the door, I will come into him, and sup with him, and he with me."

After the sermon, the doctor desired him to call on him the next Tuesday by one o'clock, and he would settle with him for his quarter's salary. Charles saw that he spoke with evident agitation and displeasure. He attended on him at the time appointed-he found him in great agitation, pacing the room-he desired Charles to be seated. After a long pause of silence, and abortive attempts at speaking, he began :-" Mr. Mortimer, the time is arrived that we must part; I give you a quarter's notice to quit! There are evidently two parties and congregations! A house divided against itself cannot stand! you preach one doctrine! I another! The people even come to me, and have the assurance to tell me to my face that I do not preach the Gospel, but that you do. There was Mr. Haddock, the surgeon, told me so in this very room. Then what an enthusiastic sermon you gave us last Sunday; you said that Christ himself knocked at our hearts-that afflictions and judgments were a blow from the hand of Christ at the heart." "Well," said Charles, "and will Dr. Brisk say, that there is any wicked man free from the reproaches of his conscience?" "I never said so; I allow every man has a conscience, and his conscience reproves him.' "Well! what is this accusation of conscience but an application to the heart by Christ, by means of his Vicegerent in the soul?" "Oh! if that is your meaning, I would not quarrel with you for a term-I would not make a man an offender for a word; but then you are always preaching Christ, Christ, Christ, for ever; you never preach about God the Father, and God the Holy Ghost. You preach Christ, as Mr. Ludlam says, in his essays, merely ad captandum vulgus." "Oh!" thought Charles, "I know where you are now;" for he had heen reading Ludlam's

99

66

Essays the week before. He therefore said, "Well, sir, and whom should the ministers of Christ preach but their master? Is there any other name under heaven whereby we can be saved? He sent us to preach his gospel, and we are to make him the foundation of all our preaching-the corner stone, and to lead men to worship God through Him, in his name, and by the help of the Holy Ghost; for "by Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father." "But," the doctor rejoined, "you are always preaching about hell and damnation, as if you wished to make the subject as dreadful as possible," as Mr. Ludlam says. "Yes, I have read Mr. Ludlam," said Charles, " and I am sorry to see so much malignity against the truth under the mask of orthodoxy in religion. Throw aside Ludlam, and take up the Scriptures, doctor; our Lord thought it right to tell us about the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is never quenched; and repeats the expression three times in one discourse. We cannot make the sub"Well, but you ject more dreadful than he described it." never preach upon moral duties, but all on doctrine." "How can that be?" said Charles; "when you know I have announced to preach upon the commandments after I have gone through my lectures on the creed; they will come in their turn. But we should preach all moral duties upon christian principles; they are to be the superstructure of the building, but Christ is to be the foundation. Articles of the church and the Scriptures are written upon this very plan; let not your mind then be warped nor irritated by the insinuations of those who are enemies to the truth, nor by the injudicious intrusion of some good men, who, though they speak warmly, mean well.”

The

"I believe they do they do; and I think, Mr. Haddock, means well; I would not injure you for the world! But do not make, nor encourage two parties in

the parish." "There always will be," said Charles, “a party hostile to the faith and to good works; but let us not be moved from the hope of the Gospel, but go on doing our duty, preaching his truth, and leave the event to God. For my part, I came here by God's providence, and have endeavoured to do my duty, and not been ashamed of his truth; and whenever that providence shall point out my departure, I shall go; and till then I leave all in the hands of God. It is no desirable post to be the laborious curate of so large a parish, nor is it an enviable post to be the vicar, and responsible for thirty thousand souls!"

"Do not consider this as a notice to quit-we will wait and see till the end of the quarter. I would not injure you for all the world." As Charles had occasion to notice his pride and pomposity, the words often came to his mind, "Why art thou afraid of a man that shall die and of the son of man who shall be as dust?"

Ah! a very different scene took place on that memora ble day. The next quarter-day on which he was to appear again before the proud vicar, Charles was roused at five in the morning to attend the sick bed of Dr. Brisk! he was urgently called by a clergyman of the town, the Doctor's parti-s cular friend. Charles instantly rose and accompanied him.' "I have sent for you, Mr. Mortimer," said the Doctor, "to ask you if you know any one whom I have offended; if so, will you entreat them to forgive me? Oh! I am about to die! and what account can I give of such a parish as this of thirty thousand souls? What shall I do? I feel my guilt and my negligence." Just then came in the Rev. Dr. Spen der, and hearing him thus bemoan himself he said, "Oh, doctor doctor! do not be cast down-Who has done their duty better than Dr. Brisk? Oh! if we had all done our duty as diligently and faithfully as Dr. Brisk has, we need not fear!" "Get out of the room, you flatterer,"

said the doctor; "leave me-leave me.

You know you

utter falsehoods to cheat me, but I will look at the truth; I wish to see Mr. Mortimer alone." When the dismayed doctor had quitted the apartment, he said, "Come near, Mr. Mortimer, I have sent for you to talk freely. My conscience is in agony my heart sinks! What shall I do? How shall. I give an account of my thirty thousand parishioners ?" "Take courage, doctor," said Charles, "to look at your state, however agitated-take a full view of your case, however bad-and then go as an humbled sinner, with repentance and faith, to the cross of Christ, as your only hope."

"Ah! I know this is the only way," said the doctor. "I have not committed any very grievous sins, but I know myself a sinner; I have great defects and omissions-I must fly to my Saviour only-no merits of mine will save me. Oh! my heart sinks. Mark my words. My spirits and my heart are broken. I thought myself somebody, but I feel I am nothing. The very people tell me I know nothing of the Gospel. The hand of God is upon me; I shall, I feel, I shall-mark my words-I shall GO MAD, and then I shall DIE!" After a long pause, he proceeded, "But before this, while my faculties are continued me, I wish to take the holy Sacrament, and surrender up my soul to God. And now I have driven those flatterers away, I will take it with you alone." How child-like now became the man who made Northam wonder and the clerk, the sexton, and all around him tremble at his frown, and start at his voice! Here was the whisper and the sigh of a spirit once proud subdued, and the faltering accents of a mind "fearfully looking forward to the day of reckoning!" He took the Sacrament with trembling fear and awe, and begged Charles to pray for him, and visit bim again in the evening. This he did; he still recurred to

the same subjects, as though his mind could find no rest but as he sought the divine mercy, and was groping his way out of darkness, doubt, and fear, into the light of hope. As Charles was about to quit, Dr. Brisk exclaimed, "Visit me, Mr. Mortimer, again and again!"

me.

"The

It was found necessary to have two to sit up with him. The clerk who sat up said, that he would exclaim, when he supposed his attendants asleep, “My God! my God! why afflictest thou me thus? What have I done that thou layest such a burden upon me? Why these fears, and frights, and agonies?" Then he would say again, curse of God is upon me, and will be upon all that befriend Wretch that I am, all must abhor me, and so must God! I know not the Gospel, and yet pretended to preach it. I had the cure of souls, and did not attempt to cure my own!" The next night Charles called, and found Miss Brisk, his sister, alone; she was soon joined by the Rev. Dr. Spender, as before mentioned. "I have just returned," he said, "from seeing your brother, and have been attempting to amuse him with telling him the news of the day and the affairs of the town; and I thought I succeeded in diverting his thoughts. Oh! you should be cautious never to mention any thing of religion to him; it sends him off directly! I hope Mr. Mortimer you will be careful, when you visit him-avoid all mention of religion." "I certainly," said Charles, "shall talk to him or nothing else, for I see and know that he wishes to talk of this above all other subjects-that he flies to religion as his only comfort; and if you try, by your delusive methods as you say, to amuse a burthened and a broken spirit, like his, you will only skin the wound, without healing it. Depend upon it religion, rightly received and permanently sought, is the true cure." "I totally disagree," said the doctor," and I protest you are the greatest enemy of Dr.