ife, far from the only converse
that he loved, the talk about disputed texts of Scripture and the
cause of civil and religious liberty. Here he passed his days,
repining but resigned, in the study of the Bible, and the perusal of
the Commentators--huge folios, not easily got through, one of which
would outlast a winter! Why did he pore on these from morn to night
(with the exception of a walk in the fields or a turn in the garden to
gather broccoli-plants or kidney-beans of his own rearing, with no
small degree of pride and pleasure)?--Here were 'no figures nor no
fantasies,'--neither poetry nor philosophy--nothing to dazzle, nothing
to excite modern curiosity; but to his lack-lustre eyes there
appeared, within the pages of the ponderous, unwieldy, neglected
tomes, the sacred name of JEHOVAH in Hebrew capitals: pressed down by
the weight of the style, worn to the last fading thinness of the
understanding, there were glimpses, glimmering notions of the
patriarchal wanderings, with palm-trees hovering in the horizon, and
processions of camels at the distance of three thousand years; there
was Moses with the Burning Bush, the number of the Twelve Tribes,
types, shadows, glosses on the law and the prophets; there were
discussions (dull enough) on the age of Methuselah, a mighty
speculation! there were outlines, rude guesses at the shape of Noah's
Ark and at the riches of Solomon's Temple; questions as to the date of
the creation, predictions of the end of all things; the great lapses
of time, the strange mutations of the globe were unfolded with the
voluminous leaf, as it turned over; and though the soul might slumber
with an hieroglyphic veil of inscrutable mysteries drawn over it, yet
it was in a slumber ill-exchanged for all the sharpened realities of
sense, wit, fancy, or reason. My father's life was comparatively a
dream; but it was a dream of infinity and eternity, of death, the
resurrection, and a judgement to come!

No two individuals were ever more unlike than were the host and his
guest. A poet was to my father a sort of nondescript: yet whatever
added grace to the Unitarian cause was to him welcome. He could hardly
have been more surprised or pleased, if our visitor had worn wings.
Indeed, his thoughts had wings; and as the silken sounds rustled round
our little wainscoted parlour, my father threw back his spectacles
over his forehead, his white hairs mixing with its sanguine hue; and a
smile of delight beamed a