I remember the stern pleasure that this reply afforded me; of spiritual knowledge not the least glimmer had ever reached me in any form, yet I knew the Bible most intimately, and loved it with all my heart as the most sacred, the most beautiful of earthly things. Already had its sublimity caught my adoration; and when listening to the lofty language of Isaiah, as read from his stall in the cathedral by my father in Advent, and the early Sundays of the year, while his magnificent voice sent the prophetic denunciations pealing through those vaulted aisles, I had received into my mind, and I think into my heart, that scorn of idolatry which breathes so thrillingly in his inspired page. This I know, that at six years old the foundation of a truly scriptural protest was laid in my character; and to this hour it is my prayer that whenever the Lord calls me hence, he may find his servant not only watching but working against the diabolical iniquity that filled the Lollard's pit with the ashes of his saints. And now upon that all-important topic the Bible I would remark, that among the most invaluable blessings of my life I remember the judicious conduct of my parents in regard to it. We generally find that precious volume made a book of tasks; sometimes even a book of penalties: the consequence of so doing cannot but be evil. With us it was emphatically a reward book. That identical book is now before me, in its rich red cover, elegantly emblazoned with the royal arms; for it is the very Bible that was placed before queen Charlotte at her coronation in 1761; and which, becoming the perquisite of a prebendary of Westminster, was by his wife presented to my mother, to whom she stood sponser. This royal Bible was highly prized; and it was with special favor that it was opened for us when we had been good, and were deemed worthy of some mark of approval. My father, then, whose voice made music of every thing, would read to us the history of Abel, of Noah, of Moses, of Gideon, or some other of the exquisite narratives of the Old Testament. I do not say that they were made the medium of conveying spiritual instruction; they were unaccompanied by note or comment, written or oral, and merely read as histories, the fact being carefully impressed on our minds that God was the author, and that it would be highly criminal to doubt the truth of any word in that book. * * * The consequences of this early instruction, imparted as an indulgence, I have reason daily to rejoice in: it led me to search for myself the inspired pages; it taught me to expect beauties, and excellences, and high intellectual gratification where God has indeed caused them to abound. As in the natural world we find the nutritious fruit not lying like pebbles on the ground, but hung on graceful trees and shrubs, heralded by fair and fragrant blossoms, embowered in verdant foliage, and itself beautifully shaped and tinted; so has the Lord arranged that the garden where grows the fruit of the