the next step I take from the world is not into a void that no one has explored-a fathomless abyss -a chaos of clouds and darkness but I know what it is-I am assured of it." He said to me in reporting this conversation, "I rested on this, and left it to work on her mind. I thought it better to defer the subject of this assurance to try her, and I have reason to believe that she feels anxious for our next occasion of meeting, that she may hear how we can inake out the grounds of our assurance." This is one among many instances of the wise methods in which he accommodated his instructions to the character.

"Many of my people," he said, "and especially females, talk thus to me-'I am under continual distress of mind. I can lay hold of no permanent ground of peace. If I seem to get a little, it is soon gone again. I am out at sea, without compass or anchor. My heart sinks. My spirit faints. My knees tremble. All is dark above, and all is hor For beneath.'-'And pray what is your mode of life?' 'I sit by myself.'-'In this small room, I suppose, and over your fire?'-'A considerable part of my time.'-'And what time do you go to bed?I cannot retire till two or three o'clock in the morning.'-'And you lie late, I suppose, in the morning?'

Frequently. And pray what else can you expect from this mode of life, than a relaxed and unstrung system-and, of course, a mind enfeebled, anxious, and disordered? I understand your case. God seems to have qualified me to understand it, by especial dispensations. My natural disposition is gay, volatile, spirited. My nature would never sink. But I have sometimes felt my spirit absorbed in horrible apprehensions, without any assignable natural cause. Perhaps it was necessary I should be suffered to feel this, that I might feel for others; for, certainly, no man can have any adequate sym pathy with others, who has never thus suffered him.

self. I can feel for you therefore, while I tell you that I think the affair with you is chiefly physical. I myself have brought on the same feelings by the same means. I have sat in my study till. I have persuaded myself that the ceiling was too low to suffer me to rise and stand upright; and air and exercise alone, could remove the impression.from my mind!"

His taking the charge of ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL is the most important event of his life, as it appears to have been the sphere for which he was peculiarly raised up and prepared by Providence.

The circumstances attending his establishment of a serious and devout congregation in this place, mark the strength and simplicity of his mind; while they may show the necessity under which such men will sometimes be brought, of acting for themselves, with perfect independence of the whole body of their brethren.

These circumstances he related to me as folJows: "When I married,I lived at a small house at Islington, situated in the midst of a garden, for which I paid 14. a year. My annual income was then only 80%. and, with this, I had to support myself, my wife, and a servant. I was then, indeed, minister of St. John's, but I received nothing from the place for several of the earlier years. When I was sent thither, I considered that I was sent to the people of that place and neighborhood. I thought it my duty therefore, to adopt a system and a style of preaching which should have a tendency to meet their case. All which they had heard before, was dry, frigid, and lifeless. A high, haughty, stalking spirit characterised the place. I was thrown among men of the world, men of business, men of reading, and men of thought. I began, therefore, with principles. I preached on the divine authority of the sacred scriptures. I dissected Saurin's Sermons. I took the sinews

and substance of some of our most masterly writers. I preached on such texts as-If ye believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither will ye believe though one rose from the dead. I set myself to explain terms and phrases. My chief object was under-ground work. But what was the consequence of this? An outcry was raised against me throughout the religious world. It was said, that, at other places, I continued to preach the truth; but that, at St. John's, I was sacrificing it to my hearers. Even my brethren, instead of entering into my reasons and plan, lay on their oars. My protectress turned her back on me. I hesitated, at first, to enter on so great a risk; but, with grandeur of spirit, she told me she would put her fortune on the issue: if any benefit resulted from it, it should be mine, and she would bear me harmless of all loss. She heard me a few times, and then wholly withdrew herself, and even took away her servants. Some of them would now and then steal in; but, as they reported that they got 'no food,' the report did but strengthen the prejudices of their mistress. She could not enter into my motives. I was obliged to regard her conduct as Huss did that of the man who was heaping the faggots round him, O sancta simplicitas!* She could not calculate consequences,and was unmoved even when I placed my conduct in its strongest light—'Can you attribute any but the purest motives to me? Ought not the very circumstances to which I voluntary subject myself by adhering to the plan you condemn, to gain me some credit for my intentions? Had 1 preached here, in the manner I preached elsewhere, you know that the place would have been crowded by the religious world. I should then have obtained from it an income of 2001. or 300l. a

*Misprinted, in the former editions, O sancte simplicitas.

J. P.

three farmers to throw the weight, in dubious cases, into the farmer's scale. After we had settled the business, one of the three, to convince the Bisley farmers that they had acted in the very spirit of my directions, proposed to find a person who would immediately give them 50l. a year for their bar gain with me. This has given them an idea that we act upon high and holy motives."

What a noble trait is this of his upright and disinterested mind! One might almost with confidence predict that such an introduction into his parishes was a presage of great usefulness. A minister has no right to wanton away the support of his family; but, having secured that, whatever sacrifices he may make with such holy motives as these, will be abundantly repaid; probably in the success of his ministry, certainly in his Master's approbation and the peace of his own bosom. Those sacrifices of what may be strictly his due, which a narrow and worldly man may refuse to make, though he entail discord and feuds on his parish, will be trifles to the mind of a true Christian minister.

"I hardly think it likely that a man could have been received in a more friendly manner than I have been. About 500 people attend at Chobham, and 300 at Bisley. I find I can do any thing with them while I am serious. A Baptist preacher had been somewhere in the neighborhood before I came. He seems to have been wild and eccentric, and to have planted a prejudice in consequence of this in the people's minds, who appear to have had no other notion of Methodism than that it was eccentricity.

"While I am grave and serious they will allow me to say or do any thing. For instance; a few Sunday's since it rained so prodigiously hard when I had finished my sermon at Bisley, that I saw it was impracticable for any body to leave the church. I

then told the people, that as it was likely to continue for some time, we had better employ ourselves as well as we could, and so I would take up the subject again. I did so; and they listened to me readily for another half-hour, though I had preached to them three quarters of an hour before I had concluded. All this they bear, and think it nothing strange; but one wild brother with one eccentric sermon would do me more mischief than 1 should be able in many months to cure."

A very strong instance of personal attachment. to him occurred soon after he took Chobham. A stranger was observed to attend church every Sunday,and to leave the village immediately after ser vice was over. Every new face there was a phenomenon, and of course the appearance of this man led to enquiry. He was found to be one of his hearers at St. John's a poor, working-man, whom the advantages received under his ministry had so knit to his pastor, that he found himself repaid for a weekly journey of fifty miles. Mr. C. remonstrated with him on the inexpediency and impropriety of thus spending his Sabbath, when the pure word of God might be heard so much nearer home. But we must approach the closing scene of this great man's life and labors.

No touches need to be added to the affecting picture which Mrs. Cecil has drawn of his gradual descent to the grave. I will only subjoin here some remarks on his VIEWS and FEELINGS with respect to that Gospel of which he had been so long an eminent and successful minister

His VIEWS of Christianity were modified, as has been seen by his constitution and the circumstances of his life. His dispensation was to meet a particular class of hearers. He was fitted, beyond most men, to assert the reality, dignity, and glory of religion-as contrasted with the vanity, meanness, and glare of the world. This subject he treat