"I own I am sadly alarmed for the Church. There is such a combination of noxious elements fermenting together, that I am ready to exclaim, 'There is death in the pot,' and there will be, I fear, no Elisha granted to us to render the mess harmless. But yet I am encouraged to hope that the same gracious and longsuffering Being who would have spared Sodom for ten, and Jerusalem even for one righteous man's sake, may spare us to the prayers of the many who do, I trust, sincerely sigh and cry in behalf of our proud, ungrateful land. Yet, again, when I consider what light we have enjoyed, what mercies we have received, and how self-sufficient and ungrateful we have been, I am again tempted to despond. I wish I could be a less unprofitable servant. Yet I must remember Milton's sonnet, 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' Let us all be found in our several stations doing therein the Lord's work diligently and zealously. What do you think of Shuttleworth's new translation of St. Paul's Epistles? I have borrowed but not yet read them. Affectionate remembrances to dear Emily, and a kiss to sweet baby." "BLAIZE CASTLE,[65] "_October 31, 1831._ "You will hear what dreadful work has been going on at Bristol for the last eight and forty hours. Sir Charles Wetherell[66] escaped from the fury of the mob by first hiding himself in some upper room in the Mansion House and then passing, disguised in a sack jacket, from the roof of the Mansion House to that of another house, whence he got to a distant part of the town, and in a chaise and four returned in all haste, (they say) to London. He was, as Recorder, to have opened the Commission and tried all the prisoners to-day. However, the latter are now all at work again in their accustomed callings. Not a single gaol, I am assured, is left undestroyed. The Bishop's Palace, (and Deanery too I am told), burnt to the ground. The Custom House ditto, Mansion House ditto. Poor Pinney, the Mayor, I was assured, behaved on Saturday with great presence of mind. The populace, however, got into the Mansion House before the corporation went to dinner; so all the good things regaled the ὁι πολλοι. Strange to say, (just as in the London riots), people were allowed to walk the streets in peace, and last night half the people in the square were looking on at the depredations committing by the other half. Well-dressed ladies walked about great part of the night staring as at a raree show. The redness of the sky from the conflagration was quite a dreadful sight to us in the distance. It is said they are endeavouring to organise a force for the defence of the city. It is very strange that this has been so long delayed. I'm assured pillage has latterly been the grand object. The deputation, I am told, were followed by a cart, in which, as they went along, they stowed the plunder. I have not said it to your mother, for fear of her becoming still more nervous,[67] (which need not be), by