this public importunity: the good doctor was affected; he had prayed
fervently, alleging in his prayer, as the reason which chiefly weighed
with him to reject the offer, that it was far beyond his forces, and
chiefly because he was too young [Footnote: '_Because he was too
young_'--Dr. Doddridge was born in the summer of 1702; consequently
he was at this era of his life about twenty-seven years old, and
consequently not so obviously entitled to the excuse of youth. But he
pleaded his youth, not with a view to the exertions required, but to
the _auctoritas_ and responsibilities of the situation.] and had
no assistant. He goes on thus:--'As soon as ever this address' (meaning
the prayer) 'was ended, I passed through a room of the house in which I
lodged, where a child was reading to his mother, and the only words I
heard distinctly were these, _And as thy days, so shall thy strength
be_.' This singular coincidence between his own difficulty and a
scriptural line caught at random in passing hastily through a room,
(but observe, a line insulated from the context, and placed in high
relief to his ear,) shook his resolution. Accident co-operated; a
promise to be fulfilled at Northampton, in a certain contingency, fell
due at the instant; the doctor was detained, this detention gave time
for further representations; new motives arose, old difficulties were
removed, and finally the doctor saw, in all this succession of steps,
the first of which, however, lay in the _Sortes Biblicae_, clear
indications of a providential guidance. With that conviction he took up
his abode at Northampton, and remained there for the next thirty-one
years, until he left it for his grave at Lisbon; in fact, he passed at
Northampton the whole of his public life. It must, therefore, be
allowed to stand upon the records of sortilegy, that in the main
direction of his life--not, indeed, as to its spirit, but as to its
form and local connections--a Protestant divine of much merit, and
chiefly in what regards practice, and of the class most opposed to