ecame the regular minister of a church, or why he gave up that
position; and yet he has himself told us sufficient to demonstrate at
one stroke not only the entire absence of hostility in his mind, but the
absolute separateness of his way of thinking from that which so
generally prevails.

The enthusiastic welcome given to The General wherever he went, by the
clergy of almost every Church indicates that he had generally convinced
them that he had no thought of attacking them or their Churches, even
when he most heartily expressed his thankfulness to God for having been
able to escape from all those trammels of tradition and form which would
have made his great life-work, for all nations, impossible. And I think
there are few who would nowadays question that his life, teaching, and
example all tended greatly to modify many of the Church formalities of
the past.

"Just before leaving Lincolnshire," he says, "I had been lifted up
to a higher plane of the daily round of my beloved work than I had
experienced before. Oh, the stagnation into which I had settled
down, the contentment of my mind with the love offered me at every
turn by the people! I still aimed at the Salvation of the
unconverted and the spiritual advance of my people, and still
fought for these results. Indeed, I never fell below that. And yet
if the After-Meeting was well attended, and if one or two Penitents
responded, I was content, and satisfied myself with that hackneyed
excuse for so much unfruitful work, that I had 'sown the seed.'
Having cast my bread on the waters, I persuaded myself that I must
hope for its being found by and by.

"But I heard of a Rev. Richard Poole who was moving about the
country, and the stories told me of the results attending his
services had aroused in me memories of the years gone by, when I
thought little and cared less about the acceptability of my own
performances, so long as I could drag the people from the jaws of
Hell.

"I resolved to go and hear him. I found him at the house of a
friend before the Meeting, comparatively quiet. How I watched him!
But when I had heard him preach from the text, 'Said I not unto
thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the salvation
of God,' and had observed the blessed results, I went to my own
chamber--I remember that it was over a baker's shop--and re