He tried to smile, and, half-succeding, said, "Yes, I must die!"-and hope forever fled.

Still long she nursed him; tender thoughts meantime
Were interchanged, and hopes and views sublime.
To her he came to die, and every day

She took some portion of the dread away;
With him she prayed, to him his Bible read,
Soothed the faint heart, and held the aching head;
She came with smiles, the hour of pain to cheer,
Apart she sighed, alone she shed the tear;
Then, as if breaking from a cloud, she gave
Fresh light, and gilt the prospect of the grave.

One day he lighter seemed, and they forgot
The care, the dread, the anguish of their lot;
They spoke with cheerfulness, and seemed to think,
Yet said not so-" Perhaps he will not sink."
A sudden brightness in his look appeared,
A sudden vigor in his voice was heard;
She had been reading in the Book of Prayer,
And led him forth, and placed him in his chair:
Lively he seemed, and spoke of all he knew,
The friendly many, and the favorite few;
Nor one that day did he to mind recall,
But she has treasured, and she loves them all.
When in her way she meets them, they appear
Peculiar people-death has made them dear.

He named his friend, but then his hand she pressed, And fondly whispered, "Thou must go to rest." "I go," he said; but as he spoke she found His hand more cold, and fluttering was the sound; Then gazed affrighted, but she caught a last, A dying look of love, and all was past.

She placed a decent stone his grave above, Neatly engraved, an offering of her love:

For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,
Awake alike to duty and the dead.

She would have grieved had they presumed to spare
The least assistance-'twas her proper care.
Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,
Folding her arms, in long abstracted fit;
But if observers pass, will take her round,
And careless seem, for she would not be found;

Then go again, and thus her hour employ,

While visions please her, and while woes destroy.

309.-The Faithful Minister.

THOMAS FULler.

[THOMAS FULLER—the quaint, shrewd, imaginative, and witty Thomas Fuller-was born in 1608; he died in 1661. His writings are exceedingly numerous; although he was a man of action, in times which made violent partizans. An adherent to the Royalist cause, he was deprived of all preferment, and his little property in books and manuscripts seized upon. in the early part of the contest between the King and Parliament. But he subsequently held various livings, and was tolerated even by those to whom he was politically opposed. The following is extracted from his 'Holy State.']

We suppose him not brought up by hand only in his own country-studies, but that he had sucked of his mother University, and thoroughly learnt the arts: not as St. Rumball, who is said to have spoken as soon as he was born, doth he preach as soon as he is matriculated. Conceive him now a graduate in arts, and entered into orders, according to the solemn form of the Church of England, and presented by some patron to a pastoral charge, or place equivalent; and then let us see how well he dischargeth his office.

ΜΑΧΙΜ Ι.

He endeavors to get the general love and good-will of his parish -This he doth, not so much to make a benefit of them, as a benefit for them, that his ministry may be more effectual; otherwise he may preach his own heart out, before he preacheth any

thing into theirs. The good conceit of the physician is half a cure; and his practice will scarce be happy where his person is hated. Yet he humors them not in his doctrine, to get their love, for such a spaniel is worse than a dumb dog. He shall sooner get their good-will by walking uprightly, than by crouching and creeping. If pious living, and painful laboring in his calling, will not win their affections, he counts it gain to lose them. As for those who causelessly hate him, he pities and prays for them: and such there will be. I should suspect his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled horse did wince.

II.

He is strict in ordering his conversation.-As for those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers, they make it the worse. It was said of one who preached very well, and lived very ill, “that when he was out of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it; and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it." But our minister lives sermons. And yet I deny not, but dissolute men, like unskilful horsemen, who open a gate on the wrong side, may, by virtue of their office, open heaven for others, and shut themselves out.

III.

His behavior towards his people is grave and courteous.—Not too austere and retired; which is laid to the charge of good Mr. Hooper the martyr, that his rigidness frighted the people from consulting with him. "Let your light," saith Christ, "shine before men;" whereas over-reservedness makes the brightest virtue burn dim. Especially he detesteth affected gravity, (which is rather on men than in them,) whereby some belie their registerbook, antedate their age to seem far older than they are, and plait and set their brows in an affected sadness. Whereas St. Anthony the monk might have been known among hundreds of his order by his cheerful face, he having ever (though a most mortified man) a merry countenance.

IV.

He doth not clash God's ordinances together about precedency.—

VOI. IV.

13*

Not making odious comparisons betwixt prayer and preaching, preaching and catechizing, public prayer and private, premeditate and ex tempore. When, at the taking of New Carthage in Spain, two soldiers contended about the mural crown, due to him who first climbed the walls, so that the whole army was thereupon in danger of division; Scipio the general said he knew that they both got up the wall together, and so gave the scaling crown to them both. Thus our minister compounds all controversies betwixt God's ordinances, by praising them all, practising them all, and thanking God for them all. He counts the reading of Common Prayers to prepare him the better for preaching; and, as one said, if he did first toll the bell on one side, it made it afterwards ring out the better in his sermons.

V.

He carefully catechiseth his people in the elements of religion.Except he hath (a rare thing!) a flock without lambs, of all old sheep; and yet even Luther did not scorn to profess himself discipulum Catechismi, "a scholar of the Catechism." By this catechizing the Gospel first got ground of Popery and let not our religion, now grown rich, be ashamed of that which first gave it credit and set it up, lest the Jesuits beat us at our own weapon. Through the want of this catechizing, many, who are well skilled in some dark out-corners of divinity, have lost themselves in the beaten road thereof.

VI.

He will not offer to God of that which costs him nothing.—But takes pains aforehand for his sermons. Demosthenes never made any oration on the sudden: yea, being called upon, he never rose up to speak except he had well studied the matter: and he was wont to say, "that he showed how he honored and reverenced the people of Athens, because he was careful what he spake unto them." Indeed, if our minister be surprised with a sudden occasion, he counts himself rather to be excused than commended, if, premeditating only the bones of his sermon, he clothes it with flesh ex tempore. As for those whose long custom hath made preaching their nature, [so] that they can discourse sermons with

out study, he accounts their examples rather to be admired than imitated.

VII.

Having brought his sermon into his head, he labors to bring it into his heart, before he preaches it to his people.-Surely, that preaching which comes from the soul most works on the soul. Some have questioned ventriloquy, (when men strangely speak out of their bellies,) whether it can be done lawfully or no: might I coin the word cordiloquy, when men draw the doctrines out of their hearts, sure, all would count this lawful and commendable.

VIII.

He chiefly reproves the reigning sins of the time and place he lives in. We may observe that our Saviour never inveighed against idolatry, usury, sabbath-breaking, amongst the Jews. Not that these were not sins, but they were not practised so much in that age, wherein wickedness was spun with a finer thread; and therefore Christ principally bent the drift of his preaching against spiritual pride, hypocrisy, and traditions, then predominant amongst the people. Also our minister confuteth no old heresies which time hath confuted; nor troubles his auditory with such strange hideous cases of conscience, that it is more hard to find the case than the resolution. In public reproving of sin, he ever whips the vice, and spares the person.

IX.

He doth not only move the bread of life, and toss it up and down in generalities, but also breaks it into particular directions.-Drawing it down to cases of conscience, that a man may be warranted in his particular actions, whether they be lawful or not. And he teacheth people their lawful liberty, as well as their restraints and prohibitions; for, amongst men, it is as ill taken to turn back fa vors, as to disobey commands.

X.

The places of Scripture he quotes are pregnant and pertinent.— As for heaping up of many quotations, it smacks of a vain osten