“5. _Easter-day_. I preached in the forenoon. Mr. Hayward read prayers, and consecrated. We had a great many communicants at those three days of sacrament. [Palm Sunday was one.] At church we had about 656 communicants, and I administered to about 60 impotent people in the parish. I read prayers afternoon, and Mr. Hayward preached.” {xii} The following is Mr. Newton’s own account of the state of his late parish in the hands of his successor, and that successor such a man as Mr. Scott. The narrative is a melancholy one. “I was very cordially received at Olney; the heats and animosities which prevailed when I was there last, seemed in a great measure subsided. There are, however, many who have left the Church, and hear among the Dissenters; but I hope they have not left the LORD. Mr. Scott has some, and some of the best, who are affectionately attached to him. Mr. Scott is a good and upright man, and a good preacher, but different ministers have different ways. He met with great prejudices, and some very improper treatment, upon his first coming to Olney. He found several professors who had more leaves than fruit, more talk than grace; his spirit was rather hurt by what he saw amiss, and by what he felt. By what I can learn from those who love him best, he is very favourable and zealous in reproving what is wrong; but an unfavourable impression he has received, that the people at large do not like him, gives a sort of edge to his preaching which is not so well suited to conciliate them. The best of the Olney people are an afflicted people, and have been led through great inward conflicts and spiritual distresses, and for want of some experience of the like kind, he cannot so well hit their cases,nor sympathize with them so tenderly as might be wished. He has the best intentions, but his natural temper is rather positive, than gentle and yielding. I was, perhaps, faulty in the other extreme; but they had been so long used to me, that a different mode of treatment does not so well suit them.”—_Southey’s Life of Cowper_, vol. ii. p. 46. Here the different success of the two consecutive incumbents is made to turn entirely upon preaching, and that preaching entirely on difference of _temper_. Would that they had both sought uniformity of preaching, and of temper too, in their Prayer Book! {xxxix} Mr. Walker’s charity being of that kind which “seeketh not her own,” he would rather forego his rights than distrain for dues which the parties liable refused to pay as a point of conscience. {52} An “Old Man” is a heap of stones, of which many are erected on the highest points of the loftiest mountains in the North of England. {78} Pearls are or used to be found in the shell-fish in the river IRT, on the west coast of Cumberland. It is much to be feared that there are very few now left.