Page:Celebrated Trials - Volume 1.djvu/500

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tiful and loving wife, could have done any service with respect to the reclaiming you, I should have seen it before now. Your wife has been an indulgent and faithful friend to you in all your misfortunes; and the lowest employment in life, could you but have confined yourself, would have proved more beneficial, and secured your character, and the esteem of your family and friends, better than the ways you now tread in. I am sensible my advice is insignificant, and men of my declining years are little valued or thought of by the younger sort, who, in this degenerate age, think none wiser than themselves, and are above correction or reproof. Come, nephew, Providence may allot you a great many years more to run, but let them not be such as those already past, if Heaven should grant you the indulgence. If I could build any hopes on a good foundation, that you would yet repent, methinks I could wish to have vigour and strength to live to see it; for what my satisfaction would be then, none are able to declare, but such only as are in the like case with myself. Our family has maintained an unspotted character in this city for some hundreds of years, and should you be the first to cast a stain upon it, what will mankind or the world say. You may depend that the load of infamy will be thrown on your back, for all who know, or have heard the least of us, will clear us of the dishonour, as knowing how well you were educated, how handsomely fitted out for the world, and how well you might have done. If fame says true, you are to be charged with Mr. Hamilton's death; but I cannot bring myself to think you would ever be guilty of so monstrous an impiety. It seems he had been your benefactor, and several considerable sums of money he had given you, in order to retrieve your lost circumstances; but was to give him his death the way to recompence him for his kindness? Fie on it. Not Pagans, or the worst of infidels, would repay their benefactors with such usage; and shall we Christians, who boast so much above them, dare to do that which they abhor from their souls? It cannot be, nephew; but all thoughts of humanity and goodness are banished from your mind, otherwise some tincture would still have remained of Christian principles, that would have told you, you were highly indebted to that good and eminent lawyer's bounty. I am more diffusive on this head, because it requires a particular disquisition; neither mistake me in this matter, for I am not determined to rip up things to the world, in order to blacken your character more than it is already, nor to bring you under condemnation; only repent, and lead a more sober life for the time to come, and all the wishes and expectations of your friends and family are then fully answered. First, endeavour to reconcile your passions to the standard of reason, and let that divine emanation conduct you in every action of your future life, so will you retrieve the time yon have lost, patch up your broken reputation, be a comfort to your family, and a joy to all who know you. Ill actions seem pleasing in their commission, because the persons that pursue them have some aim of advantage in doing them; but let me tell you, there is nothing in the world like a virtuous. pursuit,