, that I am not weary; but to be sure his
deliverance would be to me one of the greatest blessings my thoughts
can conceive." Dr. Cotton was at last called in, and under his
treatment, evidently directed against a bodily disease, Cowper was at
length restored to sanity.

Newton once compared his own walk in the world to that of a physician
going through Bedlam. But he was not skilful in his treatment of the
literally insane. He thought to cajole Cowper out of his cherished
horrors by calling his attention to a case resembling his own. The
case was that of Simon Browne, a Dissenter, who had conceived the idea
that, being under the displeasure of Heaven, he had been entirely
deprived of his rational being and left with merely his animal nature.
He had accordingly resigned his ministry, and employed, himself in
compiling a dictionary, which, he said, was doing nothing that could
require a reasonable soul. He seems to have thought that theology fell
under the same category, for he proceeded to write some theological
treatises, which he dedicated to Queen Caroline, calling her Majesty's
attention to the singularity of the authorship as the most remarkable
phenomenon of her reign. Cowper, however, instead of falling into the
desired train of reasoning, and being led to suspect the existence of a
similar illusion in himself, merely rejected the claim of the pretended
rival in spiritual affliction, declaring his own case to be far the
more deplorable of the two.

Before the decided course of Christian happiness had time again to
culminate in madness, fortunately for Cowper, Newton left Olney for St.
Mary Woolnoth. He was driven away at last by a quarrel with his
barbarous parishioners, the cause of which did him credit. A fire
broke out at Olney, and burnt a good many of its straw-thatched
cottages. Newton ascribed the extinction of the fire rather to prayer
than water, but he took the lead in practical measures of relief, and
tried to remove the earthly cause of such visitations by putting an end
to bonfires and illuminations on the 5th of November. Threatened with
the loss of their Guy Fawkes, the barbarians rose upon him, and he had
a narrow escape from their violence. We are reminded of the case of
Cotton Mather, who, after being a leader in witch-burning, nearly
sacrificed his life in combatting the fanaticism which opposed itself
to the introduction of inoculation. Let it always be remembered that
besides it