volume one day he exclaims, "How do I want the milk of God's word!

An old lady whom he visits, in illness, dozes into a stupor, and awakens unto Gospel faith. One evening he says:--"I spent this evening with a mixture of scrupulosities and comforts, but trust soon to find out what is the true Gospel freedom." There seem still some relics of the old asceticism left in him, for on having to go to Peterborough on some business, he says:--"I started in a chaise for Peterborough. I had scruples about the heavy expense of this mode instead of coaches; but I was consoled by the opportunity I had on the way of calling at Titchmarsh, and having half an hour's conversation with Lyttelton Powys. I got to Peterborough at 4½, dined with the dean and his lady at 6, and spent the evening in hearing extracts from his intended life of Bentley. I found myself in a land, alas! of spiritual barrenness; but water-springs may rise in dry ground."

It was about this time, March, 1826, that he seems to have given up reading anything in the way of theology, except the Bible. He gives an odd dip into Cowper's poems, by way of recreation. He came across a book called "The Convent," but immediately "discovered it to be anti-Christian." This apparent quiet is, however, disturbed by the play of the clerical artillery around him. The tone of one or two extracts from the letters he received now will give an idea of the vantage-ground these good champions of orthodoxy thought proper to take. One writes:--

"I know you did think it un-Christian-like to converse or employ the mind much on any subject but religion. To this almost entire exclusion of all other topics I decidedly object, {140} on the ground of its having a strong tendency to engender a pharisaical spirit, and of its being inconsistent with the common duties and occupations of life marked out for us by Providence, and contrary to the true interests of genuine Christianity. And my opinion in this respect has the sanction of some of the most excellent characters I have ever known--persons eminent alike for sound wisdom and discretion, and for a quiet and unostentatious, but sincere and fervent piety.

"I cannot conclude this letter without remarking, that all your conversations with me, since you adopted your present views, have convinced me more and more that my own religious opinions are sound and yours erroneous; and that every day's experience confirms and strengthens me in the conviction, that the religious system which your friends at Northampton are pursuing (whatever charm it may have for enthusiastic minds) _is not the religion of the Bible_."

This is from the grumbler quoted above, as may be seen by the style and sentiment.

Our friend the doctor calls him to task in this manner:--

".... You are endeavouring to make up for past deficiencies, or to atone for past errors, by renewed activity or rather extraordinary efforts. This you do in perfect sincerity; and, I believe, heartily. In consequence, instead of _one_ sermon on a Sunday there are _two_; instead of a _quarterly_ there is a _monthly_ sacrament; and, in addition, an evening lecture, with prayers, is pronounced every Wednesday evening. Now, supposing you had not taken this unfavourable opinion of your past feelings and views, would you have adopted such regulations? I think you would _not_; and yet, be it observed, the necessity for them was and is a matter totally irrelevant to your own private feelings."

The rest of this letter, the doctor's second, is to sober down Mr. Spencer's fervour, and make him go on quietly, hoping thus to slacken his enthusiasm and bring him to his former frame of mind.

It is sad to see a clergyman called to task for not being more worldly and less zealous. He is, in fact, too much like a Catholic Saint to be endured in the Establishment. {141} He must eventually abandon it, or be stoned to death with hard words in it. We see the chink now through which the first alternative gleamed on the Bishop; and we see the disposition of Providence in moving him to confine himself to the Bible, when some plausible Anglican work might have burnished up what he had of Catholic instinct, and made it seem gold.

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