of the mighty deep on a soul which, in its weather-beaten casing, had retained its native sensibility, and, we may safely add, of the disregarded but not forgotten teachings of his pious mother.  Providence was now kind to him; he became captain of a slave ship, and made several voyages on the business of the trade.  That it was a wicked trade he seems to have had no idea; he says he never knew sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion than on his two last voyages to Guinea.  Afterwards it occurred to him that though his employment was genteel and profitable, it made him a sort of gaoler, unpleasantly conversant with both chains and shackles; and he besought Providence to fix him in a more humane calling,

In answer to his prayer came a fit of apoplexy, which made it dangerous for him to go to sea again.  He obtained an office in the port of Liverpool, but soon he set his heart on becoming a minister of the Church of England.  He applied for ordination to the Archbishop of York, but not having the degree required by the rules of the Establishment, he received through his Grace’s secretary “the softest refusal imaginable.”  The Archbishop had not had the advantage of perusing Lord Macaulay’s remarks on the difference between the policy of the Church of England and that of the Church of Rome, with regard to the utilization of religious enthusiasts.  In the end Newton was ordained by the Bishop of Lincoln, and threw himself with the energy of a newborn apostle upon the irreligion and brutality of Olney.  No Carthusian’s breast could glow more intensely with the zeal which is the offspring of remorse.  Newton was a Calvinist of course, though it seems not an extreme one, otherwise he would probably have confirmed Cowper in the darkest of hallucinations.  His religion was one of mystery and miracle, full of sudden conversions, special providences and satanic visitations.  He himself says that “his name was up about the country for preaching people mad:”  it is true that in the eyes of the profane Methodism itself was madness; but he goes on to say “whether it is owing to the sedentary life the women live here, poring over their (lace) pillows for ten or twelve hours every day, and breathing confined air in their crowded little rooms, or whatever may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen in different degrees disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly gracious people.”  He surmises that “these things are permitted in judgment, that they who seek occasion for cavilling and stumbling may have what they want.”  Nevertheless there were in him not only force, courage, burning zeal for doing good, but great kindness, and even tenderness of heart.  “I see in this world,” he said, “two heaps of human happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other I carry a point—­if, as I go home, a child has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I