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public prayers as are appointed in the Book of Common Prayer; neither shall they disturb the service or sermon by walking or talking, or any other way; nor depart out of the church during the time of service or sermon, without some urgent or reasonable cause.

WORK OVER.

WORK is over! GOD must speed it!
Work and workmen on Him rest;
His good blessing-much we need it!
That alone can make us blest.
Rest is come! with joy receive it!
We have done the best we can;
Work is over! here we leave it;

End of GOD, and means of man.

Work is done! To wife or mother

Homewards now we bend our way:
All true hearts are with each other,
Those who go, and those who stay.
When the world and we are parted,
And the end of life is come,

What is death to GoD's True-hearted,
But, like this—a going Home?
Rev. J. M. Neale.

POSSIBLY Sometimes in hearing or reading the Word, the conscience may be alarmed, the affections warmed, good desires begin to kindle, and to form themselves into some degrees of resolution; but, the heart remaining all the time unchanged, as soon as men slide into the common course and converse of the world, all those resolutions and convictions quickly cool and languish, and after a few days are dismissed as troublesome companions.-South.

A SKETCH OF ONE OF THE WORKING CLERGY.

THE REV. JOHN BOLD, A.B.

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1679-1751.

"I HAVE many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,' were some of the last words of our LORD to His sorrowing disciples; He could not then tell them fully of all they would have to suffer for His sake, for their minds were not prepared for the discovery. And it is well that the sincere and zealous, but too sanguine candidate for the sacred office, does not foresee how different may be his portion from what he had formerly anticipated.

He is prepared, indeed, to encounter difficulties; he expects to meet with opposition on the part of the wicked or contentious; he is prepared to be unjustly spoken against, yea, to have even his good spoken evil of; against railing, and calumny, and persecution, he is already armed, and consoles himself with the promise of his SAVIOUR, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall speak all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." But there is another thing for which he is frequently not so well prepared, and which he is quite as likely to encounter, and that is, neglect. With high hopes and expectations he enters as a labourer in God's vineyard; he has good talents, well cultivated; has literary tastes, and those not inconsistent with his profession; is skilled, it may be, in the original languages of Scripture, and has entered deeply into the study of biblical criticism; and he not unfairly hopes to attain, ere long, a station of extended usefulness. But such a person may, during the whole or greater portion of his life, be called to take the oversight of some rural parish, where he meets with none capable of estimating his abilities, or affording him pleasant society; where, without the means of purchasing books, and far from the libraries to which he has been accustomed, he is precluded from pursuing those studies on which he formerly hoped to found a well-earned reputation.

The Rev. John Bold was born at Leicester, in 1679, and was the descendant of a respectable family, nearly related to the Wigleys of Scraptoft, of which one branch represented the borough of Leicester in parliament, and another sat for the city of Worcester.

His early progress in learning was so great, that at the age of fifteen he was matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge; he was B.A. at the age of nineteen; but being somewhat straitened in circumstances, he retired to Hinckley, where he engaged in teaching a small endowed school, at the "liberal salary of 107. per annum.

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In May, 1702, he was ordained deacon by Dr. James Gardiner, Bishop of Lincoln, who was so pleased with Mr. Bold's proficiency in sacred learning, that he determined to make him his chaplain; but death prevented the good Bishop from fulfilling his intention. The curacy to which he was ordained was Stoney Stanton, a secluded village in Leicestershire, about four or five miles from Hinckley. His stipend was 301. a year, which was never increased; and his whole property on entering the parish consisted in "his chamber furniture, and a library more valuable for being select than extensive." 'Here," continues his biographer, "remote from polished and literary society, which he was calculated both to enjoy and adorn, he never cast any longing, lingering looks behind, but girded up the loins of his mind for diligent service in his narrow sphere." It will possibly be a matter of some interest to know how this good man contrived to exist on what must, even in those days, have been a very narrow income.

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On his first entrance to his cure he marked out for himself a plan of living, which he continued to observe for the space of fifty years. At first he paid 87. for board and lodging at a farmer's house; this was afterwards increased to 127., and ultimately to 161. per annum.

From the remainder of his income he gave away 57. in charity, and laid by 57. for his declining years,

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or for more permanent acts of benevolence. This left him 67. per annum for clothes and other incidental expenses, and yet he had great regard to personal neatness and propriety. He always wore a gown and bands, and appeared always attired in the same decent but plain manner, into whatever company he went. "His daily fare consisted of watergruel for his breakfast; a plate from the farmer's table with whom he boarded supplied his dinner; after dinner one half pint of ale, of his own brewing, was his only luxury; he took no tea, and his supper was on milk pottage. In the winter he read and wrote by the farmer's fire-side; in the summer, in his own room."

After leading this simple life for more than forty years, advancing age began to incapacitate him for the full discharge of his public duties; but his annual savings of 57., which had been put out to interest, enabled him to secure the services of a coadjutor during the last six years of his life. He divided his little stipend with a clergyman holding a small property in the parish, making up the deficiency from his savings. On Oct. 29th, 1751, at the age of seventy-three, he departed this life for a better; and bequeathed to the farmer with whom he had lodged 1007., another 100l. to some of his relatives, and 401. to be placed out at interest for the benefit of the poor of his parish, and for an annual sermon in support of Church doctrine and discipline, in opposition to the loose notions which were propagated by Wesley and his followers.

Having thus glanced at his mode of life, let us view him as a parish priest. How uncongenial soever might at first have appeared his situation, he had not held his curacy a twelvemonth before he formed the resolution of remaining there for life, as a living sacrifice for the benefit of his flock, and with a view of making his example and doctrine the more striking and effective, by his permanent residence and labours in one and the same place.

(1.) With respect to the public duties of his church, he commenced the business of the Sunday on the Saturday evening, by publicly instructing the children of the parish in the elements of religion. He had two full services on Sunday, a service daily during Lent, and on every Wednesday and Friday and Festival throughout the year.

"If any were absent from the duty of the Church on the Lord's-day, he failed not to visit them the following morning; if they were sick, to administer the consolation of his prayers; or, otherwise, to admonish them of their duty. This is beyond doubt the most painful, difficult, and delicate part of the ministerial office; yet in the divine word it is bound upon the ministry by such sanctions, no less than the loss of their own souls if neglected, and also by the ordination vows of priests in our own Church, that public or private admonition, or both, as circumstances require, must be given by the ministers of religion, if they either regard their duty or their own future salvation."

(2.) With regard to his more private and friendly intercourse with his flock,

"His disposition was social, though restrained by a self-denial necessary to his character. When he went abroad upon his pastoral visits, he would rarely if ever accept a courtesy beyond a pipe, and after a short but civil visit would retire; but as the poor

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pleased with his company at the christening of a child, he would sometimes accept an invitation to partake of their humble fare, in order to augment their pleasures, and leave a present in money fully adequate to his entertainment. And if the respect of any parishioner sent him any thing better than his usual fare for his table, he would give it for the common use of the family in which he resided. In this manner he maintained that independency of character and self-denial, which is necessary to the proper discharge of the ministerial office."

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