Page:History of Charles Jones, the footman (1).pdf/10

 ruin you, body and soul. Flee from an alehouse as you would from the devil; if you once get into it, you will never get out of it. Keep your money, and your money will keep you. Here, Charles, is a Bible for you; The more you read it, the more you will love it, the better you will be, and the happier. I have written some directions for you in the first page of it. God bless you; and when my race, which is now drawing to its end, shall finish, may we meet in heaven.' My master's kindness so affected me, that I could not answer him for tears. I was indeed very glad of going to seosee [sic] so fine a place as London, though at the same time I could not leave a house where I had been treated more like a child than a servant, without great regret. I shall not attempt to describe my parting with my mother. No description, I am sure, could do justice to the solemn and affectionate manner in which she exhorted me to be pious and just, and recommended me to God in prayer. Her last words I shall never forget,—'I know, my dear son, said she, that you love me tenderly, and that you would not give me unnecessary pain on any account. Remember then, that whenever you do any wrong thing, you are planting a dagger in your mother's heart.' With these words, her eyes brim full of tears, and her hands lifted up in silent prayer to God, she turned away from me, and went into the cottage.

And now, reader, you find me in the great and dangerous city of London, in the service of a very wealthy master, who kept twelve servants besides myself. If country people knew London as well as I do, how cautious would they be for exchanging their safe and peaceful situations in the country for the perils and temptations of a great city. How