popular men, must go to this or that church or chapel, to see some beauty or peculiarity which it was said to possess:  thus a kind of spiritual dissipation was kept up, which was far from being beneficial to growth in grace.  Instead of going to the house of God that the soul might be fed with the bread of heaven, it was too frequently the case that I went to gratify a taste for curiosity, or to get an intellectual feast.  Another error into which I fell, and that, too, a serious one, was indolence.  I was in no way employed for God.  Instead of taking my seat in the Sabbath-school, or going from house to house as a distributer of tracts, or being in some way or another employed for God, I stood aloof from all, and preferred idleness to employment.  And in thus acting I sinned against my conscience.  I have before stated what were my convictions respecting preaching; but fear kept me from that path of duty.  I ought to have been engaged in the Sabbath-school; but constant and excessive confinement—­our hours of business being from seven to nine in the winter, and from seven to half-past ten in summer—­and the alleged want of fresh air, were pleaded as an excuse for not engaging in this duty.

“I cannot reflect on this period of my life without painful emotion.  When I think of the precious time murdered, time which might, and which ought to have been employed for the glory of God,—­I am filled with sorrow.  O, had I been faithful; had I but improved the grace imparted; had I yielded to the strivings of the Spirit, and the convictions of my conscience, I should, I am confident of it, now have been occupying a different position in the Church, and should at this moment have been in the possession of more vital godliness.  These are painful reflections:  yet I trust they are not without their benefits, for they lead me to humility before God, and I hope will ever have the effect of keeping me distrustful of self, and dependent upon God alone.

“But to go on with my narrative.  After about fifteen months’ residence in London, my health began to fail, from the labor and confinement of my situation; and at the expiration of nineteen months, I was under the necessity of quitting the metropolis, and returning to my native county.  Here I again took up my residence with my late employer, at Y——­, with whom I remained about five months.

“I had never, during the whole of my stay in London, been free from the conviction that it was my duty to call ‘sinners to repentance;’ and I made a solemn vow, that should God again lead me to my native place, I would at once offer myself to the Church.  Now came the trial.  ’Remember your vow,’ said my conscience.  ’You are not well enough yet; wait till you have got better,’ answered inclination:  and as there was much truth in the answer—­my friends, together with myself, for some time thinking me in a consumption—­inclination was listened to.  But as I grew better, conscience was not so easily silenced, and a mental conflict was for some time kept up, which is more easily felt than described; and such was its effect upon me, that I began again to sink, and to get very ill.