Edward Calamy that very Saturday preached a sermon at St. Austin's Church, in London, for Father Ash (the old man who shed tears of joy over Charles' early promises), from the words "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come,"--words befitting the interment of a Puritan patriarch on Bartholomew's eve. Discoursing on his text, the preacher reminded his audience how Methuselah died, a year before the flood; Austin died a little before Hippo was taken; and Luther died just as the wars in Germany were about to begin. He might have added, that Blaise Pascal, who died the preceding Tuesday, August 19th, had been removed just as the agony of the crisis came, in the history of the Port Royalists.[377] By a further coincidence, the same day on which Ash was buried in London, Edward Bowles, the distinguished Nonconformist, breathed his last in the City of York. He had just been elected Vicar of Leeds--but his Nonconformity would have disqualified him from entering on the benefice, had not his Master called him to a better preferment and a nobler ministry. [Sidenote: 1662.] When St. Bartholomew's Day arrived, the Nonconformist clergy who had not before taken leave of their flocks, uttered their farewells. Thomas Lye, Rector of Allhallows, London--whose catechetical lectures had made him very popular with the youthful members of Puritan families--preached twice from the words--"Therefore my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." Lye mentioned in his morning address, that he had been ejected on the 24th of August, 1651, because he would not swear against the King. Now, on the 24th of August, 1662, he was ejected for a very different reason. But he did not repine. "By way of exhortation," said the preacher, "I remember good Jacob when he was come into Egypt, ready to die, calls his children together, and before he dies, he blesseth his children.--O beloved, I have a few blessings for you, and, for God's sake, take them as if they dropt from my lips when dying.--Whatever others think, I am utterly against all irregular ways; I have (I bless the Lord) never had a hand in any change of Government in all my life; I am for prayers, tears, quietness, submission, and meekness, and let God do His work, and that will be best done when He doth it."[378] [Sidenote: THE BARTHOLOMEW EJECTMENT.]