the rod, 
 would be viewed as a relic of the dark ages. 
 In too many cases, teachers dare not, and par- 
 ents will not control their sons, and thus they 
 grow up without the fear of God or man. 
 From this unrestrained, untaught class of boys 
 the prison and gallows get their victims, and 
 parents their broken hearts. 
 
 Dear reader, are you the son of a wealthy 
 man, and do you receive money to gratify your 
 desires? Have you contracted the habit of 
 gambling, attending the circus and theatre? as 
 we may justly class all these together. If so f 
 you have taken the first downward step, filled 
 your mind with false ideas of life, and are on 
 the road to ruin. Few that have contracted 
 such habits, ever become pious; they grow up 
 proud and haughty, despising the poor who toil 
 for their living. But remember, you are made 
 of the same clay, and descended from the same 
 
64 THE PJLaRIM BOY. 
 
 parents originally. It was God's will, and not 
 your own power, that made the difference. But 
 your father's wealth is no security for the per- 
 manency of years, and in thousands of cases 
 while it lasts it opens the way to a class of 
 vices of the most dangerous character. 
 
 Go and ask the aged how many of the sons 
 of the wealthy whom they knew in early life, are 
 now rich old men. They will tell you not one 
 of them out of ten is alive, and less than even 
 that proportion of them that do live, are rich ; 
 many of them are in deep poverty. They grew 
 up in idleness as you are doing now, and when 
 their money was gone, they were too idle, or 
 their constitutions too much broken down, to 
 work, and they are now the poorest of the poor. 
 Suppose you were to start in company with a 
 poor but industrious boy, to seek a situation as 
 a clerk, or to occupy some important place of 
 trust. No doubt you think your position as 
 the son of a wealthy man would give you a de* 
 cided advantage over him in getting a place. 
 In this you probably would be very much mista- 
 ken ; he would get ten to employ him before you 
 would find one, and be entrusted with the keys 
 of his employer's desk when you would not. 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. 65 
 
 Two boys called one morning on a merchant 
 who wanted some one to collect bills. The 
 first one was finely dressed, with a nice cane in 
 his hand, a cigar in his mouth, and a letter of 
 high commendation from his mother. The 
 merchant eyed him closely and declined to 
 employ him, as he saw something like a pack 
 of cards in his pocket. In a short time another 
 boy, bareheaded and barefooted, stood before 
 the same merchant, and asked him if he did 
 not want a boy. He replied that he did. The 
 boy's eye sparkled at the reply. But said the 
 merchant, "I want a recommendation." The 
 poor boy had not thought of that. In a mo- 
 ment the tear stood in his eye. He said, "My 
 poor mother is sick, and I want something to 
 do to earn her bread." The merchant was 
 moved with the boy's tale, and said, " Can you 
 not get some one who knows you to testify to 
 your character?" The boy pulled out of his 
 pocket a well worn Testament; on the title 
 page was written, 4: Given as a reward of merit 
 to a good boy, by his Sunday-school teacher." 
 He was employed at once, and is now a rich 
 merchant. 
 
 The writer has conversed with many business 
 
 Pi!. Bof . 5 
 
66 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 men of experience on this point, who say that 
 more than half the boys of wealth became dis- 
 honest, and leave in disgrace. The reason is, 
 they have contracted habits of gambling, by 
 which they squander their money ; and to keep 
 up a supply, resort to their employer's desk for 
 more, with the hope of winning back their 
 losses. Failing to do this, their dishonesty is 
 soon detected. No doubt they intended, when 
 the first was taken, to return it ; and in this 
 way relieved their conscience by calling it a 
 short loan, to be paid as soon as the wheel of 
 fortune would favor them, or supplies came in 
 from home. In the mean time, the gratifica- 
 tion of other desires has absorbed all they hon- 
 estly received, and the drawer not being able to 
 speak and claim its own like other creditors, is 
 left unpaid till its gaunt appearance awakens 
 the employer's suspicions, and the boy is sent 
 home in disgrace, to lounge in idleness and 
 squander his intended patrimony. 
 
 Among all the vices to which human nature 
 is addicted, perhaps no one is so certain to 
 bring ruin for both time and eternity as this, 
 and no one so fascinating. When a youth is 
 once within the sweep of this mighty whirlpool, 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. . 67 
 
 every day gives new impetus to his downward 
 course, and an escape is almost miraculous. 
 Indeed, nothing but the grace of God will save 
 him. Nothing is more dreaded by business 
 men than to have in their employ boys or young 
 men addicted to this vice, and if known, no 
 gambling youth would be employed in any 
 place of trust. Card-playing, like the locomo- 
 tive, draws a long train after it theft, drunk- 
 enness, licentiousness, highway robbery, mur- 
 der, the prison, and the gallows; and it gene- 
 rally does its work in a short time. 
 
 Let us trace the process. See some fine look- 
 ing boys standing round looking at others play- 
 ing cards, it may be for amusement ; it looks to 
 them like a pleasant one. The next evening 
 they meet, and propose to try the cards ; they 
 take their first lesson. In a short time they 
 become initiated into the art ; they begin to 
 play for an orange or an apple at first ; some 
 one gains it ; this encourages him to risk more 
 at the next meeting, and the others try to win 
 back their losses. Their feelings have now 
 become excited ; their little pieces of pocket- 
 money are now staked ; the gainer becomes 
 elated the loser hopes for better success next 
 
68 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 time, and perhaps stakes all he has. The next 
 evening he wants more money ; a lie must be 
 told to his father or mother to get it: or, if he 
 is a clerk, he borrows it out of the drawer, in- 
 tending to pay it next day ; but alas, the wheel 
 of fortune has turned the wrong way that is 
 gone too. Another lie must be told at home, 
 or another loan from the drawer follows, till 
 supplies are stopped at home and the loans 
 from the drawer are detected, and the youth is 
 expelled from the establishment. 
 
 He now begins to cast about how to get sup- 
 plies, in the hope he may retrieve his bad luck. 
 He resolves to enter a store by the back way. 
 The money is soon obtained, and in one night 
 gone. Another draft is needed, and this pro- 
 cess renewed again and again. At last it be- 
 comes known that some man has a large amount 
 of money in his house. At the midnight hour 
 the gambler enters, armed to the teeth ; in a 
 few moments the unsuspecting family are wel- 
 tering in their blood, and their money is gone. 
 Next day the whole community are shocked at 
 the sad intelligence, but no clue as yet to the 
 murderer. He has gone to the card-table, or 
 faro-bank. The large amount of money in his 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. 69 
 
 possession awakens suspicion ; tlio matter is 
 hinted at quietly. Mr. A comes to Mr. B and 
 buys a bill of goods, hands him a twenty-dollar 
 note. " Who did you get that note from, Mr. 
 B? Mr. C, who was murdered, got that note 
 from me last week ; I put my name on it, as I 
 had never seen one like it on that bank. 77 Mr. 
 B got it from Mr. D, and thus it is traced back 
 to the murderer. He is arrested. All the 
 circumstances are clear ; a jury of his country 
 condemn him to death. In a few weeks he 
 ascends the scaffold, and is launched into eter- 
 nity. Perhaps he has a father and mother who 
 have spent all they had to save his life, but in 
 vain. They sink in sorrow to the grave ; other 
 friends blush to hear his name. My dear boys, 
 this is no fancy sketch, but the statement of a 
 fact known to the writer. 
 
 You have seen, from the history of the pil- 
 grim boy, the narrow escape he made from ruin 
 by this vice ; and as far as we can see, nothing 
 but the want of money saved him. The mania 
 for gambling had got such complete control of 
 him, that he often sat up all night and played 
 till he lost all his tobacco ; and if he had had 
 any money, or could have obtained it, he would 
 
70 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 have spent it too. Let me entreat you to shun 
 cards as you would a scorpion ; touch not the 
 deadly torpedos, or they will produce a moral 
 paralysis that will deaden the soul to every 
 virtuous emotion, harden the heart to every 
 other vice, and blot out every hope of heaven. 
 Very recently the writer was sitting alone in 
 a dark room, when it was entered by six men, 
 all intoxicated, noted gamblers, when the fol- 
 lowing conversation took place among them. 
 " Well, Jack, how much do you make and lose 
 each year?" "Last year a little over $5,000." 
 "Bob, how much do you handle annually?" 
 "Why, for the last five years, over $40,000 a 
 year, and I am often without one cent ; and I 
 tell you, boys, I have been at it fifteen years, 
 and yet am not worth one dollar in the world 
 to-night ; and during the whole time I have not 
 seen one day of happiness. I might as well be 
 in hell, and I care not how soon I die." This 
 led to a general expression of their feelings ; 
 all spoke of their misery : their property gone, 
 nothing to depend on but the uncertainties of 
 the card-table and faro-banks, and half of them 
 with families to support. Any vice continued 
 in will bring ruin, but none more certainly than 
 
NEXT STEP IN VICE. 71 
 
 this, for it brings all others in the train with it. 
 " Go not in the way of transgressors ;" " abstain 
 from all appearance of evil," is the advice of 
 the God that made you, and of the Son of God 
 who died to redeem you. May God add his 
 blessing, and save the reader from this soul- 
 destroying vice. 
 
72 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 UNIVERSALISM BAD BOOKS. 
 
 WE have now traced the pilgrim boy as he 
 advanced step by step, and we find conscience, 
 God's vicegerent, is still at work, and the 
 struggle severe. Often, when alone, he would 
 weep and pray, resolve to break off sin and 
 turn to God ; but in a few hours more, he would 
 wish he had never seen a Bible, or that those 
 portions of it that condemn his sins had been 
 left out. At other times, he would try to per- 
 suade himself that the Bible was not true. In 
 this, Satan was always ready to suggest doubts 
 and difficulties ; he thought more about Melchis- 
 edek and the witch of Endor than about Jesus 
 Christ. Up to this time he had never met any 
 one that denied the great evangelical truths of 
 Christianity, nor had he read any books on re- 
 ligious subjects but such as taught those truths. 
 
 About this time he met an old schoolmate, 
 some years older than himself, who had recently 
 married into a Universalist family, and was 
 
UNIYERSALISM AND BAD BOOKS. 73 
 
 full of zeal for this new faith. He soon advanc- 
 ed his sentiments, the same that Satan preached 
 in Eden, but new to the pilgrim boy, who lis- 
 tened with deep interest while his friend ex- 
 plained this new religion. His conscience 
 could not assent to it, although he wished it 
 might be true, as it would suit him exactly. 
 He felt the want of some kind of religion, and 
 one that would allow him to sin as much as he 
 pleased would just suit him, if it were only true. 
 They continued a warm discussion, the pilgrim 
 boy bringing up all the scriptures he could to 
 prove the eternal punishment of the wicked, 
 and the other explaining them away. All the 
 time the boy felt a strong desire that his friend 
 should remove all doubt from his mind, and 
 even looked forward with a delightful antici- 
 pation to the commission of sins he had always 
 shrunk from before, provided he could be con- 
 vinced the doctrine was true. 
 
 His friend finally proposed to lend him a 
 book on the subject, which he took very cheer- 
 fully. It was Ballou's " Treatise on the Atone- 
 ment of Christ." He read it with great delight. 
 Before he was half through the book, he began 
 to lay plans for the gratification of all the evil 
 
74 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 desires of his heart. He felt moral restraint 
 nearly gone, and entered on the commission of 
 sins that would have made him shudder a week 
 before. 
 
 As soon as he read the book he returned it, 
 and got Ballou's u Notes on the Parables/ 7 and 
 read with delight till he came to the parable of 
 the rich man and Lazarus, when all his hopes 
 seemed to be blasted. The reasoning seemed 
 foolish and absurd in the extreme, and he was 
 sadly disappointed ; he had hoped the author 
 would make that as plain as he had his other 
 arguments, and that thus he might sin with 
 impunity. He had frequent interviews with 
 his friend, who did all he could to remove his 
 doubts. As a last resort, his friend advised 
 him to advocate the doctrine with the ortho- 
 dox, and he would soon get to believe it. Will- 
 ing to do any thing that would allow him to 
 sin with an easy conscience, he followed the 
 advice. For four years he was spouting Uni- 
 versalisrn on every occasion, and no doubt led 
 some into that soul-destroying error. Still, his 
 conscience was not at ease ; a still small voice 
 was whispering, "The soul that sinneth, it shall 
 die." When in company with his wicked corn- 
 
TJNIVERSALISM AND BAD BOOKS. 75 
 
 panions, lie could roll sin as a sweet morsel 
 under his tongue ; but when alone, hell would 
 seem to flash up before him with all its horrors, 
 and the pains of a guilty conscience for one 
 hour would overbalance all the sinful pleasures 
 of a week. 
 
 For four years the pilgrim boy thus hazarded 
 the consequences of losing his soul. He finally 
 came to the conclusion that he would not in- 
 dulge in sins that would affect his character 
 in the sight of men, and spent hours in fix- 
 ing up a hell of his own, until he believed it 
 was just such a place as he wished it to be ; 
 and then he put the awful question to his own 
 soul, whether he would take it as his portion 
 hereafter, with the indulgence of sinful pas- 
 sions during life, or forsake sin and lead a 
 holy life, and enjoy a glorious heaven after 
 death. 
 
 For more than a year his mind was exer- 
 cised on this question, and the scales rose and 
 fell in proportion to the power of the convic- 
 tion of sin, or the inclination to yield to temp- 
 tation. There seemed to be two great powers 
 at work in his heart, one striving to lead him 
 deeper into sin, the other crying in his ear, 
 
76 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 "Turn ye. turn ye; why will you die?" But 
 blessed be God, the former grew weaker by- 
 degrees, while the latter increased in power. 
 The struggle was long and fierce, whether to 
 embrace a flesh-pleasing, or a flesh-crucifying 
 system of religion. 
 
 The next danger to which we wish to gain 
 your attention, as drawn from the history of 
 this boy, is the danger of BAD BOOKS. A bad 
 book must, in the nature of things, be written 
 by a bad man or woman, since "a good tree 
 cannot bring forth evil fruit. 77 Hence, the time 
 you spend in reading a bad book is so much 
 time spent in company with a bad character, 
 and }'ou cannot come in contact with filth with- 
 out some of it sticking to you. Your life and 
 conduct will reflect the kind of company you 
 keep, and the books you read. Reading the 
 novel " Jack Sheppard " formed the character 
 
 of 3*oung S , and prepared him to become a 
 
 pirate, who was hung at the yard-arm of a 
 man-of-war a few years since. Go to the con- 
 victs cell, and ask what kind of books he has 
 read. He will tell } r ou, in nine cases out of ten, 
 if he has read any, that he has read bad books ; 
 tales of crime portrayed in glowing colors. 
 
UNIVERSALISM AND BAB BOOKS. 77 
 
 which roused the evil passions and unholy de- 
 sires that had lain apparently dormant in tho 
 heart. 
 
 The reading of bad books has done more 
 during the last twenty years, in our country, to 
 poison the minds of young men, lower the 
 standard of high moral rectitude, and shut tho 
 heart against the word and Spirit of God, than 
 almost any other evil in the land. Show me 
 the youth that pores over tales of fiction, and 
 drinks their intoxicating poison, and I will 
 show you a fictitious character, vacillating and 
 unreliable. " Show me your company, and I 
 will tell you your character/'' is an adage old 
 and true. A family library is an index to fam- 
 ily character ; the bookcase reflects the moral 
 features. Better not read at all, than read bad 
 books. 
 
 Among all the classes of dangerous books, 
 none are more fatal than those that oppose 
 evangelical religion ; and the nearer the coun- 
 terfeit comes to the genuine, it is the harder to 
 detect. 
 
 Look again at the pilgrim boy tangled in the 
 meshes of Universalism, with an old barbed 
 arrow of truth in his conscience, holding him 
 
78 TEE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 in check at times, while at others he was able 
 to give loose to his feelings altogether. Of all 
 the false systems of religion ever devised by 
 man, none is better suited to gratify depraved 
 human nature. Denying punishment for sin 
 hereafter, it gives the reins to every lust, grat- 
 ifies every unholy desire, and in the end re- 
 wards the meanest and vilest of earth with a 
 seat at the right hand of God. 
 
 The man who lent Universalist books to the 
 pilgrim boy, before he embraced that system, 
 had been as moral a young man as could be 
 found in the community ; but as soon as he 
 became a Universalist, he threw off all re- 
 straint, indulged in sin with greediness, and 
 died before he reached the meridian of life, 
 uncared for by any except his own family. He 
 had instilled into the minds of his children the 
 same poison, and they have walked in his foot- 
 steps. 
 
 The writer knew many that were Universal- 
 ists thirty-five years ago, and their history 
 now would be dreadful to relate. The very 
 man who first taught the doctrine in that com- 
 munity said, the day he died, if he had ten 
 thousand worlds, he would give them, could it 
 
ITNIVERSALISM AND BAD BOOKS. 79 
 
 undo the evil lie had done. He died in agony 
 of soul. His sons embraced the same system, 
 and have long since gone to a drunkard's grave. 
 The first convert he made died a similar death 
 soon after, and his dissipated sons have long 
 been members of an infidel club. Thus the 
 history runs, with few exceptions. Is it pos- 
 sible that a system of religion which produces 
 such results proceeds from a holy God? I 
 warn you, by all the terrors of the worm that 
 never dies, to read no such books ; you can no 
 more read them without injury to yourself, than 
 you can take hold of fire without being burned. 
 Enough of evil grows naturally in the heart; 
 you can go to ruin fast enough by simply letting 
 religion alone ; the depravity of the unrencwed 
 heart has motive power enough, without the 
 aid of any external force. When you take 
 away the doctrine of future punishment from a 
 religious creed, you take away the last hope of 
 a virtuous life. 
 
 I especially entreat you to shun all books 
 that advocate false systems of religion, or in 
 any way attempt to undervalue evangelical 
 piety. Let the Bible be your daily companion, 
 and make yourself familiar with such books as 
 
80 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 have been written by the best of men on doc- 
 trinal and practical piety, together with biog- 
 raphies of the best men that have lived in this 
 or other ages, and follow them so far as they 
 have-followed Christ. There are few who can 
 sit down and read carefully the lives of such 
 men as McCheyne, Summerfield, Alexander, 
 Martyn, Brainard, or Page, without being ben- 
 efited. While reading their lives, you are 
 brought in contact with pure and holy men, 
 and your tastes and character must be influ- 
 \mced by them. 
 
 From the age of sixteen to eighteen, the pil- 
 grim boy's struggle with Universalism con- 
 tinued. He was .still trying to satisfy himself 
 that Universalism was true ; but his mind had 
 been so deeply imbued with Bible truth in 
 childhood, that thorough unbelief in relation 
 to any of the fundamental truths of Christian- 
 ity was out of the question. Some years be- 
 fore, when quite small, he had made many 
 promises to God, and to his old mother, that 
 ho would be a preacher ; and these promises 
 would sometimes rise like so many witnesses 
 to testify against him before God, and almost 
 
 
UN1VERSALISM AND BAD BOOKS. 81 
 
 drive him to despair. Nothing seemed to have 
 so powerful an effect in restraining him from 
 sin as those broken vows. At the age of sev- 
 enteen he went to what was called the far 
 West, the central part of Ohio, in company 
 with a very wicked young man, to aid him in 
 clearing land, and to spend some part of his 
 time in hunting deer and bears among the Indi- 
 ans. While there he formed the acquaintance 
 of very godless young men, who spent the Sab- 
 bath in hunting. They invited him to join 
 them, but he was frightened at the thought of 
 thus desecrating God's holy day. They laughed 
 at his religious scruples, and told him Sunday 
 had not got so far west yet. He could not 
 withstand the sneers of the wicked, and by the 
 next Sunday had his gun ready, and engaged in 
 the chase. But it was a day of awful fore- 
 bodings lest some sudden judgment should fall 
 on him ; he was afraid to shoot for fear the 
 gun would burst and kill him ; he felt that God 
 would be just to consign him to hell for that 
 day's sin, and was astonished that he was per- 
 mitted to live. The day passed away, and as 
 nothing special occurred, by the return of the 
 next Sabbath his conscience was easier, and in 
 
 Pil Boy. 6 
 
 f * 
 
82 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 the course of a few weeks lie could hunt on that 
 day with little remorse. 
 
 He remained six months in the West, during 
 which time he saw but one professor of relig- 
 ion, and heard no sermon, and conscience had 
 almost ceased to warn. When he returned 
 home, the restraints which he had scarcely felt 
 before, became almost intolerable ; the silence 
 of the Sabbath was as melancholy as a funeral, 
 and he longed to be in some part of the land 
 where the restraints of religion would not be 
 felt, and all the appetites and passions could 
 be indulged by public consent. 
 
 He still labored to throw off the truths of 
 the Bible that had been imbedded in his mem- 
 ory from his childhood, and to invent a hell of 
 his own which, if it did turn out to be a place 
 or torment, would not be intolerable, and flat- 
 tered himself that he would gain enough of 
 sinful pleasure to compensate for the loss of 
 heaven. Oh, the trials and forebodings of a 
 guilty conscience under the strivings of the 
 Holy Ghost; how unwilling to yield to the 
 voice of God. Oh, how astonishing his mercy 
 and love to continue to strive with such a 
 rebel. 
 
HIS MARRIAG-E. 83 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO HIS 
 MARRIAG-E. 
 
 WHEN the pilgrim boy arrived at eighteen, 
 he began to cast about to discover what pur- 
 suit he would follow in after life that would 
 provide for his wants, and at the same time 
 give the best chance for sinful gratifications. 
 One day he would determine to go into the 
 army and strive for military renown, and the 
 next day he would plan something else. At 
 that time he lived on the border of a commu- 
 nity where there was much dissipation. Two 
 or three nights in each week were spent in 
 balls or at the card-table ; and he never felt 
 happy unless he was engaged in something of 
 the kind. At home he was like a caged bird ; 
 his old mother so frequently reminded him of 
 the obligations of the moral law, that he often 
 wished Moses had never gone back to have it 
 rewritten after the first tables were broken. 
 He tried to show indifference to the old wom- 
 an's counsel, but all in vain ; he often felt that 
 
84 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 life was almost a burden when his sins would 
 rise up before him. For a time he would not 
 go to church for fear the preacher would say 
 something that would increase his distress and 
 mar his pleasures. 
 
 At last he resolved to go to sea, with the 
 hope of getting clear of the old woman's lec- 
 tures arid all other religious restraints, and 
 went so far as to set the day for leaving, with- 
 out telling any one of his intentions. The day 
 came ; his whole soul was convulsed ; storms 
 and shipwrecks rose to his view ; the thoughts 
 of being buried in the sea and being devoured 
 by the monsters of the deep, and he an enemy 
 to God, were too intolerable to bear. He 
 finally resolved to go and ask counsel of God, 
 wicked as he was, what course lie should pur- 
 sue. About noon he went to the woods alone, 
 in a state of mind no pen can describe, to lay 
 his case before Him who sees the end from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Some time before this he had met with a 
 young woman who had made a deep impression 
 on his heart : the question rushed to his mind 
 whether it would not be better to remain in 
 the country, and ask her hand in marriage, 
 
HIS MARRIAGE. 85 
 
 young as lie was, than to run the risk of a sea- 
 faring life. He at once carried the matter to 
 a throne of grace, and soon resolved to aban- 
 don all his plans, and make known to her his 
 wishes. In the course of a few months her 
 consent was obtained. 
 
 But here another difficulty arose : how was 
 he to support a wife ? he was without means, 
 and so was she. But both had been brought 
 up to hard labor, so that difficulty soon van- 
 ished. This engagement made him look at life 
 as a reality, and he commenced laboring and 
 saving in earnest. 
 
 Notwithstanding his mind was tainted with 
 Universalism, he felt the necessity of praying 
 much over this matter, as the Bible says a good 
 wife is from the Lord. Before he was twenty 
 years old he was married, and felt very sen- 
 sibly the responsible position he had placed 
 himself in, and at once abandoned all his for- 
 mer evil habits, and confined himself to hard 
 labor. Though we would not recommend mar- 
 riage generally at so early an age, yet it was 
 doubtless the means of saving him from being 
 a wanderer, and in all probability from dissi- 
 pation and crime, if not from an untimely grave. 
 
86 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 How inscrutable is the providence of God, and 
 his ways past finding out! It is not in man 
 that walketh to direct his steps. 
 
 We have now reviewed the most precarious 
 part of a young man's existence from early 
 youth to manhood. Those that pass twenty 
 years with a moral character unstained, usually 
 sustain a fair character through life, and very 
 few of those whose moral and religious training 
 is neglected in childhood, pass that period with- 
 out contracting habits or forming associations 
 that lead to disgrace and ruin. When the com- 
 paratively innocent pleasures of boyhood have 
 been changed into habits of sin, these habits 
 choke the seed of truth sown with parental tears, 
 watered by prayer, and often brought home to 
 the heart and conscience by the Spirit of God. 
 We see this youth struggling like the fish on 
 the angler's hook, even taking the anodyne of 
 Universalism to put conscience to sleep, some- 
 times making a hell to suit himself, and on the 
 eve of resolving to take the chance of it ; and 
 nothing saved him but God's blessing on his 
 own truth planted in his mind in childhood. 
 
 Now, my dear young friend, if you are or 
 have been the son of pious, praying parents, or 
 
HIS MARRIAGE. 87 
 
 under the instructions of pious ministers or Sab- 
 bath-school teachers, you have not arrived at 
 this age without some concern about your soul. 
 You have felt that you were a sinner. Some- 
 thing in you has trembled with fear. You 
 were alarmed for your past sins, and dreading 
 the wrath of God. It was truth, taught you by 
 a praying father or mother, or read and heard 
 in some way, that God's Spirit was bringing 
 home to your heart to lead you from sin to 
 himself. When, like this boy, you have been 
 tempted to tell a lie, has not the awful truth, 
 " All liars shall have their portion in the lake 
 that burns with fire and brimstone," flashed up 
 before you with awful majesty? And when 
 you have taken God's name in vain, has not a 
 voice seemed to say, " The Lord will not hold 
 him guiltless that taketh his name in vain?" 
 When you have spent the Sabbath of God in 
 idleness and sin, have you not heard the same 
 voice say, " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep 
 it holy ?" It was the voice of God speaking 
 by his Spirit to your soul. 
 
 When you have seen one young as you sicken 
 and die, when you have heard the funeral bell 
 toll, or followed the funeral procession to the 
 
S3 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 grave, and heard the clay fall on the coffin, 
 have not the emotions of your soul been inex- 
 pressible? It was the voice of God's Spirit. 
 When you have lain down at night on your 
 bed, have you not tried to imagine where that 
 soul was which had just left the body? Per- 
 haps he had been your companion in sin. Oh, 
 would you not have given half a kingdom to 
 know all that soul knew in a few hours? Have 
 not these terrible thoughts for a time driven 
 sleep from your eyes, and led you to pray and 
 promise God you would cease from sin, and 
 give him your strength and talents, yea, life 
 itself? All these emotions are the work of 
 God's Spirit, using his own truth and the dis- 
 pensations of his providence towards others as 
 means to lead you to repentance and deliver 
 you from destruction. 
 
 If some kind friend were to come and wake 
 you in the night when the house was in flames 
 around you, and tell you to escape speedily, 
 would you not flee in a moment? Could you 
 ever forget that friend ? Would not the sound 
 of his voice send a thrill of joy through your 
 heart ever after ? Remember, my young friend, 
 that although you heard no audible voice speak- 
 
HIS MARRIAG-E. 89 
 
 ing to the outward ear, it was God's Spirit, the 
 only agency that can save you from eternal 
 burning, knocking at the door of your heart, 
 and saying, Escape for your life ; escape from 
 the fire that will never be quenched, to which 
 the burning of your body would bear no more 
 proportion than the flash of a meteor to the 
 burning of the universe. 
 
 And have you resisted these influences, and 
 thus " grieved the Holy Spirit of God? 77 What 
 strange ingratitude! The same kind of treat- 
 ment to one of your companions who had saved 
 your life, would expose you to the contempt of 
 all good men. How much more awful to con- 
 template the ingratitude of slighting the call 
 of God your Maker. 
 
 But are there not great aggravations of this 
 slighting of the Spirit in the case of some? 
 Those who know their Master's will, and do it 
 not, are to be beaten with many stripes. Are 
 you not conscious that what you felt was pro- 
 duced by the Spirit of God ? Though like the 
 wind that blows, you could not tell whence it 
 came, or whither it went, yet, from the teach- 
 ing of the Bible and your own experience, do 
 you not believe it was from the influences of 
 
90 THE PILG-R1M BOY. 
 
 the Holy Ghost ? If so, then are you not guilty 
 of wilfully slighting the Spirit of God ? Each 
 rejection of the Holy Ghost increases your 
 guilt, and increases the probabilities of your 
 eternal damnation. 
 
 But let us now advance a step farther on this 
 fearful subject, and suppose that you have not 
 only felt deeply for an hour, or a day ; but some 
 particular providence of God, or some truth of 
 the Bible has followed you from day to day, as 
 they did the pilgrim boy, sometimes making 
 life an intolerable burden. Perhaps it may be 
 the prayers and advice of a mother, now dead 
 or far distant from you, echoed back on your 
 soul by the Spirit, giving you no peace, but cry- 
 ing, " Son, give me thy heart." Or it may be 
 the sermon you heard, or a book or tract you 
 read, or the warning of your Sunday-school 
 teacher that follows you as it never did before. 
 This is what is called the special operation of 
 God's Spirit : all you felt before may have 
 been but the prelude of the coming struggle. 
 But now your wicked heart is in mortal combat 
 with the Spirit of God, and it will have to yield 
 sooner or later, for life or death eternal. 
 
 Some years ago the writer became acquaint- 
 
HIS MARR1AOE. 91 
 
 ed with a man eminent for piety, who gave 
 the following account of his conversion : My 
 father died when I was fourteen years old ; my 
 mother was left with seven children, of which 
 I was the oldest. She was a devoted Chris- 
 tian, and prayed with us daily. For the first 
 two or three years after the death of my father, 
 I often felt deeply about my soul for a short 
 period, but when about sixteen, I was deeply 
 distressed for some months, and prayed regu- 
 larly, and even thought sometimes I was a 
 Christian. About this time balls and dancing 
 parties were introduced into the neighborhood, 
 and I was induced by my companions to go. 
 At first I was only a looker-on, but I soon joined 
 the sport, and all my religion was gone, except 
 some fearful pangs of conscience that w r ould 
 occasionally return. The news reached my 
 mother ; she warned and entreated, but all in 
 vain. I soon began to be impatient of her re- 
 proof, and threatened to leave her if she did 
 not desist; but she told me she would never 
 cease to warn and pray, and that if I did go to 
 destruction, I should wade through her tears 
 and a Saviour's blood. For three or four years 
 she warned and prayed, and I danced and frol- 
 
92 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 icked till I became the ringleader in every vain 
 amusement. About this time preparation was 
 made for a great ball, and I was to be one of 
 the managers of it. The evening came. When 
 I was about to leave, my mother said, " Well, 
 Jarnes, remember your mother will spend this 
 night in prayer for you." I felt a little sad, 
 but rode off. The nearer I came to the place 
 the worse I felt. When I entered the room I 
 was greeted with a hearty welcome, but I felt 
 depressed, arid my appearance betrayed my 
 feelings. Inquiry was made if I was sick, or 
 what was the matter. I replied, "Nothing." 
 The violin soon struck up a tune ; I was to 
 lead off, but my step was heavy. The company 
 soon partook of the same feeling, and one began 
 to say to another, What is the matter? My 
 whole soul became convulsed ; my feelings were 
 unutterable; I burst into tears. "I can tell 
 you what is the matter ; my mother is praying 
 for her prodigal son at home." I left the 
 house and hastened back. When I came to 
 the door, I heard the voice of prayer; my 
 mother was pleading with God for me. I 
 opened the door suddenly, and fell before her, 
 crying, " God be merciful to me a sinner." My 
 
HIS MARRIAGE. 93 
 
 burden was gone ; she looked angelic ; I em- 
 braced her, and we rejoiced together. Her 
 Saviour was my Saviour, her God my God, 
 our joys the same. 
 
 I have recorded this thrilling fact, supposing 
 it may meet the case of some of my youthful 
 readers. Here was the special operation of 
 God's Spirit making the instructions and pray- 
 ers of a mother effectual to her son's salvation. 
 Have not many of you had feelings correspond- 
 ing with the early experience of the one re- 
 lated, and of the pilgrim boy? One thing is 
 certain, that if you have, and still remain an 
 unconverted sinner, you must thus come to 
 Christ or die in your sins. 
 
94 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HE COMMENCES FARMING SEVERE SICK- 
 NESS RESOLUTIONS TO REPENT AND LIVE 
 BETTER. 
 
 SOON after his marriage he rented some land, 
 and with one horse and a plough, and less than 
 one hundred dollars 7 worth of household furni- 
 ture, started in the world to support himself 
 and wife. Many an hour of deep, anxious 
 solicitude he had, to know how to get through 
 the world. His days of pleasure seemed to be 
 at an end ; he had now to face the realities of 
 life. He labored and toiled from sunrise to 
 sunset, daily repeating to himself, "There is 
 no peace to the wicked." His wife was equal- 
 ly industrious, and all went on as well as 
 could be expected for those that were so poor. 
 But the future looked dark and dreary. Ho 
 often repined at his lot, and even wished he 
 had never been born. But with these feelings 
 he had an abiding conviction for sin ; indeed, 
 that was the main cause of his anxiety. 
 
SICKNESS. 95 
 
 Six months after his marriage he was taken 
 suddenly very ill. The doctor came seven 
 miles every day for three weeks to see him, 
 and soon pronounced the disease incurable, and 
 said he must die. The disease was inflamma- 
 tory rheumatism ; his pain of the most excru- 
 ciating kind ; every feature was distorted with 
 agony, while the agony of soul at the thought 
 of being dragged into the presence of God 
 with all his sins unpardoned, was unspeakably 
 more terrible. He felt that he deserved the 
 deepest hell ; that he had shut his heart against 
 the calls of God's word and Spirit a thousand 
 times. The Bible, the sermons, and pastor's 
 counsel, his old mother's warnings, and the 
 religious books he had read, were all arrayed 
 against him as so many witnesses for God, tes- 
 tifying, I have called, but you have refused ; I 
 have stretched my hand to you, but you have 
 disregarded. God seemed to be laughing at 
 his calamity, and mocking at his fears. He 
 felt as if he was suspended over hell for some 
 days without hope of escape, a helpless, unpar- 
 doned sinner in the hands of an angry God, 
 pursued by the angel of death and his own con- 
 science, saying Amen to the justice of his dam- 
 
96 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 nation. All the pleasures of his past sins could 
 not compensate for one hour of his present ago- 
 ny. It seemed as if his past sinful enjoyments 
 had now become his tormentors. He strove to 
 banish them from his sight as they rose up 
 before him in their hideous deformity, but the 
 more he strove the closer they clung to him, 
 and drove their fangs the deeper. In this state 
 of mind he tried to pray ; but there seemed to 
 be no God to hear, no Saviour to intercede, no 
 Spirit to comfort his wretched soul. He strove 
 to give his heart to God in the midst of his suf- 
 ferings, and promised, if God would spare his 
 life and restore him to health, he would conse- 
 crate the remainder of his days to his service. 
 
 In a few days he began to entertain some 
 hopes of his recovery, and to the astonishment 
 of all who saw him, in a few weeks he was able 
 to walk about and attend a little to business. 
 By his long sickness his crop of grain was 
 mostly lost ; the doctor's bill amounted to near 
 all he was worth, and the only means to pro- 
 vide for his family was by engaging as a day- 
 laborer till he could raise another crop. 
 
 With returning health he felt a strong incli- 
 nation to return to his former habits, and to 
 
REPENTANCE. 97 
 
 associate with his old companions. There were 
 no religious people near him. Even during his 
 sickness no one ever offered a prayer at his 
 bedside. No one was near him that feared 
 God to encourage him, and scarcely one who 
 was not in the habit of becoming intoxicated. 
 The Sabbath was disregarded, and swearing 
 was common even among women and children. 
 There was no preaching nearer than five miles, 
 arid that only twice in a month. He had no 
 way to go but to walk, and a large creek was to 
 be crossed three times. He had no book but 
 an old Bible, printed in 1718, nearly worn out. 
 
 These were his only means of religious in- 
 struction, while he was surrounded with bar- 
 riers in every direction. He strove for resolu- 
 tion to keep the vows his soul had made in 
 anguish, till a friend he met one day handed 
 him an old book, called, "The Afflicted Man's 
 Companion." He read it with deep interest ; it 
 called to his mind all the promises he had made 
 in his sickness. When he read the dying say- 
 ings of Christians recorded in that book, he 
 resolved, by God's help, to live and die the 
 death of the righteous. 
 
 The struggle now began in earnest. A car- 
 
 Pil. Boy. *J 
 
98 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 nal heart, backed up by Satanic influence, re- 
 sisted God's Spirit, and held up Christ as too 
 merciful to punish a sinner eternally. But rea- 
 son and revelation both said, that punishment 
 such as he suffered in his sickness, would on the 
 same principle be inconsistent with the attri- 
 butes of a merciful God. If eternal punishment 
 was unjust, temporal punishment must be so 
 too. 
 
 The agony of his soul was so great that he of- 
 ten went to the woods and rolled on the ground 
 for hours ; he had no religious friend to whom 
 he could reveal the feelings of his heart. His 
 wife and all around him were destitute, as far 
 as he knew, of any feeling on the subject of 
 religion ; and if they had known his feelings, it 
 would have exposed him to derision. He strove 
 to surrender himself to Christ, but in vain. A 
 voice seemed to follow him continually, "He 
 that is ashamed of me and my words, of him 
 will I be ashamed before my Father and his 
 holy angels." He felt that a public acknow- 
 ledgment of Christ and his cause was the only 
 way of relief. But he shrunk from the duty ; 
 he wanted to be a secret Christian, to go to the 
 Saviour, like Nicodemus, in the night season. 
 
. FAMILY WORSHIP. 99 
 
 His distress continued for some months with- 
 out any abatement. He finally determined to 
 ask a blessing at his table ; this seemed to be a 
 hard task before an irreligious wife. The trial 
 was made, and he succeeded. The news soon 
 spread, and he was called on at his neighbors' 
 tables when he was present, but he refused ; and 
 that brought to his mind the fearful text just 
 quoted. For some time he would not eat away 
 from home even if he was suffering with hun- 
 ger, if he expected to be called on to ask a 
 blessing at the table. 
 
 But he felt he must go a step farther at home. 
 He resolved and reresolved to commence fam- 
 ily prayer. But when the hour came round, 
 his courage would fail. For six months he set 
 every Sunday night to begin. He spent hours 
 in the woods praying to God for strength, but 
 when night came, and the moment drew near, 
 he would tremble like an aspen-leaf, and retire 
 without prayer. Then his conscience would 
 lash him for being ashamed of Christ. This 
 state of mind continued till life became a bur- 
 den, and he was tempted to terminate his own 
 existence or to banish all thought of his soul 
 from his mind, lead a moral life, and if he 
 
100 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 did go to hell, it would be but little worse than 
 his present misery. 
 
 But the Spirit of God still strove, and would 
 not give him up. He finally resolved to begin 
 family worship, or die in the attempt. He set 
 the next Sunday night, as he felt more on Sun- 
 day than any other day, and there was less 
 danger of any one coming in at night than in 
 the morning. Most of the day was spent in 
 prayer ; the dreaded hour arrived. Satan, and 
 an unrenewed heart resisting the Spirit of God 
 and duty; and shame, the offspring of sin, made 
 him tremble. His wife, who was the only one 
 present, was entirely ignorant of the struggle 
 in his heart. When in conversation his voice 
 faltered, she asked him the cause, but he could 
 not reply. The struggle was awful : for a mo- 
 ment he was on the point of resolving never to 
 try to pray in his family. Then a voice seemed 
 to say, Go forward now, or your doom is sealed. 
 He felt it was the turning-point in his eternal 
 destiny, that heaven or hell hung on that mo- 
 ment ; two unseen powers seemed each to have 
 the death-grip ; the pangs of his soul were be- 
 yond the power of language to describe. 
 
 The moment of final decision came. There 
 
"STRIVING OF THE, SPIBJT,, 101 
 
 had been silence a few minutes ; he arose, 
 grasped the Bible with a trembling hand, and 
 with a determination to read a chapter and 
 pray, or die in the attempt. He broke the 
 silence by saying, " My dear wife, God has said 
 he will pour out his fury on the families that 
 call not on his name, and I am constrained to 
 begin to-night. Will you join me?" She was 
 silent ; he opened the Bible, the struggle was 
 over, his fears all gone, man's extremity was 
 God's opportunity ; the precious promise, " My 
 strength shall be made perfect in weakness, my 
 grace is sufficient for you," was realized ; the 
 duty was performed, and peace of mind fol- 
 lowed. His wife looked alarmed, but remained 
 silent ; he told her of his long struggle ; she 
 seemed deeply impressed for a long time, but 
 did not give evidence of a change of heart for 
 many years after. 
 
 But let us stop, dear reader, and look at the 
 picture of the pilgrim just drawn. Have you 
 not had similar feelings, to some extent? they 
 may not have been so intense ; but have you 
 not felt there were two powers at work in your 
 heart, the one calling you to your duty to God, 
 the other holding up prayer before you as a 
 
102 THE PILGEIM BOY. 
 
 burden ; the one striving to save you, the other 
 to destroy you ? 
 
 There is a turning-point in your eternal des- 
 tiny. Have you passed it ? If you have pass- 
 ed through all, or most of what is described in 
 his case, and have become careless and indiffer- 
 ent about your soul, you have great reason to 
 fear your doom is sealed for eternal death. 
 God will not give you peace in Jesus Christ 
 till, like the prodigal, you arise and go to your 
 Father ; then he will say, " Son, be of good 
 cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee." 
 
G-RIEV1NG- G-OD'S SPIRIT, 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON GRIEVING- G-OD'S SPIRIT. 
 
 THE facts above given suggest many thoughts 
 on the awfully important subject of grieving 
 the Spirit of God. 
 
 The Spirit of God is the last remedial agent 
 between God and dying men. When he takes 
 his final departure, the atonement and interces- 
 sion of the Son of God can be of no avail ; no 
 power in heaven or on the earth can save the 
 sinner ; his doom is irrevocably sealed. Does 
 it not become us, with all the candor of dying 
 men, to seek to understand his operations ? 
 
 God has said, " My Spirit shall not always 
 strive with man ;" and again, " Grieve not the 
 Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the 
 day of redemption ;" and again, " Quench not 
 the Spirit.' 7 And we are plainly told there is 
 "a sin unto death," which is the result of 
 quenching the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the 
 third person of the adorable Trinity, sent by 
 the Father and the Son to apply the atonement 
 
104 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 of Christ to the heart of the sinner. In his 
 usual operations, he awakes in the sinner's 
 mind serious thoughts of eternity, by pressing 
 on his heart some of the warning truths of the 
 Bible. Truths that he may have heard often 
 before without being affected, will now make 
 him tremble. Business or pleasure may drive 
 them away for a time, but they will return 
 again and again unbidden. 
 
 In the case of those that are saved, the Spir- 
 it continues to strive. They are made to feel 
 sin to be such a grievous burden, that they must 
 forsake it, and cast themselves on Christ with 
 their whole heart. The Holy Ghost, by his 
 almighty power, renews the heart, and enables 
 the sinner to give up himself to God. When 
 this is done, the sinner is born again, and be- 
 comes "a new creature in Christ Jesus; 7 ' his 
 distress of mind is removed ; he feels joy and 
 peace. As an evidence pf the change, the very 
 things he loved most before, he now hates, and 
 the things he once hated, he now loves. He 
 desires Christians for his companions ; he loves 
 the ministers of Christ ; he loves the house of 
 God ; he loves to read the Bible and pray ; he 
 shuns the company of the wicked in whose so- 
 
GRIEVING- GOD'S SPIRIT. 105 
 
 ciety he once delighted, and his constant aim is 
 to become more holy, and more like Christ. 
 
 But let us examine more closely some of the 
 various stages of feeling through which the sin- 
 ner may pass before he is converted, or given 
 over to hardness of heart and blindness of 
 mind ; and we ask you to follow us in this in- 
 vestigation, and see how far your own feelings 
 may be described, and what divine influences 
 you have rejected, and how near the line of 
 everlasting separation between God and your 
 soul you may have come. 
 
 The Spirit of God usually begins to move on 
 the hearts of those who have had any thing 
 like correct religious training when they are 
 quite young. Such examples as the pilgrim 
 boy are by no means rare. These convictions 
 of the Spirit are felt by many before they are 
 ten years of age ; from that to fifteen they are 
 often more constant and abiding ; and we have 
 reason to hope that many yield to his invita- 
 tions, and are truly converted to God in these 
 early periods of life. Between the ages of fif- 
 teen and twenty, multitudes have felt his sav- 
 ing influence, and most of those who ever give 
 evidence of being born again, experience the 
 
106 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 change before the age of twenty ; and we may 
 safely say that, to those reaching that age still 
 unmoved and far from God, the probabilities 
 of ever gaining a home in heaven are greatly 
 diminished. 
 
 And now, my dear young friend, let me ask 
 you the question, Has not a feeling of awful 
 solemnity sometimes passed over your soul, 
 which made you think of death, judgment, and 
 eternity? Have not your sins risen up before 
 you and destroyed for a time all your happi- 
 ness, and made you desire to be a Christian, 
 and even promise that you would turn to God 
 and lead the life of his servants ? You could 
 not tell perhaps whence this feeling came, or 
 whither it went? On. hearing a sermon, or 
 kind warning from some friend, on the reading 
 of a religious book, or the death of some one 
 you loved, the same kind of feeling has return- 
 ed, and your convictions of sin became deeper, 
 and new resolutions were formed. Perhaps you 
 then, set some future time, when you resolved 
 that you would make a business of seeking your 
 soul's salvation ; and by this temptation of the 
 adversary you got a present relief, and in a few 
 days all was forgotten again. 
 
GRIEVING- GOD'S SPIRIT.; 107 
 
 But the Spirit may have continued to strive 
 with you. Have you spent anxious days and 
 nights, during revivals of religion, when some 
 special truth was fastened on your mind, which 
 gave you no peace ; when you saw others em- 
 bracing the Saviour and rejoicing in hope, which 
 only increased your distress, as a voice seemed 
 to say, "Son, give nie thy heart?' 7 Perhaps 
 you now began to count the cost, and say, If I 
 become a Christian, it will end all my youthful 
 pleasures ; and to get rid of these feelings you 
 may have stayed away from the house of God, 
 and gone to dancing parties, or associated with 
 thoughtless sinners, and in this way have ban- 
 ished all your convictions of sin. This is what 
 is called in Scripture, "grieving the Spirit of 
 God. 77 But still your day of grace may not be 
 past. 
 
 After a while, perhaps, a revival season re- 
 turns again in the church. The arrows of con- 
 viction fly thick around you ; many are coming 
 to Christ ; your friends are wrestling in prayer 
 to God for you ; your sins rise in awful majes- 
 ty before you ; you feel as if hell was yawning 
 beneath you ; the Spirit of God says, " Now is 
 the accepted time ; 77 heaven seems open before 
 
108 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 you ; the Saviour is ready to embrace you. But 
 another voice says, There is time enough yet; 
 religion will destroy all your pleasures ; live 
 on for a few years as you are. You stop and 
 weigh the consequences, with the full convic- 
 tion on your mind that there now rests upon 
 you the responsibility of choosing either life or 
 death. You deliberately say to the Spirit of 
 God, " Go thy way," and turn to your sinful 
 pleasures again with more than ordinary greed- 
 iness. In a few days all your feelings are 
 gone, and like the stubborn oak, whose roots 
 strike deeper with every blast that shakes it, 
 till it becomes immovable, so you may have be- 
 come more and more immovable by every mo- 
 tion of the Spirit on your heart, till you may 
 now be given up of God. 
 
 "There is a sin unto death." There is a 
 time, we know not when ; there is a point, we 
 know not where, which, if you pass unconvert- 
 ed, " there remains no more sacrifice for sin." 
 Your doom is sealed, the door is shut, and all 
 the tears and prayers of the whole church of 
 God on earth could not save you, for the Holy 
 Ghost has taken his final departure. 
 
 Those who have thus passed their day of 
 
GRIEVING- G-OD'S SPIRIT. 109 
 
 grace, have usually been brought by the striv- 
 ing of the Spirit to feel that they were rebels 
 against God ; that Jesus Christ was able and 
 willing to save them ; that the Spirit was ready 
 to renew their hearts ; but at that point they 
 wilfully rejected him, and presumptuously turn- 
 ed to their sins, and found relief in indulging 
 them ; and they have remained indifferent, hat- 
 ing God and good men ever since. Such, we 
 believe, have passed their day of grace. And 
 if you can now read this fearful description 
 with indifference, it is still additional evidence 
 of the awful fact that such is the case with you ; 
 but if you feel now a tender concern for your 
 soul, it is evidence that your day of grace is 
 not past. 
 
 I once visited a woman about thirty years of 
 age, with whom I conversed in the presence of 
 her mother. I inquired if she was a member 
 of any church. She answered, " No." I asked 
 if she had not at some time felt concern for her 
 salvation. " Yes," she said, " I think but few 
 have been more anxious on the subject than I 
 was once." I asked at what period of her life 
 this occurred, when she gave me the following 
 account of God's dealings with her : " When I 
 
110 THE PILGHIIM BOY. 
 
 was about fifteen years old, I felt that I was a 
 great sinner in the sight of God. Often my 
 distress was so great that I could not sleep ; 
 and for three years I seldom had peace for a 
 week at a time. I knew that the Holy Spirit 
 was striving with me, and that I ought to yield 
 my heart to his influence; but I thought it 
 would cut off my pleasures in the midst of 
 youth. I tried to banish the thoughts of eter- 
 nity ; but they would still return and interrupt 
 my pleasure. I tried reading novels and ro- 
 mances ; they gave me relief for a while, but 
 my distress returned. At last I went to the 
 ballroom and I have never since had such 
 feelings as before." " And have you no fears/ 7 
 said I, " that you have grieved away the Spirit 
 of God for ever ?" " Yes," she replied, " I have 
 no doubt of that, and that I shall be lost." I 
 proceeded to describe the state and misery of 
 the lost, and appealed to her, by the prayers of 
 her mother and the tears which were then fall- 
 ing from her sunken eyes, by the danger of an 
 eternal separation from pious friends, by the 
 glories of heaven and the agonies of the Son of 
 God, now to make her peace with him and be 
 saved. "All this," she calmly replied, "has 
 
GRIEVING- GOB'S SPIRIT. Ill 
 
 been tried upon me before. Nothing that you 
 or any other man can say on that subject, can 
 move me now. My doom is fixed/ 7 
 
 Another case was that of Mr. B , who 
 
 was over seventy years old, and living an un- 
 godly life. I approached him with kindness, 
 and at length he conversed freely. I spoke of 
 the goodness of God to him in his advanced 
 years, and asked if he hoped he had an interest 
 in Christ. He replied, " No." I asked if he 
 received the Bible as the word of God. He 
 answered, " Yes." I said, "The Bible teaches 
 that a man must be born again before he can 
 enter the kingdom of God ; do you think you 
 have experienced that change?" "No/ 7 said 
 he, " I never have." I saw that he was intelli- 
 gent, and inquired if no " still small voice" had 
 ever whispered to him, "Son, give me thy 
 heart? 7 "Yes," said he, "often. I used to 
 feel, but for many years I have not felt as I did 
 when I was young. I then had some very seri- 
 ous times. 7 ' I asked at what period he had felt 
 most deeply the importance of religion. Ho 
 replied, " When I was seventeen I began to 
 feel deeply at times, and this continued for two 
 or three years ; but I determined to put it off 
 
112 THE PILORIM BOY. 
 
 till I should be settled in life. After I was 
 married, I reflected that the time had come 
 when I had promised to attend to religion; but 
 I had bought this farm, and I thought it would 
 not suit me to become religious till it was paid 
 for, as some time would have to be devoted to 
 attend church, and also some expense. I then, 
 resolved to put it off ten years ; but when the 
 ten years came round, I thought no more about 
 it. I often try to think, but I cannot keep my 
 mind on the subject one moment. :J I urged 
 him by all the terrors of dying an enemy of 
 God, to set about the work of repentance. " It 
 is too late," said he, " I believe my doom is 
 sealed ; and it is just that it should be so, for 
 the Spirit strove long with me, but I refused." 
 I then turned to his children, young men and 
 young women, who were around him, and en- 
 treated them not to put off the subject of relig- 
 ion, or grieve the Spirit of God in their youth- 
 ful days. The old man added, " Mind that. If 
 I had attended to it then, it would have been 
 well with me to-day ; but now it is too late." 
 
 On conversing with a man in middle life, he 
 informed me that his father was a devoted 
 Christian, that he was faithfully instructed, 
 
G-RIEVING- G-OD'S SPIRIT. 113 
 
 and liis mind was early impressed with the im- 
 portance of religion. In his youth, there was 
 a period of six months in which he was in dis- 
 tress, day and night ; and a voice within seem- 
 ed to be continually saying, " Forsake your sins 
 and come unto me, and I will give you peace." 
 " But," he added, "I did not wish to be a Chris- 
 tian then ; I thought it would ruin my pleas- 
 ures. I visited a part of the country where 
 dancing and balls were frequent ; in a little 
 time my serious thoughts were gone, and I have 
 never had any since." I asked if he did not 
 fear that God had given him up. " Yes," said 
 he, " I am afraid he has. I go to church and 
 read the Bible, and try to feel, but I cannot." 
 I strove to arouse his fears ; but it was in vain. 
 I afterwards learned that he was pursuing his 
 worldly business on the Sabbath. 
 
 It is not for me to pronounce that God had 
 said of all these persons, they are "joined to 
 their idols, let them alone," " woe to them 
 when I depart from them ;" but the state of all 
 such is unspeakably alarming. If such is your 
 case ; if you have wilfully dashed the cup of 
 salvation from your lips, when God by his Spir- 
 it was wooing you to himself ; if you have per- 
 
 Pil. Boy. 8 
 
114 THE PILG-EIM BOY. 
 
 sisted in saying, " Go thy way for this time, let 
 me alone that I may have the pleasures of this 
 life/ 7 and have quenched the Spirit by resort- 
 ing to amusements, the novel, the ballroom, or 
 the theatre, God may have given you what you 
 desired but what have you now of all these 
 pleasures? Can you look back upon them 
 with an approving conscience ? Will they 
 bring you consolation in a dying hour? No. 
 You have even now in your own soul, if you 
 would make the confession, the gnawirigs of the 
 worm that never dies, the burning of the lire 
 that is never quenched. You will have no ex- 
 cuse when you stand before the throne of the 
 eternal Judge. He will say, " I called, but you 
 refused ; I stretched out my hand to you, but 
 you did not regard it." 
 
 But to the dying sinner with whom the Spir- 
 it of God is now striving, let me say, It is the 
 most momentous period of your existence. It 
 is perhaps the turning point between heaven 
 and hell the songs of angels, or the wailings 
 of the finally lost. seize the present mo- 
 ment, while the voice of the Spirit is whisper- 
 ing in your ear, " Now is the accepted time." 
 Beware of stifling that voice. Multitudes have 
 
GRIEVING aOD'S SPIRIT. 115 
 
 told me the dreadful tale, " I went to scenes of 
 amusement, or turned to the exciting romance, 
 and I have felt no anxiety since." 
 
 awakened sinner, while the Spirit strives 
 it is the seed-time of eternal life, the embryo of 
 a happy immortality. Sit not down to count 
 the loss of sinful pleasures ; receive the Sav- 
 iour into your heart, and you will have pleas- 
 ures lasting as eternity ; pleasures that leave 
 no sting behind ; pleasures that will sustain 
 the soul when on your dying pillow, when the 
 last trumpet shall sound, and the congregated 
 world stand before God. 
 
 The facts which have been stated show how 
 momentous is the period of youth in the life of 
 man. It is the period when habits of good or 
 evil become so fixed, that generally the after- 
 life is shadowed forth by it. The tree has be- 
 gun to bear evil fruit, and the root itself must 
 be changed before the fruit will be good. How 
 important at this period, when stepping from 
 boyhood into the great arena of active life, so 
 to conduct yourselves that you may obtain the 
 favor of God. Kemember that, each day of 
 your life, what you do and what you are is writ- 
 
116 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 ten on the recording angel's book in characters 
 changeless as eternity. 
 
 Few comparatively have ever become emi- 
 nently pious and useful, except such as have 
 yielded to the Spirit of God in youth. No 
 doubt many become Christians after that peri- 
 od ; but in most cases their plans for life are 
 laid, and they continue to pursue them, in many 
 cases unavoidably. Do you desire to be useful ? 
 Do you wish to honor God in advancing his 
 cause? Then consecrate all your youthful 
 powers to him. " Son, give me thy heart.' 7 
 
 But I can almost hear the youthful reader 
 say, This is all true ; but if I become a Chris- 
 tion now, it will destroy my pleasures, and I am 
 not ready for that yet. I will wait a few years 
 longer, and then attend to my eternal interests. 
 Thousands now in hell have reasoned in the 
 same way. No doubt they meant to attend to 
 the subject, just as you now do ; but every day 
 they delayed the work of repentance, the wall 
 of separation between God and them rose high- 
 er and higher. And so it will be with you, if 
 you continue to grieve the Spirit of God till 
 old age. By such a course your heart is con- 
 tinually growing harder. The same truths that 
 
GRIEVING GOD'S SPIRIT. 117 
 
 made you tremble five years ago, are perhaps 
 scarcely felt now. Thus the hardening process 
 goes on, till the day of grace is past. 
 
 I had once a Sabbath-scholar, who was punc- 
 tual in his attendance from the age of ten till 
 he was twenty years old. The last three years 
 of that time he was under deep conviction for 
 sin, and he would express his feelings to me 
 with great candor. He often told me he felt 
 two great powers at work in his heart, espe- 
 cially at communion seasons. One said, Confess 
 Christ now ; the other, Wait a few years. At 
 last the agony of his soul was so great, that in 
 order to get rid of those feelings, he quit the 
 Sabbath-school and church. I called to see 
 him and warn him of his danger. He seemed 
 perfectly indifferent. When I referred to past 
 interviews, and the many tears he used to shed 
 when he saw others going to the Lord's table, 
 he replied, " I can now look at that scene with- 
 out any emotion ; and I don't think it would 
 move me to see the Son of God die again." 
 My heart sickened at the answer. He now 
 lives as if there was no God. 
 
 There is great reason to fear that some who 
 may read this little book have passed through 
 
118 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 all that has been described, and are yet in their 
 sins. If so, I entreat you, by the value of your 
 soul, by the agony of the Saviour on the cross, 
 and by his dying groans, to awake ; beg of him 
 the return of the Holy Ghost, and cast yourself 
 on his mercy as a poor helpless sinner, crying, 
 " Lord, save, or I perish." Never give up till 
 you have " tasted the good word of God and 
 the powers of the world to come." Till then, 
 and not till then are you prepared to spread 
 your sails and launch forth on the voyage of 
 life. A young man without the grace of God 
 in his heart, is like a frail bark in the midst of 
 the ocean without pilot or rudder. A smooth 
 sea or gentle breeze may waft it safely for a 
 while ; but the probability is that it will be 
 driven by storms on the rocks, or stranded on 
 the sandy shore, and utterly lost. I entreat 
 you, dear youth, to prepare for this voyage of 
 life. You have but one to make. If not pilot- 
 ed by the Spirit of God, your frail bark will 
 founder and perish ; you will never reach the 
 desired haven. 
 
 If you oxGjust entering upon manhood and the 
 cares and responsibilities of life, whatever is now 
 the standard of your piety, such it will be like- 
 
GRIEVING GOD'S SPIRIT. 119 
 
 ly to be while you live. Whatever course you 
 now adopt in your .religious duties, that course 
 you will probably continue to pursue. If you 
 have formed the habit of secret prayer, with the 
 regularity of the rising and setting sun, there 
 is reason to hope you will continue it through 
 life. If you have become the head of a family, 
 and like the pious patriarch, erected an altar to 
 God, on which morning and evening incense is 
 offered, you will be likely to continue it; and 
 if it has been and is now neglected, there is 
 great reason to fear that it will never be 
 erected. 
 
 I know many flatter themselves, that as they 
 grow in grace and knowledge, they will enter 
 on this and other duties ; but the only way to 
 grow in grace is by the performance of duty 
 with reliance on God. You might as well ex- 
 pect to increase your bodily strength without 
 taking food, as to increase spiritual strength 
 without secret and family prayer. As the 
 blacksmith's arm gains strength by swinging 
 the hammer, so will you gain strength in the 
 performance of present duty. I entreat all the 
 professed followers of Christ who become heads 
 of families, to erect the altar of prayer the first 
 
120 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 night they lodge in their own house, and in- 
 scribe on it, Punctuality. Let the morning and 
 evening sacrifice be offered to him who- made 
 and preserves you. The Saviour requires it, 
 the honor of the church in the eyes of the world 
 requires it of you, and your own comfort arid 
 happiness will be enhanced by it. 
 
 The family altar is a quadrant, by which 
 the piety of the church may be measured. The 
 church is composed of families. In this day of 
 hurry and bustle, when all are rushing with 
 locomotive speed for the accomplishment of 
 some worldly scheme, as if life depended on it, 
 we fear this duty is sadly neglected; yea, we 
 know it is. There are thousands of families in 
 our land where the head of the family is a pro- 
 fessor of religion, that so far as the family altar 
 is concerned, lie down at night and rise in the 
 morning like the brutes that perish ; and it is 
 not only the private members of the church 
 that neglect this duty, but in some cases church 
 officers. In too many cases, almost the only 
 distinction between the church and the world 
 is the communion table we fear there will be 
 none in eternity. 
 
 Are you the head of a family, and a profess- 
 
GRIEVING- G-OJD'S SPIRIT. 121 
 
 ed follower of Christ? Remember the patri- 
 archs built an altar to God wherever they went. 
 Go and do likewise ; you will never find a time 
 as convenient ; if you are diffident, that diffi- 
 culty, as your family grows up around you, will 
 probably increase. As it was in giving your 
 heart to Christ, the longer you delay, the great- 
 er the obstacles. Resolve to do it or die in the 
 attempt, and you will find man's extremity is 
 God's opportunity. The family altar will be- 
 come a place of sweet communion with God, 
 where he will meet you morning and evening, 
 and give you grace and strength for the duties 
 and trials of each day. Family worship, in 
 connection with secret prayer, will prepare you 
 for keeping up a telegraphic communication 
 between God and your soul. Then your light 
 will shine, not only on your own family, but on 
 others around you. And as your children grow 
 up, your example, by the divine blessing, will 
 make such an impression on their minds, that 
 as they enter the church they will establish al- 
 tars of prayer, and thus your influence will 
 descend from generation to generation. 
 
122 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 JOINS THE CHURCH-H1S FIRST COMMUNION. 
 
 A FEW months after commencing family wor- 
 ship, as above described, he concluded he would 
 go before the session of the church, and tell 
 them his spiritual condition. The day for the 
 meeting of the session came ; he was requested 
 to give a full statement of his past and present 
 feelings, which he did. He was then requested 
 to retire, and was soon informed that they had 
 unanimously agreed to receive him to the full 
 privileges of the church. He trembled at the 
 news ; he did not feel fit to go to the Lord's 
 table. He was urged to prayerful self-exami- 
 nation, preparatory to coming to the commun- 
 ion table on the next Sabbath. The interven- 
 ing time was one of deep anxiety and almost 
 unceasing prayer, to know, if possible, how 
 matters stood between God and his own soul. 
 
 From what he had been accustomed to hear 
 ministers say to communicants, he expected to 
 have some unmistakable evidence of God's pres- 
 ence while at the Lord's table. He had often 
 
JOINS THE CHURCH. 123 
 
 heard them say it was a testing-place, where 
 Christ met his people to bless them, and where 
 they might ask large things of him, expecting 
 they would be granted. 
 
 He partook of the Lord's supper the first 
 time under this impression, looking for some 
 sensible manifestation of God's presence ; but 
 to his utter astonishment, nothing of the kind 
 was experienced. He came away deeply dis- 
 tressed and disappointed, and returned home 
 that evening under the impression that he had 
 eaten and drunk damnation to his own soul, 
 and committed the "sin against the Holy 
 Ghost." His distress was now greater, if pos- 
 sible, than it had ever been before; the night 
 was spent in deep anguish of soul, and the 
 morning brought no relief. 
 
 The next day he returned to the church to 
 attend the continued service, as was usual in 
 that part of the country. His distress was so 
 great he could not give attention to the ser- 
 mon, which had no bearing on his case. At 
 the close some business was to be done in rela- 
 tion to the interests of the church, and all the 
 male members were requested to remain. After 
 the business was over, he started homewards, 
 
124 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 his soul burdened with the deepest distress; 
 life seemed to be an intolerable burden ; he de- 
 sired to die, and know the worst of his case, 
 and was again tempted to destroy himself. He 
 took a narrow footpath along the side of a 
 high hill that led to his house nearer than the 
 public road ; it was a way seldom travelled ex- 
 cept by hunters. He turned from the path to a 
 dark cave on the hill-side, where no eye but that 
 of God could see him, and there he resolved to 
 remain till he found peace in Christ. He cast 
 himself on the earth with the agonizing cry, 
 " Lord, save, or I perish." Almost instantly a 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory filled his soul, 
 heaven seemed to be let down to earth with all 
 its enrapturing delights, and he felt like the 
 disciples on the mount of Transfiguration. He 
 arose from the earth as if he could almost fly 
 heavenward ; he felt unwilling to leave the 
 place, and could not tell how long he remain- 
 ed. But the happiness of that time was more 
 than all the pleasures of his whole past life put 
 together ; it was a foretaste of the good word 
 of God and the world to come. Every thing 
 looked beautiful ; all nature was changed ; the 
 very trees of the forest looked divine; the 
 
JOINS THE CHURCH. 125 
 
 Toiee of the birds resembled the songs of an- 
 gels chanting heavenly melodies. He reached 
 home before he was aware of*it, and all there 
 seemed different from what it had ever been 
 before. God seemed to be in him, and in 
 every thing around him. This state of mind 
 continued unabated for some weeks. He 
 thought and spoke only of Christ and his sal- 
 tation. Even the toils and labors of the day 
 were performed without the usual fatigue or 
 weariness. He could almost say that 
 
 " Not a wave of trouble rolled 
 Across his peaceful breast." 
 
 But alas, the lurking pride of his heart began 
 to show itself. He began to feel as if he was 
 a favorite of heaven. As self-righteousness 
 increased, heavenly-mindedncss decreased, and 
 doubts arose. He thought all the joys he had 
 experienced might have been a delusion ; that 
 Satan might have transformed himself into an 
 angel of light, and thus deceived him. He be- 
 gan to feel deep anxiety. The spirit of prayer 
 had departed from him in a great measure, and 
 heaven seemed to be sealed against his cries. 
 But he was still unwilling to give up religious 
 duties, and determined that if he did perish, he 
 
126 THE PILOEIM BOY. 
 
 would continue to pray. After a few weeks, 
 light dawned again on his soul, and he had 
 hope that he wa a child of God. In future 
 years he believed that his heart was changed 
 the night he first worshipped God in the pres- 
 ence of his wife, which was more than six 
 months previous. 
 
 He had long prayed for clear evidence that 
 he was a child of God, that his happiness might 
 be complete, and he might be free from the fear 
 of death. God may have given him the desire 
 of his heart for a short time, in order to show 
 him his own weakness, and that his strength 
 was not in himself, but in God, and thus teach 
 hirn a lesson of humility. I believe that if we 
 were taken to heaven for a day, and permitted 
 to taste its enjoyments, in order to give us 
 unmistakable evidence of our acceptance with 
 God, and then brought back to earth, and left 
 to rest on that evidence alone, unsupported by 
 daily grace, we should still fall into doubt and 
 darkness and perplexity. "As thy day is, so 
 shall thy strength be," is a wise arrangement of 
 divine providence. He gives grace enough to 
 prevent despair, and not enough to lead to pre- 
 sumption. 
 
FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HIS FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 
 
 THE cares of the world began now to press 
 hard upon him. He was very poor in this 
 world's goods, with nothing but his own hands 
 to depend on for a living. A day's labor would 
 only bring twenty-five cents, or a bushel of 
 corn, which was only worth that sum. Many a 
 day he rose while the stars were shining, and 
 went four miles, worked all day, and returned 
 by starlight again, with one bushel of corn. 
 He truly earned his bread by the sweat of his 
 brow ; his lot seemed to be a hard one. When 
 he was a little boy, he often prayed Agur^s 
 prayer, "Give me neither poverty nor riches; 
 feed me with food convenient for me." But 
 even this he could see no way at this time to 
 realize. He was often tempted to embark in 
 some new enterprise, but was prevented by the 
 dread of failure, or the fear that others might 
 lose something through him, and thus a stain 
 be brought upon his character and upon re- 
 ligion. 
 
128 THE PILG-RIM BOY. 
 
 By constant industry, in a few years his 
 worldly circumstances began to improve a lit- 
 tle. The wet days and the long nights he 
 turned to some account in making shoes, and 
 thus he often worked till midnight, with some 
 useful book spread out before him, storing his 
 mind with knowledge. Theological books were 
 his daily companions, as he believed they were 
 better calculated both to develope the mind and 
 improve the heart than any other kind of reading. 
 
 Soon after uniting with the church, he felt 
 that he must do more for Christ's cause in the 
 earth. He saw drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, 
 and all kinds of vice around him, and began 
 to cast about what he could do to remove it. 
 
 About that time a very pious man, not far 
 from his own age, settled a few miles distant 
 from him, and organized a Sunday-school. As 
 soon as he heard of it, he went to see it, for 
 being the first that was ever established in that 
 region, it attracted much attention. Many of 
 the old-fashioned Christians thought it a dese- 
 cration of the Sabbath, and denounced it in 
 bitter terms, and few favored it. He thought 
 he would go and see for himself, and judge ac- 
 cordingly. He watched the day's performance 
 
FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 129 
 
 very closely ; and when he saw seventy boys 
 and girls, mostly children of godless parents, 
 learning to read the Bible, he felt it was a good 
 work. At the close of the school, he was re- 
 quested by the good man who conducted it to 
 lead iii prayer, but declined, as he had never 
 prayed in the presence of any one except his 
 wife, and that with great embarrassment. 
 
 When the school was dismissed, an acquaint- 
 ance introduced him to the superintendent, 
 who, after some inquiry about the condition of 
 his neighborhood, urged him to open a Sunday- 
 school there. This man's piety was so far above 
 any he had ever met, that it impressed him 
 deeply. He seemed to breathe the atmosphere 
 of heaven. Before they parted, the pilgrim 
 arranged to get a Sunday-school library, and 
 agreed to meet this good man the same evening 
 at a private house where a prayer-meeting was 
 appointed, and to take part in the exercises, 
 which he did with fear and trembling. 
 
 This formed a new era of his life. While he 
 felt humbled with his own defective perform- 
 ances, he felt an approving conscience in striv- 
 ing to do his duty. He had new views, new 
 feelings; his soul was fired with new zeal, 
 
 PiL Boy. 9 
 
130 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 and he determined to enter the field and labor 
 for souls as one that must give account to God. 
 
 The next week he sent for a library of Sun- 
 day-school books, and organized a school in his 
 own house, and invited all his neighbors 7 chil- 
 dren to attend it. His house was soon full, 
 and a neighbor who had a larger house kindly 
 offered it. The offer was accepted, and that 
 house was soon full. Soon a large house was 
 built for that school and for other means of edu- 
 cation and moral improvement. He now felt 
 that he was doing some good to others, as well 
 as making some progress in the divine life. 
 
 In addition to his Sunday-school, he opened 
 his house for a weekly prayer-meeting, which 
 he conducted alone. At these meetings he 
 usually read one of Burder's village sermons. 
 
 In the course of a year after this school and 
 prayer-meeting were begun, a deep religious 
 interest was manifest through all the commu- 
 nity, especially in the neighborhood where the 
 good man before alluded to had planted his 
 Sabbath-school, the schools being about five 
 miles apart. Through the influence of this good 
 man, ministers came and preached, sometimes 
 in the woods, and sometimes in private houses. 
 
FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 131 
 
 In a few months more than fifty persons gave 
 evidence that they had been " born again ;" 
 some of all ages, but mostly those who had 
 attended the Sabbath-schools and prayer-meet- 
 ings. It was the first revival of religion the 
 pilgrim had ever been in. His Christian char- 
 acter was much strengthened by it, and he 
 increased in both power and knowledge to do 
 good. This revival resulted in the organiza- 
 tion of a church, and he was elected and 
 ordained one of its elders. 
 
 But now trouble came on him from a very 
 unexpected quarter. In addition to the respon- 
 sibilities of the office, which he dreaded, his 
 wife was violently opposed to his acceptance of 
 it, on account of loss of time and extra expenses. 
 She had never shown any disposition to encour- 
 age him in religious duties, but rather threw 
 obstacles in his way. For the sake of peace at 
 home therefore, he for a time declined acting 
 as an elder. He was urged by his Christian 
 friends for his reasons, but delicacy forbade 
 his giving them. Conscience urged him to 
 do his duty and act, and he finally determined 
 to forsake all and follow Christ, and strive 
 to win her over to him and his cause. 
 
132 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 About this time he engaged as a school- 
 teacher in his neighborhood. His school was 
 large. Man} 7 of his pupils were young men and 
 women that belonged to his Sunday-school. It 
 required all his energies faithfully to conduct 
 the school, which numbered about sixty. The 
 recess he uniformly employed in committing to 
 memory the passages of Scripture which con- 
 tained the Sunday-school lesson, together with 
 all the proof-texts. This constant labor of 
 body and mind for a year induced another 
 severe sickness, which again brought him to 
 the brink of the grave. 
 
 During this sickness many a touching scene 
 was witnessed at his bedside. Some of his 
 pupils were with him every day, shedding tears 
 of sorrow, and receiving, as was supposed, his 
 dying counsels ; and none came or went un- 
 warned. 
 
 On one occasion, a married woman came who 
 was one of his Sabbath-scholars, and who had 
 learned to read in his Sabbath-school. As she 
 was standing by his bed, when it was supposed 
 he was within a few hours of eternity, he took 
 her by the hand, and asked her where her soul 
 would be in a few more hours, if she was now 
 
FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 133 
 
 lying as lie was, in a dying condition. She wept 
 and trembled, and returned home a mourning 
 penitent, and soon found peace in believing, 
 lived some years a consistent Christian, and 
 died rejoicing in hope of glory. 
 
 At another time, when his family and many 
 of his neighbors were gathered around his bed 
 to see him die, God was pleased peculiarly to 
 manifest himself. Heaven with all its glories 
 seemed to be unvailed to him, and he longed to 
 depart and be with Christ. At his bed stood 
 a weeping wife, with three little children, poor 
 and helpless ; and by her stood some of his 
 pupils, besides many others, in their sins. Be- 
 fore him heaven seemed to be open with all its 
 glories to receive him ; his physical frame nearly 
 a skeleton; the ordinary antecedents of death 
 nearly all past. The tears of his wife and lit- 
 tle children stirred all the feelings of his nature. 
 The suspense of his mind was awful, the strug- 
 gle severe. At last he cried, from the inner- 
 most recesses of his heart, " 0, Lord, if it is 
 for thy glory, and the good of dying souls, let 
 me live ; if not, let me die." It was the will 
 of God that he should live. 
 
 Perhaps few have had the same kind of diffi- 
 
134 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 culties to encounter as above related ; but all 
 that enter the service of their divine Master 
 have trials to meet. The Christian's life is a 
 constant warfare ; the great archenemy follows 
 him at every step, and often brings trials when 
 they are least expected. He sometimes pre- 
 sents the discharge of religious duties as a great 
 burden, and thus tries to frighten the Christian 
 back to his service ; and if he yields once, the 
 difficulty .is but increased. There are heads of 
 families in the church that live without family 
 prayer, for the want of courage to begin. Sa- 
 tan repesents the duty as a great burden, and 
 they put it off from time to time, hoping to 
 overcome their diffidence ; whereas, if they 
 would make one determined effort in reliance 
 on God, the difficulty would vanish. He would 
 meet them, and help them through. When the 
 Israelites were hemmed in at the Red sea, and 
 at the command of God went forward, the sea 
 was dried up before them. We fear there are 
 many who, out of respect to the opinion of a 
 wife, a husband, a parent, or a child, neglect 
 their duty to God and their own souls ; while 
 if they would obey God, and do their duty, 
 they might win that friend to Christ. The 
 
FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFORTS. 135 
 
 terms of discipleship are, that we must forsake 
 father and mother, sister and brother, wife or 
 husband, when they come between us and Christ. 
 The Saviour will not forego his claims on us for 
 the accommodation of our unconverted friends. 
 "How knowest thou, wife, but thou shalt 
 save thy husband ; or how knowest thou, 
 man, but thou shalt save thy wife?" and so of 
 all other relations. 
 
 One of the means which God has appointed 
 for keeping piety alive in his children, is to 
 work for Christ. Every Christian should be a 
 laborer in his vineyard, and we live in a day 
 when every one can do something. There are 
 many neglected children untaught at home, 
 whom you might gather into Sunday-schools, 
 and be the means of saving. There are many 
 impenitent sinners around you, to whom you 
 might speak a word or lend a tract, and noth- 
 ing would be more likely to benefit yourself. 
 God has promised that he that watereth shall 
 be watered. All faithful laborers for Christ 
 meet a gracious reward even in this life, and 
 every soul they save will be a star in their 
 Redeemer's crown. 
 
136 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HIS LABORS IN PRAYER-MEETING-S CONVER- 
 SION OF HIS WIFE. 
 
 ON being raised up from the verge of death, 
 lie still gave unceasing attention to his Sab- 
 bath-school, and had the pleasure of seeing his 
 scholars increasing rapidly in Bible know- 
 ledge ; and at every communion some of them 
 made a public profession of their faith in the 
 Redeemer. Some fathers and mothers sat as 
 scholars with their children to study God's 
 word, and embraced Christ with them. In 
 addition to his Sabbath-school labors, he as- 
 sisted in holding prayer-meetings two or three 
 times each week. He often went, at the close 
 of a hard day's labor, from four to six miles, 
 through rain and snow, to unite with a few 
 Christian friends in these social meetings. 
 Some of the sweetest moments of his life were 
 spent in these social gatherings ; it often seemed 
 as if God came down in the midst of them, and 
 almost as if the very atmosphere imparted a 
 divine stimulus to their souls. During one 
 
LABORS IN PRAYER- MEETINGS. 137 
 
 winter these meetings were held almost every 
 night. It seemed, on some of these occasions, 
 as if the day of Pentecost was about to return. 
 In a few months many precious souls came out 
 on the Lord's side, and publicly professed Christ. 
 
 But these constant meetings increased his 
 domestic troubles. His wife viewed all as so 
 much time lost, and called it wild enthusiasm. 
 This pained his heart, and often drove him to 
 tell his sorrows to God. For years, unknown 
 to any but Him who rules the heavens, a part of 
 each night was spent in a lonely grove on the 
 bank of a creek, where the murmurs of the 
 stream mingled with his agonizing groans for 
 the salvation of her soul. 
 
 At last the time came when his sorrow was to 
 be turned into joy, when his feeble prayers were 
 to be answered, and ministering angels rejoice. 
 This joy came at the conclusion of a communion 
 Sabbath. He had that day earnestly renewed 
 his request at the sacramental board to the 
 great King for the salvation of his wife. He 
 had not discovered any thing unusual in her till 
 he returned home. When he went to put away 
 his horse, she followed him, and said, with tears, 
 " my dear husband, I am a great sinner " and 
 
138 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 sinking down at his feet, asked him to pray that 
 God would have mercy upon her. In a few 
 minutes her countenance beamed with joy, and 
 a heavenly peace seemed to fill her soul; and 
 from that day till the day of her death, which 
 occurred two years after, her whole life and 
 conduct were changed. She encouraged her 
 husband in all his labors ; the domestic circle 
 was happy, and she became a helpmeet in every 
 good work. 
 
 As no minister resided near, the pilgrim felt 
 it his duty to visit the sick, to talk and pray 
 with them, and bury the dead. This gave him 
 many opportunities of doing good. As he 
 believed he had been led to Christ by reading 
 religious books, he bought from his own scanty 
 means all he could, and lent them to his neigh- 
 bors. The books opened the way for religious 
 conversation, and he thus reached many that 
 neglected all other means. The frequent evi- 
 dences of usefulness still encouraged him to 
 make farther efforts. 
 
 He at length, with much fear and trembling, 
 resolved to visit all the families in his neigh- 
 borhood, and talk and pray with them, distrib- 
 ute tracts, and loan books. He made it a sub- 
 
LABORS IN PRAYER-MEETINGS. 139 
 
 ject of much prayer ; the struggle was a hard 
 one. But those Scriptures, "The fear of man 
 bringeth a snare/' and "Whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of me and my words, of him also shall 
 the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in 
 the glory of his Father with the holy angels," 
 seemed to ring in his ears every day. Some 
 inward monitor urged him on, and at last he 
 resolved to attempt it in the strength of God. 
 
 The first house he entered, he shook like one 
 who had the ague. It seemed very difficult for 
 him to tell his business, but as soon as he made 
 it known, the burden fell off, and his stammer- 
 ing tongue was loosed ; he realized the promise 
 of God, " My grace is sufficient for thee ; my 
 strength is made perfect in weakness.' 7 All his 
 fears were gone. The visit was well received, 
 and he that watered was watered in return. 
 That day was all spent in going from house to 
 house, and it was as happy a one as he ever 
 enjoyed. He continued from day to day, till he 
 visited all the neighborhood. Christians were 
 roused to duty, and some sinners were awaken- 
 ed to see their need of a Saviour, and to ask an 
 interest in his prayers and for renewed visits. 
 
 One incident so encouraged him that he 
 
140 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 resolved to devote all his leisure time to this 
 work. In a family he was visiting, after he 
 had conversed with others, he turned to a 
 young man present who was gay and thought- 
 less, and about to be married. He asked him 
 if he was a professor of religion ; he said, " No," 
 in rather a sneering manner. He asked him if 
 he had never felt any concern about his soul. 
 He replied, "Not much." He then urged him 
 in the most importunate manner to attend at 
 once to the interest of that part that never 
 dies; and closed by saying, that he might be 
 in eternity before the light of another day, or 
 on a sick-bed, from which he might never rise. 
 The young man seemed to feel, and shed 
 tears. He returned home some miles distant, 
 and retired to his bed in usual health ; at mid- 
 night he awoke very sick, and the exhortation 
 of the evening rushed to his mind. In a day or 
 two he sent for the pilgrim, who lived some miles 
 distant. He was soon at his bedside, found him 
 very sick and deeply distressed about his soul, 
 and in a great measure ignorant of the plan 
 of salvation. His father was one of the most 
 brutal drunkards, and his mother intemperate 
 too. The fever soon fell on his lungs, and all 
 
LABORS IN PRAYER-MEETING-S. 141 
 
 hope of his recovery was gone. The pilgrim 
 was at his bedside three times each week for 
 the first month ; during most of the time his 
 agony of soul was great ; but God, for Christ's 
 sake, spoke peace to him. Immediately he be-' 
 gan to exhort all that came to see him to flee 
 from the wrath to come, and especially his par- 
 ents. He entreated them with tears to forsake 
 their sins, and turn to God. The pilgrim added 
 his exhortations and prayers. Both promised 
 to reform, and seek their soul's salvation, that 
 they might meet their son in heaven. He lin- 
 gered another month, his soul filled with peace, 
 sometimes with ecstacies of joy. 
 
 The pilgrim aided in conducting the funeral 
 services, and gave his parting counsels to the 
 family. The result was, that the father became 
 distressed about his soul, and at last yielded to 
 the Saviour ; and soon after his wife and two 
 children gave evidence of conversion, all dating 
 their convictions to the warnings and exhorta- 
 tions they had received. This case encouraged 
 him to greater exertions for the souls of others, 
 and had a good effect in removing his timidity 
 in talking to all whom he met. 
 
 Another incident impressed him very forci- 
 
142 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 "bly. There was a very irreligious man whom 
 lie esteemed highly in many respects, but whom 
 he never could summon courage to speak to 
 about his soul, though he had many opportuni- 
 ties. One evening he had the best chance he 
 could desire, but his heart failed him, and with- 
 in a few hours the man was in eternity. He 
 felt guilty of neglecting his duty, and resolved 
 never to spend an hour or travel a mile with 
 any other person alone, without speaking to 
 them of the things of God and the soul. 
 
 Some years after, when he was travelling, he 
 fell in with a gay-looking young man, an entire 
 stranger, whom he addressed very seriously on 
 the subject of religion. While he was explain- 
 ing to him the doctrine of the new birth, the 
 young man replied, "That, sir, is very good 
 theology." The reply seemed rather signifi- 
 cant, when the pilgrim said, Perhaps I am 
 addressing a preacher. He replied, "Yes, sir, 
 I am." The pilgrim told him of his promise 
 made some years ago, not to spend an hour or 
 travel a mile with any person, without speaking 
 to him of the soul and eternity, and hoped an 
 apology was not necessary. The young preach- 
 er replied, "You have given me a reproof I 
 
LABORS IN PRAYER- MEETINGS. 143 
 
 shall never forget, and from, this day I will 
 adopt the same rule." 
 
 Did the subject of this narrative go farther 
 than was his duty ? If you are a Christian, 
 think of the debt of gratitude you owe to him 
 who gave peace to your soul. The blessed 
 Jesus must have died if there had been no other 
 sinner on earth but yourself. It is emphatically 
 true, that every redeemed sinner in heaven and 
 on the earth can say, Jesus died for me. You 
 were under sentence of death in the prison- 
 house of sin, your feet fast in the stocks, the 
 day of your execution fixed, and all the imple- 
 ments of torture ready, a flaming sword turn- 
 ing every way before you. Jesus Christ, with 
 full knowledge of all that it must cost him, took 
 your fetters upon him, agonized in the garden 
 of Gethsemane, was nailed to the cross, mocked 
 and derided by wicked men, and died a shame- 
 ful and ignominious death for you. 
 
 After all this, do not God, angels, and men 
 expect you to live for his glory ; yea, does not 
 Jesus command you, "Son, go work to-day in 
 my vineyard?" Will you do it? Will you 
 show your gratitude by obeying him? Will 
 you use the talents he has given you to advance 
 
144 THE PILGRIM BOY. 
 
 his cause? Or will you hide them in secular 
 duties, or behind the counter, or in some mere 
 worldly occupation, and hide from others all 
 God has made known to you of this wonderful 
 exhibition of love and mercy? Would not 
 this be like robbing Christ of part of his own 
 blood? Is it not a kind of sacrilege, or squan- 
 dering a portion of divine love and compassion? 
 In view of all that Jesus Christ has done and 
 suffered for you, can you reconcile it with your 
 own conscience to do nothing for him or for 
 his cause? If so, beware lest he cast the un- 
 profitable servant into outer darkness. 
 
 I entreat you by his dying love to enter the 
 vineyard in some department at once. If you 
 are not too far advanced in life, and if you 
 have talents and oratorical powers, enter the 
 work of the ministry ; but if you cannot do 
 that, you can teach in a Sabbath-school, you 
 can spend your leisure hours, if no more, in 
 visiting families near you, talk and pray with 
 them, give them a tract, or loan them a good 
 book. You will be twice paid for it all ; you 
 will be blessed yourself in this life with spirit- 
 ual comfort and growth, and in heaven undying 
 souls may be stars in your crown of rejoicing. 
 
YA 04469 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY