uch as the difference between their own avowed principles
and their obvious practice. Religious men should be the more cautious of
giving occasion for reproach, as they know the world is always on the
watch, and is more glad to have its prejudices confirmed than removed.

"I seize the moment of Mrs. Carlton's absence (who was just then called
out of the room, but returned almost immediately) to observe, that what
rooted my disgust was, the eagerness with which the mother of my
inestimable wife, who made a great parade of religion, pressed the
marriage of her only child with a man whose conduct she knew to be
irregular, and of whose principles she entertained a just, that is, an
unfavorable opinion. To see, I repeat, the religious mother of Mrs.
Carlton obviously governed in her zeal for promoting our union by
motives as worldly as those of my poor father, who pretended to no
religion at all, would have extremely lowered any respect which I might
have previously been induced to entertain for characters of that
description. Nor was this disgust diminished by my acquaintance with Mr.
Tyrrel. I had known him while a professed man of the world, and had at
that time, I fear, disliked his violent temper, his narrow mind, and his
coarse manners, more than his vices.

"I had heard of the power of religion to change the heart, and I
ridiculed the wild chimera. My contempt for this notion was confirmed by
the conduct of Mr. Tyrrel in his new character. I found it had produced
little change in him, except furnishing him with a new subject of
discussion. I saw that he had only laid down one set of opinions and
taken up another, with no addition whatever to his virtues, and with the
addition to his vices of spiritual pride and self-confidence; for with
hypocrisy I have no right to charge any man. I observed that Tyrrel and
one or two of his new friends rather courted attack than avoided it.
They considered discretion as the infirmity of a worldly mind, and every
attempt at kindness or conciliation as an abandonment of faith. They
eagerly ascribed to their piety the dislike which was often excited by
their peculiarities. I found them apt to dignify the disapprobation
which their singularity occasioned with the name of persecution. I have
seen them take comfort in the belief that it was their religion which
was disliked, when perhaps it was chiefly their oddities.

"At Tyrrel's I became acquainted with your friends Mr. and Mrs. Ranby.