whole dealings of God with my soul in a treatise by itself; but in this I intend treating chiefly of the providences of God, lest the book swell too big for the poor to purchase.

I do not remember any particular providence attending me till about three or four years after, when I was brought savingly to believe in Jesus Christ for life and salvation. At this time I dwelt in a ready-furnished lodging at Sunbury in Middlesex; where my eldest daughter, now living, fell sick, at about five or six months old, and was wasted to a skeleton. We had a doctor to attend her; but she got worse and worse. Having lost our first child, this was a dear idol to us; and I suppose it lay as near my heart as poor Isaac did to the heart of Abraham. However, it appeared as if God was determined to bereave us of her, for he brought her even to death's door. My wife and I have sat up with her night after night, watching the cradle, expecting every breath to be her last, for two or three weeks together. At last I asked the doctor if he thought there was any hope of her life. He answered, No; he would not flatter me; she would surely die. This distressed me beyond measure; and, as he told me he could do no more for her, I left my lodging-room, went to my garden in the evening, and in my little tool-house wrestled hard with God in prayer for the life of the child; but upon these conditions, that, if my request was granted, and she should live to arrive at the full stature in life, and in future times turn

wicked, and be damned for sin, and that my earnest prayer should be the cause of it, I beseeched God not to regard my petition for the child, though she was as dear to me as my own life. I went home satisfied that God had heard me; and in three days the child was as well as she is now, and ate as heartily, only her flesh was not perfectly restored. This effectually convinced me that all things were possible with God.

I had now dwelt about fourteen months at Sunbury, and had served a gentleman in the сараcity of a gardener at twelve shillings per week. The gentleman informed me he purposed to keep his carriage, and intended that his driver should work in the garden; therefore he should only hire a man now and then a day, but should not keep a gardener constantly. I was, in consequence, discharged from my work; but had the liberty offered me of staying till I could get employment elsewhere. I believe my master often saw the felicity of my mind, and the wisdom God had given me, by the answers I was enabled to give to his various questions. Grace carries many rays of majesty with it, though it take up its abode in a beggar. However, I thought this world was his god, therefore I refused his offer, as Abraham did the present that was offered him by the king of Sodom; that is, I would take nothing that was his, from a thread even to a shoe latchet.

After I had been three weeks out of employment I heard of a place at Ewell, in Surry: which

I went after, and engaged in. It was with a gentleman that manufactured gunpowder. I agreed for eleven shillings per week in the summer, and ten shillings in the winter; and procured a readyfurnished room in an old thatched house on Ewell Marsh, if with propriety it might be called a furnished room, at two shillings per week. I was obliged to pawn all my best clothes in order to defray the remaining expenses which attended my wife's lying-in, owing to my being out of employment; and to hire a cart to carry my personal effects, which were but few, to Ewell. When the cart set us down on Ewell Marsh on the Monday morning, and I had paid the hire of it, I had the total sum of tenpence halfpenny left, to provide for myself, my wife, and child, till the ensuing Saturday night! But though I were thus poor, yet I knew God had made me rich in faith; and these words came on my mind with power; ‘He multiplied the loaves and fishes to feed five thousand men, besides women and children.' We went on our knees, and turned the account of that miracle into a prayer, beseeching the Almighty to multiply what we had, or to send relief another way, as his infinite wisdom thought most proper. The next evening my landlord's daughter and son-in-law came up to see their mother, with whom I lodged, and brought some baked meat, which they had just taken out of their oven, and brought for me and my wife to sup along with them. These poor people knew nothing of us, nor of our God. The

next day in the evening they did the same; and kept sending victuals or garden stuff to us all the week long. We had not made our case known to any but God; nor did we appear ragged, or like people in want; no, we appeared better in dress than even those who relieved us: but God sent an answer to our prayer by them, who knew not at the same time what they were about; nor did I tell them till some months after. While we were at supper I entertained them with spiritual conversation. After supper I went to prayer with them, and prayed most earnestly for them. And God answered it; for he sent the woman home deeply convicted that night: nor did her convictions abate till she was brought to see Christ crucified in the open vision of gospel faith, and to receive peace and pardon from Christ for herself. Some time after this, God began to work upon the husband also; and then I related the fore-cited circumstance; at the hearing of which he told me how it was impressed on his mind that I was in want of victuals; and his wife found fault with him for thinking so, and bringing it to me, saying, 'The people are better to pass than we are.' But he contradicted her, and insisted on her doing as he desired.

It pleased God sorely to afflict this poor man some few years after, during which time I was enabled to restore him fourfold. He left a testimony for God with his dying breath, and I believe he is in eternal glory. His widow is this day a servant to Mr. Linsey, a tallow-chandler in Lam

beth Marsh, on the right-hand side of the road which leads from Westminster-bridge to Clapham. Her name is Ann Webb.

I found that the small pittance of eleven shillings per week, as I paid two shillings for a readyfurnished lodging, would amount very slowly towards the getting my clothes out of pawn, which with the interest, amounted to near forty shillings, and which I was loth to lose. It came into my mind to search my Bible, to see if any instruction for faith could be got about this matter. I turned promiscuously to these words, "There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?" I asked my wife if she had ever ate barley bread. She said, 'Yes, in Dorsetshire.' I told her I never had eaten it, but the poor Saviour and his Apostles had; and I supposed it was because, speaking after the manner of men, they could get no better food. And, as God saw it necessary to keep us in a state of deep poverty, it ill became us to complain, or to refuse the meanest diet, seeing he had blessed us with an assured hope of heaven hereafter. She said she was willing if I was. So she went to a farmer to ask him to sell her a bushel of barley. His reply was, that he sold his barley by the quarter, or load, to malsters, for making malt; and should not trouble himself with measuring such a small quantity. So she went to a corn-chandler in Ewell, and asked for the same article; whose answer was, I have only the refuse of the barley, or