I CASE DEDICATION. TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. WITH filial reverence I presume to lay upon your altar, the following little his- tory, trusting that it may serve to remind your enemies of some of your excel- lencies, and your friends of many of the duties which a good Churchman owes t himself, to his Church, to his Country 9 and to his God. I am, &c. THE AUTHOR. THE VELVET CUSHION; CHAPTER I. THE Vicar of a small parish church, whose turrets nodded over one of the most picturesque lakes of Westmoreland, although no believer in necromancy, stood aghast one day at perceiving the increased bulk of his velvet cushion. Few men could have better pretensions to be inti- mately acquainted with this throne of theology than himself. He had pressed with a succession of excellent sermons, for five and thirty years, that side of it which was now uppermost. And he was scarcely less familiar with the other side. For, on his first institution to the living, he had, in the true spirit of economy, used that face which was worst for B upwards ( 2 ) upwards often years. But, when his zeal had actually beaten a hole in it, the dignity of the establishment demanded a change ; and this brought the other side into use. Nor was it merely his sabbatical intercourse with the cushion which had given him this intimate knowledge of it. His attention, since the moment of his induction to the vicarage, had been parti- cularly drawn tp it by many current rumours in the parish. It was reported, for instance, to be one of the oldest cushions in the three kingdoms. It had certainly afforded a resting place to the divinity of fifteen or twenty of his prede- cessors in the vicarage. Nor had even they known it in the earliest stages of its ecclesiastical career. Report said that it had seen many vicissitudes, and travelled through successive ages that it had been swept by the tunic of a Pope's nuncio had descended to the pulpit of one of the first puritans had been expelled by some of the second puritans, as an impious adjunct adjunct to the simplicity of primitive worship had risen again with the rising fortunes of the monarchy and, after many chances and changes, had climbed the mountains of Westmoreland, to spend the years of its grand climacteric in the quiet and unambitious pulpit of the vicarage. Now, as our vicar was somewhat of an antiquarian, all these rumours invested the cushion with inconceivable dignity in his eyes. He considered it as a sort of monarch in retirement. He never touch- ed it without feeling himself, as by a chariot of fire, carried back into the most remote periods. He would often display It with a smile of triumph to his clerical visitors, whose larger benefices were, in his view, but a poor compensation for so splendid a possession. And this he con- tinued to do, though he rarely succeeded in creating any other surprise in his audi- tors, than that the parish should not be liberal enough to find him a better. Being moreover a thinking man, he would often B 2 philosophize ( 4 ) philosophize over his cushion ; and marvel what effect the same number and variety of sermons which had been delivered in its presence, would have produced upon the mind of a sentient being which of the systems, all equally indifferent to the cushion, he would have embraced whether he would have settled down, as the vicar deemed he ought, into a sound churchman, or whether, amidst conflict- ing opinions, he would, like a vessel amidst contending tides, have been left as neutral and motionless as the cushion itself. " O !" he would add, " that I could but see the history of my cushion. 5 ' And, as he began to fall into that common infirmity of age, the recurring often to a few darling topics, his neighbours were com- pelled to hear the wish pretty often repeat- ed. I mention this circumstance as tend- ing, perhaps, in some measure, to explain its present mysterious expansion. But to return to our history. Putting these various circumstances together, together, I may surely venture to repeat the assertion, thatfew divines could have better pretensions than our venerable Vicar to be acquainted with their cushions. Neither time, nor opportunity, nor importunity, had been wanting for the fullest scrutiny of its shape, bulk, and complexion. Whence, then, could the aforesaid expan- sion of the cushion arise ? He put on his glasses, then rubbed his eyes, and then the glasses themselves but he still saw his old friend with a new face. Conceiving, however, that his eyes and glasses, how- ever long and confidently trusted, might not, after all, be infallible conceiving, in short, any thing more probable than the mutability of his immutable cushion, he resolved to bring it to the test of another sense. What, then, was his confusion and dismay when, having put his hand on it, instead of finding it yield, as usual, to his touch, he felt some resistance to his pres- sure. Here was, indeed, cause for ter- ror. He absolutely started back. It hap- pened, ( 6 ) pened, unfortunately, to be verging to- wards November, and the fifth of that terrible month at once arose, like an ap- parition, before him. A rumour had lately reached him, that the Catholics were petitioning our good old king for emancipation ; but what if they were se- cretly taking a more summary method for the accomplishment of their wishes. What, if instead of filling cellars with combus- tibles, their scheme should be to cram velvet cushions with them ! What, if the very instruments of ecclesiastical dignity and usefulness were now to be converted into instruments of assassination ! What, ;f every true son of the Church was de- signed, at some given moment, at some critical conjuncture, perhaps in the precise act of praying for Church and King, to receive the contents of his cushion in his bosom. Horror, doubt, suspicion, the prick of discovery, the fancied smell of gun -powder, the fear of a premature ex- plosion, were almost too much for the old gen- ( 7 ) gentleman. Such a trembling of nerves such a revulsion of blood to the heart, he had scarcely ever experienced before. As his system, however, began to recover, he discovered some what less ground for alarm. But, whether his suspicions might be well or ill-founded, nothing appeared to be of such importance as investigation and se- crecy. His resolution, therefore, was soon taken. In the dusk of the evening he mustered courage to enter the church alone, to seize the supposed organ of con- spiracy, and to carry it to his own study. But, when there, what was to be done with it ? There was one bosom which shared all his joys and sorrows. He had a wife who was the pillar of his little fa- bric of worldly comforts. Their two heads, laid together, rarely failed to hit upon a contrivance for every daily emer- gency ; and, at length, after a much longer conference than usual, it was re- solved, at once and heroically, to unbowel the cushion. The solemnity may be con- ceived ( 8 ) ceived with which the aged couple seated themselves to the task of ripping up their velvet friend with a view of tearing from the womb those plots on which the des- tiny of the nation might be suspended. But how shall I describe the amazement and the joy with which he, and therefore she, saw inscribed at the head of a large roll of paper, which soon met their eager eyes, " My own history." It scarcely occurred to our ecclesiastic, that velvet cushions cannot ordinarily either think or write for having just begun to study the new system of education, he did not know to what perfection it might have been suddenly brought. Nor did it at all occur to him, that his above-mentioned philosophisings on the cushion had been often listened to with profound attention by a thin, queer, ill-looking, dirty, retired sort of man in the next village, who was said by the country-folks to be either a conjurer or an author. The wish of his heart was granted to him a history of C 9 ) of his velvet cushion and little reckecThe whence it came, or who was the historians Another candle was instantly lighted, his glasses polished, the sofa wheeled nearer to the fire, (for it was in the month of December) and he began to read the me- moir which follows. B 3 CHAPTER CHAPTER IL * THE first place in which I remember to have seen the light was in the shop of an upholsterer in Fleet-street, in the days of bloody Queen Mary. You, Sir, who feel something, though I rejoice to say little, of the ravages of time in your own per- son, (the old lady, notwithstanding the qualifying word ( little/ looked somewhat grave and angry) can easily believe that I have lost much of my original dignity. I was then as splendid as gold and tassels could make me. Several of my species lay near me, and none of them less mag- nificently caparisoned than myself. Of these alas I soon lost sight. c Dear, lost companions of my tuneful art,' they have long since fallen before that besom which sweeps the high and the low, the velvet and the serge, into one indiscrimi- nate grave. I soon heard myself destined ( 11 ) by the master of the warehouse to the pulpit of a great church in the metropo- lis, and thither I was, next day, trans- ported in a coach. And here, Sir, I beg to observe, that I was not always able to write my own history. In fact, when I entered the church, nothing could be more ignorant ,than myself. I had heard only the conversation of the manu- factory. But my new circumstances gave me great advantages. It soon oc- curred to me, that in so busy a world even a cushion could not be meant to be idle. As my nature, therefore, unfitted me for action, I determined to give myself wholly to thought and speculation. You, Sir, who both think and act, will not despise those who do only the former. The Arabs, indeed, as I have heard, when they take a prisoner, always first ask him what he can do ? And when a French S^avans, whom they caught, hoping to escape manual drudgery, told them, in re- ply, that he was accustomed only to seden- tary ( 12 ) tary pursuits they, by way of turning him to account, actually tarred and fea- thered him, and set him to hatch eggs. But Arabs are barbarians, and in my na- tive country I could not fear any such indignity. But to return. If my nature disposed me to thought, so did my circum- stances. From the Pisgah of the pulpit I have seen most of the great men of suc- cessive ages, whom piety, custom, accident, or their wives, have brought to church. In the same commanding situation I have heard all the best preachers of three cen- turies. Thus all the grand questions in religion and morality, and, by dint of fasts and thanksgivings, in politics, have been submitted to my consideration. And, when conveyed for warmth during the week, from the pulpit to the vestry, I have heard all sorts of questions discussed, in all sorts of tempers, by all sorts of men. The clerks, sextons, and pew- openers, also, a class of persons falsely thought to have little to do with the affairs All'airs of the church, except to take one fee for burying the dead, and sometimes another for digging, them up again, have given me much information. They play, indeed, inferior parts in the ecclesiastical drama; but, as far as free and fluent elocution goes to form an actor, they have probably few superiors. Amidst such privileges, I trust, I have not been altogether idle. And if you are curious to see the result of my cogitations, and to compare them with your own, you have now the opportunity. The paper in your hands, contains an account of much that I have heard and seen, with my own comments, upon it.' " Was there ever such a treasure, my love," said the old gentleman. She could think of no such treasure except, indeed, the aged vicar himself. It was not that she had the same instinctive and antiquarian attachment for the cushion with himself ; but she had taught herself pretty much to love whatever he loved. Indeed, common views and objects for fifty fifty years leave small differences of taste in the subjects of them. Perhaps, with the exception of two habits of the good vicar, there was scarcely an act of his life to which she could not reconcile herself. The habits which I mean, were occasionally smoking a single pipe; and sometimes, though very rarely, preaching a borrowed sermon. The truth, as to these points, was, she could ill endure that a mouth, ordained to be the channel of his own kindness and wisdom, should be degraded into, either a mere conveyance of smoke, or of the thoughts of other people. As to other things, they were like the strings of two finely-tuned instruments is touch the one, and the other vibrated. I have always been deeply interested in this aged couple. All the world are delighted to watch the young as they grow up together. To me it is not less delightful to see the old wear out together to see two creatures of distinct tempers and passions by degrees melting into one to see how happy happy those may be, who habitually prefer the happiness of another to their own to see finally real love, like a flower blooming amidst ruins, surviving the vigor of the body, and all those attrac- tions on which it is thought to depend. Some fanciful writer has imagined, that mankind fall from Heaven in pairs ; and that, unless the right pair meet again after their descent, they can neither of them be happy. If this be true, I should cer- tainly imagine that this venerable couple dropped from the skies together ; at all events they will, I doubt not, together, ascend the skies. But as they will frequently appear in the course of this history, the reader may judge of all these things for himself. In the mean time, I proceed to another chapter. CHAP. CHAFFER III. THE old gentleman then having put both body and mind into the attitude of atten- tion, and heard with laudable patience and forbearance a caution from his careful lady- against hurting himself by reading too loud, read on as follows : * As I said, Sir, I was now the cushion of a Catholic church, and I assure you that I soon felt all the benefit of my recent consecration and peculiar des- tiny. A good Catholic treats even his cushion with reverence. Indeed, I had some reason to suspect, that an old woman of the congregation considered me either as the relic of a Saint, or as the Saint himself suffering under some especial penance. For certain it is she often approached me with crosses and genuflec- tions, But, Sir, Popery possessed some more substantial and general claims upon my my regard than those founded upon the honours it conferred on myself. When I looked around on the edifice into which I was introduced, I was at once awed and delighted. The vast Gothic arches, the -solemn light, the general air of majesty all inspired the most lofty ideas of the Being to whom the temple was dedicated. And here, Sir, as I am likely to say a few hard things of Popery presently, I wish, by way of set off, to remind you good Protestants, that you owe to Popery almost every thing that deserves to be called by the name of a Church. Popery is the religion of Cathedrals Protes- tantism of houses Dissenterism of barns. I have heard you, Sir, who ought, I am sure, to read nothing in vain, read very emphatically a brief for the repair of a Church originally built by Papists which even, with the odd sixpence slip- ped in by yourself for the reputation of the parish, did not collect above nine- pence, I have sometimes thought that,, if Protestantism. ( 18 ) Protestantism had been the first faith of the country, and the present niggardly spirit as to public edifices had prevailed, you must all have been field preachers for want of a Church to preach in. But to return, Sir. I soon discovered that, after admiring the magnificence of Popery, my topics of admiration were soon ex- hausted. I no sooner heard parts of the Bible than I began to compare them with what I saw and heard around me. And I need not tell you, Sir, that the Bible and Popery do not very strictly harmo- nize. I saw an endless round of childish ceremonies water said to cleanse from sin unction that at once prepared the sinner for heaven relics of the cross, which, put together, were twice as big as the cross itself could have been figures of saints to which prayers were offered, said to have fallen from heaven, but carved, as I heard the clerk say, about fifty years since, out of the rem- nants of an old pew images said to open their. ( 19 ) their eyes, to cure diseases, to send victory, and so on all of which I, who was in the secret, knew to have been created by a neighbouring joiner. But all this, though bad enough, was not the worst. I saw the Priest hold up a piece of bread which he, affirmed to be Christ, and all the peo- ple fell down and worshipped it. As to much that I heard, I have thought it an implicit duty to forget it as soon as pos- sible. Exceptions indeed -there were. But, in general, I heard little but certain maxims and histories, of no authority or use, which they called traditions. Some- times these were exchanged for fabulous histories of the very Saints I have men- tioned as manufactured by a neighbour- ing joiner. Sometimes also I heard of the duty of penance, of worshipping the Virgin, of burning and pinching men into orthodoxy, of confession to the Priest. As to this last duty, I observed, that one half of it was most rigidly per- formed, namely, that in which the con- fessionist ( 20 ) fessionist was to give an account of his- own excellencies. I heard much also of absolution ; and especially remember the man who bought at a high price from the Pope's nuncio absolution for three months in advance, from whatever sin he might commit; and, in virtue of his license, before the expiration of the pa- tent, robbed this very nuncio of all he had pilfered by the sale of this and many other absolutions. I heard occasionally also from a neighbouring court, what was still more terrible the crackling of faggots, and the groans of heretical vic- tims. But, Sir, as I do not love finding fault, I will here stop, confessing how- ever, that I sincerely partook in the joy expressed by the old Clerk, who, though he called himself for convenience a Pa- pist, during this bloody reign, neverthe- less was too conscious of his heresy not daily to expect suspension by one of his own ropes when told, by the verger, that the Queen was dead. I love Royalty, ( 21 ) Royalty, and do not mean to judge her as an individual. The religion of her Royal Father was certainly not such as to recommend his mode of faith to her. Persecution also was the fashion of the day. Moreover, she was a woman of weak understanding in the hands of crafty Priests. In short, I heartily hope that her Majesty had some better ex- cuses to offer than you zealous Protes- tants have discovered. But, as I said, I rejoiced she was gone, and unfeignedly hoped Popery would be buried in the grave with her.' Here the venerable reader laid down the manuscript; and she, whose oracle he was, laid down her work to listen to his observations upon it. He took off his spectacles, that, not looking out- wards, he might, as it were, see inwards the better, took snuff twice, placed his right hand upon the Bible which lay on his table, as if afraid, in his argument, of letting it go and thus began. "I C 22 ) " I think, my dear," he said, " it is difficult to speak too ill of Popery as a religion." " I should think it is, my love," she answered. " It was at once/' he added, " super- stitious, formal, cold, and cruel. Above all, it did not teach men to fix their hopes and affections upon that Saviour who has been, my love, all our hope for near fifty years. " The mention of these fifty years insured her consent to any proposition of the speaker. " And, then," said he, " the errors of the Church were perpetuated by their own practices. This blessed book," and he raised his hand, and reverently brought it down again upon the sacred volume 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 pre- scribe for them." " That my dear," said the old lady, whose ( 23 ) 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 clear, is the fault of some better men than themselves." " Now," added he, pretending not to notice her remark, " a 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 intro- duced 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 no authors 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 reli- gion r" " They never suffered themselves/' he answered, answered, " to look after their defects* Their unbounded reverence for the Priest did not permit them to use their own judgment in opposition to his." Her own unbounded reverence for one par- ticular Priest made this answer peculi- arly intelligible and satisfactory to her. 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 the other, 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 heretic country. But still I believe there are many Papists both loyal and patriotic. '1 heir very refusal to take our oaths proves that they respect an oath. Their refusal to part with any tittle of their own faith for a desirable end, promises, I think, that they will not maintain that faith by wrong means." " Would " 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 coun- sellors. 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 pati- ence, 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. Admit them to be a right, and the Ca- tholics 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 he anxious to dis- cover that point too soon. Govern- ments may easily be too sharp-sighted upon such points. I desire to see the c edifice ( 26 ) 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 dif- fusion of the Bible. It is like letting in light 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, who loved a practical conclusion to all ar- guments, " we now read our own chapter and go to bed." They did read their 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. 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 hy resuming the study of that blessed book with which he had closed the day. After this he called to- gether his small circle of grey-headed servants to join him in a devout applica- tion for blessings upon the family and the world. Then he breakfasted. Then, chiefly by devout reading, he laid up ma- terials for the sermon of the next Sun- day. Then he visited, perhaps, some cottage in his village, taught the ignorant, rebuked the careless, or bound up the wounds of the broken hearted ; and taught them, without appealing to his own case, c 2 though ( 28 ) 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 employ- ments, 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. ' 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. How- ever that might be, * all the Churches' followed our example; and such was the noise, that, if 1 may be allowed so to speak, although the lash of persecution was ( 29 ) was withdrawn, it could not be said * the Churches had rest in those days.' It was a sort of general jubilee. The ceremony of a coronation was almost superfluous, for the Queen was already enthroned in the hearts of the people; I am sure it was next to a miracle, what with bon- fires and fireworks, that the people, in their zeal for Church and Queen, did not fire all the churches in the country, and burn the Queen in her bed. And now, Sir, let me tell you of my good for- tune. The Queen herself, with her Court, came to that very Church of which I had the honour to be the Cushion, to give thanks for the rescue of herself and country. I believe such a Te Deum was scarcely ever sung. Gratitude, love, loy- alty, ' bowed the heart of the people as the heart of one man." " O," said our old divine, " how I should have rejoiced to have been there !" "I rejoice, my love," said the old lady, who saw, at a glance, that he cfculd not have been there and here ( 30 ) here too, " I can truly say, that yo were not there." He resumed his read- ing. ' I will not detain you, Sir, with mi- nutely stating the occurrences of the day. The Queen, I think, must have learned two lessons to value the love of her people and to feel how strong a title, and how sure a way to that love, are supplied hy the profession and main- tenance of true religion. I have seen enough to convince me, that the people of this country, though loyally blind, for a time, to the faults of their King, yet never love even a King long if he does not deserve to be loved. I now go on to tell you about the changes which soon took place. The holy water, and tapers, and oil all vanished ; and, never hearing any thing of them in the Bible, I was glad they were gone. I was pleased, however, to see that there was no impa- tience to get rid of old things, if either good in themselves, or, if a good reason could ( 31 ) could be found for keeping them. Some of the finery, indeed, was removed from the church, and I myself was even strip- ped of some mock jewellery originally worked into my corners, but, I declare, that I think we both looked the better for it. I observed, also, that the little confession boxes were nailed up, which, by the bye, deprived me of a source of daily amusement, and of much infor- mation given by Confessionists about the faults of their neighbours. In the Liturgy, though many alterations were made, the same dislike of unnecessary change was observable. They prayed no longer, indeed, either to the Virgin or to the Saints. But they seemed re- joiced to continue the worship of God himself in the language of their fathers. Prayers, you know, Sir, many of them inherited from almost the first Christians, could not spoil merely by passing through the hands of the Pope. But I was chiefly struck with the change in the doctrine of of the preachers. Before, the preaching was rare, and I used chiefly to hear of the merits of the Saints, the happi- ness of those who bought with money an interest in those merits of works of supererogation, of purgatory, or a state in which, let a man live and die as he would, he might after death be purged from his corruption and fitted for Hea- ven. I do not say I heard nothing more like the Bible than this. Some indiffer- ent Papists were, in my judgment, better Christians. But I mean to say, that, thus, preached the mass of the clergy ; and, thus, did 1, and the multitude be- low me understand them. Now, how- ever, Sir, I perceived, as I said, a great change ; and, that I may not detain you too long, I will only state the three doc- trines which, as by a sort of resurrection, started up from the grave of Popery, and appeared to all the city. The Reformers taught that man was a fallen creature that he could be acquitted before God only ( 33 ) only through a reliance in Christ, and, lastly, that God by his Holy Spirit could alone give him a new heart, and fit him for the kingdom of Heaven. These, Sir, are your own doctrines, and I the rather state them to you, because I know you will rejoice to find that you are preaching those doctrines proclaimed by your an- cestors under the axe of the executioner.' This was almost too much for our good Vicar. If there was a wish of his heart, it was to know that his doctrines were cast in the mould of the Reformation. A tear rolled down his manly cheek, but, I fancy, it was not a tear of grief for I heard him, at the conclusion of this paragraph, emphatically say, " Thank God!" and she who felt all his mercies to be her own said, " Amen !" He read on. ( The divines of those days,' continued the manuscript, ' dif- fered considerably from some good men now. And, if you will not think me tedious, I will state the nature of this c3 ( 34 ) difference. Your ancestors, then, Sir, dwelt more on those important doctrines in which all agreed, and less on tho&e minuter points on which some of them differed. They preached less controver- sially. They took for granted that the principles of the Bible would be the principles of their hearers. They rather . asserted the doctrines than defended them; and employed themselves chiefly in shewing \\(hat sort of men these doctrines ought to make. Those Homilies, Sir, of which I have heard you read some to your flock, are an excellent sample of the divinity of the day of their birth. When I hear them I almost fancy some of my first friends risen from their graves again. There may be less head in them than in the mere systematic divinity of your day ; but there is more heart, more of the careless beauty of Scripture, more of ' brave neglect' which characterises the noble enthusiasm of Saints and Martyrs. - But I perceive that I am beginning to indulge ( 35 ) indulge in that garrulity so general with the old in praising old times, and there- fore I will say no more on this subject/ " I wish it had said as much again on the subject," said the old gentleman. " I wish it had," echoed his lady, " and I should say of its garrulity what you remember our good old King (God bless him!) said to a writer who apolo- gized for having written too much) c I should have thought so too, Sir, if you had not written so well.' '' The Vicar was as much pleased with this compli- ment to his Cushion as if it had been to himself; and, though he had heard the story at least a hundred times, thought he had never heard it so well applied be- fore. He read on. * Things, however, were too good to last. I soon perceived, even at church, some persons who treated all ceremonies and forms with a sort of suspicion. They seemed to expect Popery to start from behind them. At length the friends of the ( 36 ) the Establishment began to notice the subject in their sermons to decry rash- ness and enthusiasm to speak of a new discipline fished up from the lake of Ge- neva to contend that the opposite ex- treme from Popery was as bad as Popery itself. I have heard Hooker himself ' (" Hooker !" said the old gentleman, and almost leapt from his seat) * denounce the rising spirit of disaffection to Church and Statey^-which, ' though now (he said) a mere cloud in the horizon, would soon darken the face of the heavens.' But he prophesied in vain. The tumult increas- ed. And, I grieve to say, that the effect of this spirit of disaffection upon the staunch churchmen was not such as to allay the heat. Disgusted with the rash foes to Popery, they somewhat lessened their hostility to that religion. Elizabeth her- self began to regard the two extremes of Puritanism and Popery with equal dis- like. Her successor, James, scarcely bated Popery, And Charles the First, perhaps, f 37 ) perhaps, preferred it.' At this sentence our venerable divine sighed, and, for a moment, felt displeased with his velvet memorialist. If he had a prejudice in the world it was in favour of the first Charles. It arose partly from his love of royalty, partly from his father's having given him, though lie had carefully shu* up the rest of Hume from him, when a boy, the few exquisite pages in which he re- cords the death of the King, partly from a slight infusion of Scotch blood in his veins, partly from the virtues of the life of Charles and the terrors of his death, which have invested him with a species of martyrdom in the eyes of Englishmen. I have sometimes suspected also that an exquisite portrait of Charles, by Vandyke, which had descended in the old gentleman's family, and always hung in his study, had a little to do with this feeling. So ample a forehead, so meek a smile, so pensive an eye, could not surely belong to a bad man. But, ( 38 ) But, whatever might be the source of his prejudice, certain it is, that he felt it. When, therefore, he came to this sentence, he stopped, shut the manu- script, took a few turns in the room, looked at his picture, and, at length, gravely said, " I do not like to serve our kings like those of Egypt, and bring them to judgment after their death. That poor Scotch minister had a kinder heart, who, though he loathed Queen Mary liv- ing, said, when his brethren, after her death, were emptying the vials of their hatred upon her, ' Nay, bury her, for she is a King's daughter/ The tempta- tions of .Kings excuse many of their faults in my eyes." " You and I, my love," said his wife, " have often thanked God that our temp- tations were so few. But had Charles any great faults ?" " One of the greatest," he replied, " was, perhaps, that of so surrounding his person with dissolute men, that, in the ( 39 ) the hour of his calamity, few good ones dared to trust him. But his misfortunes, I think, were greater than his faults." " What misfortunes," she asked, " do you chiefly mean ?" " He was the heir, of arbitrary prin- ciples at a time when even the lightest yoke would scarcely be borne, He wished to govern, after the model of his ancestors, a people who would not be governed at all. Moreover, he had the misfortune of not knowing how to con- cede with a good grace, but suffered his enemies to extort by force what he should have granted as a favour. I am surprised men are not disposed more to pity and love, than to condemn him." " You, my dear," she said, " love every body." * : Seventy years acquaintance with my- self," he answered, " has taught me that it becomes us not anxiously to search out each others nakedness, but rather to approach the faults of others back- wards, and throw the mantle over them." ( 40 ) " I think, my dear," she said, " the picture seems to cast an eye of reproach upon that page of the manuscript." " I think it does," he answered, and, so perhaps, we had better turn to an- other." They accordingly did, and read as follows. CHAPTER CHAPTER V. * As I have already hinted at the spirit of the Church, and of the Enemies of the Church in the days just after Queen Elizabeth, I will now pass them over and hasten forward to a period most im- portant to myself and to the nation. One morning, almost before sun-rise, I saw a band of soldiers enter the church. They were strange-looking men, with hair cut short and rounded, dealt much in scriptural language, often metapho- rically, and as often inaccurately used. They frequently denounced Church and King. On a sudden I was confounded to hear a man, who looked like a Serjeant, give the word, and the band flew to work. In a moment they broke down the rails of the altar, beheaded a fine Magdalen, put the silver chalice and candlesticks into their pockets, bayonet- ted ( 42 ) ted a surplice, fastened the vicar's band upon a great black dog which had fol- lowed them into the church, dashed the Common Prayer Book through a fine painted window, and at last mounted, I tremble while I tell it, the pulpit, and the serjeant himself, with one'end of his halbert cut away my lace and tassels, and with the other ran me through the bowels/ " True I declare, my dear," said the old gentleman, " for see here the two holes made by the sacrilegious in- strument, holes of which you know- how perplexed I have often been to dis- cover the origin." " Holes," she replied > " which 1 darned for the third time so carefully last Candlemas." " Holes," said he, " which I al ways deemed the disgrace of the establishment, but which hence- forward I shall charge upon their Puritan authors.'* In short, fifty years had asso- ciated so many circumstances with these holes in the Cushion, that it was a con- siderable time before they could get back to ( 43 ) to the Cushion itself. At length, how- ever, he read on. ' I need not say, Sir, that this rough treatment gave me no prejudice in favour of the new usurpers in Church and State. Nor, indeed, can I, to this moment, comprehend how, either beheading the King, or perforating a Cushion, could have any necessary con- nection with the Reformation of Reli- gion. But still, Sir, indiscriminate cen- sure of the Puritans would be highly un- just. The first of the race were consi- derably the best. They were men who had little, perhaps, to condemn in them, except a superstitious alarm at Popery. Their doctrines were in general pure, their practice correct ; and some of them were not merely among the best Chris- tians, but the finest gentlemen of the day. Afterwards, when religion became a step to court favour, when the motto of the day was the " praise of God in our mouth, and a two-edged sword in our hand," when insurrection against esta- blished f 44 ) Wished authority was placed among the virtues, when learning was considered as a dead weight round the neck of reli- gion, and no man was deemed fit to mount a pulpit who could not first make one, when the fine arts and all other sources of harmless refreshment were proscribed, then, indeed, those apostles of this new system, who gained the name of Puritans, deserved it, to say the least, as little as any of their contemporaries. The Royalists, though many of them without religion, generally retained the form. Many of the Puritans had neither form nor religion.' " Is not that a little harsh, my love," said the old lady. " It may be so," answered he. " But, to he sure, the times were truly awful. In common times men sin against their principles, and then one hopes their prin- ciples may mend them. But these men rebelled upon principle, shed royal blood for conscience sake. What, there- fore, could mend them?" " Ycu" she replied, ( 45 ) replied, " if they had heard your last sermon on peace of conscience." How far the Vicar agreed with his lady, it is impossible to say, as he said nothing himself, but read on. ' I made one constant remark that a fast day was generally succeeded by some new crime against Church or King. 'If I heard a fast sermon on Wednesday, I expected to hear the pew-openers talk of an execution on Thursday.' " I can- not help thinking," said the old gentle- man, " that their scheme of religion spoiled their tempers. I do indeed hear- tily commend their abstinence from vicious or worldly amusements. But surely, cheerfulness is not a crime. That God who is ' Our Father/ must love to see his creatures happy. If, then, instead of perpetual fasting, and ' will worship,' they had gone abroad among the glories of nature, if even they had refreshed their spirits by a commerce with science and art, I think,^by the mercy of God, they ( 46 ) they would have become happier them- selves, and therefore less jealous of the happiness of others. They would have shaken off the dew of their own comforts on all around them.'* Whilst he said this, his lady, as if to illustrate his argu- ment, was straining her eyes and fingers to release a fly, which had audaciously leapt into the cream pot. She was so happy herself, she would not willingly suffer even a fly to be miserable. He be- gan once more to read. ' As, Sir, I once had the honour of seeing a Queen at church, so now I had my curiosity gratified by a sight of the Protector. He had a peculiar counte- nance, and might perhaps have sat with equal propriety for the portrait of an en- thusiast, or an hypocrite.' that I heard of my dismissal without any regret. My early habits unfitted me for dissent. I felt much tenderness, indeed, for the scrupu- lous dissenter, and much admiration of their general zeal ; but I saw nothing which Led me to think that, on the whole, stones of the church would be better employed in building meetings. The Dissenters are often important auxiliaries to the Church, but they would be bad substitutes for it. But I proceed. The changes in my circumstances were many and great. I passed through a variety of meetings. At length, I fell from public ( 94 ) public into private life. And I shall beg to describe to you a few persons whose private devotions it was my lot to assist. c Vetusta was the first. She was an aged lady, who, to the surprise of a good many gay friends, had lately pos- sessed herself of some devout books, and of myself; and had, moreover, taken down some dubious pictures of nymphs and satyrs in her dressing-room to fit it up as an oratory. Few people had run a more various course than Vetusta. She was a woman of unusually strong pas- sions ; for which, in her earliest years, she found a sufficient employment in a life of ceaseless dissipation. When, what is called pleasure, ceased to stimulate, she gave herself to books. When books also had lost their influence, she found a vacuum which she hoped religion might fill up. And, accordingly, by another roll of the wheel, she took up religion. Sensation was what she wanted and pleasure, ( 95 ) pleasure, books, devotion, were the suc- cessive substances out of which it was to be extracted. All were used much in the same spirit ; and, it is not harsh to say, that she was just as much a Chris- tian on her knees at sixty as at her toilet thirty years before. Admitted to her privacies, I narrowly watched this sti- mulating process. She read, talked, pray- ed, all that she might fe$l; and, so that she felt, cared little for the effect of her devotions upon her life and temper.' " Such religion," said the Vicar, " is little better than dram-drinking. It is more decent, perhaps, but not less nox- ious. But, my dear," he added, " I would not be harsh. I fear the religion of many an old man is of the same com- plexion with that of Vetusta. We give ourselves to God when nothing else will have us, and think ourselves in search of him when, in fact, we are only in quest of our early sensations. The question is, whether, if I were young, I should be ( 96 ) be willing to give the morning of life, the season of enjoyment, to God?" '* You forget, my love," said his lady, " that you did love and serve God in your youth." " I thank God," replied the Vicar, " that, after my humble manner, I, in some measure did ; but he who has had fifty years acquaintance with his own heart, can scarcely believe that a tide of temptation, stronger by a single wave than that by which he is now assailed, did not overwhelm him. But the truth is, God " tempers the wind to the shorn lamb/ or rather, he hides the lambs of his flock in his own bosom."- -He pro^ ceeded to read ' When Vetusta died, I lay beside her, bearing the last book of devotion with which a poor niece who stood by had fruitlessly endeavoured to shed a ray of heavenly comfort upon the cheerless death bed of her aunt. Vestuta, though she had ceased to love any thing here, felt " ( 97 ) felt nothing but a chilly horror of an hereafter. The car which had, as it were, borne her affections from the earth, had not, like that of the prophet, translated them to heaven. She hung in suspense between two worlds, tired of the one, and unfit for the other. Such a death- bed shut out all the hopes which light up the dying eyes of a real Christian. Her niece no sooner saw the last breath quivering on her lips, than, shuddering at the awful scene, she almost unconsci- ously snatched me up, and the volume lying upon me, carried me to her cham- ber, locked the door, and then poured forth such a prayer to God as grief, the yawning chasm of the grave, the awful visions of eternity of which she had just caught a glimpse, were calculated to inspire. I became her property, lay in her closet, and saw and heard her in all her future moments of intercourse with God and with herself; and, from her peculiar character and circumstances, F soon ( 98 ) soon felt a singular interest in her fate. The lesson taught by her little history is so useful, that it ought to be told to almost every parent but yourself, who have no need to learn it. And you, Sir, so love the young, that you will rejoice to see a beacon lighted up for other pa- rents, though it may be useless to your- self. I shall, therefore, perform this im portant office. ' The name, then, of my new protec- tress was Selina ; and a gentler spirit was scarcely ever let loose amidst the snares and tumults of the world. She had been taken from her parents by her aunt four years before I saw her. They were persons of the cast which would be calleo amiable but amiable, rather, from easiness of temper, than from strength of principle. They had, in- deed, little or no religion ; and her fa- ther, especially, a man of almost morbid delicacy, on account of some indefensible conduct in a neighbour professing reli- gion, ( 99 ) gion, had contracted a strong antipathy to it. Their very narrow circumstances, and his infirm health, had induced them to resign her to her aunt ; and both pa- rents and child felt a real pang in the separation. They loved her as an ami- able child deserved to be loved ; and she loved them too well to observe any of their numerous defects. Once introduced into her aunt's family, she soon perceived a great change in the appearance of things. The apparatus of religion surrounded her on every side. The devotions of the family were many and long ; and her aunt, finding a new stimulus in the work of converting her niece, gave herself cordially to it ; bridled her temper, and strongly and eloquently pleaded the cause of religion. The mind of Selina was soon awed by the warnings of her gloomy monitress. She began to discover that, at least, the c terror of the law' had been veiled at home that she herself had been stand- p 2 in ( 100 ) ing, perhaps, on the verge of perdition; without knowing it ; and, adopting by degrees the creed and habits of her teacher, she fell into the formal, super- stitious observance of such rites as her aunt prescribed. Far, indeed, was the religion she embraced from that of the gospel. It was, in fact, the law without the gospel it was religion in eclipse the dark without the illuminated part of the heavenly disc. Terror was her pre- valent feeling. She saw God alone as he sits pavilioned in clouds, rolling the thunders, and flashing the lightnings of Mount Sinai; but not as he descends shorn of his beams, and with healingin his wings, upon the holy hill of Sion. This view of God naturally darkened all her prospects, and converted her religion into a sort of desponding effort to soothe, by her future life, the wrath of this despotic and vindictive Being. The character of the house corresponded with this state of mind. Her aunt, in order to rouze her ( 101 ) her own feelings, surrounded lii^rself vvith all those symbols of religion, whirl) .\\-erc best calculated to awaken her exhausted sensibilities; and these, however lost upon herself, produced their full effect upon her niece. She became fitter for La Trappe, than for the holy, happy life of a Christian.' The old Vicar here laid clown the manuscript. " My dear, said he, " I almost shudder while I read this history. Is not God our Father, and shall we ex- hibit him to our children, and tremble before him ourselves as a mere tyrant? Shall not the happy face of nature her scented flowers, her painted fruits, her golden harvests, yon ' brave un- changing firmament,' the shining lamps of heaven, the ' moon walking in her brightness,' shall not this blessed book (and he once more emphatically laid his hand upon it) which is nothing less than a present deity shall not, above all, the death of His dear son for a lost world, teach ( 102 ) teach ITS that ' God is love/ that not mere awe,' but awe tempered, softened, 'arid' illiur-inatfci by love is to be felt for him who thus ; first loved us?' ** Among the many causes which at- tach me to the services of our own church, this has always been one its freedom from gloom and sternness its mild, amiable, paternal spirit. Our dear child, my love, (and the tears rolled down his aged cheeks as he spoke) is, I doubt not, gone to heaven. And if I were called upon to name the means which most, under the divine blessing, contributed to his early ripeness for it, I should say it was his mother's anxious care, as he walked by the way, at his ly- ing down, and at his rising up, to set be- fore him the image of God as a tender and compassionate father. At least, my love, the curse is not upon you of having given him dishonourable views of God of having put him in the cleft of the rock while the Lord passed by without letting ( 103 ) letting him hear the glorious proclama- tion the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abun- dant in goodness and truth." The old gentleman had touched a tender chord. It was their only child of whom he had been speaking. He had come up, and was cut down like a flower. And though they had long ceased to mourn over him, and felt, at their age, that the line of separation was dwindling to no- thing, yet whenever they spoke of him, they could speak of* no thing else. They would sit together, and search their me- mories, and perhaps their imagination, for materials to build up a sort of little parental monument to his early charms and virtues. Thus they spent almost an hour now, and then, having consigned themselves in prayer to that heavenly Father, to whom their boy was gone, I need not say, they slept in peace. CHAP- ( 104 ) CHAPTER IX, THE Vicar and his lady, however, were too much interested in the history of Se- lina, to lose the first opportunity of re- turning to it. And we therefore will return with them. ' Selina was deeply affected at the death of her aunt; not, indeed, because she loved her, for that was next to im- possible 5 but the scenes of death passing before an already disordered eye, had scared her with the most terrible visions* Nor had the dying language of her aunt yielded her spirits the smallest relief. She had died, and, as it were, ' made no sign' of her hopes of any better and brighter state of being. Selina, as she hung over her corpse, saw, indeed, the ashes of the dead, but did not discover among them that bright spark of hope and joy which is to blaze anew in the kingdom kingdom of God. The state, there- fore, in which she was left was truly melancholy. She was not religious she Avas superstitious. She felt herself guilty, but had never been taught to lift her eyes to the cross of a Saviour. She felt herself weak, but no one had led her to the ' Comforter/ to that ' Spirit' who, with his holy fire, dries up the tears of the miserable. In these sad circumstances she tried various means of approaching her God. She shed many bitter tears she denied herself even those allowed indulgences which a gra- cious God has so profusely spread around us she ran through a daily circle of unmeaning ceremonies. But, in all this her poor wounded conscience found no consolation ; for man is not meant to be liis own Saviour. It might have been hoped, indeed, that she would have found her cure amidst the pages of the bible, which she daily read, but this she had learned to pervert, so as to suit F 3 her ( 106 ) own gloomy views. She pointed all its terrors at herself, and gave all its pro- mises to others. Soon the evil spread, like a cloud, over every thing she saw. All around her began to invest itself with new terrors. She fancied a sword across every path, and a hand writing upon every wall. Her sad circumstances were, of course, soon made known to her parents ; and, though their tenderness protracted her fall, they, ignorant of religion them- selves, were unable to supply the proper pillar for her sinking mind. A consump- tion followed, and I saw her, at nineteen, carried out to her grave, the unripe vic- tim of a neglected education, and a spu- rious faith.' Here the old Vicar gave a deep groan. His lady sobbed. " And, thus," she ex- claimed, " was a * lamb* of the c Great Shepherd,' whom he would have ( carried in his bosom,' left to perish on the cold and naked rocks. Oh, that you had found found her, my love. She should have been to us as a daughter. 'Cruel indeed to shew her only the fence of the pas- tures, and not the " still waters of com- fort" within it to teach her this half religion." " Half;' said the Vicar, " nothing but your gentleness could give it so mild a name a superstitious fear of God is no part of religion it dishonours God. It strips him of the attribute of mercy, and so strikes out the brightest jewel of his crown." " True," said the old Lady, " and yet I dare say, that the wretchedness and death of this poor young creature were charged altogether upon religion." " Upon that very religion," replied the Vicar, " which alone could have bound up her wounds wounds inflicted by the irreligion of her parents, and the superstition of her aunt. Religion has no misery to answer for. It is true, that its stupendous truths, rashly flashed upon the ( 108 ) the already disordered imagination, may, like the light of the sun, poured in rashly upon the diseased eye, overpower it. But men would not quench the sun, because some organs are too weak to bear its lustre nor must religion be extinguish- ed, because its sublimities may perchance overwhelm a diseased mind. Rather let the mind be elevated to religion, than religion be prostrated to the mind. At the same time, tenderness is due to the infirm. And our Lord himself felt and displayed it. What painter who has sketched a portrait of Christ, ever thought of arming him with thunders. No love was his weapon; and I feel sure, that this is the weapon his ministers should chiefly employ. Chaucer's picture of a Clergyman, and the image by which he illustrates it, delight me 4 He preach'd the Gospel, rather than the Law, And forc'd himself to drive, but lov'd to draw. Thundjr and light'ning, Heav'n's artillery, As harbingers before th' Almighty fly. These ( 109 ) These but proclaim his style, and disappear The stiller voice succeeds, and God is Now it happened that this picture and this image equally delighted the old Lady; and for this especial reason, that she always said it was as like her hus- band, as though he had sat for it. So as both were too much exhausted to read more, he sat thinking of the picture, and wishing to be like it and she, thinking of her husband and wishing to be like him till it was more than time to go to bed, CHAPTER CHAPTER X. WHEN the good Vicar next resumed his task, he read as follows. ' As the death of the poor girl was al- together charged upon religion, and as I was considered both as a cause and me- morial of her fate, neither religion nor I were likely to be in good repute in the house. Her father and mother, indeed, seemed co view me, passive as I was in the business, with a sort of horror, and she in particular, I remember, having one day opened the door and discovered me on the table, seemed to shudder- hastily shut the door again, and hurried away. In these circumstances, it was long doubtful what would become of me ; whether the cat or the lap-dog should permanently lay their head on the Cushion of vicars and prelates. At last, an old housekeeper who had always discovered ( 111 ) discovered much pity for the young lady, much horror of her aunt, and who, though tremendously cross, never failed to hobble off three times in the week to a large meeting in the neighbourhood, deeming her own pretensions at least equal to those of her four-footed competitors, car- ried me up to her own little room. I do not know that I should have thought it worth while to dwell on this part of my history, but for two reasons that my present proprietor was so singular a con- trast to my last and that the faults of both served to convince me of a truth which many wise folks never learn at all that the widest extreme to wrong is not always right.' " Always /" said the Vicar " the truth seems to be that it is never right. The opposite to profuseness, is avarice to tyranny, is anarchy to bigotry, is enthu- siasm. Almost all reformers in Church, except, indeed, those of rny own dear Church and country, appear to me to split split on this very rock. It was the moral, 1 doubt not, taught by the old story of Scylla and Chary bdis. We tell the story and forget the moral. Good old England has, through God's blessing, remembered both; and accordingly, we have a Pro- testant Church, and a free State, with which a wise Papist or a sober tyrant find it almost impossible to quarrel. For my part, though I abhor Popery, I honor the little harmless relics of it, which I see in our Church, as so many monuments of the moderation of my forefathers. But, let us go on. I dare say, our friend here meant the same thing." " I dare say it did," said the old Lady. Thus firmly agreed, as they were sure to be in all charitable conjectures, they proceeded. * The old housekeeper, though she called herself a Calvinist, was in fact an Antinomian. Independent of her opinions about Predestination, and the rest of the five live points, she really believed that the law of God had little or no force for an advanced Christian. Consequently her rule was to live as she pleased, and to believe as the minister of the chapel taught her. I ought to say, that this minister was in general disownecl by his brother dissenters, who, whether Calvinists or Arminians, concurred to condemn Antinomianism. I learned this fact from frequent conferences held in my presence, between the members of the society on the persecution of what they called the Church. But you shall hear some particulars of the old Lady's creed and practice. ' Her religious errors seemed to me chiefly to spring from two causes one without, and one within one, the cold and un amiable religion of her mistress, which drove her to an opposite extreme and the other, a mind of strong feelings, and no industry. Her history is, I be- lieve, by no means peculiar. She had always always been remarked as a woman of acute sensibility, and wretched temper repairing, by the embraces of one mo- ment, the petulance of another perpe- tually changing her friends and her pur- suits. At length, some sermon alarmed her conscience. At once, and almost without an effort, she shifted from the side of the world to that of religion. Those wondered at the change who did not remember that many change their party without changing their tempers; and indeed quit their present sphere only to seek in another, a more unrestrained indulgence of these very tempers. Thus was, it with the old lady. In her new- character she contrived to lend many of her most offensive qualities a new grace; and to baptize them with a new name. Her petulance gained thevery honoura- ble title of zeal her restlessness, of ac- tivity her changeableness, of indepen- dence. Nor did she, as it were, at a single plunge sink into the depths in which which I found her. Her descent, how- ever, was rapid because she was, in fact, following nature, when she thought she was following God, The benefit which might have been expected from some honest preachers whom she had occasionally heard, was entirely forfeited by one practice namely, that of leaving every preacher the instant he condemned any cherished indulgence. Thus she had gone through the whole circle of popular ministers; and, finally, had come to a conclusion, that her present minister was nearly the last prophet, and she herself, nearly the only Christian in the country. Her self-delusion was indeed almost in- credible. She would start up furiously from the 14th chapter of St. John, to thunder at a housemaid; and wash down a sermon with a copious draught of brandy.' " Worse and worse," said the Vicar as he finished the tale " was ever Cushion so unfortunate? I suppose it might have ( H6 ) have passed through nine-tenths of the congregations in the country, and not have found ten such cases." " Are you sure of that?" asked his Lady. " I am sure, my love, of nothing," replied he, " but I cannot understand how any ten people should go mad precisely on the same point; and I can call her state nothing short of insanity." " But," said she, " I have heard Cal- vinism charged with necessarily leading to enormities of this kind." " Then your reporters, my dear/' said he, " were not to be trusted. You know, that I am no Calvinist that I agree with Calvin perhaps in scarcely a single point in which he disagrees with Ar- ininius. My testimony, therefore, in vindication of Calvinism may be heard. To say then, that it ' necessarily,* or even generally leads to Antinomianism,isasun- just as to charge the Church with all the robberies and murders of those who pro- fess ( 117 ) less her communion. Hooker, Usher, Hall, Leighton, and many, if not most of the fathers of the Reformation, were Calvinists, and yet, who ever thought of charging them with Antinomianism ? But that very high Calvinism easily ad- mits of, and not untrcquently suffers such a perversion appears to me true, and in my mind constitutes a no small objection to that system." 61 I have often thought of asking, my love, what you thought of the con- versation of Cromwell with his chaplain, when on his dying bed." " Cromwell," said the Vicar, " asked, if I remember right, " whether a man who had been once in a state of grace, could fall away?" And upon his chap- lain answering " No" " Then," said he, " I am safe, for I am sure that I once was in a .state of grace." Now, to say nothing of this " no," of the chaplain," continued the Vicar, ct for which I might Lave felt disposed to substitute another monosyllable ( "8 ) monosyllable if this was the whole of the conversation, I may venture to add, that every wise Calvinist will allow the chaplain to be criminal, and the Pro- tector deluded. Even, in assuming the truth of the doctrine, Cromwell was plainly deluded in his judgment of his own state, and the chaplain as plainly criminal in suffering him to die in that delusion." " A pious and moderate Calvinist," said the old Lady, who had been reading a chapter in Archbishop Leighton (the most formidable of all controversialists, because every devout reader must be afraid to disagree with him), " that very morning finds much both in Scripture and in reason to say for his system." f< He does, indeed," said the charitable old man ; "he finds so much that I am never astonished or angry with tnose who come to a precisely opposite conclusion on these points to my own. As to Scrip- ture, however, be it remembered, that if if some single passages seem to favour that system, the general spirit of the Bible appears to be against it. The deli- neations oi'God as an universal Father the universal promises, invitations, ex- hortations to all, to awake, to arise, to turn, to pray, seem to me to belong to a more comprehensive scheme. Can the gracious God of the Scriptures mean all this for only a small portion of his crea- tures? The doctrine of election has, I think, one merit/ 5 said the old lady ; " it teaches those who believe it to love and honour God." " Am I, then," answered the Vicar, " likely to love and honour God less because I believe that he makes to all the offers which others believe he makes only to a few ?" " But surely," she continued, " there is much comfort in their other tenet of final perseverance in feeling that God will never forsake his true servants." " The ( 120 ) " There is, indeed," said the Vicar ; "but, thank God, I, who am no Calvin- ist, believe as firmly as they can do, that * God never forsakes his true servants.' The Calvinist cannot be more sure than another that he is a true Christian ; and if not sure, his creed is no peculiar com- fort to him. If sure even of our since- rity, who has reason, upon any system; to fear that he shall be forsaken ? Why should that sun of mercy now forsake us which, amidst ail the storms, and crimes, and foUies of life, has never yet gone down. My love, I have been young, and now am old ; am;, from in- fancy to that verge of second infancy on which I stand, such has been the wholly unmerited compassion of my God, so often has he stretched out to me the gol- den sceptre of his mercy so often, when guilty, pardoned when infirm, strength- ened and when miserable, shed around me the sun-shine of his presence, that I am sure * lie would not I should perish.' ( 121 ) " I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded/' that as long as I endea- vour, by his help, to stretch out this " wi- thered arm" for mercy, (and as he spoke, he stretched out an arm indeed withered in the service of the sanctuary) as long as I endeavour, in complete distrust of myself, to take hold even of the hem of his garment, I shall find ' virtue go out of him' to heal all my infirmities, and cleanse all my sins. This is my confi- dence, and if others have more, I thank God for their happiness, but am content with my own." Now, such was the humility of the good old man, that he had never been heard to speak as triumphantly of his own hopes before. And, even now, he seemed to blush for an avowal which not self-complacency, but love and gra- titude to God had forced from him. Af- ter a short pause, he added, CHAPTER XII. WHEN the Vicar returned to his manu- script, he read as follows : 6 1 am now, Sir, approaching the last great crisis of my life, the time of my finally leaving London for the hills of Westmoreland. The cause of my removal was this. At the moment when the meeting, of which I was the only ornament and superfluity, was built, the church was filled by the second son of a noble family, whose want of ta- lents had early designated him, willing Or unwilling, to spend the tithes of a con- siderable living.' " Monstrous," said the Vicar. " I trust such offences are rare. Can any profession demand loftier talents ? Shall the representative of God be chosen from the lowest orders of his creation? Shall he be selected to enter the sanc- tuary ( 136 ) tuary, to unravel the web of prophecy, to hurl the thunders of heaven, to unveil that awful image before which angels hide their faces, to display to thousands the interminable regions of joy and sor- row who has scarce faculties for the common offices of life ? If I had a son with the talents of an angel, \I would carry him, like Samuel, to the temple ; or, like Hannibal, to the altar of his country, and there consecrate him as the soldier of the cross, the eternal enemy of ignorance and guilt." " Read on, my love," said the old lady, who saw him here touching on the verge of that topic which of all others most wrung his heart the loss of a darling child. He understood her, and began again to read. . ' The young clergyman was an easy, kind-hearted creature, . who might have seconded an address, or even have pre- sided at a turnpike meeting with consi- derable effect ; but had neither piety nor ( 137 ) ft nor vigor for his sacred employment. His people were grossly neglected. The ' hungry sheep looked up and were not fed,' and they accordingly sought for what they deemed more productive pas- tures. And the meeting, which waited, like Absalom in the gate, for all the dis- contented, and promised to supply all their wants, soon filled itself with the stragglers. But the young incumbent broke his neck in a fox-chase; and his wretched father, softened and shocked at the event, and at the state of the parish, appointed such a pastor to the living as made every good man's heart leap for joy. Our meeting was soon, in its turn, abandoned ; and I slumbered over a large surface of empty pews. Upon this the chapel was closed ; and I,. with the pulpit, conveyed once more to a pawnbroker's. The pulpit was bought by an auctioneer, and I by the church* wardens of this very parish ; who, finding rates high, and com low, and velvet scarce* ( 138 ) scarce, on account of a war with the continent, carried me off, torn and tar- nished as I was, with a phrase not very honourable either to* me or to the esta- blishment, saying 'this 'ull do.' Thus, then, Sir, bearing the burden of the fat- ter of these church dignitaries, I was jolted down to this happy valley. This has been the last scene of my life, and, I am free to say, the happiest. ' But, Sir, you will be anxious, I am sure, to hear the history of some of your predecessors in the living. And it is rny intention to gratify you. I think it right, however, to observe, that, of a large proportion of them* no very interesting records remain. Mankind are much alike. And a little country village is not likely to call out their peculiarities. Some few were mere profligates, whose memory I do not wish to perpetuate. Many of them were persons of decent, cold, cor- rect manners, varying slightly, perhaps, in ( 139 ) Jn the measure of their zeal, their doc- trinal exactness, their benevolence, their industry, their talents but, in general, of that neutral class which rarely affords materials for history, or subjects of in- struction. They were men of that species who are apt to spring up in the bosom of old and prosperous establish- ments, whose highest praise is that they do no harm. ' The first person whose history I shall give you is one, of a class exceedingly small. He indeed is the only specimen of it that, in my long experience, I have chanced fo see. But his errors are of so mischievous a nature, and the punish- ment of them in his case, was so signal, that I cannot consent to pass them over. ' Munster, for so I will call him, was a spoiled child. He lost his father early; and his mother, captivated by the strength of his attachment, which naturally cen- tered all in her, requited it by antici- pating all his whims, and indulging all his caprice ( 140 ) caprice and ill temper. In consequence, he became peevish, headstrong, and pas- sionate. Now and then, indeed, some better qualities seemed, as it were, to flash in his character. But the gleam was only for a moment, and seemed to leave a deeper gloom behind. His feelings were quick his spirits variable. He loved and hated, worked and idled, laughed and cried, all in a moment, and always in excess,, ' When sent to school, he was chiefly distinguished by quarrelling with the larger half of his school-fellows, and forming the rest into a party against them, of which his vehemence rather than his talents orindustrjvnadehim the leader. And, the habits of school, he carried to college, where he was chiefly known as a person whom no one liked, and whom every one feared. These numerous de- fects were, however, brightened by one more promising quality. He had ac- quired under the eye of his mother, who, though though a weak, was really a pious woman, a certain awe of gross sin. The effect of this, however was, not to correct his life, but to reduce it to a sort of alterna- tion of sin and sorrows. Such a life could make no man happy; and, espe- cially one who had few friends to cheer him, little real taste for dissipation, and that kind of bilious habit, which is apt to divide the life of its victim between anger and melancholy. In such a state, therefore, he was not likely to remain long. And accordingly, on a sudden, he proclaimed himself a converted character. He forsook at once, not only his vices, but his college occupations not only his profligate, but his moral companions. His acquaintance looked on with asto- nishment. The good trembled when they saw such hands laid on the ark of God. The bad scoffed to find religion with such a champion. But Munster went on his way, heedless both of the one, and of the other. He soon entered the ( 142 ) the Church, and became the curate of this very parish. And here, I shall en- deavour to describe him, first, as a mi- nister; and next, as the father of a family. * His doctrines were, in the main, those of the Scriptures, andof the Reform- ers. But then he held and taught them less practically than either. His grand maxim, for instance, was, * preach of faith, and works will follow' whereas, the Bible and the Church evidently deem the same attention due to both concluding, that a man isjust as likely to act as to think wrong.' C4 The hands of my watch," said the Vicar, " are quite as incorrect as the wheels. But let us read on." * Neither did the spirit of moderation in these high authorities satisfy him. Sometimes, he so magnified a truth, as to strain it to the dimensions of error. Some- times he seemed to reduce the whole of religion to a single doctrine. In short, as ( 143 ) as some men possess the art of giving error the air of truth, so he gave truth the complexion and the nature of error. Few men had a better creed; and few put a worse interpretation to it.' ' But, however defective his opinions might he, his life was far worse. Al- though ardent in the pulpit, and in the discharge of most other public duties, his zeal did not extend to the more retired tluties of his office. He rarely, for in- stance, sought out in the remote corners of his parish those lambs of his flock, who either had not yet found the hea- venly pastures, or had, unhappily, wan- dered from them. Those quiet labours, which no eye sees, and no voice applauds but that of God, had no charms for him. To be heard, to be felt, to be admired, in the great congregation, was all he , loved. Many are the wounded spirits which he never attempted to heal. Many the broken hearts which he never stopped to bind up. They cried for kelp, indeed, but ( 144 ) but their Levite passed by on the other side. When he should have been aiding them, he was gone to act the Apostle, or to head the Crusade, in some public en- terprise,^ which, not God, but his vanity had called him. Many are those of his parish whose faces he will first recognize at the bar of God sheep which he should have carried in his bosom children to whom he should have been as a father. Into the secular business of his parish he entered with great eagerness; and, unfor- tunately for his general influence as a minister, carried into it as worldly a spirit as any of his people thus prov- ing that the Apostle in the pulpit was a mere man in the ordinary concerns of life; and that, like bad pictures, it was to distance rather than to colouring, his cha- racter owed even the little effect it had. His charities were extensive and shewy. Rather indeed than curtail them, he had much narrowed the education of an only son, designed for the ministry; and even delayed ( 145 ) delayed his payments to some by no means affluent tradesmen. And the money, thus doubtfully secured, was, in many in- stances, ill bestowed. His gifts were often either partial, or ostentatious. They were inscribed, for instance, on the walls of the popular chapel but rarely on the hearts of the afflicted and unobtrusive poor. But, Sir, you will be glad. I think, to hear something of the effect of his -ministry on his congregation. * The importance then of the doctrines on which lie dwelt, the vigor of his man- ner, and a good deal of natural eloquence, insured him a large and an attentive au- dience. And, such is the value of truth-. even when debased by a mixture of error, that, in .many instances, the happi- est results flowed from his exertions. Many, through the mercy of God, re- ceived the wheat and rejected the chaff which, with a too nearly approaching liberality, he had scattered around him. They learned from him, for example, ii to ( 146 ) to love their Saviour, and that absorbed many baser emotions. They learned, also, to read the Scriptures ; and, there, found the antidote, even, for their preacher's errors. To some of his hearers, however, his ministry was far from bene- ficial. Some timid minds were driven to despair some bolder spirits urged to presumption. And, in general, his most ardent converts were, by no means, the most complete Christians. Their tem- pers especially, betrayed some defects in their religious system; and shewed that a millenium which should arise from the complete diffusion of his principles, would not be of that kind in which the c lion should lie down with the kid.' ' But let us now, Sir, follow him into his family. As something great and pub- lic was necessary to call out his zeal, he was not likely to shine in the domestic circle. There, the stimulus of popular applause could not follow him ; and, con- sequently, those qualities which in pub- lic ( 147 ) lie served in some measure to balance his defects, altogether vanished. To his wife, he was too often cold and irritable. His son, who discovered little or no bias to- wards religion, was repelled still further from it by the unchanging frowns of his father. Of his daughter, who had early imbibed many of his own opinions and tastes, whose person was fine, whose talents were considerable, and who, in a better soil, might have been expected to ripen into a most interesting and valuable creature, he was extravagantly fond. And, twenty years after his marriage, she alone remained to share either his joys or sorrows. His wife had died early I will not say of a broken heart but certainly, a troubled mind had has- tened the decay of an infirm body. His son had gone to sea; and was atoning for his father's excesses in one way, by his own excesses in another. The daughter therefore alone remained to smooth the pillow of a somewhat premature old H 2 ( 148 ) age to nurse him through sleepless nights, and days of pain to calm an un- easy mind, and to supply the void created by a popularity gradually declining, as his public powers decayed. c This daughter, however, loved him; for she had always seen his bright side. And, had her education been more com- plete, her mind better disciplined, her sensibility less morbid, her religion par- taken less of the defects of his own it is possible that, under the blessing of their common Father, this parsonage would have displayed one of the most beautiful of all spectacles that of a child paying back the early tenderness of a parent, by leading his weary steps into the way of peace. But, alas! neither had oil to spare for the lamp of the other; each, like flame in the various chambers of a burning edifice, did but aggravate the other's infirmities. ' And now, I approach to the really tragical conclusion of his story. The hospitality hospitality of Minister was a good deal confined to those who chimed in with him in religions sentiments who, either echoed, or exceeded his own extrava- gancies. This select band had full range of his house. And, if they appeared to bear the test as to a few chosen points, he did not stretch them on the rack of more extended scrutiny. Among those who were thus frequent guests at the vicarage, was a person from a neighbour- ing village, of whom little more was known than that immediately after his first visit to Munster, he had discarded a female of suspicious character from his family, and had vehemently addicted himself to the vicarage, and to religion. These traits were a sufficient passport to the attention of both father and daugh- ter; and before long, he was almost as necessary to the happiness of the one, as of the other. To the father, he talked upon his select topics fighting under his banners in all controversies, and straining ( 150 ) straining all his extravagancies to some- thing still more extra vag-ant. With the daughter, he neither talked nor thought of controversies; and deluged her credu- lous ear with far other professions than those of piety. Of this, however, Mun- ster was not unconscious. Nor was he displeased to learn, that he was likely to be called upon to consign a darling child to the arms of so valuable a protector. In the midst, however, of this career, a sudden check was given to the intimacy, by intelligence that the stranger was a mere adventurer and hypocrite. Munster, at once both forbad him the house, and commanded his daughter to dismiss him. But here the previous misconduct of Munster himself, and the imperfect edu- cation he had given her, began to pro- duce their natural consequences. She had seen him so often deceived, ca- pricious, precipitate with all her love for him had so little respect for his judg- ment and, with allhersanguinereligious feeling. feeling, so little controul over herself, that she could not, even for a moment, resolve to obey her father. And when, after a short time, having consented to clandestine meetings, the stranger loudly proclaimed his innocence, and condemned the base suspicions of her father, she soon acquiesced both in his protestations and his indignation, and agreed to an elope- ment and a secret marriage. What was her father's horror to miss her one morn- ing at a breakfast table of which she had long been the only consolation to dis- cover that she was fled that she had given herself to a villain, and left an aged parent to break his heart alone. Her fate may easily be conceived. A marriage, indeed, took place; and, for a few months, the novelty of her circumstances, and the indignation she felt against her father's conduct, and es- pecially at his neglect to answer a letter she addressed to him, conspired to lay her conscience asleep. But soon the vi- sion ( 152 ) sion dissolved she received the deatfo- Mow of her happiness, and the curse of her disobedience, in the slackening at- tention of her husband. And at the end of a year, she was left destitute a mother, in a state of impaired health and spirits wanting even the means of existence, in a lodging in London. It is wonderful that, even then, her shattered mind did not break down under the bur- den of her calamities. But she hastened, as fast as her circumstances admitted, down to Westmoreland. It was night when she reached the parsonage. She burst open the garden door, rushed up to the window of her father's study, which looked into the garden, and at which there was a light, and saw hi in- seated in his arm chair, pale, emaciated, insane, fastened in a straight waist- coat, and his keeper standing over him. She sunk to the ground ; and when after a month, her bodily health in a measure returned, her mind, as if in sympathy with that of the parent she had ( 153 ) had destroyed, had contracted the dis- ease of which he died. There were those who had seen parent and child during- this month, and heard the fa- ther raving for his daughter, and the daughter raving for the father. The fact was, there had been insanity in the family ; and when to a life of un- usual excitement,- were superadded mor- tified vanity, disappointed hopes, wound- ed affections, and, above all, certain aw- ful glimpses of the world to come all these had served to quicken the seeds of latent disease, and to bring him to the sad state of whichhis daughter had been a spec- tator. He sat there, like the fig-tree, cursed for unproductiveness, touched and wither- ing under the angry hand of God. Before themonthof her bodily illness was expired, he died, and his awe-struck parishioners followed to the grave a man whose mis- fortunes had, in their eyes, cancelled his faults ; whom, if they had never loved, they had now, at least, learned to pity ; H 3 and ( 154 ) and who, they trembled to think, must have missed of that heaven which, in such ardent language, he had often dis- played to them. You know, Sir, his tomb in the church-yard. I believe the dead pastor has spoken even more pow- erfully than the living one. Such, in* deed, was the awe produced by his death, that his spirit seemed to dwell among the tombs ; and few of the country-peo- ple, for a long time, crossed the church- yard, who did not look suspiciously arojff'id them, hasten their steps, and put up a* prayer to God, that, in them, good principles might issue in a holy *life, in obedient passions, and a resigned will. c His daughter, as I said, recovered her bodily health, but not the tone of her mind. A cord was struck there which never ceased to vibrate. She lingered out twenty years in a neighbour- ing mad-house ; and many of the parish, who went to visit her, brought back the most ( 155 ) most touching accounts of her condition. Her derangement had not suspended, though it had confused the memory of her misfortunes. Nor had her religious sensibility abated, but, on the contrary, it seemed to quicken her agonies, and to cast a more aweful character over the illusions of her mind. Combining, with the representation of scripture, the splen- did images of her own heated fancy, she would occasionally present the most sub- lime pictures of the glories of heaven, and the triumphs of the good; and, then, suddenly striking her bosom, would say, " but they never left a father they never dishonoured a God." : Here the story closed, and it was well for the Vicar and his lady that it did ; for age had by no means dried up the sen- sibilities of their nature. He had stop- ped, as if strangled with grief, at least twenty times in the narration before he could read it articulately. But his was not a mind likely to exhaust itself in useless useless sorrows. Soon he began to con- trast his own happiness with the calamity of his predecessor to thank that gra- cious Being who had preserved him from such an abuse of religion, and to pray for power to unite, in. his own life,, the holy doctrines and the heavenly tem- per of his master. I thought, also, that I heard him say to his lady "happy the child who is taken from the uncertain v/ing of his earthly parent to repose in the bosom of his God." At all events, that this story served to reconcile him to what he had been accustomed to consider as the sternest dispensation of his life* is clear, from the following verses, which were found the next morning on the table of his study. As the sweet flower which scents the mom But withers in the rising day ; Thus loveJy was my Henry's dawn-, Thus swiftly fled his life a way. ( 157 ) And as the flower, that early dies, Escapes from many a coming woe ^ No lustre lends to guilty eyes, Nor blushes on a guilty brow. So the sad hour that took my boy Perhaps has spared some heavier doom j- Snatched him from scenes of guilty joy, Or from the pangs of ill to come. He died before his infant soul Had ever burnt with wrong desires f Had ever spurn'd at heaven's controul, Or ever quenched its sacred fires, He died to sin, he died to care, But for a moment felt the rod 5 Then, springing on the viewless air, Spread his light wings, and soared to God. This the blest theme that cheers my voice, The grave is not my darling's prison j The ' stone' that covered half my joys^ Is ( roll'd away' and ' he is risen.' CHAPTER < -158 ) CHAPTER XIII. THE old gentleman perceived the un- .perused pages of his manuscript so rapidly diminish, that he was a little perplexed for some days between the desire of reading more, and the apprehen- sion of having no more to read. His determination, however, to husband his little remaining stock soon gave way, and he began to read the history of ano- ther of his predecessors. ' 1 have already, Sir, stated to you some reasons why I relate to you the history of no more of your brother in- cumbents upon the vicarage. Some it would give me pain to relate. Of some I can find nothing to say. Among others, however, who, either did wrong, or did -nothing, there were many individuals .(and I say it to the honour of a church which both you and 1 love) worthy of the ( 159 ) the first and best clays of religion. And of one of these, whom I shall call Berkely, 1 proceed to give you some account.' " I am glad," said the Vicar, " that our friend has taken off his condemning cap. I believe the characters of minis- ters to have been much calumniated. And, at all events, he is no friend to re- ligion, who delights to depreciate those ' who minister at her altars. It is not easy to aim a blow at the false prophet of the Lord, without wounding those whose garb he wears. It is not easy to touch a -decayed stone in the altar without im- pairing the sanctity, or risquing the per- manence, of the whole. I do not mean, however, that our gowns should shelter us from scrutiny ; but it should be cau- tiously begun, and kindly conducted. I have, moreover, this objection to sitting too often in judgment upon the more faulty of our fellow-creatures, that we gain nothing, but, on the contrary, lose much, ( 160 ) much, by learning there are others worse than ourselves. Surround a person half blind only with men totally blind, and he begins to value himself upon his powers of vision, /love, my dear, to rise above the degraded part of our species to look through the long per- spective of ages to call up the mighty dead to encompass myself with the vast cloud of witnesses who have tri- umphed in the contest with the powers of darkness^ They both encourage me to contend, and compel me to be hum- ble, whilst inferior men But let us turn to the bright example which the me- moir promises us." He did, and read the following history. c Berkely was the son of parents, who, though both religious, differed widely in the complexion of their character. His father was a man of high and elastic spirits attracted by large objects, and pursuing them with ardour, courage, and self-devotion. lie looked over the world world with a cheerful and thankful eye- saw good in every thing, and wondered that the servants of so good and mer- ciful a God should ever find cause for sorrow or complaint.. His defect was, perhaps, that he was less wise in council, than prompt in action that he did not sufficiently calculate remote conse- quences and sometimes produced good ends by imprudent means. The mother of Berkely, on the contrary, was a per- son of low, reflective, nervous tempera* nient,. easily depressed discerning evils at an incredible distance, and peopling earth, sea, skies, with visionary alarms. Had not the star of religion shone in upon the dark chambers of her mind, her gloom might have ended in despair* I describe the parents the more minutely, because I think that Berkely inherited some of the qualities of each or rather their compound character. In him, that life and joy and energy which surround- ed the father as a sort of perpetual at- mosphere, ( 162 ) tnosphere, only gleamed occasionally when called out by certain great objects - by the society of those he loved, by the splendid scenery of nature, or by the grand themes of religion. Then, indeed, so much more of intellect mingled with his sensations, that his joy took a nobler flight, and soared into regions denied to a less vigorous mind. At other times, the spirit of his mother seemed to de- scend upon him; and a state of de- pression followed ; of depression, how- ever, \yhich, by exhibiting him, as it were, amidst the fires of affliction, served to display some of the most touching as well as majestic features of his character, It indicated, however, some hidden dis- ease; and perhaps predicted the somewhat premature death that removed him from his friends. From both his parents he in- herited the most exalted piety; Not, in- deed, that religion descends in the blood, for the most pious parents often leave no representatives of their virtues; nor did he ( 163 ) he receive it as a sort of heir-loom and family portion ; for few minds were of a more deliberative and scrupulous cast. But, seeing it from his infancy, under his paternal roof, surrounded with generous and lofty qualities, his earliest prejudices were on the side of religion, his earliest studies were in pursuit of it, and his earliest decisions in its favour. But, Sir, as many of my former communica- tions may have appeared somewhat que- rulous, as I am anxious to redeem my character before we part (the Vicar here pressed the ringer and thumb together which held the remaining pages of the memoir, and was shocked to feel how few they were) as both you and I love praise, I trust, better than blame, as, moreover, I wish to bear my testimony to the best man, except one, that ever possessed the living ; I am resolved to shew you him in various and distinct views, so that the whole man may pass before you.' Who ( 164 ) **Who can the ( one 5 be/' said the Vicar. cc There can be no doubt on that point," rejoined his lady. But he. un- fortunately left her no time to tell us the secret, and read on. c In order, Sir, to shew you, as it were, the key-stone of the opinions and cha- racter of Berkely, I must state to you one circumstance. From a child he had been remarkable u for the most ardent attachment to his father. That name comprehended in it all that was in his eyes venerable and delightful. Hence,. filial affection had become with him, not merely a feeling, but a principle. He hoped much of every man who ardently loved a good parent* He feared every thing in one who did not. Often have I seen the tear start from his eye as he read the history of Joseph ; and the blood mantle in his cheek as he read that of Absalom. "And such was the power of this master feeling, that it gave a peculiar character even to his religion. Tor. ( 165 ) For, of all the men I ever saw, he most de- lighted to represent God under the image of a father. It was to him the most honourable and interesting of all titles, and he transferred it to the Being whom he best loved. You will soon perceive how much this peculiar feeling shaped and coloured all his opinions and prac- tice.' The old Vicar could scarcely find words to express his delight at this state- ment, so completely did the views of his devout predecessor harmonize with his own. *' Happy," said he, " the father of such a child." " Happy/' she replied, the child of such a father." " Happy, indeed," added the Vicar; ^ for here one virtue led to another the love of a father to the love of God. But let us proceed." ' This peculiar feeling, as I said, Sir, gave a peculiar complexion to all his reli- ( 166 ) religious opinions. Thus it inclined him, I think, though he very rarely spoke upon the subject, to that sys- tem of religion which represents God as Equally disposed to save all his creatures. The Father of the world was not likely, he thought, to have set aside or past, over, any part of his earthly family. In like manner, it led him to dwell, with peculiar emphasis, upon the features of mercy in the character of God. In the conduct of a father, the quality of love would be sure to predominate ; and Berkely e^er seemed to be searching out, even in the darkest of the divine dispensations, some ray of compassion which bespoke a parental hand. ' Even (he would say; amidst the monuments of wrath which sadden the face of the universe, I discern, both in man and in the world he inhabits, many splendid re- lics of a nobler creation. It is, indeed, a world of ruins, but of ruins diversified and ennobled by many a lofty pillar, de- signating ( 167 ) signating the majesty of the original edifice. Look even at the most signal ex- amples of divine vengeance, and love will always be seen sheathing or tempering the sword of justice. When, for in- stance, the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and a flood swept the face of a guilty world, even then, the ark surmounted the waters, and restored the only pious family to an unoccupied globe. Did the waves of the Red sea close in upon the hosts, and engulph the chariots of guilty Egypt? Behold a whole people, with their flocks and herds, pre- served upon the banks of that very sea, as if to shew, that ' in judgment God remembers mercy.' Did the vault of heaven blaze with unusual fires, and empty its burning deluge on the pro- fligate cities of the plain ? There, also, the solitary servant of God is seen walk- ing unhurt upon the fiery soil, and amidst the atmosphere of death. Even when the earth shook when the face of ( 168 ) of heaven was darkened when the veil of the temple was rent, and the groans of nature proclaimed the just anger of God, a voice of mercy was heard amidst the clamours and agonies of the universe * to-day shalt thou be with me in Para- dise ;' and the Son of God ascended to his father, not dragging at his chariot wheel thousands of his persecutors, but bearing in. his arms one poor criminal rescued from the cross.' But, Sir, I must not indulge myself in recording the sayings of this good man. His lan- guage was like that of one who had been placed in the clefts of the rocks, while the divine glory passed by ; who had seen, indeed, the majesty of God; but had heard him proclaim'd as a God of ' long-suffering' and of ' tender mercy.* It is enough to say that he pleaded for God in the face of a negligent world, as a son would plead for the honours and rights of a revered parent. And many \vcre the hearts which, though unsubdued ( 169 ) t>y terrors, incited under the ray of his tenderness and woe. ' This same fact, to which I have re- ferred, perhaps also, in some measure, assisted to guide his judgment in mat- ters of controversy. His impression was, that, as the child had no right to hope he should comprehend all that was intelligible to the matured wisdom of a parent, far less should man presume to dive into the mysteries of God. This at once taught him to prefer carrying the balance, rather than the sword, amidst contending parties in religion. In his days, for instance, as it was much the fashion to dispute upon the inexhaus- tible topics of Calvinism and Arminian- ism, it was desired and expected of all to enlist themselves on one side or the other. Ai.d, as his father inclined to the former hypothesis, he was naturally expected to break his lance in favour of the divine decrees. But the young divine soon manifested a disposition, rather to ( 170 ) silence, than to controversy upon this disputed point. This encouraged the opposite party to range him under their banner. But, here again, his bias was rather to temper the warmth of others, than to display his own. It was not that he failed to comprehend the nature of the controversy or that he viewed any topic of religion with indifference or that he did not discover in the sacred volume passages favourable to each sys- tem. But he soon discovered that this controversy had fruitlessly occupied the attention, and harassed the spirits, of good men, in almost every age, and under every system of religion ; and that it was not likely to be decided till 'men shall know even as they are known.' He thought the more ardent champions, on either side, generally wrong in- asmuch as both inclined to substitute their own system for the simple creed of scripture, and to twist its straight letter into all the windings of human philosophy. ( 171 ) philosophy. He therefore took part en- tirely with neither but taught modesty and charity to both. But I pass on, from his opinions, to his character as the pastor of a parish. I have said that, in forming his concep- tion of God, he had reasoned upwards from man to God from the image of an earthly father to the character of the great and good Being who presides over the world. On the contrary, in moulding his own character, he had reasoned downwards from God to man ; and his desire was to be in his parish according to his mean ability, that which the God, of whom he was the represen- tative, was in all the world. < In the pulpit, accordingly, he was remarkable for speaking, not in the lan- guage of the contending parties, but in that of God. I have heard him say that ' in reviewing his own ministry, almost the only fact on which his eye rested with satisfaction, was the not being being able to charge himself with hav- ing voluntarily employed a single text for a purpose not designed by its great author.' ' But, not only did he largely u,se the language of the Bible he felt it his duty, as far as possible, to imitate the style of reasoning employed in it, and especially in the minority of Christ. Like him, he endeavoured to seize upon passive events or objects to illustrate his meaning like him, to vary his subject with his audience like him, to be sim- ple, grave, spiritual, touching, tender. He used to say, < I think the language of Christ is often much mistaken. Some conceive themselves his imitators, when they confine themselves to the practical parts of religion ; forgetting that every fundamental doctrine of religion is strong- ly urged by Christ, and that its mere sublime and mysterious points, the union of God with man, the influence of the Spirit, the precise nature of the final ( 173 ) judgment and happiness of man, are treated by him with a boldness and full- ness, which would amount to impiety in any other teacher.' Others again con- ceive that they imitate him in acts of rashness and enthusiasm forgetting that he rigidly conformed to existing rites that he continued to worship even in those corrupt Jewish synagogues he was about to abolish that he did not even enter upon his ministry till he was thirty years of age. Now, both these errors Berkely avoided. He taught the truth but taught it calmly. He touched the harp of the prophet, but not with that unholy vehemence which snaps its cords. In general, his manner in the pulpit was rather mild and paternal, than ener- getic. But there were times, and those not a few, when a new spirit seemed to animate him. His favourite theme was the happiness of the saints in glory; and fee really spoke of heaven as though he had been there. I have now his figure i 2 before ( 174 ) before me, as he rose up to address his congregation the first time after the death of his father. No event had touched him at a more vital point. But, although as he mounted the pulpit, a sort of cheerless cloud hung upon his brow, in a short time, a ray from heaven seemed to disperse it. He was not afraid to touch the chord which might be expected to awaken all the anguish of his soul. Others wept but he was calm. He spoke of death, but it was of the death of the righteous, an^l of the blessedness which follows it. Such was the impression of the scene,, that as his hearers watched his glowing eye, his grey hair, his peace- ful smile, his uplifted hand, his lighted countenance and saw him, as it were, launch into other worlds, and bring back their spoils to enrich himself in this withdrawing the veil from the sanctuary ~speaking of things to cpme as present, they looked at him almost as they would ( 175 ) at St. John rising from the i\c:\(\. to add another scene to his celestial V;M(MS.' * Above all, it \vas his anxious endea- vour to display the ch iracter (,i v^nnstin his own daily intercourse with uis parish* * The life of Christ,' L. vvas wont to say, e was the life of God upon earth ; and therefore the fit model for him who de- sired to be the representative of God to his parish.* c Human laws (I have heard him observe) differ from the divine govern- ment in three points they do not pardon the penitent nor reward the good* nor assist men to discharge the duties, the neglect of which they punish/ * Now, (he added), in all these points, every man, and especially a minister, should endeavour to supply, to those under his care, the deficiencies of the laws.' Such therefore, was his rule, and most simply and earnestly did he strive to adhere to it. Such was his tenderness to the pe- nitent, for instance, that he stood con- demned ( 17-6 ) tiemned with some of the sterner spirits in his parish for credulity. But he re- membered who it was that saw the prodigal ev^n when afar off, and made haste to meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him. I have more than once seen him, when some poor offender asked, doubtingly, * whether it was pos- sible^e could ever be forgiven,' point with an eye full of tears, to a fine pic- ture of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus, which hung in his study. In like manner, it was his constant endeavour, as far as he w r as able, to reward those who deserved it. Many a child carried in its little box some cherished memorial of the kind old Vicar ; and many a bible, even to. this day, sheds a ray of comfort and splendour from the shelves of a cot- tage on which his approving hand origi- nally placed it. As to the remaining duty of assisting his people, in the dis- charge of their duties, for this, he rose early, and late took rest. He built that little ( 177 ) little school, and which you, Sir, so often visit he enlarged that altar for his in- creasing flock of communicants, where you so often shed tears of sacred joy, as you dispense the bread of life to hungry souls. 5 ' I had thoughts, Sir, of shewing you this reverend man in the circle of his family. But thefact is, that his parish was only his larger family, and his family his smaller parish. Those who had seen him in the one, could determine what his con- duct would be in the other. It was the same flower transplanted to a somewhat different soil. Not, indeed, that he was among those who thought that the do- mestic should be sacrificed to the public duties of a clergyman. On the contrary, he felt that his first duties were at home ; that this was the little garden which his God expected him, first, to rescue, and fence in from the waste. ' That love/ he said, ' which pretends equally to embrace all mankind, with no peculiar affection ( 173 ) affection for our own family, is a circum- ference without a center or no love at all.' But from the general harmony of his conduct, abroad and at home, it would, as I said, be mere repetition to describe his conduct in his own house. Here, therefore, Sir, I stop, only stating to you one circumstance, that his monu- ment is that white old stone on the right side of the altar. A hundred times have I seen the poor and the miserable steal up to that spot, merely to lay their hand upon the stone, as though they fan- cied virtue would come out of it, or as though it could be to them what the man it covered, had formerly been a sort of guardian angel a comforter a friend. And such is the forbearance* and com- passion with which the heavenly c Com- forter' views such acts of affectionate and chastised superstition, that I scarcely ever saw one of these pilgrims who did not retire with a happier countenance than he went. Others, I have seen, both in ( 179 ) in prosperous and adverse circumstances, approach the stone merely to inscribe some memorial upon it some testimony, prompted by a full heart, to him who had taught them to hear the one with patience, and to enjoy the other with moderation. These inscriptions possibly even now remain ; and, perhaps, you may feel disposed to decypher them.' Here the manuscript, as the vicar thought, and perhaps, as the reader may think, abruptly terminated. On the whole, however, it could not perhaps have terminated at a better place ; partly because his eyes refused any longer to do their office, and partly because he had now a new object in the examination of this hallowed grave. " My love," said he, " the sun will soon set, let us make haste and feast ourselves on this sacred spot. I have often observed the stone, but I little thought it was the casket of such a pre- cious gem. There is no name inscribed upon ( 180 ) upon it, but I have no doubt it is written elsewhere." She gladly obeyed, and they reached the altar just as the sun was beginning to sink in the west. " Both," said the vicar, pointing to the descending orb " both set, and both shall rise, in another hemisphere, and with renewed splendour." By a sort of simultaneous impulse, natural enough to two hearts so entirely in unison, they each laid their hands upon the tomb. It was not that they wanted comfort, but they longed to touch the only relic of the venerable man, and, in the best manner they could, to join hands with one to whom in spirit they were so entirely united. They soon began to search for the promised inscription, nor did they search in vain. In one place they found, half blotted as it were with tears l My father, my father, the cha- riot of Israel and the horu men thereof.' In another * he was a good man.' In a third third ' the memory of the just is blessed.' In a fourth ' alas ! my bro- ther.' Now, whether this last inscription, which is the lamentation of the c old pro- phet' over ( the man of God/ suggested the idea to the vicar, or not, it is difficult to say ; but he had no sooner read this, than, taking his wife tenderly by the hand " My dear," said he, " till now, I have felt a complete indifference, so that 1 lay in the midst of my dear parish- ioners, in what precise spot this poor heap of dust and ashes should be depo- sited. But I feel this indifference no longer, and, if you think me deserving the honour, I would say to you, in the words of one who like myself had deep cause, as he stood over the grave of a good man, to feel his own guilt and infir- mities ' when I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre where the man of God is buried lay my bones beside his banes.' " K As ( 182 ) As the old lady never allowed herself to think that he who was a part of her life could be taken away, and life itself be continued ; and as she had always con- templated his death as the hour of his release and triumph, she cared little where the grave should be, so that she might descend to it together with him. " How it brightens," she said, as they returned home ; " the prospect of future happiness to hope that we shall see in heaven, not only the good we have known, but those of other ages whom we have not known." " Yes," he answered, " and see them, not clothed with infirmities, but as the disciples saw Moses and Elias, on the Mount, invested in all the splendour of heaven. Nor shall we merely see them, but perhaps be placed under their tuition and guidance. They will have been daily purging off their impurities in the fountain of life, and imbibing new light in the blaze of the eternal throne. And, perhaps, ( 183 ) perhaps, to them it will be given, to educate those for the higher region of glory, who have recently escaped from the body. They will have c seen God as he is ' for so many ages will have witnessed the trial and judgment of so many generations will have enjoyed so long the perpetual sunshine of the divine presence, that they must have much to impart to those newly rescued from the chambers of darkness and of death. Our teachers here, my love, may possibly be our instructors there. And the vene- rable man, over whose grave you have just shed such pious tears, may be com- missioned, not merely to wipe away your tears, but to teach you the song of angels, and lead you to God and to the Lamb." In this spirit, and with these visions of glory, the aged couple reached their quiet home ; and, as they stood over the lake to catch the last ray of evening, I could not help thinking its smooth and still still illuminated surface an apt image of themselves. They had peace in their bosoms, and heaven reflected in their face. I will not say that they felt no regret at having finished the favourite manuscript. But those who enjoyed such hopes as theirs could not long want anything else to comfort them. And in these hopes they lived and died. The desire of the Vicar was fulfilled his bones were laid by those of his prede- cessorand, after a few weeks, her's were mingled with his. Of none could it be more truly said ' they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' In conclusion, I would only beg that if any of the readers of this little history should journey amidst the majestic sce- nery which surrounds the spot on which they dwelt, and should hear a single bell echo among the rocks, or die upon the lake beneath, he would turn aside to view the simple graves I have described. In ( 185 ) In the bleak and barren mountains, or the rocky defiles around them, they may sec indeed many an august monument of the power of God. But, in the tombs of these holy men, they will discover monuments of his mercy enduring testi- monies that he is good, and that his people are happy. And if their feelings are such as mine, they will kneel at that altar* they will pledge themselves to the service of so compassionate a God they will say, < let me die the death of the righ- teous, and let my latter end be like his.' THE END, Printed by G. SIDNEY, Northumberland-street, Strand. . 916907 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY