After his conversion, his Bishop called him up and threatened to send him to gaol for preaching out of his parish. Our readers may imagine with such a man what sort of conference it was, and which of the two would be likely to get the worst of it: “I tell you,” said the Bishop, “if you continue preaching where you have no right, you are very likely to be sent to Huntingdon Gaol.” “I have no more regard for a gaol than other folks,” said he; “but I would rather go there with a good conscience than be at liberty without one.” The conference is too long for quotation, but Berridge held on his way; he became one of the most beloved and intimate friends of the Countess of Huntingdon; and if he shocked his bishop by preaching out of his own parish, he must have roused his wrath by preaching in her ladyship’s chapel in London, and throughout the country. His letters to the Countess are as characteristic as his speech, or any other of his writings. Thus he writes to her about young Rowland Hill, “I find you have got honest Rowland down to Bath; he is a pretty young spaniel, fit for land or water, and he has a wonderful yelp; he forsakes father and mother and brethren, and gives up all for Jesus, and I believe he will prove a useful labourer if he keeps clear of petticoat snares.” No doubt, Berridge sometimes seemed not only racy, but rude; but his words were wonderfully calculated to meet the average and level of an immense congregation. While he lived on terms of fellowship with all the great leaders of the movement, he was faithful as the vicar of his own parish, and was the apostle of the whole region of Bedfordshire. With all his shrewd worldly wisdom, Berridge had a most benevolent hand; he was rich, and devoted far more than the income of his vicarage to helping his poor neighbours, supporting itinerant ministers, renting houses and barns for preaching the Gospel, and, however far he travelled to preach, always disbursing his expenses from his own pocket. How he would have loved John Bunyan, and how John Bunyan would have loved him! It is curious that within a few miles of the place where the illustrious dreamer was so long imprisoned, one should arise out of the very Church which persecuted Bunyan, to do for a long succession of years, on the same ground, the work for which he was persecuted. [Illustration: Haworth Church. ]