9. He was very humble and modest, and hated any thing more than necessaries, either in clothes or diet.
10. When he perceived either his brother or sister pleased with their new clothes, he would reprove their folly; and when his reproof signified little, he would bewail their vanity.
11. Once he had a new suit brought from the tailor's, which, when he looked on, he found some ribands on the knees, at which he was grieved: asking his mother "whether these things would keep him warm?" "No, child," said his mother. "Why then," said he, "do you suffer them to be put there? You are mistaken if you think such things please me: and, I doubt some that are better than us may want the money that this cost you, to buy them bread."
12. At leisure times he was talking to his school fellows about the things of God, and the necessity of a holy life. That text he much spoke on to them, "The axe is laid to the root of the tree, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."
13. After this his parents removed not far from London, where he continued till the year 1665. He was then sent to the Latin school, where he soon made a very considerable progress, and was greatly beloved of his master. The school was his beloved place, and learning his recreation.
14. He had a word to say to every one that he conversed with, to put them in mind of the worth of Christ and their souls; and their nearness to eternity: insomuch that good people took no small pleasure in his company.
15. He bewailed the miserable condition of the generality of mankind, (when he was about ten years old,) that they were utterly estranged from God. "Though they called him Father, he said, yet they were his children by creation, and not by any likeness they had to God, or any interest in him."
16. Thus he continued walking in the ways of God: in reading, praying, hearing the word of God, and spiritual intercourse; discovering thereby his serious thoughts of eternity, which seemed to swallow up all other thoughts; and he lived in a constant preparation for it, and looked more like one that was ripe for glory than an inhabitant of this lower world.
17. When he was about eleven years and nine months old his mother's house was visited with the plague; his eldest sister was the first that was visited with this distemper; and when they were praying for her, he would sob and weep bitterly.
18. As soon as he perceived his sister was dead, he said, "The will of the Lord be done2C blessed be the Lord! Dear mother, you must do as David did: after the child was dead he went and refreshed himself, and quietly submitted to the will of God."