An aged friend, years ago deceased, who had seen much of the world, once observed to me, that he had never seen a more "scrupulous people," to use his expression, than our Presbyterian congregation. The clergy of the town were always distinguished, at a period when to be a clergyman was to be much more an object of reverence than in these latter days, and when a boy in the street would scarcely venture to pass one, on the opposite sidewalk, without pulling off his cap. But they set their people an excellent example, though they did not always escape the censure of the over "scrupulous." For instance, Mr. Murray, the accomplished scholar and divine to whom reference has already been made, was known to take no dinner in the interval of public worship, substituting for that repast a slice or two of bread and a few glasses of wine. Why such a fact, when everybody drank more or less wine, or something stronger, every day of the week, should have alarmed the conscience of Miss Betty Timmins, a maiden lady of a certain age, it seems difficult to conjecture. Nevertheless, she made a solemn call, one day, upon her pastor, and with such apology as she could muster for impertinence--at length out with it: "I must tell you, reverend sir, they do say you drink." "Drink! Miss Timmins," said Mr. Murray; "to be sure I do, don't you? How can anybody live without drinking?" and the discomfited spinster retreated. Mr. Murray had a fund of humor. The parsonage was close by the house of his parishioner, the sheriff, and the adjoining jail and whipping-post in the charge of that officer, and in the last illness of the minister the official was in the habit of taking him to a drive. Once, as he was getting into the chaise, a friend passed by and he called out, "If you see any one inquiring for me, tell him the last you saw of me I was in the hands of the sheriff." But after his time, and at the period of which I am writing, we had no less than three English ministers settled in the town, all educated upon the foundation of the celebrated Countess of Huntington. I recall, with vivid recollection, the figure of one of these worthies who called himself an "Independent," as he proceeded to meeting on a Sunday: his high cocked hat, his flowing, black curled locks,--more in the cavalier than the Puritan fashion; his long blue cloak over his clerical gown, his bands, his knee-breeches,--objected to by a fastidious young lady, as "short pantaloons,"--his square shoe-buckles, and his ponderous cane. His person was somewhat short and thick, whence "lewd fellows of the baser sort" sometimes irreverently called him the "The Jack of Clubs." But he was a really good man, with the most powerful voice I remember to have heard, and he preached, always an unwritten sermon, but with heads set down, anything but smooth things to his numerous congregation. Towards the close of his life he used to remark, that when he first came to this country, the topic of sermons was "Jesus