and his service, is a fulness of all joy and pleasure, and no satiety.  And I will now use all my endeavours to bring my relations and dependents to a love and reliance on Him, who never fails those that trust him.  But above all, I will be sure to live well, because the virtuous life of a Clergyman is the most powerful eloquence to persuade all that see it to reverence and love, and at least to desire to live like him.  And this I will do, because I know we live in an age that hath more need of good examples than precepts.  And I beseech that God, who hath honoured me so much as to call me to serve him at his altar, that as by his special grace he hath put into my heart these good desires and resolutions; so he will, by his assisting grace, give me ghostly strength to bring the same to good effect.  And I beseech him, that my humble and charitable life may so win upon others, as to bring glory to my Jesus, whom I have this day taken to be my Master and Governor; and I am so proud of his service, that I will always observe, and obey, and do his will; and always call him, Jesus my Master; and I will always contemn my birth, or any title or dignity that can be conferred upon me, when I shall compare them with my title of being a Priest, and serving at the Altar of Jesus my Master.”

[Sidenote:  “The Odour”]

And that he did so, may appear in many parts of his book of Sacred Poems:  especially in that which he calls “The Odour.”  In which he seems to rejoice in the thoughts of that word Jesus, and say, that the adding these words, my Master, to it, and the often repetition of them, seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an oriental fragrancy in his very breath.  And for his unforced choice to serve at God’s altar, he seems in another place of his poems, “The Pearl,” (Matt. xiii. 45, 46,) to rejoice and say—­“He knew the ways of learning; knew what nature does willingly, and what, when it is forced by fire; knew the ways of honour, and when glory inclines the soul to noble expressions; knew the Court; knew the ways of pleasure, of love, of wit, of music, and upon what terms he declined all these for the service of his Master Jesus;” and then concludes, saying,

  That, through these labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,
  But thy silk twist, let down from Heaven to me,
  Did both conduct, and teach me, how by it To climb to thee.

[Sidenote:  A Priest’s Wife]

The third day after he was made Rector of Bemerton, and had changed his sword and silk clothes into a canonical coat, he returned so habited with his friend Mr. Woodnot to Bainton; and immediately after he had seen and saluted his wife, he said to her—­“You are now a Minister’s wife, and must now so far forget your father’s house, as not to claim a precedence of any of your parishioners; for you are to know, that a Priest’s wife can challenge no precedence or place, but that which she purchases by her obliging humility; and I am sure, places so