strength and wisdom beyond your own, in a certain Quarter where
they will never be sought in vain. Yet you will delight in all your
duty: and you will thank God you feel that were your work in life
to choose again, you would give yourself to the noblest task that
can be undertaken by mortal, with a resolute purpose firmer a
thousand times than even the enthusiastic preference of your early
youth. The attention and sympathy with which your congregation
will listen to your sermons, will be a constant encouragement and
stimulus; and you will find friends so dear and true, that yon.
will hope never to part from them while life remains. In such a
life, indeed, these Essays, which never would have been begun had
my duty been always such, must be written in little snatches of
time: and perhaps a sharp critic could tell, from internal evidence,
which of them have been written in the country and which in the
town. I look up from the table at which I write: and the roses,
honeysuckle, and the fuchsias, of a year since, are far away:
through the window I discover lofty walls, whose colour inclines
to black. Yet I have not regretted the day, and I do not believe
I ever will regret the day, when I ceased to be a Country Parson.





CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING DISAPPOINTMENT AND SUCCESS.