imminently exposed to the temptations of the adversary, with few, if
any, fixed principles to sustain them.

'Oh,' she says, 'how little did I know myself of the best way to
instruct and counsel them! Yet I did the best I then knew, when with
them. I took them to the religious meetings; I talked to, and prayed
for and with them; when they did wrong, I scolded at and whipped them.'

Isabella and her son had been free about a year, when they went to
reside in the city of New York; a place which she would doubtless have
avoided, could she have foreseen what was there in store for her; for
this view into the future would have taught her what she only learned
by bitter experience, that the baneful influences going up from such a
city were not the best helps to education, commenced as the education
of her children had been.

Her son Peter was, at the time of which we are speaking, just at that
age when no lad should be subjected to the temptations of such a place,
unprotected as he was, save by the feeble arm of a mother, herself a
servant there. He was growing up to be a tall, well-formed, active
lad, of quick perceptions, mild and cheerful in his disposition, with
much that was open, generous and winning about him, but with little
power to withstand temptation, and a ready ingenuity to provide himself
with ways and means to carry out his plans, and conceal from his mother
and her friends, all such as he knew would not meet their approbation.
As will be readily believed, he was soon drawn into a circle of
associates who did not improve either his habits or his morals.

Two years passed before Isabella knew what character Peter was
establishing for himself among his low and worthless comrades-passing