as to
overleap all bounds.

"Every individual has its own peculiar trials; and anguish, in one shape
or other, visits every heart. Sensibility produces flights of virtue;
and not curbed by reason, is on the brink of vice talking, and even
thinking of virtue.

"Christianity can only afford just principles to govern the wayward
feelings and impulses of the heart: every good disposition runs wild, if
not transplanted into this soil; but how hard is it to keep the heart
diligently, though convinced that the issues of life depend on it.

"It is very difficult to discipline the mind of a thinker, or reconcile
him to the weakness, the inconsistency of his understanding; and a
still more laborious task for him to conquer his passions, and learn to
seek content, instead of happiness. Good dispositions, and virtuous
propensities, without the light of the Gospel, produce eccentric
characters: comet-like, they are always in extremes; while revelation
resembles the laws of attraction, and produces uniformity; but too often
is the attraction feeble; and the light so obscured by passion, as to
force the bewildered soul to fly into void space, and wander in
confusion."

CHAP. XXV.

A few mornings after, as Mary was sitting ruminating, harassed by
perplexing thoughts, and fears, a letter was delivered to her: the
servant waited for an answer. Her heart palpitated; it was from Henry;
she held it some time in her hand, then tore it open; it was not a long
one; and only contained an account of a relapse, which prevented his
sailing in the first packet, as he had intended. Some tender enquiries
were added, concerning her health, and state of mind; but they were
expressed in rather a formal style: it vexed her, and the more so, as it
stopped the current of affection, which the account of his arrival and
illness had made flow to her heart--it ceased to beat for a moment--she
read the passage over again; but could not tell what she was hurt
by--only that it did not answer the expectations of her affection. She
wrote a laconic, incoherent note in return, allowing him to call on her
the next day--he had requested permission at the conclusion of his
letter.

Her mind was then painfully active; she could not read or walk; she
tried to fly from herself, to forget the long hours that were yet to run
before to-morrow could arrive: she knew not what time he would come;
certainly in the morning, she concluded; the morning then was anxio