he power
of lifting and commanding the smallest sum, without being thereby
discovered and seized. Had it been possible for me to have escaped in
my own clothes, I had a considerable sum secreted in these, but, by the
sudden change, I was left without a coin for present necessity. But I
had hope in Heaven, knowing that the just man would not be left
destitute and that, though many troubles surrounded him, he would at
last be set free from them all. I was possessed of strong and brilliant
parts, and a liberal education; and, though I had somehow unaccountably
suffered my theological qualifications to fall into desuetude, since my
acquaintance with the ablest and most rigid of all theologians, I had
nevertheless hopes that, by preaching up redemption by grace,
preordination, and eternal purpose, I should yet be enabled to benefit
mankind in some country, and rise to high distinction.

These were some of the thoughts by which I consoled myself as I posted
on my way southwards, avoiding the towns and villages, and falling into
the cross ways that led from each of the great roads passing east and
west to another. I lodged the first night in the house of a country
weaver, into which I stepped at a late hour, quite overcome with hunger
and fatigue, having travelled not less than thirty miles from my late
home. The man received me ungraciously, telling me of a gentleman's
house at no great distance, and of an inn a little farther away; but I
said I delighted more in the society of a man like him than that of any
gentleman of the land, for my concerns were with the poor of this
world, it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The weaver's wife, who sat with a child on her knee, and had not
hitherto opened her mouth, hearing me speak in that serious and
religious style, stirred up the fire with her one hand; then, drawing a
chair near it, she said: "Come awa, honest lad, in by here; sin' it be
sae that you belang to Him wha gies us a' that we hae, it is but right
that you should share a part. You are a stranger, it is true, but them
that winna entertain a stranger will never entertain an angel unawares."

I never was apt to be taken with the simplicity of nature; in general I
despised it; but, owing to my circumstances at the time, I was deeply
affected by the manner of this poor woman's welcome. The weaver
continued in a churlish mood throughout the e