ume as he spoke, "this blessed book, which would have corrected the evil, was kept out of sight. They were sick, and would not let the physician prescribe for them.” "That, my dear," said the old lady, whose thoughts were instantly turned by the word 'physician' to a little argument between them the day before, on the subject of a complaint of his own, that my dear, is the fault of some better men than themselves." "Now," added he, pretending not to notice her remark, “ à consequence of this was, that the disease continually gained ground." She still applying the remark nearer home, fetched a deep sigh. "Hence," he added, "an evil once introduced into the system was never got rid of. Still, while I condemn the religion, I cannot but love many of the professors of it. There are few authors whom I read with greater delight, as you know, than Pascal and Fenelon. The one is all reason and the other all love." "How happened it, my dear," she asked, "that such men as these never discovered the defects of their religion ?" "They never suffered themselves," he answered to look at its defects. Their unbounded rever ence for the Priest did not permit them to use their own judgment in opposition to his." Her own unbounded reverence for one particular Priest made this answer at once intelligible and decisive with the old lady. He added, "I feel disposed to condemn the temper of the present age as it respects Popery in two points. In one party, there is too little dislike of the religion." "In another, too little charity for some of those who hold it. I acknowledge, for instance, that Popery has some things in it not likely to inspire loyalty for a protestant sovereign, or patriotism to a heretical country. But still I believe there are many papists both loyal and patriotic. Their very refusal to take our oaths, inclines me to hope that they respect an oath. And their refusal to part with any title of their own faith for a desirable end gives some promise, I think, that they will not maintain that faith by wrong means." "Would you, then," she asked, "have voted for Catholic emancipation ?" "The country," he answered, "has nothing either to hope or fear from my vote. And in this instance, as in all others, I rejoice that she has wiser counsellors. But this I will say to you,” and smiling, as if at an old friend, " to my cushion here, who has listened to all my poor sayings, with extraordinary patience for above half a century,that, whilst I like the concessions, I tremble at the ground on which the Catholics ask them. They claim them as a right; and I could grant them only as a favour; and, therefore, under present circumstances, not at all. Admit them to be a right, and the Catholics have the same right to ask for a Popish King and Church. Consider them as a favour, and then we may stop at the point of danger. And sure I am, my love, I should not be so anxious to discover that point as to be likely to stop too soon. Governments may easily be too sharp sighted in discovering the limits at which toleration should cease. This error I would anxiously avoid. I desire to see the edifice of our constitution last as long as the rocks by which we are surrounded; and, for this purpose, I would inscribe on its walls the sacred name of that Charity' which never faileth."" "But, my dear, do you not think the character of Popery improved ?" "Not so much as I had hoped. There is however, one circumstance which promises a great improvement in our own country-I mean the universal diffusion of the Bible. It is like letting in the sun upon the owls and bats. Popery has perhaps, too much affinity with the corruption of our nature to die a natural death, but, I begin to hope it may be suffocated by the Bible." "Suppose, my love," said the old lady, to whom the mere name of the Bible always suggested her own duties with regard to it, 66 we now read our own chapter and go to bed." chapter, and rose from it, as I have heard them say they always did, loving God and one another even better than they did before. They did read their CHAPTER IV. THE next morning our aged minister rose early, and perhaps the reader may think, immediately resumed his seat with the darling manuscript in his hand. But no. It was a rule with him always to follow up his morning petitions to his Father in Heaven, by resuming the study of that blessed book with which he had closed the day. After this he called together his small circle of grey-headed servants, to join him in devout supplication for blessings upon his family and upon the world. Then he break fasted. Then, chiefly, though not exclusively, by devout reading, he laid up materials for the sermon of the next Sunday. Then he visited, perhaps, some cottages in his village, instructed the ignorant, rebuked the careless, or bound. up the wounds of the broken hearted; and taught them, without appealing to his own case, though no one who saw him could help making the application, how happy is the people who have the Lord for their God.'-I will not say, however, that he did not shorten some of his other employments, and particularly a little argument with a farmer about the exact amount of his tithes, to return to the manuscript. At length the venerable couple seated themselves, much in the same form as before, and. he began to read. 6 The Clerk, Sir, had no sooner shaken hands with the Verger, and both with the Beadle, than they all hobbled to the belfry, seized, as by a sort of impulse, all the ropes, and shook with the notes of acclamation every stone in the steeple. I am willing to hope it was not so much because they had lost the old Queen, as because they had got a new one. However that might be, all the churches followed our example. It was a sort of general jubilee. The ceremony of a coronation was almost |