for some distance in the same direction. I was glad to accept of this civility, and we were soon on our way home, having taken a hasty farewell of the preacher and Doctor Shoveller. As soon as opportunity offered, I spoke to the major on the subject of the sermon, and to my surprise found that he had heard with deep interest and warm approval. It was the plainness that delighted him-his high-flown Calvinism, it subsequently appeared, was rather an accident than an essential, but he had been so disgusted with the formal, the scholastic, and the conventional, in most sermons that he heard elsewhere, as to drive him to Antinomian expounders of the Bible, that he might hear what he strangely enough called "good English." But I saw his meaning-he liked to hear men speak as men, plainly, boldly, naturally, and with a purpose. Hence he had made up his mind, as he assured me, still "to cast in his lot" with the good folks at the Hill Mizar. The subject of Mr. Waddington's delinquency I did not of course allude to; but the major forestalled me, giving me his own version of the matter, the sum and substance of which amounted to this mysterious climax that he was just then "under a cloud." I confess he left me there too.

Having reached the turn of the road where I was to leave the major, I bade him good bye, and turned homewards. The sun was down, and the air cool and refreshing, so that I felt but little fatigue on reaching home, where I had, of course, much to say respecting the singular and deeply interesting experience of that evening.

But I found Mrs. Enderby looking out for my arrival; and courtesy of course required that she should have the first word. I was scarcely within hearing when she enquired if I had seen Emma and her husband?

I told her that they were at the chapel--that I had, strictly speaking, seen them, but nothing more.

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"I am sorry for that, Charles," she answered. They called here on their way, upon special business-but come in, and we will talk it over."

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"I was scarcely seated, when she resumed, Well, you were not disappointed, I suppose-but who do you think your new preacher is; Mr. Marsham tells me his name is Richard Boz

well; and I have quite made up my mind that he is our poor gypsy boy-the embryo Bunyan, whom we used to talk of years ago."

I smiled; and my wife supposing she detected some expression of incredulity, continued-" You may laugh if you like, Charles-but I'm quite positive of the matter."

“Well, well,” said I, good humouredly, "as you have already reached your conclusion, you are now perhaps prepared to listen to the premises. Amongst our own sex we first hear evidence and then give our verdict; but with your's the sentence often comes first, and the proof either afterwards or not at all."

"That's just the way with you tiresome fellows," she resumed playfully—“ you must have chapter and verse for everything. I've thought over the matter more than you have, and the more I think of it, the more certain I feel that I am right. I saw that argument was useless, so I said nothing. After an interval of a few seconds my wife resumed-" Now tell me, Charles," she added, coaxingly, "am I not right?”

"Why, Charlotte," I replied, laughing undisguisedly—" you said you were, and I should be very sorry to doubt your word." "I know I am; and now I want to hear your confirmation," was her answer.

"That's just the way with you ladies," I replied, bandying her own compliment-" you ask my approval rather than my opinion. But not to keep you longer in suspense, I must own that you are right. Our new preacher is your young Bunyan. A singular circumstance called me into the vestry where I met with him, and he told me his whole history from the time I last saw him in London.

I then narrated the substance of what I had heard from his

own lips, which was briefly this. He had quitted the sea about three years after my interview with him in the Thames Tunnel, owing chiefly to the brutal tyranny of the mate under whom he served, and who, from what he told me, I have no doubt, was the second of Mr. Jeroboam Waddington's hopeful sons, for Major Goode told me some years back that he had gone to sea. His employer, who had a favorable opinion of the lad, took some pains in remedying the defective education he

had received, although he had considerably improved himself by reading during the intervals of leisure occasionally occurring during his long voyages. His pocket Testament, the very one which I had given him, had been his constant companion, and at length the reading of it impressed him so deeply, that he felt a strong desire to give the whole energies of his soul to the study of it, and a life based upon its ennobling and purifying principles. For some years every leisure moment was devoted to this work, and he had at length gone forth strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to labor publicly in the neighbourhood of London, wherever opportunities presented themselves. Nor is his case a solitary one. God likes to have the choosing and modelling of his own workmen, and the Spirit and the Word are the only furniture they want, beyond the natural qualifications they possess, as men of like passions with their hearers and followers. Bozwell had never been trimmed and mannerised at college. He had neither funds nor disposition to go there, but he had not neglected at home those requirements which would be necessary to his thorough furnishing for every good word and work. And he came out from the process, as Bunyan had done before him, a Bible-man instead of a creedmonger-a real Christian, and not a man-made theologian."

Before I heard these particulars I had felt deeply interested in the preacher, and had I been so disposed, I could not have cooled down so rapidly as to have exhibited no emotion. I grasped his hand, and bade him from my heart God-speed, though I felt my orthodoxy oozing out rapidly during the recital I have just recorded. Why! here was a young man who had stepped at once out of his Bible into full orders-if proof of their possession lie in the power of prophesying-in the exercise of that spiritual gift which Paul extols before all others. And yet how long, and complex, and crooked, had been the stages through which I had myself passed; though I was still a workman that had more need to be ashamed than to glory.

These feelings revived in their full vigour on my repetition of Mr. Bozwell's narrative, and I felt my heart drawn out so powerfully towards the young man, that I was soon betrayed into the very error I had so ridiculed in my wife. But let our further conversation speak for itself.

"Well, Charles, I hope you do not mean to doubt my word again," resumed Mrs. Enderby, as soon as she had duly expressed her surprise and gratitude at the crisis of this little history. "You may laugh, if you please, at our‘guesses' as you call them, but after all they bring us sooner to the point than your arguments. But you did not tell me what circumstance it was that called you into the vestry ?"

"Perhaps you can guess that too," I answered carelessly. But soon finding how difficult it was to stem a lady's curiosity, I told her the sad story of poor Glosenfane, which drew tears from her eyes. For some time she remained silent; but recovering her self-possession, said presently. "By the way, Charles, I did not tell you the main purpose of Mr. Marsham's visit. He wanted to know something about the Hill Mizar, preparatory to a purchase of it, as I understood."

"A purchase! Are you sure he means to buy the place?"

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No, no; I did not say that: there may be difficulties in the way; and perhaps his mind is not altogether made up.” Then, Charlotte, I can tell you what. If you are not sure upon the subject, I am. I have no doubt of it. I see it all, and our friend Singleton is at the bottom of it. His orthodoxy is touched, and he means to take the place out of the hands of the trustees to have it licensed or consecrated, and to shut out our young friend Bozwell from its pulpit."

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I said this, I suppose, with such ludicrous animation, that my wife could not forbear smiling. "Well, Charles," she remarked, when I allowed her an opportunity of speaking'you do well to be angry with me for jumping to conclusions; but I yield the palm to you in these intellectual steeple-chases. And now you have arrived at your verdict, perhaps you are prepared to hear the evidence? Mr. Marsham intends, if he meet with no unexpected difficulties, to buy the chapel—so far you are right. He means also to have it consecrated; but he has no intention of taking it out of the hands of Mr. Bozwell."

"No intention! But how can a dissenter preach there afterwards? Come, come," I added, "my guesses are about as good as your's after all."

You understand these things generally better than I do,

Charles; though in this case I think you are mistaken. Bozwell is to preach there afterwards. The bishop ordains him as a Literate in a few months."

I was silenced. I had no doubt the bishop could and would do so; and I could not find it in my heart to interpose the least objection. Though I ascertained afterwards that Bozwell had made very respectable progress in the study of Greek and Hebrew, and was not deficient in other attainments that rank high in our colleges, I was not then aware of the fact. But I knew he had those better qualifications for a minister of the gospel, which are enforced by Paul upon young Timothy; and had practically learned that the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. He had found "The Way to the Gift," and was calculated for eminent usefulness in the church of Christ.

But how, it may be asked, did he so far overcome his scruples as to leave the dissenters in the lurch? The answer is a simple one: he had never been identified with them. His creed was the creed of Paul, "Grace be with ALL them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity;" and he thought in his simplicity that this class might be found in connection with all denominations. He thought that Henry, and Watts, and Doddridge, had belonged to it; and he thought the same of Leighton and of Venn, of Newton and of Cecil, of quaint George Herbert, and of good old Jeremy Taylor. And as he strove to follow each and all of these, so far as they followed their common Master, and contended zealously for the faith once delivered to the saints, he left to men of little minds and little motives, the pitiful monopoly of vain janglings and questions that served to any thing rather than to godly edifying.

Before the last leaves of autumn had left the trees, on a bright cool morning in November, the dullest of our dull months in London-the neighbourhood of that little chapel presented a spectacle of deep and impressive interest, not a little heightened by the unusual fineness of the weather. It was a high day at the Hill Mizar: the place being then for the first time after its reparation and enlargement, opened under the stated ministry of the Reverend Richard Bozwell. And