"Along my earthly way How many clouds are spread! Darkness, with scarce one cheerful ray, Seems gathering o'er my head. Yet, Saviour, Thou art love; Oh, hide not from my view! But when I look in prayer above, Appear in mercy through. And, O! from that bright throne, I shall look back and see— The path I went, and that alone Was the right path for me.” “Our lives through various scenes are drawn.” So writes the great poet of the sanctuary; and his words find exemplification in the narrative we are relating; the next scene of which is laid in the heart of the Fens of the Eastern Counties. This district was originally one of those immense forests which abounded in our land, broken…

"He that believeth shall not make haste.” (Isa. 28:19) "Thy way, not mine, O Lord, However dark it be; O lead me by Thine own right hand Choose Thou the path for me. Smooth let it be, or rough It will be still the best; Winding or straight it matters not, It leads me to Thy rest. I dare not choose my lot, I would not if I might: But choose Thou for me, O my God. So shall I walk aright." Our narrative brings us to the year 1852. A curious lull followed the closing of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which some had considered as the pioneer of the reign of anti-christ, and others as the harbinger of the millennium, but dreams of…

"'Tis not a cause of small import The Pastor's care demands."—Doddridge. "Preaching administ'ring in every work Of his sublime vocation, in the walks Of worldly intercourse 'twixt man, and man, And in his humble dwelling, he appears A labourer with moral virtue girt, With spiritual graces like a glory crowned." Wordsworth's “Excursion." The settlement of a pastor over a Church is an important event in the history of religion. It is intimately connected with the glory of God, and the welfare of souls, and is to the individual himself, and to the people of his charge, the commencement of an era of prosperity and success, or an epoch of declension and decay. In the choice of John Hazelton his people discovered a wise sense of…

"Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee."—Proverbs 4:28 "There stands the messenger of truth! there stands The legate of the skies! His theme divine, His office sacred, his credentials clear. By him the violated law speaks out Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet As angels use, the gospel whispers peace."—Cowper Chadwell-Street is in the heart of a densely populated district in the north of London, and was in 1858 one of the most advantageous positions for a dissenting chapel that could have been found in the whole of the metropolis. Many changes have occurred in recent years. Old Smithfield, which was then an institution, has disappeared. Clerkenwell was the home of numbers of prosperous watch-makers…

"We can do nothing against the truth but for the truth."—2 Corinthians 13:6 "Should all the forms that men devise Assault my faith with treach’rous art, I'd call them vanity and lies, And bind the Gospel to my heart." Attention is at this point claimed to a brief and cursory review of some of the more public religious events which transpired during the period to which this and the preceding chapter are devoted. An accurate estimate of the character of a prominent Christian minister is impossible, unless we take into account the spiritual tendencies of his age, the currents of popular thought, the opinions which were then rising into favour or falling into disrepute, and the attitude and conduct of those by whom the professing…

The Student—A Retrospect "Give me a Bible in my hand, A heart to read and understand, This sure unerring Word. I'd urge no company to stay, But sit alone from day to day In converse with my Lord.” —Susannah Harrison, altered by David Denham. “A SELF-MADE MAN." Popular as is this phrase, we regard it with great disfavour, judging it to obscure His prerogative who governs all events in heaven and earth according to His sovereign pleasure, and to claim for a creature a power with which his all-wise Creator has not been pleased to invest him, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." "There are many…