self-examination of his later life, form a parallel to the Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the little classic of John Bunyan
second only to his Pilgrim's Progress. The young Pharisee, who
entered Hackleton with such hate in his heart to dissenters that he
would have destroyed their meeting-place, who practised "lying,
swearing, and other sins," gradually yielded so far to his brother
apprentice's importunity as to leave these off, to try to pray
sometimes when alone, to attend church three times a day, and to
visit the dissenting prayer-meeting. Like the zealot who thought to
do God service by keeping the whole law, Carey lived thus for a
time, "not doubting but this would produce ease of mind and make me
acceptable to God." What revealed him to himself was an incident
which he tells in language recalling at once Augustine and one of
the subtlest sketches of George Eliot, in which the latter uses her
half-knowledge of evangelical faith to stab the very truth that
delivered Paul and Augustine, Bunyan and Carey, from the
antinomianism of the Pharisee:--

"A circumstance which I always reflect on with a mixture of horror
and gratitude occurred about this time, which, though greatly to my
dishonour, I must relate. It being customary in that part of the
country for apprentices to collect Christmas boxes [donations] from
the tradesmen with whom their masters have dealings, I was permitted
to collect these little sums. When I applied to an ironmonger, he
gave me the choice of a shilling or a sixpence; I of course chose
the shilling, and putting it in my pocket, went away. When I had
got a few shillings my next care was to purchase some little
articles for myself, I have forgotten what. But then, to my sorrow,
I found that my shilling was a brass one. I paid for the things
which I bought by using a shilling of my master's. I now found that