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The establishment of Christianity.

AN UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT FOR ITS DIVINE ORIGINAL.

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(Continued from page 134.)

You

You cannot be ignorant that what has been called
the internal evidence for the truth of Christianity
is of the very strongest and most satisfactory cha-
racter, that it is hard indeed to read such a discourse
as the sermon on the mount, or the closing chapters
of the gospel of St. John, or the concluding por
tions of the epistles of St. Paul, without the convic
tion being forced upon the mind, that no impostor,
no enthusiast, could have uttered such sentiments,
or taught such morality, breathing such pure, holy,
endearing love!-such meekness and gentleness of
spirit, such sober piety, such practical philanthro-
phy, and enforcing such a faithful discharge of all
domestic and social duties. Every command, every
prohibition calculated alike to promote the glory of
God, and the happiness of man! Now all this you
either know, or, (as the Bible is within your reach)
do not know!
are utterly inexcusable if you
further cannot be ignorant that some of the pro-
foundest intellects, stars of the very first magnitude
in the firmament of science, men of mighty minds,
giants in genius, have cautiously examined the cre-
dentials of Christianity, and have set to their seal,
in acknowledgment of its truth, and felt that the
attitude which best became them was that of hum
ble disciples, sitting in lowly adoration at the Sa-
viour's feet; or, like the wise men from the east of
old, kneeling before Him, and offering to Him the
most precious incense, surpassing far the worth of
gold and frankincense, and myrrh, even the homage
of their understandings, and their hearts! You are
aware that there are no names in the empire of in-
tellect which can surpass, yea, can compete with, a
Newton, a Boyle, a Locke, a Butler, and that they
felt and confessed that Christianity was indeed divine!
Will you peril your own soul's eternal welfare on re-
jecting, without any, or with only a superficial exami
nation, what claims to be a revelation from God,
and comes before you, with such credentials to au-
thenticate its claims? Will you affect to reject
with scorn what such men have received with reve
rence? Will you pretend to superior sagacity, or a
higher order of intellect, on the ground of disbeliev-
ing what a Newton and a Locke believed? Disbelieve
Christianity if you are so determined-so bent on
your own destruction; but oh! do not pride your,
self on your disbelief, as an evidence of your uncom.
mon genius, for you will perhaps admit that, New,
ton, Locke, Boyle, and Butler were not, in point
of intellectual powers, very much inferior to your-
self!

Consider also, I affectionately entreat of you, whether infidelity or Christianity supplies you with the most soothing balm for the wounds of a bleeding heart, and the most powerful antidote to the fear of death. While the world smiles on you, while you are in the possession of health, and such happiness as earth can give, the insufficiency of infidelity to administer solid and satisfying peace, may not be

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so painfully felt. But remember, the days of darkness and depression will come, sorrow will sooner. or later cloud the sunshine of earthly enjoyment. for infidelity cannot exempt you from a participa tion in the sad inheritance of our fallen nature, that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.". And even if your case should prove a solitary exception, if your pathway through this world's wilder ness should be one of unclouded sunshine, still death must come at last, to fling its deep dark shadow over that path, and shroud it in the gloom of the grave! Now, seeing these things are so, let me affectionately ask you, what comfort do you hope to derive from the tenets of infidelity, under the pressure of affliction, and in the prospect of death? Does that cheerless system supply strength to support the fainting spirit, in the day of trial; or pros pects, to gladden the departing soul, when trem bling on the brink of an unknown eternity. But perhaps, you will say, infidelity has taught you that death is an eternal sleep! Well be it so. Still I would ask you, what is there in that system, of more than midnight darkness, whose brightest hope is utter annihiliation, to comfort in the chamber of sorrow, or to cheer on the bed of death? Why should you be enamoured of a system which degrades you to the level of the beasts that perish, which blights all those glorious hopes, that make man but a little lower than the angels. Yea! hopes which in one sense, raise him above the highest of the heavenly hosts! Oh! why so proud of your degradation? Why thus glory in your shame? What is there in the reflection, that the stupendous display of the love of God which, Christianity exhibits is a delu sion, and the Heaven of unutterable blessedness and the glory which she unveils, is but a dream,... oh! what is there in that reflection in which you ought to triumph? What is there in this discovery that ought to fill your heart with joy? Surely, surely, the anouncement (could it be authentically made) that Christianity is a fable, and that all her glorious prospects must be for ever abandoned, as the visionary creation of an enthusiast's dream, ought to be received by every real lover of mankind with the deepest sorrow, as sounding the expiring knell of the brightest hopes of the human race? If then you fancy you are compelled to reject Christianity, with all its exalted principles, and all its exceeding great and precious promises of bliss and glory, for ever deepening and brightening, as the ages of eternity are rolling onward, and to embrace infidelity, with all its degrading principle, and gloomy prospects, depriving man of the ennobling consciousness that he is allied with, and travelling toward a Heaven, where in the presence of a God, who is Light and Love, he shall rejoice, with the fulness of joy, for evermore. Oh! do not at least boast of your melancholy choice! Reject, if you will, the prospect of everlasting glory! Abandon the hope of soaring after death, to a world of light and love beyond the skies! Cling to the prospect of plunging into the blackness of darkness" to be

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swallowed up in the wide tomb of uncreated night," for ever and ever! But do not, do not, appear to revel in this prospect, for there is no glory in it, whereof you can be rationally proud? And do not affect to pity those, who cling to the blissful hopes, which Christianity unfolds, for indeed your compassion is utterly wasted upon them! In truth they require it not, they deserve it not! Reserve it for the death-bed of the infidel, that is indeed a scene emphatically entitled to your deepest compassion! But as for the death-hed of the Christian, that is a scene of triumph! that is the vestibule of Heaven, the gate of glory! Oh! it were a very waste of your compassion, to bestow one particle of it on him, whose spirit is about to wing its flight up to the bliss of Heaven, the bosom of its Saviour and its God.

I cannot but earnestly press this consideration, with the most affectionate solicitude on your serious attention. If infidelity, in If infidelity, in its darkest form, holding out the prospect of utter annihilation of soul and body, be true, you gain nothing by its truth, in which, as a rational being, you can consistently rejoice or glory! You only learn the humiliating lesson, that your rank in the creation is but a little, if at all, raised above the level of the brute; that your body, instead of being the tabernacle of an immortal spirit, deriving a grandeur from the nobility of the guest that dwells within, and destined itself, on the morning of the resurrection, to be raised, in incorruption and power-an immortal and glorified body, like the divine Redeemer's, is but a piece of clay, of exquisite workmanship indeed, but unennobled by the inhabitation of an immortal soul, and destined after a few years to return to the dust from which it was taken, and there to moulder in corruption, without the bright hope of a glorious resurrection, to pour, as with the Christian, a gleam of glory even round the grave. Such is all your triumph, if infidelity could be demonstrated to be

true.

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single rational enjoyment, which infidelity snpplies, aud Christianity forbids. Yea farther, I will add, there is not a single source of happiness, worthy of your desire, even as a rational being, which Christianity does not additionally sweeten, by sanctifying the enjoyment, and by infusing into it the celestial flavor of gratitude to a Saviour God, as the bountiful benefactor, who in His loving kindness, has so freely bestowed the precious gift! and whose touch turns water into wine, creature-comforts, in themselves insipid, into rich covenant blessings! What then do you lose by renouncing Christianity? The happiest life that can be enjoyed on earth-and an endless life of pure perfect happiness in Heaven! Were this all, surely even this would loudly call on you to examine cautiously the claims of Christianity, before you decide on throwing away for ever, blessings such as these. But this is not all!If Christianity be true, and you reject it, I would again remind you, that you. must not merely lose all the blessings it promises, but also incur all the penalties it denounces! You must not merely forfeit the eternal happiness which it reveals, as the inheritance of the believer-but you must also incur the eternal misery. which it proclaims, as the portion of the unbeliever! Not merely must Heaven with all its glory be lost-but Hell with all its horrors must be secured! Yes! if Christiantity be true, everlasting wrath and woe must be your dark and dreadful inheritance, if you reject this revelation of the love of God! Addressing you then, as one, who boast of reason, distinguishing characteristic, which raises you above the beasts that perish, need I say more, to induce you to give to the claims of Christianity the most candid, patient, persevering consideration weighing, with the most impartial judgment, all the evidences, internal and external, which have been advanced in her behalf, studying every standard work in her defence-but especially the Sacred Volume itself, and praying earnestly to that God, in whom you professedly believe, that He would enlighten your understanding, direct you in your enquiry, and guide you to the knowledge of the truth.

But, if Christianity be true-what do you lose? Oh! what tongue of man or angel could adequately describe the amount of your loss? The favor of that God, whose smile is Heaven. The inhabitation of that Holy Spirit, whose presence makes the believer's body a temple of the living God. All the precious blessings purchased with a Saviour's blood, and whose value can only be guessed at here below, from our incapability of adequately comprehending the value of the price, at which they have been purchased-even the infinitely precious blood of Him, who in the beginning was with God, and was God! Oh! what must the blessings be which are worthy of such a price? And by rejecting Christianity, you reject them all! Yes! all that is comprised in those words" eternal life-eternal glory-an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away the fulness of joy in the presence of God, and, at his right hand, pleasures-satisfying pleasures for evermore." All this you fling away and what do you gain in exchange? No thing-positively nothing! for there is not a

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The Bookseller of Allerton, or Practical Piety, · (Continued from page 136.) or NEVER were two characters more dissimilar than those of Walters and his wife, yet the most entire affection subsisted between them. The former was perhaps the most interesting one; reserved, positive, anxious, ambitious in his own little way, and inclined to melancholy; the other calm, sensible, steady, cheerful and contented. Religion in her became an every-day principle under the influence of which her commonest acts were performed, one in whom obedience was cheerful, and duty was pleasure; while in Walters' religion was marked by an anxiety which gave it the appearance of being intermitting, by wishing him to attach too much importance to forms and feelings, so that in him it exhibited a greater alternation than in his wife.

Exceedingly dismayed were many of Waters's cus

tomers and best friends at the blank appearance his shelves presented, a blank but ill concealed by the few small articles he had substituted in the place of the former ones; still more were they surprised when in an wer to their demand for the tracts, songs or stories with which these shelves had been filled, he only briefly replied that he had them not, without adding with the usual bookselling alacrity, that he would get them immediately, or, that he expected them every moment. Walters wanted courage to confess; profession is easy, confession is difficult; as difficult to him it was, as to the man who wields the dominion of nations; and the very feeling that he shrunk from, confession of the truth made him, uneasy, almost unhappy; for he knew it was written Whosoever shall be ashamed of ne and my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed:" and not only was it the fear that his Lord and Master should be ashamed of him that made him uneasy; not the lowness, the baseness of such conduct to Him, whose he was, and whom he desired henceforth to serve, that heavily weighed upon his mind, and continually left him to feel he was not glorifying God in his body and his spirit which were His.

A conversation which he had with his plainer and more practical wife, set his duty in this respect more clearly before him.

A simpler method than Esther pursued in any prac tical question could scarcely be devised, After Paul had entered on his new life which commenced in his eventful journey to Damascus, his language, with reference to find out his relation to Him, was-"Whose I am and whom I serve"-the same sentiment was deeply impressed on Esther's mind, and was conveyed from thence to her husband's.

They were living under the government of Christ, as their King, by whose laws they must be ruled, as their Priest to make atonement, and their Prophet to impart instruction; where then should they go to know the rule of faith and practice but to His own word, to the declaration of His own will and the written precepts He had left for the guidance of His faithful people?

They soon found that scripture proved the course they were pursuing to be a plain denial of Christ, and an evidence that they were ashamed of Him and His doctrine; and that while they allowed their uninstructed neighbours to seek elsewhere for the pernicious productions once sold by them, they imitated but ill the example of Him who came to seek and save those that were lost. But it is easier to decide on what is right, than to find courage to perform it, and in a place where not one person agreed with them even in religious opinion, to appear as a preacher of righteousness, to be ridiculed as a fanatic or an enthusiast, was very painful to such a man as Walters.

Esther however at this time gave birth to her first and only child, a fine little boy; and on the day of her coming again to the small room which was elevated a few steps at the back of the shop, an opportunity presented itself to Walters of making that confession which he felt he ought to make. A man entered the shop to ask for one of those infidel publications, which, as was before said, were at that time most industriously distrri

buted in the manufacturing districts; having expressed his disappointment at not being able to get it he demanded when our bookseller intended to have a fresh supply, and advancing to the empty shelves hoped as he had sold so well he was not going to let the money "lay dead."

Walters hastened to inform him he intended to have no more of such works, and this leading to a further enquiry, he briefly told how he had disposed of his former stock; his hearer waited for a very small part of the exhortation he was about to receive to forsake such dangerous reading, but hastily leaving the shop went back to his house with the intelligence that poor Walters had lost his reason.

His wife and two other of the neighbours repaired forthwith to Esther's room, to condole with her under this affliction. Esther's good sense enabled her to see the cause of this mistake, so as to prevent the alarm she might have otherwise felt, but her explanation if it removed the necessity of their sympathy by no means stopped the circulation of the story, and in a few hours almost all the town had heard that Mr. Walters had set fire to his shop and burned all his effects. By degrees the story changed, as stories will, and finally the truth, or something like the truth alone, was believed or known, and instead of an insane man, Walters was found to be a saint.

All this was very trying to a man of his temper, to Esther it would have been less so, but she escaped the trial altogether, in consequence of a slight indisposition which attacked her at the time, and her entire devotion to her infant after that illness was over.

The storm flew over and Walters tried to hope the best; he made his shop look as well as he could, he bought some religious tracts, and as he found some difficulty in procuring these, in an unguarded moment, he laid out the largest portion of his remaining sum of money in purchasing sonie books, which were both too good and too expensive for him to sell in his situation. Certainly he now contemplated the appearance of his shop with far greater complacency, but, poor fellow, he had little else to do; day after day that appearance was the same, nor was a single article scarcely ever displaced. Walters' spirits Hagged; to be tied inac tively to one spot, where there is nothing to do but which must not be left, is surely the most wearisome state imaginable. His daily walk which he had been so exact in taking was not renewed after Esther's recovery; either he thought the amount of his labours did not now need this relaxation, or in the still longing expectation of seeing customers enter he deferred it from hour to hour.

Walters' whole mind had been set on rising in his business; and that not by any shuffling arts, or officious zeal, but though in a small, yet in a respectable and straight-forward manner; to be successful as a book. seller was almost the dream of his boyhood and the hope of his matured days; he suffered more now from disappointment than from anxiety; though poverty stared him in the face; still his most secret regret was that his hopes in this respect were blasted. He grew very thin; his face was sallow, his eyes dull. Esther was wholly engrossed in a mother's first cares; she

had no assistant and was fully occupied; Walter's thought she forgot she had a husband; his wounded affection would not let him remind her of this, and his reserve prevented him from speaking of his feelings. He suffered, as many others do, very needlessly; his wife's sensibilities were not so quick, as she was a plain spoken person herself, she sometimes required to be plainly spoken to; but a word if Walters could have uttered that word, would have removed the unpleasantness between them. The infant that was to the mother only a source of love and joy, was to the father an object of care, and perhaps if the truth were known, of a little jealousy, for it engrossed the attention that had been wholly bestowed on himself.

Walters had opened his Ledger one evening, there was not much to be done in it, but the balance of profit and loss was soon struck, it was all on the latter side; he closed it with a heavy sigh the result of depressed feeling, and putting up the shutters went into the room where his wife with the babe on her lap was sitting. She had just put on its night clothes, the little thing was fast asleep, its face turned to the fire, the light of which fell brightly upon it. Esther was gazing down on that little soul, and she lifted her eyes and smiled at her husband, and dropped them again to their former position, and said" look William."

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He turned his eye coldly in the direction for a moment, and then looked away. With the quick percep¿tion that characterized her, Esther instantly conjectured the feelings which, unknown to himself, were at work in Walters' mind. Many another wife or mother would have reproached him with indifference and want of paternal affection, and therefore a domestic feud I would have ensued, the unhappy effects of which its unconscious object might perhaps have felt through the lives of father and mother. Esther's good sense prevented this, for she knew if there were a deficiency in that affection it would never be increased by altercation on the subject; and her christian principle came to her aid, and caused conscience to ask if she were quite clear of blame in regard to him whose relation to her was not altered, because she had acquired another object of love and care.

Esther was silent, but did not look cross; she could have shed a tear, but she exerted self command sufficient to restrain it, and prevent even the inclination from being seeff.

"Have you closed the shop, William ?" "Yes." Then I will put the baby in bed, he ought to have been there half an hour ago."

She went and laid him down and returning drew her seat closer to her husband's and said,

"Now, dear William, I know you are not a man to speak out what you think at once, so I will tell you what has just came into my mind, and I dare say it has heen in yours' too. I have been thinking too much about our infant, and I have left you to yourself, and not seemed to care about how you were going on, or what you were doing, and you never spoke of this but yet you have felt it. I have been very wrong, but I see how hard it is to act right in new circumstances and under temptations we have not known before, unless we feel our danger and pray for help. I used only to pray

that I might act right as a wife, but since our babe was born I have felt so much, I have only thought of acting right as a mother, and I did not pray that one duty might not interfere with another, and so that which was designed for our comfort and joy might have proved a temptation and snare. You have seen my fault, but perhaps you did not know what it arose from, and though, I am sure, you would tell me of other faults, you would not speak because you excused yourself; but our gracious God has shewn me my error just in time to prevent its being of serious consequences, for I have always thought when the bond of love is once broken it is not ever made so entire again. If you had spoken one word you would have known my heart was just the same as ever toward you, and you would have led me sooner from an error which I believe many mothers fall into, making their children of the first importance, and not seeming to think so much of their husbands as they did before. And now, William, as I have told you all this, you have only to forgive me, and I have only to try to make you amends in future." Walters' reply was an affectionate embrace, he felt Esther knew him better than he knew himself.

Esther had now many questions to ask about matters she had long neglected; her thoughts having been confined to her child, her conversation had generally ran upon the same subject, like that of too many good and anxious mothers, it had been turned principally on details respecting it or questions relating to it, forgetting that to a man engaged in other cares, and labours, and anxieties, there were other topics on which even a tender father might feel greater interest and require some sympathy:

Esther felt ashamed of a conduct that was neither kind nor christian-like, and knew she had not performed. the injunction to "bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ"-the law of Love-which unites a household, and might unite a neighbourhooda world, in one 26 perfect bond."

Esther did not think her husband's coldness to their infant arose from want of affection; she felt that he had not had her sympathy, and so she knew she should not have expected his. She was indeed distressed at the account he gave her of the state of affairs in their little shop; she saw there would be an immediate necessity to devise other plans for their support, and act with promptitude.

Walters was silently gazing into the fire; she too did not speak at first; then she said

"Do'nt you feel, William, that when you go to think of what is best to do, and can see no way directly open before you, and one thought after another comes across the mind, and yet there seems some hindrance to every thing, that you are disquieted and fettered and unable to fix on any thing; and so after much time is spent, all is given up, and you are just as you were before you began to think and plan at all.

Walters agreed with a sigh, and a look of still more expressive assent. "I trust God will direct us," he said. "Yes: that is it," Esther replied; " but can we expect He will do so unless we ask Him? He has said ASK and ye shall receive,' but He does not tell us we shall receive without asking."

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"But we have work to do while we are in it, William, we are not to eat the bread of idleness."

"How can I help it; "said Walters, very impatiently.

"Neither of us could help it, if it be the will of God to deprive us of the power of exertion, but if it is His will we are not to do so, do you think He will enable us to perform that will if in sincerity we ask Him? You know it is said commit thy way unto the Lord and He will bring it to pass,' but how can we expect He will bring it to pass if we do not commit it to Him? Now, I think, we have been wrong in not consulting the Lord, as it were, on our affairs."

"I have always considered it wrong to pray for temporal good," said Walters; "and besides these things appear too insignificant for the direction of God."

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Perhaps it is wrong to pray for anything that is not needful for us, and which may not promote our spiritual interests; but we are taught to pray- Give us this day our daily bread,' and it cannot be wrong to ask him to give us the means of procuring it, or to give us so much light and direction on our earthly way as may prevent our minds from being distracted and diverted from better things, and as to these things being too insignificant for Him, you know those who do not believe the Bible say, that He is a Being so far removed from all concern and feeling for us, that it is quite absurd to suppose He interferes with the affairs of this world; but the Bible says very different, he feeds the young Ravens that call upon Him'-' without Him not a Sparrow falleth' He carries the Lambs in His bosom-these sayings, I think, shew us the compassion and care of the Lord, and when we have told him our state, and left our concerns in His hands, then we have more peace and often a light seems to come to our mind and thoughts to occur to us that appear sent first in answer to our prayers.''

"Then, Esther, suppose instead of tiring ourselves with talking over matters we cannot alter, we do as you say now, for I begin to think we have neglected too long seeking the help of God in our perplexities." The husband and wife then read the Bible, and he prayed a simple prayer from his own heart, and they arose with minds calmed and comforted. They sat long by the fire that night conversing, thongh in a less anxious and troubled manner, and Esther informed her husband that she really thought that if he was in a better neighbourhood, away from the persons who once patronized, and now avoided, and in some instances ill-treated him he might do much better; this idea had occurred to her after prayer and consideration, therefore she placed more reliance on it.

Walters' face brightened for a moment at the thought of taking a new shop in a less mortifying situation, and commencing again as a bookseller on better principles; but that brightness soon passed away; this plan would require a sum of ready money to accomplish, and he told her with a sigh that he had but little in hand; the term of their house was unexpired and

he could not think of taking another. Esther too sighed at these details, she saw something ought to be done, and that the disappointment he felt depressed Walters so much as to deprive him of any energy be had possessed, and incline him to give up his trade altogether. But Esther was no lover of change, and she knew there was no other he was so suited to; she was resolved, however, on this occasion not to get into the same state of uneasy perplexity she had been in before, and therefore she turned her thoughts to the subject of self-exertion, to find out what she could do. The recollection of her infant here came in, and she sighed again at the difficulties that arose on every side; but her mind turned to its strong-hold:-" Well, William," she said, "we have now left the matter in the Lord's hands, we must only as scripture says, trust, and not be afraid; He may see fit to try our faith and patience, but let us go on doing what we can and He surely will not forsake the work of His own hands.”

"At all events it is well to have the testimony of our own conscience," said Walters, "some of the disciples only left a fishing boat to follow Christ."

"Yes, William, and he did not refuse them when they said they had left all to follow him, and asked what they should have therefore; I am sure God will not let His faithful people be left destitute."

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They shall have their reward in the next world, if not in this," said Walters, " and I believe it is far better to look forward to that reward which is reserved in Heaven, for those who love and honour his name, and not to think much of this disappointing, vexing world."

There was something in Walters' tone and appearance which made Esther feel uneasy, she saw that both his health and his state of mind required that some object of interest, or source of occupation should be set before him, and she accordingly began to point out some plans which might be, at least thought about, as to their leaving their present abode, and concluded by saying "now, dear William, while we leave the direc tion of all things in the Lord's hands, let us remember that whatsoever our own hand findeth to do, we must do it with our might, therefore do you keep looking about, and making some enquiries in the town and I will see and do what I can, and then the means may be provided for our removal."

The suffering and anxious man was cheered by the hope presented, in his heart he blessed his wife, and before he laid down to rest he leaned over his sleeping babe and breathed a father's blessing on its head, and a tender kiss upon its cheek. Esther beheld it and if she needed a sweeter reward than that of ministering to her husband's sorrows, she had it in knowing that it increased his love to his child; and with the feelings of natural affection deepened and rendered more blissful by a meet assurance of the Divine love. Esther experienced amid present privations, and threatening prospects a happiness which the worth of kingdoms could not purchase.

The next day was the last of the week, Esther arose in good spirits, it was always a busy day with her; it is so indeed with most housekeepers in the same line of life, but she had generally made it so on religious

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