It was not long before this intruding Minister had made a party in and about the said Parish, that were desirous to receive the Sacrament as in Geneva; to which end, the day was appointed for a select company, and forms and stools set about the altar, or communion-table, for them to sit and eat and drink:  but when they went about this work, there was a want of some joint-stools, which the Minister sent the Clerk to fetch, and then to fetch cushions,—­but not to kneel upon.—­When the Clerk saw them begin to sit down, he began to wonder; but the Minister bade him “cease wondering, and lock the Church-door:”  to whom he replied, “Pray take you the keys, and lock me out:  I will never come more into this Church; for all men will say, my master Hooker was a good man, and a good scholar; and I am sure it was not used to be thus in his days:”  and report says the old man went presently home and died; I do not say died immediately, but within a few Christian days after.[30]

[Sidenote:  His Christian behavior]

But let us leave this grateful Clerk in his quiet grave, and return to Mr. Hooker himself, continuing our observations of his Christian behaviour in this place, where he gave a holy valediction to all the pleasures and allurements of earth; possessing his soul in a virtuous quietness, which he maintained by constant study, prayers, and meditations.  His use was to preach once every Sunday, and he, or his Curate, to catechise after the second Lesson in the Evening Prayer.  His Sermons were neither long nor earnest, but uttered with a grave zeal and an humble voice:  his eyes always fixed on one place, to prevent imagination from wandering; insomuch that he seemed to study as he spake.  The design of his Sermons—­as indeed of all his discourses—­was to shew reasons for what he spake; and with these reasons such a kind of rhetoric, as did rather convince and persuade, than frighten men into piety; studying not so much for matter,—­which he never wanted,—­as for apt illustrations, to inform and teach his unlearned hearers by familiar examples, and then make them better by convincing applications; never labouring by hard words, and then by heedless distinctions and sub-distinctions, to amuse his hearers, and get glory to himself; but glory only to God.  Which intention, he would often say, was as discernible in a Preacher, “as a natural from an artificial beauty.”

[Sidenote:  Fasting and prayer]

He never failed the Sunday before every Ember-week to give notice of it to his parishioners, persuading them both to fast, and then to double their devotions for a learned and a pious Clergy, but especially the last; saying often, “That the life of a pious Clergyman was visible rhetoric; and so convincing, that the most godless men—­though they would not deny themselves the enjoyment of their present lusts—­did yet secretly wish themselves like those of the strictest lives.”  And to what he persuaded others, he added his own example of fasting and prayer; and did usually every Ember-week take from the Parish-Clerk the key of the Church-door, into which place he retired every day, and locked himself up for many hours; and did the like most Fridays and other days of fasting.