Changing.

Restless.

a Baptist; but what he now is I know not, nor does he know himself. Each thought they had him, but he escaped from them all. The harpoon entered the log in a soft place, where it could not hold. What has become of him I know not; but when next drawn to the shore, he may be cast back again into the current as too worthless to repay the trouble of fishing him out.

"There are exceptions to all general rules. In the course of his studies, a young man may see reasons sufficient to leave the Church of his early education for some other. No man is bound to the faith of his fathers, because, if so, the Jew must remain a Jew, the pagan a pagan, the papist a papist, forever. No young man is to be censured for departing from the faith of his fathers, if he does so for reasons, and wisely. But when men have formed their opinions, and preached them for years, and then change them, it is an evidence of a restless, disordered state of mind. One or two attacks of any disease render the system liable to its return; and one or two changes in opinions are liable to convert the individual into a changeling, and to send him out upon the stream of life as drift-wood.

"And how many there are connected, as private members, with the churches whose only fit emblem is drift-wood. They go here and there as prejudice, or passion, or fashion, or some disappointment may sway them. I knew an elder twice censured in a Presbytery, who, in revenge, became a most violent HighChurchman, and had all his children rebaptized for conscience' sake! and family were from

Mr.

Millerites.

No root.

England; according to their own showing, they left the husks of the Establishment for the simple truth of the Independents. They then attached themselves to the ministry of some supralapsarian shoemaker. They came to this country, but for a long time could find no suitable successor to the shoemaker. As I was considered as coming nearest to him, they placed themselves under my ministry. For a time they would have plucked out their eyes and given them to me; but the Millerite fever became epidemic, and they caught it badly. The fanatics of that threadbare nonsense became their favorites. I no longer preached the Gospel, because I did not preach up the destruction of the world about Easter, and advise the faithful to commence cutting their ascension robes. They were swept out as drift-wood upon the bosom of the freshet, but where it has carried them is hardly worth the inquiry.

"And persons of whom drift-wood is the true emblem are to be found in every community, and attached to all congregations. They are as numerous as those who are ungoverned by fixed principles. There are those in the ministry who can pass from this body. to that, from this school to that, with all ease. These regard themselves, and would be regarded by others, as moderate and catholic. But there is another explanation for all this; their own lines of opinion are drawn with invisible ink, and can be shifted to suit circumstances; they have no root in themselves. There are those in the churches upon whom you can make no calculation. The next freshet may carry

Dr. Priestley.

Steadfastness.

them into some new connection, or work a change in their entire views and feelings. I look around me, and see persons who have been connected with three churches in less than three years. I see others who have passed from one denomination to another because their minister did not like secret societies, or preach up, to the point of scalding heat, the efficacy of some plans of social reform. And there are but few churches in the land where the freshets to which human opinions and society are ever liable have not deposited some of this drift-wood, where it will remain until the rise of another freshet, when it will be again swept out and whirled we know not whither. When the tree is torn up by the roots and swept into the current, there is no telling where it will stop; and if brought to shore, it will be difficult to replant it. It will not pay for the labor. Dr. Priestley was once a high Calvinist, then a low one; then an Arminian; then a high Arian, then a low one; then a Unitarian; then a Humanitarian; and he was once heard to say, 'If God spares me a few years more, I know not what I shall be before I die.' When a stone is started on the brow of the mountain, it is hard to stop it until it reaches the bottom.

"Many make a great noise when a minister, or persons in high position, pass over to them. But they have caught only drift-wood. How long they can keep them is uncertain; and to what use they can. put them is often a question.

"There are those who are steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the works of the Lord, and those

Cedars.

Drift-wood.

who are ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. The first are as the cedars in Lebanon, that bear fruit even to old age, and that are fit to be converted to the most useful purposes in the house of the Lord; the second are but drift-wood, scarcely fit to feed the fires that warm it."

Two churches.

Forty Fort.

CHAPTER X.

Zeal and Self-denial.-The People.-Their want of Punctuality.Free-thinkers and Infidels. - Characteristic Letter from one of them.-A Protracted Meeting.-A Lawyer enraged.-Beasts at Ephesus.-Is invited to go West.-Declines.-Builds a new Church.

Two congregations, on opposite sides of the river, were now upon his hands. A small church was at Kingston, with no house of worship except an old building at Forty Fort, where he preached every Sabbath morning. This is a famous spot in early American history, and is associated with the bloody story of the Massacre of Wyoming. Here he lectured every week, spending the afternoon of the same day of the lecture in visiting his people from house to house. Up among the mountains, in the most retired and difficult passes, he sought his sheep, gathered them into the fold, and under the influence of his ministry. The same indefatigable energy, the same zeal and perseverance that had marked his pursuit of knowledge in preparation for his work, were now displayed with intenser ardor and self-denial. On foot or on horseback, in the midst of storms and cold, he pursued these labors with a diligence and spirit that could not fail of success. Even beyond the mountains, in Northmoreland, he pressed his way to carry the Gospel as a volunteer missionary beyond the bounds of his own parish, and there are now five or six churches to be