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    I resolved to be nothing , nobody , any longer . No , no , he could not understand me . In his creed of jurisprudence , kindness and explanation , instead of the dear comfort and happiness it would have brought me , would lead me into presumption and greater"laxity ; or , had he alluded at all to the matter , he would merely have told me to be more careful for the future . * Mistaken wisdom ! erroneous judgment ! but it is the cold error of thousands—it is the hood-winked perception of millions I Yet I repeat it , and let it never be forgotten in the estimate of causes and construction of character , he was a man of kind and affectionate nature , of clear sunlight probity , a most favourable specimen of father , merchant , and master . * There is

    something in this which , at first glance , appears inexplicable ; there is a seemingly irreconcilable discrepancy in the motives which direct the actions , that had I not experienced the scorching truth in my own history , I should have questioned its existence ; but the watchfulness of perplexed and pained sensibilities which it occasions , will quicken the intellectual vision , and enable us to disentangle some of the mysterious webs in which worldly morality is woven , and raise a smile of contempt , or a sigh of pity at the misapplication of the skill which has been employed on the work . I , in this

    discernment , have been greatly assisted by contrasts of character , for after this circumstance , which I have above related , while yet a youth

    —a boy , I was placed in a much more important trust , one of public service , in which the interests of thousands were involved ; under a man of * birth and station' who took me out of the lowest state of degradation , if I may so speak of my condition , uninfluenced by any claims on his notice , and in all his confidence bound me to him by the kindness and graciousness of manner in which he informed me of the trust he reposed in me ; so that the very breath of temptation to swerve from my faith to him never fanned me , even in a dream . I

    loved him , I revered him as a superior being . Of him and these circumstances I have to speak hereafter ; my recollections of him are pregnant with gratitude , a solemn affection , which may , in the minds of some whose knowledge of him was more limited , or based on other grounds than mine , colour my sketches with tints too deep and warm . Let those who knew him as well as I did , and if there can be one so deeply and largely indebted to his kindness as I am , let him judge if I overstep the truth . I shall speak of him hereafter . There are thousands of instances in this commercial nation , in which sums

    to any amount , and documents in which the speculations and hazards of ' the firm' are involved , are freely intrusted into the hands of persons employed by the heads ;' persons who have no claim on , or union with them , beyond the periodical stipend ; who could , by swerving from the path on which they have been so intrusted , bring down ruin on their employers . The employer will take merit on the

    freedom of his confidence , aittt laud himself for unlimited trust ; yet with all this , he will never adiitit him to a communion of kindness , to a freedom of thought , or scarcely even to a cold conversation , beyond the doors of his counting-house . Why is this ? The employed is thus instructed to be indifferent to every thing- but those interests on which hia own safety depends . He can have no anxiety for the hiide ; ' they may be squeezed into bankruptcy to-morrow for all it

    Untitled Article

    400 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/40/