oubles from which you
can not save one another; misfortunes which no human prudence can
avoid: then remember, 'tis the best wisdom to go to that friend who
is always near, always willing, and always able to help you: and
that friend is God."

"Sir," said Farmer White, "I humbly thank you for all your kind
instructions, of which I shall now stand more in need than ever, as
I shall have more duties to fulfill. I hope the remembrance of my
past offenses will keep me humble, and that a sense of my remaining
sin will keep me watchful. I set out in the world, sir, with what is
called a good-natured disposition, but I soon found, to my cost,
that without God's grace, that will carry a man but a little way. A
good temper is a good thing, but nothing but the fear of God can
enable one to bear up against temptation, evil company, and evil
passions. The misfortune of breaking my leg, as I then thought it,
has proved the greatest blessing of my life. It showed me my own
weakness, the value of the Bible, and the goodness of God. How many
of my brother drivers have I seen, since that time, cut off in the
prime of life by drinking, or sudden accident, while I have not only
been spared, but blessed and prospered. O, sir, it would be the joy
of my heart, if some of my old comrades, good-natured, civil fellows
(whom I can't help loving) could see as I have done, the danger of
evil courses before it is too late. Though they may not hearken to
you, sir, or any other minister, they may believe _me_ because I
have been one of them: and I can speak from experience, of the great
difference there is, even as to worldly comfort, between a life of
sobriety and a life of sin. I could tell them, sir, not as a thing I
have read in a book, but as a truth I feel in my own heart, that to
fear God and keep his commandments, will not only bring a man peace
at last, but will make him happy _now_. And I will venture to say,
sir, that all the stocks, pillories, prisons, and gibbets in the
land, though so very needful to keep bad men in order, yet will
never restrain a good man from committing evil half so much as that
single text, _How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against
God?_" Dr. Shepherd condescended to approve of what the farmer had
said, kindly shook him by the hand, and took leave.

PART II.

THE WAY TO PLENTY; OR, THE SECOND PART OF TOM WHITE. WRITTEN IN
1795, THE YEAR OF SCARCITY.

Tom White, as we have shown in the first part