CHAPTER XII.

"A wisdom, not of earthly mould,
Not such as learned volumes hold,

Not selfish, arrogant, and vain,

That chills the heart and fires the brain."

BISHOP JEBB.

THE sun was setting amidst clouds, most gorgeously and gloriously tinted; the surrounding country over which a haze, the haze of lovely summer, was thickly gathered, was beautiful in the extreme. No sound was heard to interrupt its stillness, but that of birds answering each other at intervals, with the tinkling bells of distant sheep, and the refreshing murmurs of a rivulet, rushing as it met with interruption in its rapid course. It was a balmy summer evening, as Eustace Priestly slowly pursued his way from Nutleigh to dine at Everton, according to Sir Hugh Vivian's invitation. Various, and not altogether comfortable, were his feelings. The past week had been one of rather an exciting character; and the scene at Margaret Lindsay's cottage was very painfully present to him. Whatever were his religious views, we must do him this justice, that his earnest desire and enthusiastic zeal was to develop these, practically believing them to be right. If these

views were erroneous and ill-directed, they carried with them his whole heart, his best energies. He was truly sincere; and the check, though unwilling to allow it to himself, which the dying experience of one soul's testimony certainly was, stirred up within his bosom feelings which he could not altogether stifle. The poor girl had said that "faith in any Church, clinging to any Church, holding any man's doctrine, instead of the simple Scriptural plan of salvation, was in that hour, when everything earthly fades and becomes as nothing, wholly insufficient to make a death-bed happy." He would try, though vainly, to persuade himself that the reproaches she had made to him, personally, were only the effects of delirium and disease; but they, nevertheless, left an indefinable impression on his mind, which, as the sequel will prove, would have been well for him had he permitted them to have had full influence and weight.

Eustace Priestly had been early devoted to the ministry by his excellent father, who, as we have said before, was a devoted servant of the Lord, and the rector, for more than forty years, of Nutleigh. His heart's desire had been that this, his only son, should follow in his course, testifying worthily to power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and labouring earnestly for the welfare of those three thousand souls committed to his charge. He had educated his boy entirely himself; and had marked, with a joy which only a Christian parent can feel, the early

the

promise of grace, and the taste which the little Eustace displayed for the profession he had so much at heart for him. He watched with pleasure, the gradual development of an enthusiasm of character which, when rightly controlled, and tempered with judicious management and care, would, in after years, if blessed with the teaching and humility imparted by the Holy Spirit, be so helpful to him in the work, the blessed work of converting others; and with fervent prayer, and many an anxious thought, when the time came for the completion of his studies at Oxford (that school of religious controversy), did the good old man watch the effect which daily contact with views so utterly opposed to his own, might have on a mind like his son's. He well knew, in the grievous error of the day, there was much to dazzle and fascinate a young man of his enthusiastic disposition. Like every honest member of the Church of England, he was pained to see, from one of our nurseries of pure Protestant faith, daily disseminating a contagious heresy, giving and substituting, for her truthful and enlightening doctrines, the spurious traditions of men, making a bondage necessary; very, very far off from the glorious liberty laid down in the Word of God; and reviving customs so nearly verging on the principles of that faith against which, as Protestants, our ancestors made so firm a stand. But he committed him to that Divine Power which, sometimes for His own wise purposes,

permits our best hopes and speculations to meet with disappointment. Happily for poor old Mr. Priestly, he did not live to see how wholly he had been deceived. Educated with the utmost reverence for his father, Eustace had ever bowed with respectful submission to all his religious opinions; and, though upon his first entering on his ministerial duties, and appointment to a curacy, he made occasional visits to the Priory, he sometimes startled him with the expression of sentiments quite at variance with his own evangelical views, the good old man would still persuade himself these only proceeded from youthful ardour, and that his son's apparent humility, in listening to the arguments which he would adduce from time to time, in confirmation of those truths upon which his own soul so steadfastly relied, was an evidence the most unequivocal that Eustace's principles were staunch and untainted.

It was only upon his father's death (when he succeeded to the living of Nutleigh), his mother dead, as well as an only sister to whom he had been much attached, that, called upon now to reside at the Priory, he by degrees threw off the restraint which respect and affection for his deceased parent during his life had to a certain degree imposed on him, and giving full rein to his zeal (not, certainly, according to knowledge), he entered boldly into the spirit of the times, and openly avowed his Tractarian senti

ments.

Many of his parishioners saw, with pain and regret,

the many innovations and new ways introduced into Nutleigh Church by their young minister. Among these was Margaret Lindsay, who, fearing to draw away by her influence (for she was highly respected in her humble sphere), still continued, notwithstanding, to occupy her place once every Sunday amongst them. The younger members of his flock, whose imagination, more easily dazzled with what had the semblance of such inspiriting devotion, were most zealous upholders of Mr. Priestly's new doctrines. Others, alas! were constrained, in conscience, to forsake the little church of their forefathers, and join the Dissenters. Among the higher class the Vivian family had ever been on terms of intimacy with their good friends at the Priory, and Sir Hugh was among the first to tell Eustace boldly his mind, still more to declare that if he persisted in carrying things further he must leave his church, and thus they had parted; and though Sir Hugh's regard for the young man (who he considered only as thoroughly misguided) was by no means diminished, they saw little of each other, except now and then, when, as on the present occasion, he would ask him to dinner. But we have digressed, and must return to the latter, who we left wending his way to Everton, plunged in a deep reverie, from which he was only roused by finding himself at the Lodge gates.