feel I have done something.”  There was even in him a strain, if not of humour, of a shrewdness which was akin to it, and expressed itself in many pithy sayings.  “If two angels came down from heaven to execute a divine command, and one was appointed to conduct an empire and the other to sweep a street in it, they would feel no inclination to change employments.”  “A Christian should never plead spirituality for being a sloven; if he be but a shoe-cleaner, he should be the best in the parish.”  “My principal method for defeating heresy is by establishing truth.  One proposes to fill a bushel with tares; now if I can fill it first with wheat, I shall defy his attempts.”  That his Calvinism was not very dark or sulphureous, seems to be shown from his repeating with gusto the saying of one of the old women of Olney when some preacher dwelt on the doctrine of predestination—­“Ah, I have long settled that point; for if God had not chosen me before I was born, I am sure he would have seen nothing to have chosen me for afterwards.”  That he had too much sense to take mere profession for religion appears from his describing the Calvinists of Olney as of two sorts, which reminded him of the two baskets of Jeremiah’s figs.  The iron constitution which had carried him through so many hardships, enabled him to continue in his ministry to extreme old age.  A friend at length counselled him to stop before he found himself stopped by being able to speak no longer.  “I cannot stop,” he said, raising his voice.  “What! shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?”

At the instance of a common friend, Newton had paid Mrs. Unwin a visit at Huntingdon, after her husband’s death, and had at once established the ascendancy of a powerful character over her and Cowper.  He now beckoned the pair to his side, placed them in the house adjoining his own, and opened a private door between the two gardens, so as to have his spiritual children always beneath his eye.  Under this, in the most essential respect, unhappy influence, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin together entered on “a decided course of Christian happiness.”  That is to say they spent all their days in a round of religious exercises without relaxation or relief.  On fine summer evenings, as the sensible Lady Hesketh saw with dismay, instead of a walk, there was a prayer-meeting.  Cowper himself was made to do violence to his intense shyness by leading in prayer.  He was also made to visit the poor at once on spiritual missions, and on that of almsgiving, for which Thornton, the religious philanthropist, supplied Newton and his disciples with means.  This, which Southey appears to think about the worst part of Newton’s regimen, was probably its redeeming feature.  The effect of doing good to others on any mind was sure to be good; and the sight of real suffering was likely to banish fancied ills.  Cowper in this way gained at all events a practical knowledge of the poor, and learned to do