dwell. Have done, then, with this dead
Popery; you know better now. Testify for the glory of God."

This lady's conversion vexed her husband greatly, and brought down the
frowns and disapprobation of the reverend doctor; altogether, it did a
deal of mischief in the camp. The "Sisters of Mercy" with whom she was
connected were kept aloof from her contaminating influence, and soon
afterwards were altogether removed from the place. There was one,
however, a particularly hard-headed looking individual, who used to
stare at me through her round spectacles whenever I met her, as if I
were an ogre. I heard that she was a great mathematician. She looked
like it; and evidently there was no fear entertained of her being
converted. She and one other were left behind; but otherwise the house,
which had been built at great cost, was empty. The lady was not allowed
to speak to me any more; but I hope she continued to go to the true
throne of grace, and not to the crucifix to a living, not a dead Christ.

All this, doubtless, was intended to sicken me of my reverence for the
Catholic theory. I was evidently under an infatuation on the subject,
which, for the time, nothing could dispel. I had some poetic or
imaginary fancy of spiritual catholicity before my mind, which I
supposed was something better than the fleshy spirituality of Methodism,
to which I had taken a great dislike; but where to find this Utopia, or
how to embody it, I knew not. These specimens of catholic people I
certainly had no sympathy with; nor had I any patience with their hollow
devotion and their studied imitation of Popery. I plainly saw that light
could have no fellowship with darkness, or life with death. I was more
and more convinced that when a man has more sympathy with dead Catholics
than with living Dissenters, he is not a living soul at all. There is no
necessity to go to one extreme or the other. I believe the reformed
Church of England (in her principles, at least) occupies the middle path
between these two extremes, with the excellences of both, and the faults
of neither. I think I was permitted to be thus unsettled in my mind,
because I did not keep to my work with a single eye to God's glory.

CHAPTER 27

Devonport, 1855.

I was at this time invited to preach in a church in Devonport, where it
pleased the Lord to give blessing to His word. With this exception, my
work was, generally speaking confined to individual cases. I will give
an accoun