The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

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proper sense of the word, but read a chapter, made a comment or two upon it, caused a hymn to be sung, and then dismissed his congregation with the briefest of prayers. Although he took no active part in politics, he was republican through and through, and never hesitated for a moment in those degenerate days to say what he thought about any scandal. In this respect he differed from his fellow-ministers, who, under the pretence of increasing zeal for religion, had daily fewer and fewer points of contact with the world outside. Mr. Bradshaw had been married when he was about thirty; but his wife died in giving birth to a daughter, who also died,-and for twenty years he had been a widower, with no thought of changing his condition. He was understood to have peculiar opinions about second marriages, although he kept them very much to himself. One thing, however, was known, that for a twelvemonth after the death of his wife he was away from England, and that he came back an altered man to his people in Bedfordshire, where at

y and show it. Jephthah had played for a great stake. Ought the Almighty-let us speak it with reverence-to have let him off with an ox, or even with a serf? I say that if we are to conquer Ammon we must pay for it, and we ought to pay for it. Yes, and perhaps God wanted the girl-who can tell? Jephthah comes back in triumph. Let me read the passage to you:-'Behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.' Now, you read poetry, I dare say-what you call poetry. I say in all of it-all, at least, I have seen-nothing comes up to that. 'She was his only child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter.'"-(Mr. Bradshaw's voice broke a little as he went over the words again with great deliberation and infinite pathos.)-"The inspired writer leaves the fact just as it stands, and is content. Inspiration itself can do nothing to make it more touching than it is in its own bare nakedness. There is no thought in Jephthah of recantation, nor in the maiden of revolt, but nevertheless he has his own sorrow. He is brought very low. God does not rebuke him for his grief. He knows well enough, my dear friends, the nature which He took upon Himself-nay, are we not the breath of His nostrils, created in His image? He does not anywhere, therefore, I say, forbid that we should even break our hearts over those we love and lose. She asks for two months by herself upon the mountains before her death. What a time for him! At the end of the two months God held him still to his vow; he did not shrink; she submitted, and was slain. But you will want me to tell you in conclusion where the gospel is in all this. Gospel! I say that the blessed gospel is in the Old Testament as well as in the New. I say that the Word of God is one, and that His messag

speak about a Sunday-school tea-meeting which was to take place that week. The other two stood aside, ill at ease, amongst the crowd pressing out into the street. Presently Mrs. Coleman found her friend, whom she at once informed that Major Maitland and her husband were waiting for her, and that therefore she had not a

markable man. It is a long time since any speaker stirred

his sermon had been founded on some passage in the New Testament which would

ther a difficult passage in the case of a man about town like me; and I tell you wha

t for the stories in it, save as all are part o

reply, for the w

she and her husband pressed him to come in. He refused, however

had not now got such a tender place; I thought it was all healed over long ago. I canno

and his wife went upstairs.

my endeavours to bring our friends to a knowledge of the truth. I thoug

I do not consider it right to take upon myself what

inister! My dear Jane, is nobody but a

o you catch at my words? Perhaps, if you had not been quite so f

was the record of his own birth. There was the record of his mother's death, still in his father's writing, but in an altered hand, the letters not so distinct, and the strokes crooked and formed with difficulty. There was the record of Zachariah's own marriage. A cloud of shapeless, inarticulate sentiment obscured the man's eyes and bra

Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. . . . Be Thou not far from me, O Lord: O my strength

ign that he, Zachariah Coleman, should not be made better by anything. It might be part of that design, part of a fulfilment of a plan devised by the Infinite One, that he should be broken, nay, perhaps not saved. Mr. Bradshaw's doctrine that night was nothing new. Zachariah had believed from his childhood, or had thought he believed, that the potter had power over the clay-of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour; and that the thing formed unto dishonour could not reply and say to him that formed it: 'Why hast thou made me thus?' Nevertheless, to believe it generally was one thing; to believe it as a truth for him was another. Darkness, the darkness as of the crucifixion night, seemed over and around him. Poor wretch! he thought he was struggling with his weakness; but he was in reality struggling against his own strength. Why had God so decreed? Do what he could, that fatal why, the protest of his reason, ass