Crister put some seed into the ground, he enquired, "Don't the cocks and hens come now and then, and scratch it up?" "Yes, Sir," returned Crister. "And how do you feel on those occasions?" subjoined Mr. B. "Why, it is hard," returned Crister; "but then I have grace to bear it." He knew, that if Christians ought to bear with each other, such intelligences should bear with the irrational part of God's creation. Such, indeed, was his native kindness, that he would have as soon thrown some grains of corn down to them, as attempt to injure them on driving them away. It was only the principle carried out to these, that he exercised towards his own species-heaping “coals of fire on the head" of an enemy.

But he was exercised in another way. The soil was poor, and manure was scarce. The latter might have been obtained, by making free with what belonged to the colliery; and another person had thus made free, in order to enrich his crop of potatoes. Crister's conscience would not suffer him to take the slightest liberty with another person's property; and his poverty would not allow him to go any distance from home to make a purchase. The result was, that he was obliged to set his potatoes without manure : but such was the honour God conferred upon his integrity, that—though both gardens were distinguished for the same soil, he had a much larger crop than the person who had planted his sets in the heart of stolen materials.

CHAPTER VI.

A few of his last Days-Visit to one of his Daughters-Has a Prayer-meeting in a Field-Receives his last Ticket -Remarkable Expressions-Attends the Bed of the Dying-The Spirit of Prayer-Family Worship— Descends the Pit for the last Time.-The CATASTROPHE -Religious Aspect of the Subject-Extent of the Calamity-The Rapidity with which the Fire movedKindness, mixed with Severity-The Guilty spared-a merciful Providence in the Timing of the Event-The general Distress occasioned.

THE suddenness of the removal of the subject of the Memoir will only admit of our hovering round the open ground of his last days, rather than of our entering within the sacred enclosure of his last moments ;-of our viewing him, when unconscious of any one looking at him in the ordinary business of life, rather than when sitting for his religious portrait. These are the times and seasons for arriving at real character,-when a man is moving among men, insensible of their presence and of their eye.

He visited one of his daughters, who is married, and resides at Little Town, no great distance from Durham, on the banks of the Wear, the Saturday before his death. It appears as though the invisible hand of Heaven had conducted him thither, to give to her and her family his last blessing. He called upon

different friends, both on his route to the place and on his return,-spoke to them, and prayed with them. Not finding any place appropriated to public worship at Little Town, among his own people, and anxious to enjoy some mean of grace, which he could not do in a private dwelling, the houses being cleaned for Sunday, he collected a few serious persons together,mostly young men; and said, "Come lads, the fields will do for me; and if they will do for you, we shall have a prayer-meeting in the open air." So saying, he led them on to a retired nook on the Saturday evening, and there, as a preparation for the Sabbath, in that place, unfrequented for such purposes, they all knelt down, and prayed alternately-for, he afterwards observed, in the language of an eminent statesman in reference to another subject, we had a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether;" thus enjoying, that which Apostles and primitive Christians-only on another day and in a more frequented spot, enjoyed, when 66 on the Sabbath" they "went out of the city by a river-side, where prayer was wont to be made; and sat down, and spake unto the" persons "which resorted thither." After this outdoor exercise, he sat up till late, singing and praying with a few friends, to whom he observed, amongst other things, that he could not satisfactorily account for his being there at that particular time.

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On the forenoon of the Lord's-day, a young man-a local preacher, addressed such as were disposed to hear him in a private dwelling.

Crister was there; and the preacher had the aid of his prayers, having prayed twice publicly at the close of the address; observing to his daughter afterwards,-" The lad seemed frightened, and I wished to encourage him. I thought it was a pity for him to come such a long way, and get nothing for it. But the Lord warmed our hearts, and he took some fire back with him." While with his daughter, he was incessant in his exhortations to piety and unity. Desirous of obtaining as much of the bread of life as he could, he stopped at Shiney Row, in the Sunderland Circuit, on his return, and heard a sermon on the Sunday evening; which was to him, what the "cake baken on the coals, and the cruse of water," were to Elijah, who, in the strength of that meat," prosecuted the remainder of his journey.

A person speaking to him on the dangers to which colliers were exposed, he remarked, "We should always be ready; then, sudden death, will be sudden bliss." On the Tuesday before he died, he said to those who were sitting around him, "Let us live to God, and we shall go off to Heaven some day like a clap of thunder." It is impossible not to associate his quickly-approaching exit with this form of expression ;-sudden and expected to himself, and solemnly impressive to others. On the evening of the same day, he received his last Society Ticket from Mr. Mann, on which occasion he expressed himself as happy in the religion he possessed; saying, in the course of the evening, when speaking of vital godliness,

"I always like to be in the sun, and on the warm side of the wall:" a metaphor well understood by pitmen, who, before the sun has obtained too much power to be oppressivesay, in the month of May, will group together, and squat themselves by the side of a wall; and there, while enjoying social intercourse with each other, will bask beneath his animating beams.

The nearer we approach the spot where we have to part with this good man, the more hallowed becomes the character of his personal piety, and with the greater confidence we leave him to pursue the brief remainder of his pilgrimage alone. In the course of the evening, previous to his death, he visited a son of Henry Holt, of Bigge's Main, who was ill, and apparently not likely to recover. He prayed with him and gave him such advice and encouragement as seemed to be required. In his prayer, he dwelt particularly on death; and then, as if a sudden gleam of light had opened upon him, and he had beheld Heaven immediately over his head, he broke away in a transport of joy, repeating-"It is down to death, and up to glory; -down to death, and up to glory!" leaving an impression, when coupled with his own almost immediate descent into the pit, and sudden ascension to Heaven, that there was something prophetic in the employment of such phraseology at that particular time. And what renders it more remarkable is, that on leaving the young man, after cheering him forward, just as he was about to enter "the valley of the shadow of