their parents have caught from _you_! And shall not their blood be, more or less, required at your hands? ‘Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?’” This was fearless speaking, and not likely to increase Fletcher’s popularity among his rich, dissolute parishioners. The following extract is struck upon another key:— “Although we cannot all ‘_sing the song of the Lamb_,’ yet, glory be to God! we all consider the patience of our offended Creator, who, upon these ruins, invites us to repent and live. The earth, in the days of Moses, opened her mouth, and dreadfully swallowed up two families. The earth yesterday opened her mouth, probably far wider, and yet the only two families that lived here were suffered to make their escape. Allelujah! Praise the Lord! Multitudes of fishes have perished on dry ground, and myriads of land insects in the waters; and yet we, sinful insects before God, have neither been drowned in yesterday’s flood, nor buried in these chasms: Allelujah! God’s tremendous axe has been lifted up; some of yonder green trees have been struck; and we, who are dry trees, we, cumberers of the ground, are graciously spared; Allelujah! The house of Dathan and Abiram, with all that appertained unto them, descended into the pit of destruction; and we, who are loaded with mountains of sins, stand yet upon firm ground, with all our friends. Allelujah! God, who might have commanded the earth to swallow up a thronged play-house, the royal exchange, a crowded cathedral, the parliament house, or the king’s palace, has graciously commanded an empty barn to sink, and give us the alarm. Allelujah! He might have ordered such a tract of land as this, to heave, move, and open in the centre of our populous cities; but mercy has inclined Him to fix upon this solitary place. Allelujah! He might have suffered the road and the river to be overthrown, when cursing drivers passed with their horses, and blaspheming watermen with their barges; but His compassion made Him strike the warning blow with all possible tenderness. ‘O that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He does for the children of men!’” These two extracts from the sermon preached on this remarkable occasion must suffice; but one of Fletcher’s foot-notes may be added:— “A woman, thirty-five years of age, passing before a looking-glass the day after she heard this sermon, was surprised to see an unusual paleness upon her face. She called her husband, told him she was a dying woman, and actually died in a quarter of an hour. She heard me on the Friday, and I buried her the Monday following. Another middle-aged person, who was also among my hearers, was buried the next day in the next parish. How soon may we be called to give an account of what we speak or hear, write or _read_!”