whose brain is not turned by the incense of adulation which a crowded church of shallow and weak hearers offer up to him. And how few popular preachers do we find who triumph over and prove themselves superior to these dangerous influences-how few of them show by their bearing and their manner that inflexibly intent alone on the great business committed to their charge, they are unconscious of the homage paid them-of the way in which they are hunted after. In too many cases I am sorry to say they show by many unquestionable proofs that they are but too well aware of the seductive circumstance-too well aware of their own popularity and influence, as one perceives by the air and evidence of self-complacency and oracular authority which grows upon them. Perhaps they can hardly help it I have never been tried in this way myself, but if I were I almost fear I should not be proof against such dangerous blandishments: I might be just as much dazzled as those I allude to. God forbid

that I should boast of my strength before it has been tested-I will not say that silly admirers could not make a silly minister of me, because I never have had admirers in this sense. Heaven alone can preserve a man's humility to him against such influences. The last thing a man sacrifices to his sacred duty is his self-love. It is for this reason I look upon Bourdaloue's character as so majestic: he that could make his voice heard and terrible above the vices of a lascivious court -he who had the most magnificent monarch and the greatest nobles amongst his hearers-when his eloquence was acknowledged by rich and poor, and the French capital resounded with the praises of his oratory, that man retired from the pulpit in the midst of his triumphs, and humbled himself from the height of his fame to the lowliest offices of visitation and consolation. That was a sacrifice worthy of the best men of the Christian church, and worthy a better church than Bourdaloue's. It is not often you will find a man equal to such a sacrifice- -a man to tear himself from

the scene of his celebrity, to descend from that pulpit from which he could read in every rivetted eye and attentive face around, the homage paid to his eloquence, and walk the wards of the prison and the hospital and mortify his own pride by the sick bed-side of obscure wretchedness and sin."

I saw my fellow equestrian was what the world calls a High Churchman; and meanly as he thought of eloquence, possessed much of it naturally bimself. 1 was anxious, too, to find out what sort of a composition that was in his coat-tail pocket: he was a censor of other people's sermons, I was curious to know what kind were his own. I thought I'd try and find out where he was going to preach.

"I think I bave the pleasure," said I, "of speaking to the rector of"

"No where," said he with a smile, "not even a curate; I am, in fact, one of those supernumeraries which there will be, so long as parents make more parsons than the Church can find posts for."

"But you are going to preach now?"

"For Mr. Salter, at Iron Acton; and as my road lies this way," said he, bowing and turning off to the right, "I wish you a good morning."

Mr. Salter, thought I, when my companion was out of sight, is, I suppose, from home; I wonder does he give my friend the supernumerary (as he calls himself,) a guinea for his sermon. An easy way of earning twenty-one shillings has your clergyman unattached; for one sermon will answer for twenty places if he would not, indeed, do as I saw a singular and very original-minded clergyman of Bristol once do. He was asked to preach in a neighbouring parish (St. Augustine's, in fact), and I happened to be one of the congregation at the time, when to my surprise-and I will confess amusement also he preached an article from the last Quarterly! He prefixed a text, it is true, and with this slight addition the essay became a sermon; and a very peculiar sermon it made, for it

was all about spinning-jennies. But if a clergyman has to preach twice or three times a day, he may be pardoned for borrowing, begging, or stealing; for it is out of the question that he can write them all. If a man be sure of different congregations, then be may make the same sermon serve each, as the vicar (now dead) of a large parish in Bristol used to do: he had two or three churches and a chaplaincy, and at each (being a most hard-working and zealous man,) he used to preach, if possible, once on the Sabbath, so managing his sermons that by shifting them a little he made a few go far. He used, however, make a mistake in his count sometimes, and it has more than once occurred that he has preached the same discourse twice in four Sundays to the same congregation; for on a particular occasion I recollect an old vestryman saying to me as we left the church, "This is twice we have had death in the pot this month," alluding to the miracle of Elisha, on which the worthy old vicar had just preached. To prevent too close recurrences, and for the purpose of saving their own stock, some incumbents are in the habit of pressing into their pulpits every strange clergyman who happens to visit their parish, or any body in the parish-a peculiarity my friend the Rev. James T-yl-r displays at Clifton, I am told, to such an extent that any body who walks out with a white neckcloth and a black coat runs the risk of being asked, with a bland bow, to "do duty next Sunday." It is said (but I won't answer for the truth of the story,) that two chancery barristers and a doctor of music had the offer of his pulpit in this manner.

On entering Winterbourne I noticed a good many going into a bare-looking Dissenting chapel, with 1829 in immense figures in front; so, as the inscription was in that

* A still cooler act was done by the noted Jack P-lps, (one of a race of parsons now, thank Heaven, almost extinct,) who upon one occasion preached to the congregation of a neighbouring clergyman, the last Visitation Charge of his diocesan, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.

part of the building where the denomination of the sect assembling there is usually placed, I concluded this was number 1829 of the two thousand varieties of dissent. Amongst those going in I noticed several ambitiouslydressed young women, and the Taglionis of their country beaux were certainly a cut above nonconformity.

It was originally my intention to have availed myself of an invitation which, the reader will probably recollect, I received from Winterbourne when I was making a round of the city parishes, offering me hospitality, &c., if I would visit their church. It is true the note was anonymous; but as the churchwarden was the most likely man to have sent it, I determined to ascertain who he was and call on him. There was a comfortable square-built house a little in from the road. "My good man," said I to one of a number who were going in the direction of a lane which led to the church, the bells of which I could hear, "whose house is that ?" "The parsonage," said the man.

"Where is the churchwarden's ?"

'Twas at the other end of the village. I was very thirsty after my ride, and in immediate want of a draught of something or another; and as it was so far to go to the churchwarden's, I thought I'd try the

rector.

"But," said my modesty, "you don't know the rector; and it is cool to ride up to a man's hall-door and ask for a drink, when you don't know him."

"Yet hospitality," answered my thirst, "was an old duty imposed upon the church and the clergy, and I do not see why the Reformation should do away with one of its best attributes. To be sure the refectory no longer exists, the dole is done away with, and the buttery hatch is only known to antiquarians; still that rectory does not look as if it were altogether unconscious of a barrel of home-brewed, and the gate is invitingly ajar; besides, what's the use of a Doctor of Civil Law if he does not practice civility. What do

you think, John Bunyan ?" said I, touching John with my heel, and John decided the point by walking straight up to the gate. A neatly-dressed young woman with a white handkerchief folded in her hand, and her Prayer-book placed formally in that, was coming down the walk from the house.

"Is the rector at home, my good girl," said I.

"No, Sir," said she, making a curtsey, and in a tone of civility that quite emboldened me; "he's gone to church."

"I'm very thirsty," said I, "would you be kind enough to let me have a drink ?"

Certainly, Sir," said she with the utmost alacrity, as if she really felt a pleasure (which I'm sure she did,) in compliance; "if you'll be good enough to come this way."

I fastened John Bunyan's bridle to some rustic paling and followed the young woman to the kitchen, resolving by the way that the rector was the model of a country clergyman to teach his servants such kind civility; for the domestic is ever the reflection of the

master.

"Will you have cider, Sir ?" said she.

"Thank you, my dear, I'm afraid of cider" said I, recollecting my rheumatism; "have you got any water ?"

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Plenty of water, Sir, but you had better have beer; I have got the key," and she took it out of her pocket. This placed the coping-stone on my good opinion: admirable man, thought I, Rector of Winterbourne, thou must be, not only to have such obliging domestics, but when you go to church to considerately think of leaving the key of the beer behind to refresh the wayfaring man. I had the beer, and told the young woman to tell Dr. Allen the "Church-Goer" had called; but lest she may not have presented my compliments, I take this public opportunity to thank my yet perhaps all unconscious host for his hospitality. His domestics are

well bred, and his beer well brewed.