After this, the Vicar, who knew that no position was so safe for a man of his own sentiments as prostration before God, knelt down; and like the giant, refreshing himself by touching on his mother earth, recruited, I doubt not, all his hopes, and views, and joys, by intercourse and communion with his God.

CHAPTER XI.

THE Vicar and his Lady were not long before they returned to the manuscript, and read as follows:

'I will not detain you, Sir, over the next stages in my history, nor even with describing to you the exact circumstances by which, when the Methodists started up in the middle of the eighteenth century, I found my way to one of their earliest pulpits. But, of what I saw and heard on this new and somewhat giddy eminence, you will expect me to say something. For a time, then, I own that I was, on the whole, surprised and gratified. You well know, Sir, my love for the Reformers. How, then, was I pleased to see some of those doctrines which seemed, in some degree, almost to have sunk

under ground with those holy men, now springing up within the walls of a little methodist chapel. I will not say that they sprang up alone, or without a few tares scattered among them by the hands of their new cultivators. But, it must be confessed, that the very first leaders of the methodists, if men of somewhat coarse taste, and untempered zeal, were men both of talent and piety. For a season, at least, their preaching offended against little, except good breeding and moderation.-They generally avoided disputable ground, and insisted on the fundamental points of religion, in bold, vehe ment, eloquent, practical, though perhaps some what enthusiastic, language. They called themselves Churchmen, and I really believe they loved the church. They opened no meeting when the church was open. And great was the impression produced by them. They found some spots of this kingdom as untaught as though no Christian minister existed. They dived into the mine and the prison. Many of the Clergy started as from a dream, and buckled on the ministerial armour. I have seen, Sir, the church walls dripping with the condensed breath of the almost countless congregation. I have seen the tears of penitential sorrow scooping out to themselves white channels

in the dingy faces of poor colliers, whose minds before were as dark as the pits they inhabited. I have seen thousands who, as the early Christians brought their books of magic and burned them, cast all their sins and sorrows upon the altar of God, and found that flame consume them all. Great, indeed, as I said, was the effect produced; but, alas! so great as, among many other far better results, to turn the heads of many of the preachers. For now, Sir, mark the change. Soon the respect for the church, in a great measure, ceased. Soon one of the most common topics of pulpit raillery and amusement was the universal profligacy of the clergy. Soon the wildest breaches were made in church dicipline. Soon attempts were made to separate the flock from the shepherd. Soon enthusiasm usurped, in some instances, the throne of sober piety. A large proportion of uneducated men were introduced into their pulpits. A desire to excite, to inflame, to harrow up, to revolutionize, combined itself, to say the least, in many cases, with the desire to convince. Coarse and fanciful interpretations of scripture abounded. Something very like miracles were assumed by many, to have been wrought in favour of the new system. And the whole, with many better results,

issued in a sort of dislocation of the church: which may, perhaps, in the end, however little foreseen or designed by its authors, assist ultimately to destroy the church, and to bury religion in its grave.'

Here the old Vicar, as though he beheld the precise picture painted in the memoir-his own little church sinking into dust, and religion, in the act of suffocation, just peeping out of one of the graves, clasped his hands together in utter dismay. "My dear," said he, in an agony of grief, "I have had this vision before my eyes a thousand times; and though I daily on my knees, thank God for all the profligates reclaimed by the methodists, in common with other labourers; for their toils and triumphs among the poor idolaters and slaves; and for the sort of stimulus they have supplied to the Church; yet I fear that they will ultimately overthrow the church they undertake to support."

"Is it right for you my love," said the old lady, "to condemn either the character of their religion or their conduct towards its ministers, when old Betty tells me they preach precisely your doctrines and even pray for yourself every Sunday of their lives ?"

"As to the entire resemblance of our doctrines," replied the Vicar," either I or Betty must be mis·K

taken. For their prayers I heartily thank them; and may their God and my God so hear and answer them, as to make me better. Their favourable opinion of me (he continued smiling,) must, I fear, be set down among their errors of judgment. But let us hope, that so charitable a mistake will be forgiven, and that, by my improvement, it may become less of a mistake every day. Still, whatever be their approbation of me, I should even less deserve it than I do, if I suffered it to bribe me into a dishonest applause of them. I must plainly say, that I have an objection both to the character of their religion, and to a part of their practice. Against their religion, I often find reason to object that it has more of impulse, noise, excitement, offits and frames' than I find, either in the Bible or the Liturgy. And to their practice, which is, in many respects, admirable, I have this objection, that they too often teach the people to suspect and undervalue their appointed ministers to love change and novelty-to prefer rash. to sober interpreters of scripture. There was a time, my love, when a good clergyman was regarded as the general father of his flock-when all their wants, wishes, fears, hopes, doubts, and plans, were laid before him-when the sheep followed