LET WELL ALONE.

Malherbe, having dined with the Bishop of Rouen, who was a dull preacher, was asked by him to adjourn from the table to the church, where he was then going to preach. "Pardon me," said Malherbe, "but I can sleep very well where I am."

A CLEAR CASE.

At King's College, Cambridge, one Sunday morning, when not above two of the Fellows had been at chapel with the Provost, Dr. Snape, the latter, at evening service sail to Dr. Wilmot, the Vice-Provost, a man of wit, who wrote upon the English particles, "Upon my word, Mr. Vice-Provost, there was a scandalous appearance at chapel this morning!" Why do you apply to me?" said Wilmot; I did not contribute to make it."

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A THIRD WIFE.

Dr. Middleton having taken a third wife, the relict of a Bristol merchant, Bishop Gooch called to make a matrimonial visit, when he told Mrs. Middleton that "he was glad she did not dislike the ancients so much as her husband did." She replied that she hoped his lordship did not reckon her husband among the ancients yet. The bishop answered, "You, madam, are the best judge of that."

BAPTISMAL BLUNDER.

Lucifer the light-bringer-is a very good name, but few parents would desire so give it to a child; indeed, if the attempt were made the sponsor would probably meet with the treatment which was once suffered by mistake. "Name this child," said the parson. "Lucy, sir," replied the humble sponsor. "Lucifer! I shall give him no such name; I shall call him John!" and John the girl was for the rest of her life.

LADY HUNTINGDON'S CONNEXION.

We dare say the reader will recollect the large chapel in Northstreet, Brighton, to build which Lady Huntingdon sold all her jewels. Some years later she was in perplexity how to raise money for a chapel she wished to build at Birmingham. She was accustomed to keep in her house the sum of 300l. to defray the expenses of her funeral; and it was her wish to be buried in white satin. This money was considered so sacred that on no account was it to be touched. On this occasion she said to Lady Anne Erskine, her friend and companion, "I want 3007.; I have no money in the house but that put by for my funeral; for the first time in my life I feel inclined to let that go.' Lady Anne said, "You can trust God

with your soul-why not with your funeral?" The Countess took the money; and the very day she did so a gentleman, who could know nothing of the circumstance, sent her a chequé for precisely 3001.

Lady Gertrude Hotham, Lord Chesterfield's sister, was an active Methodist her brother, the Earl, being very ill, she went with her Primate, Lady Huntingdon, to try to tempt him to one of their seminaries in Wales, hoping to get at his soul by a cranny in his health. They extolled the prospects, and then there were such charming mountains! "Hold, ladies," said he, "I don't love mountains; when your Ladyships' faith has removed the mountains, I will go thither with all my heart!"

WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS.

In the vessel which conveyed John Wesley and his associates to America were several families of the Moravians, or (as they called themselves) the United Brethren, who, under the patronage of Government, were proceeding to join some of their society already established in Georgia. During the voyage, which was tedious and stormy, Wesley had been greatly impressed and affected by their humility, meekness, and patience. Southey tells us that Those servile offices, which none of the English would perform for the other passengers, they offered themselves to undertake, and would receive no recompense; saying, it was good for their proud hearts, and their Saviour had done more for them. No injury could move their meekness; if they were struck or thrown down, they made no complaint, nor suffered the slightest indication of resentment to appear. Wesley was curious to see whether they were equally delivered from the spirit of fear, and this he had an opportunity of ascertaining. In the midst of the psalm with which they began their service, the sea broke over, split the main-sail, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if, he says, the great deep had already swallowed us up. A dreadful screaming was heard among the English colonists: the Moravians calmly sung on. Wesley afterwards asked one of them if he was not afraid at that time. He replied, 'I thank God, no.' He was then asked if the women and children were not afraid. His answer was, 'No; our women and children are not afraid to die." "

This good opinion was confirmed by all which Wesley observed in their conduct and manners after his arrival in 'the new world.

WESLEY'S RECLAMATIONS.

With all the enthusiasm, and the incidental evil consequences, of Wesley's system, he might boast of much direct and evident good

produced, of many sinners reclaimed, of many ignorant persons enlightened, of many disappointed and broken hearts relieved by the balm of religion. Southey relates that a woman, overwhelmed with affliction, went out one night with the determination of throwing herself into the New River. As she was passing the Foundry, she heard the people singing: she stopped, and went in; listened, learnt where to look for consolation and support, and was thereby preserved from suicide.

Wesley had been disappointed of a room at Grimsby, and when the appointed hour for preaching came, the rain prevented him from preaching at the Cross. In the perplexity which this occasioned, a convenient place was offered him by a woman, "which was a sinner," Of this, however, he was ignorant at the time, and the woman listened to him without any apparent emotion. But in the evening he preached eloquently upon the sins and the faith of her who washed our Lord's feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head; and that discourse, by which the whole congregation were affected, touched her to the heart. She followed him to his lodging, crying out, "O, sir, what must I do to be saved?" Wesley, who now understood that she had forsaken her husband, and was living in adultery, replied, "Escape for your life! Return instantly to your husband!" She said she knew not how to go; she had just heard from him, and he was at Newcastle, above a hundred miles off. Wesley made answer, that he was going to Newcastle himself the next morning; she might go with him, and his companion should take her behind him. It was late in October: she performed the journey under this protection, and in a state of mind which beseemed her condition. "During our whole journey," he says, I scarce observed her to smile; nor did she ever complain of anything, or appear moved in the least with those trying circumstances which many times occurred in our way. A steady seriousness, or sadness rather, appeared in her whole behaviour and conversation, as became one that felt the burden of sin, and was groaning after salvation."-"Glory be to the Friend of sinners!" he exclaims, when he relates the story; "He hath plucked one more brand out of the fire! Thou poor sinner, thou hast received a prophet in the name of a prophet, and thou art found of Him that sent him." The husband did not turn away the penitent; and her reformation appeared to be sincere and permanent.

OPPOSITION TO METHODISM.

It may well be supposed, that exertions of a nature so novel as those made in the early days of Methodism, were not likely to be

carried on in England without great and violent opposition. Nor was this opposition confined to the bloodless weapons of argument or verbal censure. Furious mobs arose against them in many places both of England and Ireland; and the magistrates, in some instances, showed a scandalous neglect of their duty, and even encouraged whatever excesses had the suppression of Methodism for their object. Whitefield, while preaching in Moorfields, was not only assailed with all the usual missiles of a brutal rabble, but was attacked with a drawn sword by a person with the appearance of a gentleman; and Wesley was twice in very serious danger, once at Walsall, in Staffordshire, where some of the mob cried out "Crucify him!"—once in Cornwall, where a crowd, headed by the crews of some privateers, broke into the house where he was visiting a sick lady, with avowed intentions of killing him, which were only prevented by his firm and quiet manner of addressing them.

In Ireland some of his helpers were exposed, if possible, to still greater danger: a mob paraded the streets of Dublin armed with swords, staves, and pistols, wounding many persons, and offering five pounds for the head of a Methodist; and a Grand Jury, instead of affording justice to the injured party, preferred bills against Charles Wesley and nine of his friends, as persons of ill-fame, vagabonds, and common disturbers of his Majesty's peace, praying that they might be transported.

Nor was the life of an itinerant without trials of another kind. Wesley's long journeys on horseback, at a time when turnpikes were unknown, and accommodation of all kinds execrable, were often wearisome, and sometimes even dangerous, when they led him through the fens of his own county when the waters were out, and over the hills of Northumberland when they were covered with snow. Southey tells us that he and John Nelson rode from common to common, in Cornwall, preaching to a people who heard willingly, but seldom or never proffered them the slightest act of hospitality. Returning one day in autumn from one of these hungry excursions, Wesley stopped his horse at some brambles, to pick the fruit. "Brother Nelson," said he, 66 we ought to be thankful that there are plenty of blackberries, for this is the best country I ever saw for getting a stomach, but the worst that I ever saw for getting food. Do the people think we can live by preaching?" They were detained some time at St. Ives, because of the illness of one of their companions; and their lodging was little better than their fare. "All that time," says John, "Mr. Wesley and I lay on the floor: he had my great-coat for his pillow, and I had Burkitt's Notes on the New Testament for mine. After being here near three weeks,

one morning, about three o'clock, Mr. Wesley turned over, and finding me awake, clapped me on the side, saying, 'Brother Nelson, let us be of good cheer, I have one whole side yet; for the skin is off but one side.'"

BURIAL OF JOHN WESLEY.

Wesley's decay was gradual and without suffering, till in the middle of the year 1790, he confessed that "though he felt no pain, yet nature was exhausted, and, humanly speaking, would sink more and more, till

'The weary springs of life stand still at last.'"

In the following February, he had still strength to write a long letter to America, in which he enjoined those who desired to say anything to him to lose no opportunity, "for Time," he continued, "has shaken me by the hand, and death is not far behind;" words which his father had used in one of the last letters that he addressed to his sons at Oxford. He died, in fact, peaceably and without pain, in little more than a fortnight afterwards, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry.

At the desire of many of his friends, his body was carried into the chapel opposite Bunhill Fields burial-ground, the day preceding the interment, and there lay in a kind of state becoming the person, dressed in his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band; the old clerical cap on his head, a Bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The face was placid, and the expression which death had fixed upon his venerable features was that of a serene and heavenly smile. The crowds who flocked to see him were so great, that it was thought prudent, for fear of accidents, to accelerate the funeral, and perform it between five and six in the morning. The intelligence, however, could not be kept entirely secret, and several hundred persons attended at that unusual hour. Mr. Richardson, who performed the service, had been one of his preachers almost thirty years. When he came to that part of the service, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother," his voice changed, and he substituted the word father; and the feeling with which he did this was such, that the congregation, who were shedding silent tears, burst at once into loud weeping.

ECCENTRICITIES OF THE REV. ROWLAND HILL.

This warm-hearted pastor of Calvinistic Dissenters, (who had been admitted to deacon's orders in the Church of England,) con

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