has been met, or has resided, or has died, have often produced a much more lively recollection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events which caused them, than the most perfect description could have done; and we have lingered a considerable time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming the departed state." The sight of the hogshead, which was stationary, reminded Crister years afterwards, what took place when kneeling on the boards beneath it.

Not satisfied with his attempts to pray in public at first, and being deficient in confidence, he laboured to conceive a prayer in his mind, and to preserve it in recollection. This he sought to repeat on different occasions; but feeling himself trammelled with it, and finding it also injurious to the free spirit of prayer, he laid it aside, and depended upon the spontaneous effusions of the moment: remarking, that he "walked by the aid of a crutch at first, but was soon able to go alone."

Being extremely partial to class-meeting, he never, with the exception of once, absented himself from church-fellowship, unless lawfully detained. At the time alluded to, he was the subject of strong temptation; and instead of going to the meeting, he strolled down the banks of the Tyne. He soon felt, that he had entered into the temptation; and after much prayer, he vowed before the Lord-a vow which he was able to keep to the day of his death, that he would never more give place to Satan on that subject. "If," said he, when cautioning the

absentee in social meetings, "those persons who are in the habit of neglecting their classes only felt what I experienced that night, they would vow, like me, never to do so again." He was a perfect model for others, in his attention to the public, social, and private worship of God; and as in his class, so among the free sittings in the chapel, he was always to be found in his place, and would have his own seat, with which he was invariably indulged.

One serious inconvenience under which he laboured, was his inability to read. An imperfect knowledge of the letters of the English alphabet, was all he had acquired; and in the thirtieth year of his age, he had to return to childhood, and was seen anxiously poring over his "Horn Book" and "Tom Thumb," surrounded by his offspring,-looking through these initiatory trifles to the New Testament, and exulting in the hope of one day reaching the fountain of knowledge, and medium of life. By close application, he was soon able to read the sacred page, both in private, and in his family; and to exclaim-"I esteem the words of Thy mouth, more than my necessary food.The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired than fine gold; sweeter also than the honey, and the honey-comb." In his first readings, he was like

a person entering upon a newly-discovered country; he sat down by the skirts or sea-shore of knowledge; but on improving, he entered further and further into the interior of the land; till at length, on gaining a small eminence, as it were, he saw the truth of God expanding into a greatness beyond the reach of his own sight, while every thing seemed written as with a sunbeam. The opaque medium was changed for the transparent; and he beheld with awe, surprise, and admiration, the wonders of God's law. The Bible was to him, not only a "light to the feet and a lamp to the path,” but a kind of sacred Nepenthe, in every moment of discouragement. There, he found recipes, to employ the language of the medical student, which proved a cordial to his spirits, and imparted vigour to his arm. "I was born twice," he would say; "once at Newcastle, and another time at Carville. At my second birth, I was as unable to read as at my first; but now, not only read my Bible, but my title to heaven."

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While he was making progress in knowledge and in piety, there remained one afflicting drawback to his happiness. The rifle corps in which he had figured for several years, remained in arms upwards of twelve months after his conversion; and various circumstances and arguments concurred to bind him to the band to which he had been linked. It was a season of scruple and tenderness of conscience; he was not well grounded in religion; and his experience and knowledge were ill able to meet the

sophisms, temptations, and buffetings, with which he was assailed. The tambarine in the same hand, before and after conversion, seemed altogether another thing; and the eye of the public, as quick to perceive as to associate, was upon him for evil, as it had been upon him for good. The tambarine had been his idol, and he himself had been the idol of the multitude. Of that idol he was obliged to maintain his hold, when idolatry had ceased; and in the act of handling it, he was not less "ashamed" than the artificer in iron would have been, on receiving a visit from the prophet Isaiah, while forging idols in his smithy, after his enlightenment, and of whom it is said, "the smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms." Poor Crister had to work on, and to throw around his arms, for the entertainment of others, while the spirit of his employment was entombed within him. It was not like the graver evolution of the regular soldier, or even the more sober and stately march of a person with the bassoon, or of persons with any other dozen of instruments; but the only article in the band that required a harlequin for its management, and in the hand of one who had once been a master, as he had now become a slave. He sighed, he groaned, he prayed, he watched, he blushed, till the dissolution of the corps, when he flew off like a bird escaped from the falcon, or an eagle-on being renewed in strength, towards the sun. Though the Divine Being, in his own language-and to

keep up the allusion with regard to prophetic times,"created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work ;" yet He did not create him to make idols, and much less to fall down before them. Crister felt, that though God had endowed him with amazing agility, yet it was not to be employed in that way-either for self-idolization, or for the boast of his friends; and that his position and employment had been the occasion of sin, as it was now the cause of much mental distress.