Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/32

22 and the class was broken!! This was to me a severe trial; I had derived high satisfaction from the connexion, and from the fame, which it had bestowed upon me; I however lost no reputation, it was generally believed I had performed my duty, and that no boy, beside myself, would have kept such a set of beings together, and in such order so long.

This was a season replete with events, which possessed for me no common interest. Constantly in society, I formed many attachments, and I began to fear that the love of social enjoyments would, like Aaron's rod, swallow up my best affections. From conviction of error, I sought retirement; I loved reading more than any thing else, but I sighed for variety, and as the full soul loatheth the honey comb, I began to sicken at the constant repetition of devotional books. My father read history, and some few novels, but he took special care to secure those books from his children. We were allowed to read no books but the bible, and volumes based upon this precious depository of whatsoever things are good, and excellent. I sometimes, however, glanced my eye over my father's shoulder, and finding Tom Jones, or the history of a Foundling, in his hand, the efforts at concealment, which he evidently made, augmented my anxiety to read. I remember once to have found Clarissa Harlowe upon his table. Hervey's Meditations, and Young's Night Thoughts, were not interdicted books, and their plaintive sadness obtained an easy admission into the inmost recesses of my soul. To Milton too I gave some hours, but I could not read blank verse, nor did my father wish to encourage my attempts in this way. He saw I had too strong a passion for novelty, and he deemed it prudent to check me in the commencement of my career.

Although my devotional ecstacies were diminished, yet I was steadily attentive to my religious exercises, and I believed myself daily increasing in goods. It is true my life was as variable as the weather; sometimes on the mount, and sometimes in the valley, sometimes alive to all the fervour of devotion, and sometimes, alas! very lifeless: Now rejoicing in hope, and anon depressed by fear.

The preachers, visiting the adjacent villages, often requested my father to permit my attendance; his consent delighted me; I reaped, from those little excursions, abundant satisfaction, and the preachers being my elders, and much acquainted with the world, I collected from their conversation much to instruct, and amuse. They were, however, young men, they collected young company, and they were excellent