the water thrown away, and the gas of course escaped! Great was Mrs. Priestley's dismay; and she sat down to consider how best to break the sad news to the doctor, who was hourly expected. She decided it would be best to prepare him for some signal misfortune, and accordingly told him, on his arrival, to prepare for something which must cost him much pain. Dr. Priestley, in much alarm, thinking perhaps one of his children was ill, asked what was the matter. When he heard what had happened, his countenance brightened, and he said, "Thank God it is only that! It might have pleased Him to have taken one of our children: the evil will only cost me a few weeks' labour, and if some other should make the discovery before me, by means of this delay, it will be equally useful to the world."

Dr. Priestley always spent part of every day in devotional exercises and contemplation; and unless the railroad has spoilt it, there yet remains at Dawlish a deep and beautiful cavern, since known by the name of "Dr. Priestley's Cavern," where he was wont to pass an hour every day in solitary retirement. When I consider how much of religious light and how many branches of religious truth Dr. Priestley wanted, I am more and more struck with his great fidelity in carrying out that which he had received, and impressed with the deep vitality of the Tree of Life, any portion of which is so distinguished, in its immortal fruits, from the products of the earthly nature. O Lord, the living God! the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, not only bestow upon us life, but give it more abundantly!

I have, as I have said, known many estimable and excellent Unitarians, whose earnestness and fidelity in doing good might have put to shame many whose light was greater; but I have ever been struck with the Unitarian powerlessness in doing spiritual good-doubtless from a deficiency in spiritual truth; and I have remarked that, even in the most excellent, their utility is mainly circumscribed to temporal results. How often have I admired their zeal in clothing the naked or feeding the hungry, while I have seen them bereft of power to comfort the troubled in mind, or to assuage the spiritual conflict, or to help those who were mourning under a sense of sin and helplessness. I have indeed often seen with pain, that while the temporal aid bestowed by the Unitarian, whose religion was vital, has been zealous and abundant, the aid, whether spiritual or temporal, of merely professing orthodox Christians has been null and void; but oh! how much better is a minute portion of truth held in life than a large portion held in the palsy of death!

One word of my dear mother, before taking a final leave of Seagrove. I had not the opportunity of speaking much to her during this period, for I generally saw her in the family circle; yet, amidst it all, I shall never forget how beautiful appeared the simplicity of her dress, and her lofty dignity and calm cheerfulness, in contrast to the prettinesses around; and well I remember, as a child, sitting and looking upon her countenance, and comparing it with the rouge and powder and curls of others; and my loved to rest upon her transparent and beautiful complexion, the varying colour of which seemed but as a thin

eye

covering to the soul, adorning and yet softening the majesty of her well-chiselled features, and the rich clusters of her dark brown hair. I was then a little child, standing at her knee: I now write this, my own hair snowy white.

PART III.

1788-1789.

"But he had felt the power

Of nature, and already was prepared,
By his intense conceptions, to receive
Deeply the lesson deep of love, which he
Whom nature, by whatever means, has taught
To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

"You never saw, your eyes did never look

On the bright form of her whom once I loved;
Her silver voice was heard upon the earth,
A thing unknown to you."

WORDSWORTH.

EARLY in October we returned to Barr. My cousin Christiana Gurney accompanied us. We were three or four days on the road. Mr. Leathes, who was with us, had his pistols cocked ready at hand, so great at that time was the fear of highwaymen. How delightful to me was the first sight of the pinnacles of the well-known tower of Worcester Cathedral. How great the pleasure with which I left it behind, and passed the little inn at Northfield, embosomed in the barren Lickeys, and with which I again picked up some specimens of quartz from the rock which my father had long before pointed out to me, and the

delight with which I entered the first gate that, leaving the high road, began the approach to the grounds of Barr.

Then came the venerable oak wood and steep precipice shagged with trees, and the water below, where the waterfowl were disporting amidst the flags and reeds, then the winding road, opening at last by a sudden turn, and disclosing the turrets and Gothic windows of my dearly loved home. I was almost too glad to believe it all real; I seemed, as in one instant, to be at once in every room; and the thought that I should be with my dear mother there, as I once was, seemed almost overwhelming.

Soon after our return home, my mother resumed her Sunday instructions. I, every week, not only learned some preceptive text by heart, but was questioned by her as to how I understood them. She diligently taught me, likewise, the historic catechism of the Old and New Testament, showing me the map of all the places named. As she spoke, the places, the events, and almost portraits of the actors, seemed vividly to unfold before me; and though I had none of what might be called dogmatic instruction, I fully believe that my mother's mode of teaching that which she did teach, was, by the blessing of God, the means of deeply fixing on my heart the thorough reality of Scriptural truth, the thorough reality of the Being of God, and the glad and soul-filling, though awful happiness of living in a sense of His Holy and Loving Presence; one, with which not all the things of this earth. can be compared; and though I knew but very little, that little seemed then to sink into my heart, and become an integral part of myself. Nor can I ever forget, that one of