year's imprisonment. In the mean time, the pawnbroker to whom
she had sold the silver cup, which she had stolen from poor Sally's
master, impeached her; and as the robbery was fully proved upon
Rachel, she was sentenced for this crime to Botany Bay; and a happy
day it was for the county of Somerset, when such a nuisance was sent
out of it. She was transported much about the same time that her
husband Giles lost his life in stealing the net from the garden
wall, as related in the second part of poaching Giles.

I have thought it my duty to print this little history, as a kind of
warning to all young men and maidens not to have any thing to say to
_cheats, impostors, cunning women, fortune tellers, conjurors_, and
_interpreters of dreams_. Listen to me, your true friend, when I
assure you that God never reveals to weak and wicked women those
secret designs of his providence, which no human wisdom is able to
foresee. To consult these false oracles is not only foolish, but
sinful. It is foolish, because they are themselves as ignorant as
those whom they pretend to teach; and is sinful, because it is
prying into that futurity which God, in mercy as well as wisdom,
hides from men. God indeed _orders_ all things; but when you have a
mind to do a foolish thing, do not fancy you are _fated_ to do it.
This is tempting Providence, and not trusting him. It is indeed
_charging God with folly_. Providence is his gift, and you obey him
better when you make use of prudence, under the direction of prayer,
than when you madly run into ruin, and think you are only submitting
to your fate. Never fancy that you are compelled to undo yourself,
or to rush upon your own destruction, in compliance with any
supposed fatality. Never believe that God conceals his will from a
sober Christian who obeys his laws, and reveals it to a vagabond
gypsy who runs up and down breaking the laws both of God and man.
King Saul never consulted the witch till he left off serving God.
The Bible will direct us what to do better than any conjuror, and
there are no days unlucky but those which we make so by our own
vanity, sin, and folly.

STORIES

FOR PERSONS OF THE MIDDLE RANKS.

THE HISTORY OF MR. FANTOM,

(THE NEW FASHIONED PHILOSOPHER,)

AND HIS MAN WILLIAM.

Mr. Fantom was a retail trader in the city of London. As he had no
turn to any expensive vices, he was reckoned a sober decent man, but
he was covetous and proud, selfish and conceit