ore with the
convincing arguments he supported it with; but I thought to have got off
my young priest by telling him that all that part was done when I was not
there: and that they had lived so many years with them now, that if it
was adultery, it was past remedy; nothing could be done in it now.

"Sir," says he, "asking your pardon for such freedom, you are right in
this, that, it being done in your absence, you could not be charged with
that part of the crime; but, I beseech you, flatter not yourself that you
are not, therefore, under an obligation to do your utmost now to put an
end to it. You should legally and effectually marry them; and as, sir,
my way of marrying may not be easy to reconcile them to, though it will
be effectual, even by your own laws, so your way may be as well before
God, and as valid among men. I mean by a written contract signed by both
man and woman, and by all the witnesses present, which all the laws of
Europe would decree to be valid."

I was amazed to see so much true piety, and so much sincerity of zeal,
besides the unusual impartiality in his discourse as to his own party or
church, and such true warmth for preserving people that he had no
knowledge of or relation to from transgressing the laws of God. But
recollecting what he had said of marrying them by a written contract,
which I knew he would stand to, I returned it back upon him, and told him
I granted all that he had said to be just, and on his part very kind;
that I would discourse with the men upon the point now, when I came to
them; and I knew no reason why they should scruple to let him marry them
all, which I knew well enough would be granted to be as authentic and
valid in England as if they were married by one of our own clergymen.

I then pressed him to tell me what was the second complaint which he had
to make, acknowledging that I was very much his debtor for the first, and
thanking him heartily for it. He told me he would use the same freedom
and plainness in the second, and hoped I would take it as well; and this
was, that notwithstanding these English subjects of mine, as he called
them, had lived with these women almost seven years, had taught them to
speak English, and even to read it, and that they were, as he perceived,
women of tolerable understanding, and capable of instruction, yet they
had not, to this hour, taught them anything of the Christian religion--no,
not so much as to know there was a God, or a w