to say, that the Day of Judgment would take place in sixty years!

It was in consequence of this strange misapprehension, that he repeated the same sermon at St. George's Church, when, with a strength and firmness of tone, which reached every part of that large congregation, he stated explicitly and distinctly, that he neither pretended to prophecy nor to interpret prophecy; but that the sentiments, which he then expressed, were sanctioned by the known, recorded opinion of some of the ablest and most distinguished Divines.

I believe that no sermon ever attracted more attention than this. The veneration universally felt for his exalted character; the general idea, which prevailed, that this was the last occasion of his public preaching; the interest, which his feeble and emaciated form so powerfully ex

cited; the energy, with which, notwithstanding his infirmities, he delivered many of those sublime passages, which are interspersed through the Revelations; the animated picture, which he drew of the unprecedented and portentous aspect of the times; and the hope, which seemed to fill and elevate his soul, that this Country might possibly be the chosen instrument in the hand of God to diffuse the light of the Gospel throughout the world, and ultimately to accomplish the great schemes of Providence; all these circumstances conspired to render this discourse uncommonly affecting. It was heard with a profound stillness, of which I scarcely ever observed a similar instance; and it made, I trust, a deep and lasting impression on the minds of the congregation.

Not many days after, on the 20th of

the

the same month, he pronounced in his official capacity, sentence of deprivation on the Rev. Francis Stone; a clergyman of his diocese, who, at the prosecution of the King's Advocate, under the direction of Government, had been clearly convicted, in the Consistory Court of London, of having preached and afterwards published a most profane and blasphemous sermon, in which, with a coarseness and vulgarity of language altogether unparalleled in modern theological controversy, he denied the grand, essential doctrine of our Church, the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The following passage, in reference to this subject, marks in a strong point of view the Bishop's sentiments, and is highly honourable to his feelings.

"It was very painful to me," he says, "to feel myself under the necessity of proceeding

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proceeding to such extremities. It was the first instance of the kind that had occurred to me, since I sat upon the Bench; and it was totally repugnant to my wishes to punish any man for mere difference of opinion in matters of religion. But this was far from being the whole of the offence on the present occasion; for, besides the very obnoxious principles advanced in the Sermon, it reviles, and treats with the utmost indignity, contempt, and ridicule, not only all the Articles of the Church of England, but the essential, fundamental doctrines of the Gospel and when it is considered further, that the author had himself subscribed to the very doctrines which he so strongly reprobated and inveighed against, and that by means of that subscription he held a Living in the Diocese of London, no one surely can think it

right, that such a man under such circumstances, should be permitted any longer to retain a valuable benefice in that very Church which he had in such gross opprobrious terms vilified and insulted."

ing

Notwithstanding the Bishop's increas

debility, which rendered him very unequal to any great exertion, he yet determined to make a last effort in the course of the summer to carry through Parliament a Bill, which he had long had much at heart, for encouraging the residence of Stipendiary Curates, I have already mentioned the disappointment which he experienced in the rejection of this measure upon a former occasion; and, though he was well aware that a strong opposition would again be made to it, yet he would not have satisfied his own mind, if he had abandoned a question,

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