have made a vast vacuity, and it will require no
common portion of ability, no ordinary supply of graces, to fill the
mighty void. Popery has long looked to our church for the most potent
soldiers. See that ye be able to maintain the Protestant cause as
effectually, and serve God as well with your labours and your lives."

Mr. Barton too well recollected Dr. Beaumont's remarks, on the covert
avidity of praise, which was too marked a feature of the separatists, to
use any of those phrases of humble sound, but arrogant purport, which he
had just heard so properly rebuked. He thanked Dr. Beaumont for his
promised intercession, in behalf of himself and his evangelical
brethren; frankly acknowledging their situation would be arduous. "As to
your immediate successor," said he, "I trust you will not find him, a
'barren fig-tree,' but one in 'whom faith worketh by love;' though,
peradventure, his face is not shaped in exact conformity to your notions
of a religious aspect, and his mode of study may have led him to doubt,
where you are certain, and to deem that perspicuous, in which you see
difficulties." The controversialists parted with mutual good-will.

Dr. Beaumont had already taken every precaution to fortify and prepare
his family for the trial which awaited them. He had forcibly pointed out
the defective patience of those, who, though submissive and composed
under corrections, which proceeded immediately from the hand of God;
such as sickness, loss of friends by death, or any misfortunes arising
from unpropitious seasons, or other accidents; are querulous and
rebellious, when the same Sovereign Disposer of events corrects them
through the intervention of their enemies. Pride, envy, hatred,
ingratitude, selfishness, and treachery, are evils permitted against
others; as well as plagues and offences in those who cherish them. Like
pain, or decrepitude, hurricanes or drought, poverty or death, they
prove, and purify the servants of God. The wrath of man has an allowed
limit, which it can no more pass, than the raging ocean can the rocks by
which it is bounded. And, if under the trial of moral evil, we behave
wisely, charitably, and devoutly, we shall often find that even fraud
and envy will produce some temporal advantages. Strangers have
frequently stretched out their hands to help those whom friends and
kindred have oppressed and abandoned. The world is ever disposed to look
kindly on persons suffering wrong, provided the