ice. "Sir," said
he, "I quarreled with the family and I thought I was at once fit for
the army: I did not know the qualifications it required. I had not
reckoned on discipline, and hardships, and self-denial. I liked well
enough to sing a loyal song, or drink the king's health, but I find
I do not relish working and fighting for him, though I rashly
promised even to lay down my life for his service if called upon,
when I took the bounty money and the oath of allegiance. In short,
sir, I find that I long for the ease and sloth, the merriment and
the feasting of my old service; I find I can not be a soldier, and,
to speak truth, I was in the very act of deserting when I was
stopped short by the cannon-ball. So that I feel the guilt of
desertion, and the misery of having lost my leg into the bargain."

The officer thus replied: "Your state is that of every worldly
irreligious man. The great family you served is a just picture of
the world. The wages the world promises to those who are willing to
do its work are high, but the payment is attended with much
disappointment; nay, the world, like your great family, is in itself
insolvent, and in its very nature incapable of making good the
promises and of paying the high rewards which it holds out to tempt
its credulous followers. The ungodly world, like your family, cares
little for church, and still less for prayer; and considers the
Bible rather as an instrument to make an oath binding, in order to
keep the vulgar in obedience, than as containing in itself a perfect
rule of faith and practice, and as a title-deed to heaven. The
generality of men love the world as you did your service, while it
smiles upon them, and gives them easy work and plenty of meat and
drink; but as soon as it begins to cross and contradict them, they
get out of humor with it, just as you did with your service. They
then think its drudgery hard, its rewards low. They find out that it
is high in its expectations from them, and slack in its payments to
them. And they begin to fancy (because they do not hear religious
people murmur as they do) that there must be some happiness in
religion. The world, which takes no account of their deeper sins, at
length brings them into discredit for some act of imprudence, just
as your family overlooked your lying and swearing, but threatened to
drub you for breaking a china dish. Such is the judgment of the
world! it patiently bears with those who only break the laws o