began to receive her proper punishment from the caprice and asperity of his temper. After a while he seemed to recover his self-command, but soon again he betrayed a hasty and contemptuous disposition from having been the humble and devoted disciple of the Wesleys, he contracted gradually a dislike towards them, and at length broke off all intercourse with them, public or private, because they would not, in conformity to his advice, renounce their connection with the Church of England. He had now his own followers, whom he taught first to disregard the ordinances of religion, then to despise them, and speak of them with contempt. He began to teach that there was "no resurrection of the body, no general judgement, no Hell, no worm that never dieth, no fire that never shall be quenched." His conduct was now conformable to his principles, if indeed the principles had not grown out of a determined propensity for vice and profligacy. Wesley addressed an expostulatory letter to him, in which he recapitulated, step by step, his progress in degradation. After stating to him certain facts, which proved the licentiousness of his life, he concluded thus: "And now you know not that you have done any thing amiss! You can eat, and drink, and be merry! You are every day engaged with variety of company, and frequent the coffee-houses! Alas, my brother, what is this! How are you above measure hardened by the deceitfulness of sin! Do you remember the story of Santon Barsisa? I pray God your last end may not be like his! Oh how have you grieved the Spirit of God! Return to him with weeping, fasting, and mourning! You are in the very belly of Hell; only the pit hath not yet shut its mouth upon you. Arise, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God! Perhaps He may yet be found. Because He yet bears with me, I cannot despair for you. But you have not a moment to lose. May God this instant strike you to the heart, that you may feel His wrath abiding on you, and have no rest in your bones by reason of your sin, till all your iniquities are done away.' Soon after he had written this letter, which was done more for the purpose of delivering his own soul, as he says, than with any reasonable hope of impressing a man so far gone in depravity, Wesley, in the course of his travelling, came to Mr. Hall's house, at Salisbury, and was let in, though orders had been given that he should not be admitted. Hall left the room as soon as he entered, sent a message to him that he should quit the house, and presently turned his wife out of doors also. Having now thrown off all restraint and all regard to decency, he publicly and privately recommended polygamy as conformable to nature, preached in its defence, and practised as he preached. Soon he laid aside all pretensions to religion, professed himself an infidel, and led for many years the life of an adventurer and a profligate, at home and abroad; acting sometimes as a physician, some. times as a priest, and assuming any character according to the humour or the convenience of the day. Wesley thought that this unhappy man would never have thus wholly abandoned himself to these flagitious propensities, if the Moravians had not withdrawn him from his influence, and therefore he judged them to be accountable for his perdition. He seems to have felt no misgiving that he himself might have been the cause; that Hall might have continued to walk uprightly if he had kept the common path; and that nothing could be more dangerous to a vain and headstrong man of a heated fancy, than the notion that he had attained to Christian perfection, and felt in himself the manifestations of the Spirit. Weary of this life at last, after many years, and awakened to a sense of its guilt as well as its vanity, he returned to England in his old age, resumed his clerical functions, and appears to have been received by his wife. Wesley was satisfied that his contrition was real, and hastened to visit him upon his death-bed; but it was too late. "I came," he says, just time enough not to see, but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died, I trust, in peace, for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in seventy years! I had designed to visit him in the morning, but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough if, after all his wanderings, we meet again in Abraham's bosom." Mrs. Hall bore her fate with resignation, and with an inward consciousness that her punishment was not heavier than her fault:—that fault excepted, the course of her life was exemplary, and she lived 66 to be the last survivor of a family whose years were protracted far beyond the ordinary age of man. Mehetabel, her sister, had a life of more unmingled affliction. In the spring freshness of youth and hope, her affections were engaged by one who, in point of abilities and situation, might have been a suitable husband; some circumstances, however, occasioned a disagreement with her father, the match was broken off, and Hetty committed a fatal error, which many women have committed in their just but blind resentment—she married the first person who offered. This was a man in no desirable rank of life, of coarse mind and manners, inferior to herself in education and in intellect, and every way unworthy of a woman whose equal in all things it would have been difficult to find. For her person was more than commonly pleasing, her disposition gentle and affectionate, her principles those which arm the heart either for prosperous or adverse fortune, her talents remarkable, and her attainments beyond what are ordinarily permitted to women, even those who are the most highly educated. Duty in her had produced so much affection toward the miserable creature whom she had made her husband, that the brutal profligacy of his conduct almost broke her heart. Under such feelings, and at a time when she believed and hoped that she should soon be at peace in the grave, she composed this Epitaph for herself: Destined while living to sustain An equal share of grief and pain, Within this breast had once a place. learn'd to bear despair; by adverse fate, he sank beneath the weight, seaceful tomb retired, vad, so long desired. otal conflict's o'er; Yeart can bleed no more. llness, however, she recovered, so eger on for many years, living to find in ... ac consolation which she needed, and caching else can bestow. The state of her . is beautifully expressed in the first letter watch she ever addressed to John upon the subject. Some years ago," she says, "I told my brother Charles I could not be of his way of thinking then, but that if ever I was, I would as freely own it. Ader I was convinced of sin, and of your opinion, As far as I had examined your principles, I still fou bore declaring my sentiments so openly as I had inclination to do, fearing I should relapse into When I was delivered from this my former state. fear, and had a blessed hope that he who had begun would finish his work, I never confessed, so fully as I ought, how entirely I was of your mind; because I was taxed with insincerity and hypocrisy whenever I opened my mouth in favour of religion, or owned how great things God had done for me. This discouraged me utterly, and prevented me thom making my change as public as my folly and vanity had formerly been. But now my health is gone, I cannot be easy without declaring that I have long desired to know but one thing, that is |