bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an
eastern wind and his motion made irregular and inconstant,
descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could
recover by the vibration and frequent weighing of his wings; till
the little creature was forced to sit down and pant and stay till
the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight and did
rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel
as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here
below. So is the prayer of a good man: when his affairs have
required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and
his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design
of charity, his duty met with infirmities of a man and anger was
its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime
agent and raised a tempest and overruled the man; and then his
prayer was broken and his thoughts troubled.

* * * * *

"For so an impure vapour--begotten of the slime of the earth by
the fevers and adulterous heats of an intemperate summer sun,
striving by the ladder of a mountain to climb to heaven and
rolling into various figures by an uneasy, unfixed revolution,
and stopped at the middle region of the air, being thrown from
his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the
stars--turns into an unwholesome flame and, like the breath of
hell, is confined into a prison of darkness and a cloud, till it
breaks into diseases, plagues and mildews, stinks and blastings.
So is the prayer of an unchaste person. It strives to climb the
battlements of heaven, but because it is a flame of sulphur salt
and bitumen, and was kindled in the dishonourable regions below,
derived from Hell and contrary to God, it cannot pass forth to
the element of love; but ends in barrenness and murmurs,
fantastic expectations and trifling imaginative confidences; and
they at last end in sorrows and despair."

Indeed, like all very florid writers, Taylor is liable to eclipses of
taste; yet both the wording of his flights and the occasion of them (they
are to be found _passim_ in the _Sermons_) are almost wholly admirable. It
is always a great and universal idea--never a mere conceit--that fires him.
The shortness and dangers of life, the weakness of children