pit of destruction. He went forward, but every step plunged him in new difficulties. It was so dark that he could not see his road, and it was so late, that it was not possible to ask directions. He wandered about for a considerable time, until he lost his road, and got so entangled, that it was with great difficulty he groped his way back again to the detestable place he had left. There he found his pretended friend as he had left him. He seated himself once more by his side, overwhelmed with grief, and almost desponding of deliverance. He feared his life would be aimed at. It was now one in the morning. Worn out with fatigue and exhaustion, he had almost sunk into the very arms of the destroyer. Tea was prepared in an adjoining room. Greatly did he long to taste it. It would have refreshed his frame and cheered his spirits; but it was prepared by and in such company, and amidst such scenes of wantonness, as made him resolve to forego the refreshment, and keep at as great a distance as possible from the snare. His cruel foe at length found the resolution of the youth more than a match for him; and being reproached for his baseness in introducing one that he called a relative to such scenes, he consented to depart. He now led the young man to the places where he deposited his smuggled goods, and to the houses of several who were his partners in the unlawful traffic. Abundance of drink was obtained at these places; but as it was a dark night, John Cooke was able to pacify his pretended friend,by seeming to drink with him, while he contrived to let the destructive liquor flow down his horse's neck. At length, and after great difficulties, they reached Colchester; and very speedily, Mr. Cooke contrived to bid farewell to these scenes of temptation and vice, and to those base pretenders to friendship, who had used every artifice to make him as much the child of the devil as themselves. Their object in all this was, evidently, to have brought about his destruction, that they might have shared the estate to which they knew he was entitled, and which none could touch while he lived.

I have entered into this detail more fully than perhaps many readers would have deemed necessary, and certainly more so than the nature of the circumstances, disgusting and humiliating as they are, would justify. But I have given the recital, in continuance of that memorable display of divine Providence, which distinguished the early and unenlightened, as well, as the subsequent, years of our esteemed friend. He was, indeed, "preserved in Christ Jesus, and

C

called." But there is another view in which these apparently trivial circumstances rise into importance. The influence they had upon the character of Mr. Cooke, is one of the most interesting considerations connected with them. They were the occasions of developing some of those mental qualities which became prominent in all his future life, and mainly contributed, under a divine blessing, to that extensive usefulness with which he was honoured. These events happened when his mind was just beginning to exert itself; when it was yet untaught by books; and they gave him an insight into the baseness of mankind; they opened to him a door in the human bosom; they showed him the hollowness of pretended friendship, and forewarned him, by a terrible lesson of human depravity, of what he would find continually around him, as he stepped forward into life. The startling nature of these his first rencontres with the world, put him upon his guard, and thereby called into exercise those rare qualities of self-possession, and decision, which Mr. C. displayed in afterlife, in a pre-eminent degree. These events contributed to awaken that manliness and independence, that resolute dependence upon his own judgment, when he felt that judgment to be on the side of reason and uprightness, which throughout life made him act, and feel, and speak, as if he rested on no man's arm.

Gentle and kind to a proverb, when he saw no evil was intended, and no duplicity practised, but possessed of nerves of iron, and a brow of brass, against the workers of iniquity. It is highly interesting to see those pre-eniment qualities which Mr. Cooke possessed above most men, first displaying themselves in one of the most critical situations to which a youth of eighteen, wholly unfitted to grapple with such fees, was unexpectedly brought. It was not, perhaps, to the strength of his feelings or virtuous habit, that we are to attribute the memorable stand he made, and the ever memorable victory he obtained over his crafty and cruel relatives; but to his natural good sense and shrewdness, which gave him a ready insight into the plans of these friends, and kept him constay alive to the fear of evil. He acknowledges in his memoranda, that he might have fallen mto these snares at another time, and under other circumstances; but that now he had a special dread of the intentions of these relatives, and this made a constantly suspect, that all their plans were laid with a view to his ruin, and that they might divide the spa of his property. Here, then, we behoid hem first

learning, and at the same moment practising, some of the most important lessons of moral prudence. These things taught him to look below the surface for the true springs and impulses of human conduct, and to form his judgment of men and things, less by their words than by their doings. This experience of one week's visit to his relatives at Colchester, was worth years of study, and gave an impulse to his powers of reflection, caution, and self possession, which was of the utmost value in his ministerial course; and though this experience was so painful and even perilous to his moral feelings and principles, yet it awoke and called into exercise an energy of mind, a resolute firmness, a command of spirit, which eminently fitted him for those future scenes and duties of life to which he was destined, and many of which were of a very trying and peculiar character.

After this singular and perilous visit, he returned with his professed protector to the house of Mr. Laver, to sum up his concerns, and bid farewell to the scenes of his childhood and youth. The following memorandum of the parting scene between him and his master, written evidently while Mr. C. was yet a youth, is so simple and genuine a picture of the ardent friendship of these two individuals for each other, that I shall transcribe it entire.

And

"At length the morning came when part we must. now my mind swam against the stream. My heart desired not to leave him, and his was cleaving to me. This caused very much grief on both sides. He went with my uncle and myself some part of the way, for we had five miles to go to the coach, and were bound for London. At our parting my heart was full, whilst tears from his eyes, as well as the gesture of his body, doubled my distress. Being dubious of my uncle's intent, he cautioned me with expressions of love and tender regard to return to him if things did not go well; so careful and sincere a friend was he, that he begged very hard of me to return if things sped not well, and promised, fatherlike, gladly to receive me, although I now left him without any just cause or reason. I gave him a slight promise to come back, unless I found a sober family to live in. Now, farewell, my master! My guardian! My best and only friend, in whom the comfort of my life was bound up! The loss of him was the greatest loss I ever sustained, for he was the best earthly friend I ever found. Farewell, Latchinden, and all my associates! Farewell, all my false hopes of happiness, which I had built there! And, farewell to peace-for a year

and a half-during which time my conscience sorely rebuked me, the Devil as sorely tempted me, and I feared God's terrible hand would follow to punish my folly for leaving my place unjustly."

He now came under the special care, or rather at the mercy of, his uncle, to the metropolis, from which he had been removed at the early age of seven, and to which he was now introduced after the lapse of about eleven years, under circumstances, and at an age the most perilous. Had not a Providence, infinitely vigilant and gracious, adopted him as its special care, he must indeed have fallen a prey to the dangers that awaited him.

He had left Mr. Laver with a considerable sum of money in his pocket. His uncle and aunt soon contrived to exhaust this little store. While it lasted, their kindness and attention were unremitting; but when it began to fail, friendship dried up with it. Their nephew had continued some time with them, without any exertions being made to procure him a suitable situation. At length he found that he must depend entirely upon his own efforts. He was abandoned by those who had drawn him from his comfortable home and kind master, in the country; and, from the habits of his uncle and aunt, he foresaw that they were fast verging towards ruin. They had dissipated a respectable property of their own, and now seemed resolved to involve their nephew in the same wilful calamity.

It ought, indeed, to be commemorated, as a singular mark of the kind hand of God over him, that, disregarded as he was in London, left daily at large without employment, without companions, without religious principles, and with money at his command, he should have escaped the multiplicity of snares such a metropolis presents. Yet such was the fact. Month after month rolled by without employment of any kind. He longed to escape from the treacherous grasp of his relations; he wished to be relieved from the tedium of idleness; and, as his property was not sufficient for his support without some occupation, he longed to be engaged. Daily he wandered about the streets, and inquired in all directions for any honest employment, that might remove him from his connexions and relieve his mind. But he could find none to engage him, and he had no friends to interest themselves on his behalf. His mind became anxious and irritated. He longed daily for the innocent and healthful occupations of his farm. A thousand times he

thought of the parting invitation of his friend and master. He wished to return; but shame and fear, which daily grew stronger, seemed to throw impassable obstacles in his way. His mind, naturally vigorous and manly, expended itself in vain regrets and gloomy anticipations. These soon connected themselves with a future world, and some vague notions he had received of the devil and infernal spirits. This state of mind increased, until he was wrought up to a pitch of great mental agony. His present friendless and destitute situation, he viewed as a divine judgment for leaving his affectionate master. He expected nothing but heavier visitations. His fancy was filled with terrible images, and night and day a brooding melancholy settled upon his thoughts.

At length, after a variety of mortifying disappointments, which proved unspeakably distressing to the ardour of his youthful mind, he hired himself to a farmer, with a view of improving his knowledge, and preparing himself for business. He now went to live near Rumford, in Essex. His situation proved uncomfortable, and he continued in it but a few weeks. The disappointment which followed this effort was the more painful, as it had been a sort of desperate attempt to obtain an honourable employment, and exposed him, in its failure, to the dire necessity of returning to his uncle's house. It appears from his private papers, that these relatives were at this time enjoying the proceeds of his little property; and yet, when he returned to cast himself upon their protection, they evinced a base unwillingness to receive him. They could not, however, absolutely refuse him a place in their house; and there once more, with extreme reluctance, he took up his abode. He had continued but a short time in the family when his aunt was taken ill and died. Though the loss was not important, yet it deserves mention here, because of its connexion with his religious feelings. It contributed to bring on a crisis, both in his worldly prospects, and in his religious experience, by which the whole of his future character and engagements may be said to have been regulated. Although, at this period, utterly destitute of any knowledge of the Gospel, he yet perceived, and deeply regretted, the unfitness of his aunt for so fearful an event. It quickened his mind to a sense of the awfulness of death to an unprepared sinner; but it induced no inquiry into what a sinner must do to be saved. It appears rather to have given an impulse to his self-righteousness, and to have increased his expectations of being able