to her, that she brought every thing necessary for my burial. God mercifully inclined his ear to her prayers for my life, and raised me from my sick bed, but I had returns of fever from time to time for many months.
I am particular in relating the foregoing, in order to act as a warning to you, in the careful use of remedies for the diseases of your children, and by no means to trust to the prescriptions of presumptuous quacks.
The Church at St. Mesme did not pay Mr. Forestier's salary with punctuality; consequently, the Synod punished them by removing him to Arvêrt. In less than a year the arrears were collected, and the Synod restored Mr. Forestier to them.
I returned home at fourteen years of age, and, after six years of study under Mr. Forestier, I scarcely knew the regular declensions of nouns.
I was thought entirely too wild to be trusted with any but my relations for preceptors, so my mother now tried another brother-in-law for me, Mr. Sautreau, minister at Saujon in Saintonge, the husband of my sister Elizabeth, who was my godmother.
Mr. Sautreau had very few pupils, he was extremely severe, he required all lessons to be repeated with the strictest verbal accuracy, but took no pains to explain the meaning of any thing. He inflicted corporal punishment for very slight errors. I was weary of being beaten like a slave, ashamed of my ignorance, and disgusted with study, when I formed an intimacy with a youth who was apprenticed to a druggist, and whose comparatively happy situation I envied. He used to give me a few sweetmeats, and made me long for the abundant supply of such things that
