HISTORY OF HARTING. 15 1 



frankly tell you what it is ; and here, by way of pre- 

 liminary, I shall beg leave to assert, that none but 

 God himself cou'd shew man the way to heaven, for 

 He only cou'd tell upon what conditions He wou'd be 

 pleased to admit us into it, and, therefore, those con- 

 ditions must be known by Revelation, which He has 

 graciously don' in the Gospel of His Son, which Gospel 

 the same blessed Son tells me is the Way, the Truth, 

 and the Life, in w ch - Way of truth I beg the H. Spirit 

 to direct you and me to walk that we may both meet 

 in life eternal. 



" And now, D r S ir> why all this stir to make a little 

 child of eleven years old a Papist ? I only askt the 

 favor of a servant's place in her Ladyship's family, 

 to wait on the young Ladys, or whatever her Lady- 

 ship thought fit ; if it had been to clean their shoes 

 I should not have thought much of it ; and this every 

 girle that's kept by the parish has a right to petition 

 for, and some have obtained. And why a Protestant 

 girle might not make as good a serv 1 - as a p : I 

 cannot comprehend. You must know I ask'd the 

 favor in the first place for my eldest, who was of age 

 and capacity to earn her bread. But her Ladyship 

 was pleas'd to make choise of this, and it was she 

 that sent her to Bruges, and not I. And you yourself 

 tolde me she was to be in the convict* (not in the 

 nunnery), which I took by your discourse to be of 

 the nature of a boarding school, where I presumed 

 she was to learn such work as her Ladyship thought 

 proper for her service. And I know that in those 

 places of education there was the finest work in the 

 world, w ch> made me not only satisfied, but delighted 

 that she was to spend some time in a place of soe 

 much virtue and improvement ; for you can't have 

 a greater respect for their discipline and conduct 

 than I have : but whilst I am perswaded in my con- 

 science that I can not hold communion in some 



* The Boarding house of a monastery was called "the Convict." 



