friends. If one was engaged or from home, he went to another, and stayed till eleven o'clock; then, returned to his rooms. It was pleasing on such occasions to witness this great man descend from the sublimest speculations, and mingle with the socialities of common life. There was no ostentatious display of learning; he endeared himself to all by the simplicity of his manners, and the unaffected modesty and kindness of his disposition, and the interest which he took in their welfare. He was exceedingly fond of children, and frequently took the little ones in his arms, and appeared to enter into all their amusements. Under these circumstances it will not appear surprising, that his visits were anticipated with earnestness and delight.

In addition to the usual services at his own place, Mr. Hall frequently preached a third time on the Sabbath to the villagers near Cambridge. I can mention nothing which more clearly shews the state of things at this period than the benighted condition of these poor people. They were indeed ignorant and out of the way,-without God, and without hope in the world. The ministers of episcopacy of various orders were permitted to live in idleness and luxury, while the peasantry around them were perishing for lack of knowledge, and this, too, in the immediate neighbourhood of the schools of divinity, and the storehouses of learning. I have frequently heard Mr. Hall preach in the cottages of these villagers, whose hearts burned within them while he opened to them the Scriptures.

I well remember walking on a Sunday evening with a friend to Coten, one mile from Cambridge, for the purpose of hearing Mr. Hall. On entering the village we met a man (who, from his appearance, we concluded was a herdsman) driving his cows from the Common. We inquired for the house where Mr. Hall was engaged to preach. He replied in a rude and surly manner. I afterwards found that he was the rector of the parish, a Fellow of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, and one of his Majesty's Whitehall preachers!

The members of the church, at Cambridge, were at this time nearly equally divided between baptists and pædobaptists. Mr. Hall's practice of open communion, and his want of zeal on the subject of baptism, were censured by some of his brethren of the stricter sort: this induced him some years afterwards to enter largely into the controversy— Hall versus Kinghorn. As a powerful argument, however, in favour of the liberal plan of mixed communion, I can certify that there never has been any unpleasant feeling in the church at Cambridge, arising from the union. When appealing to this, Mr. Hall frequently said, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. He lived to see the practice more generally adopted in the baptist churches.

This leads me to mention an anecdote which he related to me after dining with Dr. Porteus, the late Bishop of London, who had previously expressed to the Rev. John Owen, Secretary to the Bible Society, a great desire to have an

interview with Mr. Hall. The bishop, in the course of conversation, asked him what was the reason the members of his sect were called anabaptists: Mr. Hall politely satisfied the bishop. In a subsequent conversation, Mr. H. observed to me-"Sir, I was surprised beyond measure that the bishop should put such a question to me; it was hardly courteous, and therefore difficult to answer with propriety: he ought to have known, from church history, that it was a calumny and term of reproach first given to the Munster baptists, on account of their excesses, which stigma we labour under from them: if not, his Greek should have informed him that äva denotes repetition. Now, Sir, you know, baptists do not believe that infant sprinkling is any baptism at all, therefore it cannot be said that we baptize twice, or do the thing again." In every other respect he was much pleased with the piety, and the kindness of the bishop; and the bishop expressed to Mr. Owen, in the warmest terms, his admiration of the extraordinary talents of Mr. Hall.

As his time was generally occupied, I was fearful of encroaching by too frequently calling without a previous invitation. Scarcely a fortnight elapsed, however, without his inviting me to visit him at eight or nine o'clock, "to eat a bit of bread and cheese." After an hour's conversation on general subjects, on the books I had read, or the sermons I had heard, he reached a favourite author, and read aloud a few of the finest passages, in order to awaken curiosity, or excite a taste

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for reading. Among others I may mention more particularly the works of Bourdelieu, Massillon, and Bossuet. As I was ignorant of the original, he translated it into beautiful English, page after page, without the least hesitation; then, as if conscious of having performed a feat, he laughed heartily, and appeared pleased with my expressions of astonishment and delight. He also directed my attention to books suitable for my perusal, in English. Among others which he lent me, were Lord Bacon's Essays. After reading the preface, he made comments :- There, Sir, no man but Lord Bacon could say this:- As to the Latin edition of these Essays, it will last as long as books last.' Why, Sir, it would be the greatest vanity and presumption in any other man to say this of his own work." Then he read the following striking passage from the first Essay, on Truth:-" It is a pleasure to stand on the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof, below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing on the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." He repeated the last sentence ;—“ Turn

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upon the poles of truth!' How beautiful! There, Sir, I will lend you that; but remember, you must not keep Lord Bacon more than a fortnight; for there is scarcely a week in which I do not want to consult or refer to him." Another work which he recommended, was Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. After having read to me some of the most beautiful passages, he again limited the time, assigning the same reason as before. The following are a few of the passages, every line of which he marked with ink: this I well remember, because, after returning his copy, which was an original edition, I purchased a similar one, which I have now before me.

The reader may imagine the interesting scene; Mr. Hall standing with Jeremy Taylor in one hand, the other slightly raised, ready to give effect to his voice, when reading the following passages to a young lad, his only auditor:

"God is every where present, by his power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with his hand, He fixes the earth with his foot, He guides all the creatures with his eye, and refreshes them with his influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with his terrors, and binds the devils with his word, and throws them out with his command, and sends the angels on embassies with his decrees. He hardens the joints of infants, and confirms the bones when they are fashioned beneath secretly in the earth. He it is that assists at the numerous productions of fishes, and there is not one hollowness in the bottom of the sea, but