and I almost fainted under
the discouragement_; but of late _it shows another face_; and I make
no doubt but it will spread, and I shall soon see greater things than
these.

I am, hon. Sir,
Your most obliged and humble Servant,
WILLIAM STANLEY."

"P. S.--On examining the different _branches of my family_, I find
upwards of 200 of us in different parts of England."

This poor man, when a soldier, and in the habit of attending divine
service, as a part of his duty, often heard his comrades speak of the
text, on their return to the barracks. He one day made up his mind to
bring home the text also, the next time he went to church. He heard with
attention, and when he returned to the barracks, he said, "I've got the
text now." "What is it, Stanley?" he was asked by a comrade, when he
answered, "The 19th day of the month, and the 95th Psalm." When relating
this to the author, he added, "I had the mortification to be laughed at
by all my comrades who witnessed my ignorance." Do not many professing
Christians come away from the house of God as ignorant as this poor
Gipsy? Or if they have been taught to know and remember the text, it is
all they attend to. This man's mind did not long remain in this dark
state. After the above event he learned to read, and one day, taking up
a Testament from the barracks' table, he read a portion of it, (for so he
expressed himself) _The sublimity of the language struck his mind with
astonishment_, and he said, _I will buy that book if I can_. His comrade
asked him three halfpence for it; and he was glad of his purchase;
although the Testament was very much torn. The Holy Scriptures were
scarce in those days, a copy of which could seldom be bought by the poor;
nor, indeed, would the word of life have been useful to them, as not one
in a hundred could read.

Soon after this, he was invited to attend a Wesleyan chapel in Exeter,
where a funeral sermon was to be preached by the Rev. Wm. Aver. The text
was, _Let me die the death of the righteous_, _and let my last end be
like his_. While the minister was describing the happiness of the
righteous, divine light shone upon his soul, he felt that _he_ was not
that character, and that there was no prospect of his dying happily,
unless he possessed it. This sermon was the means of his conversion.

CHAP. XIV. Interesting particulars of the Gipsies, related by a
Clergyman.

The following account