like a man who perfectly saw through the fallacy of her arguments,
and was grieved to the heart for her delusions. On this she briskly
challenged him to debate the matter at large, and to fix upon a day for
that purpose, when he should dine with her, attended by any clergyman he
might choose, whether of the Protestant or Catholic communion. A sense
of duty would not allow him to decline this challenge; and yet he had no
sooner accepted it, but he was thrown into great perplexity and distress
lest, being, as I remember he expressed it when he told me the story,
only a Christian of six weeks old, he should prejudice so good a cause by
his unskilful manner of defending it. However, he sought his refuge in
earnest and repeated prayers to God, that he who can ordain strength, and
perfect praise, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, would graciously
enable him on this occasion to vindicate his truths in a manner which
might carry conviction along with it. He then endeavoured to marshal the
arguments in his own mind as well as he could; and apprehending that
he could not speak with so much freedom before a number of persons,
especially before such whose province he might seem in that case to
invade, if he had not devolved the principal part of the discourse upon
them, he easily admitted the apology of a clergyman or two, to whom
he mentioned the affair, and waited on the lady alone upon the day
appointed. But his heart was so set upon the business, that he came
earlier than he was expected, and time enough to have two hours'
discourse before dinner; nor did he at all decline having two persons,
nearly related to the lady, present during the conference. The major
opened it, with a view of such arguments for the Christian religion as
he had digested in his own mind, to prove that the apostles were not
mistaken themselves, and that they could not have intended to impose upon
us, in the accounts they give of the grand facts they attest; with the
truth of which facts, that of the Christian religion is most apparently
connected. And it was a great encouragement to him to find, that