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, "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 any thing 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,) constantly preached in Surrey Chapel for nearly fifty years; and dying in 1833, he was buried in a vault under the chapel.

During this long ministry, he interlarded his sermons with many piquant anecdotes and witticisms, and sallies of humour unorthodox. However, he thought the end justified the means, and certain it is that it drew very large congregations.

On one occasion he was preaching for a public charity, when a note was handed up to him, inquiring if it would be right for a bankrupt to contribute. He noticed the matter in the course of his sermon, and pronounced decidedly that such a person could not do so in Christian honesty. "But, my

friends," he added, "I would advise you who are not insolvent not to pass the plate this evening, as the people will be sure to say "There goes the bankrupt!" At St. John's church, Wapping, he declared: "I am come to preach to great sinners, notorious sinners, profane sinners-yea, to Wapping sinners." And one day, on announcing from the pulpit the amount of a liberal collection, he remarked: "You have behaved so well on this occasion, that we mean to have another collection next Sunday. I have heard it said of a good cow, that the more you milk her the more she will give."

One wet day a number of persons entered his chapel to take shelter from a heavy shower of rain, when he remarked, that many people were blamed for making religion a cloak, but he did not think those were much better who made it an umbrella! Petitions were frequently handed to him in the pulpit, requesting the prayers of the congregation for certain persons. A wag handed up, "The prayers of the congregation are requested for the Reverend Rowland Hill, that he will not ride in his carriage on Sunday." Not being aware of the peculiar nature of the request till he had read it too far to recede, he went on to the end, and then added: "If the writer of this piece of folly and impertinence is at present in the congregation, and will come into the vestry after service, and allow me to put a saddle on his back, I shall be willing to ride home upon him instead of in my carriage."

He was very kind and charitable to the poor, but had a great intolerance of dirt and slovenliness. On noticing anything of the kind, he would say: "Here, mistress, is a trifle for you to buy some soap and a scrubbing-brush: there is plenty of water to be had for nothing." In impressing upon his hearers the duty of owing no man anything, he would remark: "I never pay my debts, and for the best of all reasons, because I never have any debts to pay." Speaking to tradesmen he would say: "You are sometimes more in the path of duty in looking into your ledgers than into your Bibles. All things should be done decently and in order."

A sentimental-looking lady one morning made her entrée into his study in the most solemn manner. Advancing by measured steps towards the preacher, she began: "Divine shepherd"

"Pon my word, maʼam!"

"I hear you have great influence with the Royal family." "Well, ma'am, and did you hear anything else?"

"Now, seriously, sir-my son has most wonderful poetic powers. Sir, his poetry is of a sublime order-noble, original, fine!"

Hill muttered to himself: "Well, I wonder what will come next!" and his visitor continued:

"Yes, sir, pardon the liberty, and I therefore called to ask you to get him made poet laureate !"

"Ma'am, you might as well ask me to get him made Archbishop of Canterbury!" Whereupon the colloquy terminated.

Rowland paid a visit to an old friend a few years before his death, who said to him, "Mr. Hill, it is just sixty-five years since I first heard you preach, and I remember your text and a part of your sermon. You told us that some people were very squeamish about the delivery of different ministers who preached the same Gospel. You said, 'Supposing you were attending to hear a will read where you expected a legacy to be left you, would you employ the time when it was reading in criticising the manner in which the lawyer read it? No, you would not: you would be giving all ear to hear if anything was left you, and how much it was. That is the way I would advise you to hear the Gospel." This was excellent advice, and well worth remembering sixtyfive years.

Hill was very severe in rebuking hypocrisy, and those persons who had disgraced their religious profession by some discreditable action. An individual in this predicament met him one morning as he was going out, and saluted him with: "How do you do, Mr. Hill? I am delighted to see you once

more."

"What! ar'n't you hanged yet?" was the reply.

An adherent of Antinomianism, who was rather given to the bottle, asked him one day: "Now, do you think, Mr. Hill, a glass of spirits will drive grace out of my heart?"

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No," he replied, "for there is none in it!"

A lady, who led rather a gay and worldly life, once remarked to him: "Oh! I am afraid lest, after all, I should not be saved!"

"I am glad to hear you say so," answered Hill, "for I have been long afraid for you, I assure you."

On one occasion he was addressing a number of candidates for the ministry, and said: "I will tell you a story. A barber, having amassed a comfortable independence, retired to his native place, where he became a preacher in a small chapel. Another person from the same village being similarly fortunate, settled there also, and attended the ministry of the barber. Wanting a new wig, he said to his pastor: You might as well make it for me,' to which he assented. The wig was sent home, badly made, but charged at nearly double the usual price. The good man said nothing; but when anything particularly profitable escaped the lips of the preacher, he observed to himself: 'Excellent-but, oh! the wig.' When the barber prayed with apparent unction, he also, 'Though this should touch my heart, but, oh! the wig.' Now, my dear young brethren, wherever you are placed, remember the wig!”

It is related that he used, in the pulpit, to make personal allusions to his wife. In lecturing on the vanities of dress, he is reported to have said, "Ladies love fine caps; so does Mrs. Hill. Yesterday, came home a five-guinea one; but she will never wear it, for I poked it into the fire, bandbox and all." One Sunday morning, he is represented as apostrophising his wife, when entering chapel, with, "Here comes my wife with a chest of drawers on her head! She went out to buy them, and spent all the money in that hoity-toity bonnet!" These stories were, however, fictions, and Hill expressed great indignation on learning the tales ascribed to him in reference to Mrs. Hill. "It is an abominable untruth," he would exclaim, "derogatory to my character as a Christian and a gentleman-they would make me out a bear!

In the course of his ministry, Rowland Hill paid three visits to Scotland. His style of preaching was made the subject of animadversion by the General Assembly of the Church, who issued a "pastoral admonition" against countenancing such irregular and itinerant preachers as Rowland Hill. In connexion with this subject, it is related of him that, on his being asked the reason why his carriage-horses bore such strange names (one of the quadrupeds being denominated Order, and the other Decorum), he answered, "Oh, they said in the North, Mr. Hill rides upon the backs of order and decorum;' so I called one of my horses Order, and the other Decorum, that they might tell the truth in one way, if they did not in another."