y.' To East Anglia came the reputed worthy
Canon for an illustration of what he termed their policy to have a great
change of ministers. Accordingly, he reprints from the _Evangelical
Magazine_ the following notice of an East Anglian Nonconformist
ordination, which, by-the-bye, in no degree affects the charge unjustly
laid at the door of these 'fanatics,' as engaged 'in one general
conspiracy against common-sense and rational orthodox Christianity.'
'Same day the Rev. W. Haward, from Hoxton Academy, was ordained over the
Independent Church at Rendham, Suffolk; Mr. Pickles, of Walpole, began
with prayer and reading; Mr. Price, of Woodbridge, delivered the
introductory discourse, and asked the questions; Mr. Dennant, of
Halesworth, offered the ordinary prayer; _Mr. Shufflebottom_ [the italics
are the Canon's], of Bungay, gave the charge from Acts xx. 28; Mr.
Vincent, of Deal, the general prayer; and Mr. Walford, of Yarmouth,
preached to the people from Phil. ii. 16.' As a lad, I saw a good deal
of Bungay, though I never knew the Shufflebottom whose name seems to have
been such a stumbling-block and cause of offence to the Reverend Canon of
St. Paul's. I say Reverend Canon of St. Paul's, because, though the
writer had not gained that honour when the review appeared, it was as
Canon he returned to the charge when he sanctioned the republication of
it in his collected works. It was at Bungay that I had my first painful
experience of the utter depravity of the human heart--a truth of which,
perhaps, for a boy, I learned too much from the pulpit. The river
Waveney runs through Bungay, and one day, fishing there, I lent a
redcoat--with whom, like most boys, I was proud to scrape an
acquaintance--my line, he promising to return it when I came back from
dinner. When I did so, alas! the red-coat was gone.

Nonconformity in Bungay seems to have originated in the days of the Lord
Protector, in the person of Zephaniah Smith, who was the author of: (1)
'The Dome of Heretiques; or, a discovery of subtle Foxes who were tyed
tayle to tayle, and crept into the Church to do mischief'; (2) 'The
Malignant's Plot; or, the Conspiracie of the Wicked against the Just,
laid open in a sermon preached at Eyke, in Suffolk, January 23, 1697.
Preached and published to set forth the grounds why the Wicked lay such
crimes to the charge of God's people as they are cleare off'; (3) 'The
Skillful Teacher.' Beloe says of this Smith that 'he was a mos