ance of a fresh act of
premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.

She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.

Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she
abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as
much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of
her ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to
his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this
life, as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her
so basely.

This is penitence! This is piety! And hence distress naturally arises,
that must worthily effect every heart.

Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find
reason to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for
their cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no
more, than for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God
will forgive her, though no one on earth will.

On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures,
and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents. 'Better
people, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she
sometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty
persons have borne?' On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new
instances of implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation
will show how mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains. See if thou,
in the wicked levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou
didst the other. If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that
will make the properest application.

MEDITATION

How long will ye vex my