Greeks then treated, and do still, in some places, treat the Christians. This young woman bore that contempt with a calmness which surprised me. There were then but few converts to that religion in those parts, and its profession was therefore more exposed to ridicule and persecution from its strangeness. Notwithstanding her religion, I thought I could love this interesting and amiable female, and, in spite of my former mistake, I had the vanity to imagine I was not indifferent to her. As our intimacy increased, I learned, to my astonishment, that she regarded me as one involved in ignorance and error; and that, although she felt an affection for me, yet she would never become my wife, while I remained devoted to the religion of my ancestors. Piqued at this discovery, I received the books, which she now for the first time put into my hands, with pity and contempt. I expected to find them nothing but the repositories of a miserable and deluded superstition, more presuming than the mystical leaves of the Sibyls, or the obscure triads of Zoroaster. How was I mistaken! There was much which I could not at all comprehend; but, in the midst of this darkness, the effect of my ignorance, I discerned a system of morality, so exalted, so exquisitely pure, and so far removed from all I would have conceived of the most perfect virtue, that all the philosophy of the Grecian world seemed worse than dross in the comparison. My former learning had only served to teach me that something was wanting to complete the systems of philosophers. Here that invisible link was supplied, and I could even then observe a harmony and consistency in the whole, which carried irresistible conviction to my mind. I will not enlarge on this subject. Christianity is not a mere set of opinions to be embraced by the understanding. It is the work of the heart as well as the head. Let it suffice to say, that, in time, I became a Christian, and the husband of Sapphira.. REFLECTIONS. ON PRAYER. If there be any duty which our Lord Jesus Christ seems to have considered as more indispensably necessary towards the formation of a true Christian, it is that of prayer. He has taken every opportunity of impressing on our minds the absolute need in which we stand of the divine assistance, both to persist in the paths of righte ousness, and to fly from the allurements of a fascinating, but dangerous life; and he has directed us to the only means of obtaining that assistance in constant and habitual appeals to the throne of Grace. Prayer is certainly the foundation-stone of the superstructure of a religious life; for a man can neither arrive at true piety, nor persevere in its ways when attained, unless with sincere and continued fervency, and with the most unaffected anxiety, he implore Almighty God to grant him his perpetual grace, to guard and restrain him from all those derelictions of heart, to which we are, by nature, but too prone. I should think it an insult to the understanding of a Christian to dwell on the necessity of prayer, and, before we can harangue an infidel on its efficacy, we must |