ord; far be
it from me, as a Christian man, to institute any rash comparison either
in favor of my fellow-creature or against him, so long as sin and
prejudice even for that which is good, and frailty, may render us, as
they often do, liable to error. In Mr. M'Clutchy it is possible I may
be mistaken; in Mr. Hickman it is possible I may be mistaken--I am not
infallible--I am frail--a very sinner, but not removed wholly, I would
trust, out of the range of grace. My Lord, I say again, that, as a
conscientious man, and as far as mere human reason--which is at best
but short-sighted--enables me to judge, I am truly cheered in spirit by
this, I trust, providential change in the agency of your property. My
Lord, in my various correspondence, I generally endeavor to make it
a rule not to forget my Christian duties, or, so to speak, to cast a
single grain of the good seed into the hearts of those to whom I am
privileged to write. The calls of religion are, indeed, strong upon
us, if we permitted ourselves to listen to them as we ought. Will your
lordship then pardon me for reminding you, that, however humble the
instrument, I have before now been the honored means of setting your
godly examples of charity before the world, with the single-hearted
purpose and hope that it might imitate your virtues. There is in the
neighborhood a case at present of great distress, in the person of a
widow and her three young children, who have been left destitute by the
guilt and consequent deportation of her unhappy husband to Australia,
for the crime of feloniously abstracting live mutton. I defended him
professionally, or, I should say--although I do not boast of it--with an
eye to the relief of his interesting wife, but without success; and what
rendered his crime more unpardonable, he had the unparalleled wickedness
to say, that he was instigated to it by the ill-advice and intemperate
habits of this amiable woman. Will your lordship, then, allow me to put
your honored name in the list of her Christian friends? Allow me, my
Lord, to subscribe myself,

"Your lordship's frail, unworthy,
"But faithful and honored servant,
"Solomon M'Slime."

"P.S.--With respect to your jocose and ironical postscript, may I again
take the liberty of throwing in a word in season. If your lordship could
so far assume a proper Christian seriousness of character, as to render
the act of kindness and protection on your part such as might confer a
competent indepe