icles declare, "They are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ; although they cannot put away our sins, or endure the severity of God's judgment." For they have no merit in them, whereon man can advance any claim upon God; seeing that "we are accounted righteous before Him, only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and that not of our works or deservings.

Had I preached from the Alcoran of Mahomet, or the Shaster of Buddhu, my doctrine could not have appeared more strange, or proved more offensive to some of my hearers; who, on leaving the church, declared with vehemence, that if they could prevent it, I should never come as the resident incumbent of their church. The next day I left the place for my old parish; having been previously informed that immediate steps would be taken to prevent my settling here. My poor dear flock, to whom I had now returned for a short season, knew not where I had been, nor what was likely to take place. And little did they know or conceive how those doctrines, which they delighted to have preached to them, had met so unwelcome a reception elsewhere. Meanwhile, having again consulted those friends to whom, under God, I had hitherto committed my movements, and finding them unanimously of opinion that I ought to go, and the more so as there appeared every probability of their obtaining a good and suitable man to step into my place, I determined to face the opposition about to be made, and abide by the result. Praying to

* See Articles of Faith XII. and XI. Book of Common Prayer.

the Lord, that he would direct my path, and make it plain, either by frustrating my adversaries, or by permitting their efforts to succeed, just as his good pleasure might be in favour of my going or not going to this projected new station.

About three weeks after preaching the offensive sermons, I waited on the Bishop for institution; when the legal or official parts of the business were gone through without cavil or delay. I was then given to understand, that his Lordship had been written to by some of the inhabitants of the parish, complaining, as he thought, very justly of my proceedings during the short time I had been among them. His Lordship, indeed, appeared to sympathize very much with my accusers. In the course of a long, and, to give it the mildest term, a very unpleasant conversation, it appeared that the "head and front of my offending" lay in the following particulars; First, in that I had accompanied my kind friend and patron to the house of one of his farmer-tenants, to take tea in the afternoon of the Sabbath, instead of going to our quarters at the inn; such tenant, moreover, being a Dissenter. Secondly, in that I took a large Bible into the pulpit. Thirdly, in that I gave utterance to many more words in my discourses than were actually written down in the notes before me. And, lastly, in that I absolutely denied the merit of good works to purchase or to procure heaven. It also appeared in this unpleasant conversation, that my opponents had learnt, and communicated the fact of my having been once in the service of my country as an officer in the navy, and that as such, I had formerly been employed in defending

them, with the other peaceful inhabitants of the land, from the swords and bayonets of combined Europe. This circumstance, which I had never before imagined would lower me in the scale of British society, now appeared as a blot on my escutcheon. Happily poor old England was then at peace with all nations, and needed no longer to be defended from invasion; and now, those with whom I had to do, made it painfully manifest that they looked on me with a degree of contempt for the hard services I had once cheerfully rendered them. Frivolous and illiberal as the above charges and insinuations against me may appear to my readers, they actually were considered as matters of grave import by my accusers and diocesan; and produced, on the part of the latter, what I must ever consider as unkind behaviour towards me. Feeling, as I did, that unkindness, and at the same time supported by a spirit of independence, arising from the conviction, that I had neither lowered myself in society, by my former public station and services, nor at M-n had committed any offence whatever against the rules of propriety, good morals, or church discipline, I refused to plead guilty to any thing criminal; while I freely acknowledged I was guilty of all the four charges laid in my indictment. But as I did not either then or now feel myself bound to comply with the whims and fancies of two or three pharisaic, capricious individuals, I could not promise, never in future to give utterance, in my sermons and addresses, to one word beyond what I had actually lying before me in writing. This had so unhappy an effect on my superior, as to induce him to go

to the extremity of his power in prohibiting me, at my peril, from preaching in any part of his diocese, except within the limits of my own parish. To me, however, this was no punishment at all; for, as I stated to his Lordship, from what I had seen of the extent of my field of labours, there would be far more preaching and teaching required than I should ever be able to perform; and consequently that I should have neither time nor inclination to go further off for work. Such were the consequences of a few officious, conceited, self-righteous individuals interfering with what they had no concern, and setting themselves up for judges of what they understood little or nothing, and all this too in direct opposition to the views, opinions, and wishes of nineteen out of every twenty of their neighbours. My prohibition, however, lasted but about nine months; for, at the end of that time, it pleased God suddenly to remove my prohibitor into another world, where I most sincerely hope he found rest unto his soul, and where, if I am permitted to meet him, we shall perfectly understand each other's acts and motives, and be of one heart and of one mind for ever. This unpleasant affair was, on my coming to reside at the living, followed up by another of a more petty character.

One of the busy individuals, a Diotrephes in his way, who loved to have the pre-eminence, and had taken a part on the former occasion, vexed that they had not more effectually succeeded with the Bishop, now determined, himself, to act a leading part in annoying me, even to the extent of what, on ship-board, would have been termed "open mutiny." This man, under the influ

ence of a shallow head, and a peevish, angry, self-righteous temper, actually employed several days in misleading and ill-advising some of our choir of church singers; encouraging them to set me at defiance, and, during divine service, to resist my regulation, and proceed totally independent of me. Learning, on the Saturday, what part the mutineers would in all probability act on the morrow, I wrote to Mr. Diotrephes, without informing him how much I knew of the part he had taken, directing him to act up to the laws of the land, and his own official engagements, and be present on the morrow at church, and there do his duty, in protecting me from all interruptions, and also in taking into custody, without exception, all who should attempt to interrupt the service. This, as I expected brought him to his recollection, and so alarmed both him and his party, that the latter absented themselves from the parish altogether on the day of their intended exploits, and in a few weeks, having obtained the good services of one of the most respectable of the inhabitants as my churchwarden, we disbanded the whole choir; pulled down their privileged partitions; and threw the whole gallery into open seats for less conceited and more christian-like individuals to occupy. From that time, every thing worthy the name of opposition has gradually died away: some of my opponents having departed this life, and others having left the parish; so that I am enabled to say, "through honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, I have lived to see the day wherein I experience at the hands of my people in general, more kindness and respect than falls to the common lot of parochial ministers."