He would never admit for a moment, that to hunt, or to shoot, or to fish, were diversions _inherently_ sinful; but he began to look on time as a talent, for which every man must render a solemn account, and the time of a clergyman as more especially given him to be employed to graver ends than could be honestly and effectually attained, if sports and amusements of a nature so idle and absorbing were not resigned. Nor was this the only change in his opinions;--a closer study of the sacred volume, for the purpose of preaching its saving truths more plainly to his people; an earnest desire to set before them the glory of gospel hopes, and the comfort of Scripture promises; and a lively recollection of some of his conversations with Cuthbert Noble, satisfied him that if he would be found faithful he must preach, with authority and with persuasion, free reconciliation to God through a willing and all-sufficient Saviour. The prayerful exercises to which the composition of his sermons now compelled him produced a blessed influence on his own spirit; and he never stood up in his pulpit, as an ambassador for Christ, without a most affectionate solicitude for the welfare of immortal souls, and a present sense of the high privilege and deep responsibility of his sacred office. His growing seriousness, as a clergyman, had been more apparent to Katharine Heywood than to any one else at Milverton; for she was too deeply taught to be deceived in the evidences of a living grace. In his parish his earnestness in his pulpit was well known, as might be seen from the report of it which had reached Sir Charles Lambert, and which partly caused those taunts and insinuations, the issue of which, in the quarrel and the encounter that followed, has been already related; but to common observers, as Juxon’s language had no peculiar religious phraseology, and as his manners, his happy countenance, and his manly habits, prepossessed their good opinion, without alarming any of their prejudices, he seemed one of themselves, and they neither knew nor cared to know his inner man.