stood, and approved, but find I cannot now at all comprehend. The disaffection of the people then ran the highest; but high as it was you then declared that the congregation stood distinct and separate from the academy, and that you would support me through every opposition. Now that the congregation in general express the warmest attachment, that very congregation has become the chief objection. Your connection with me in the academy formerly depressed you, on account of my not having the confidence of the subscribers. My friends have now proposed I should decline the academy and you say, " If you do, I will resign." Formerly you blamed me for divulging my sentiments on materialism, even in private circles; you remonstrated on the dangerous consequences of circulating among the common people, tenets which will be but imperfectly understood. Now it has become proper and necessary to publish them in the hearing of the whole congregation. You profess yourself a Calvinist. I do not. But this difference of sentiment is of no importance in your estimation. It might be thought strange that a Calvinist should hold his religious system as nothing, whilst a philosophical subtilty is swelled to such importance. But my wonder vanishes when I recollect, that to serve different purposes from those that are now stirring, you justified my orthodoxy in too many places, and in too large an extent, ever to be forgotten.

After all, I do not suspect the goodness of your

general character; but the grounds of your conduct in this business are covered from my eyes, and from those of most others by an impenetrable mystery.

You have done nothing inconsistent with personal friendship, but you have done too much ever to permit us to act together as colleagues with unanimity and confidence. Under the strongest professions of personal attachment, in which you are certainly sincere, induced by reasons I cannot penetrate, you have thrown your whole weight into the scale of the disaffected, have crushed every hope of my continuance, and in my ministerial capacity have stood out as my last and almost only opposer. In all these transactions a plain path lay open before you; but seduced by the inveterate love of rule, you choose rather to purchase lasting resentments by doing every thing, than secure your repose by doing nothing.

Yours, &c.

ROBERT HALL.

Nine days after the date of this letter, an interview took place between Dr. Evans, Mr. Hall, and four of their friends, in the hope of adjusting the matter in dispute. Mr. Hall opened his complaints by reading and delivering the above letter. The doctor complained of being met by a statement elaborately written, a copy of which had not been previously furnished him, and it could not be expected that he was then fully prepared to answer

it. His friends considered the severe reflections on his conduct in this matter to be unfounded and unjust; the friends of the other party maintained that their severity consisted wholly in their being just and true. In the issue Dr. Evans distinctly and solemnly denied that he had ever entertained any premeditated scheme for removing Mr. Hall from Bristol, or that he had been actuated by any improper influence in the part he had taken;-a declaration which Mr. Hall, unhappily, was unable to admit, and thus terminated the intercourse and the friendship which had so long subsisted between them.

Dr. Evans was a very amiable and excellent man, and had strong claims on the grateful esteem of his assistant; but in this instance he evidently miscalculated the degree of influence which he himself possessed, the weight of talent with which he had to contend, and the effects which must follow on being brought into collision with such a man as Robert Hall. Throughout the whole of this business he seems to have trusted more to the superiority of his station, than to the strict propriety of the conduct he had to defend, which created a general suspicion that the growing popularity of his compeer was the sole ground of his opposition. With all the respect due to seniority there is a point at which it must terminate, when it can no no longer be exercised without a prostrate and abject submission. Before Mr. Hall had himself reached the age of his worthy colleague he culti

vated an affectionate esteem for his junior brethren, and appeared at all times desirous of forgetting his own superiority, and of joining in the commendation and applause awarded to his contemporaries.

The agitation so long continued in the congregation at Broadmead, was not the only affliction Mr. Hall had to contend with; there was another ingredient in the cup, which gave a pungency to its bitterness. Besides the vexations of unfounded prejudice, he had at the same time to sustain a trial of heart and intellect to which he found himself unequal, and which rendered a change of scene highly necessary. Unable to resist the influence of a passion which he has truly designated 'the mistress of the soul,', he became its victim, and fell a prey to all the miseries of unrequited love. By the absorption of his feelings the discharge of official duties was either interrupted or rendered irksome, and little was left him but anguish and regret. Numerous eccentricities, which either annoyed or were deplored by others, had no doubt their origin in this unfortunate circumstance, which was to him the source of much disquietude for years afterwards.

The object of his tender solicitude is said to have been a lady of some accomplishments, a relation of the celebrated Miss Steele, so well known by her devotional Hymns and other poetical compositions, which were collected and published in three volumes, by Dr. Caleb Evans. The family ancestor

was a Mr. Steele, pastor of the baptist church at Boughton in Wiltshire. Living in the beginning of the last century, when the act of toleration was scarcely sufficient to afford protection from the rude insults of the populace, this gentleman was frequently interrupted in the exercise of his ministry, and displayed on one occasion a singular instance of heroism. His house was entered by two dashing young men, with whips in their hands, thinking to amuse themselves with inflicting a few stripes on the sturdy nonconformist. Mr. Steele being a powerful athletic man, and perceiving their design, he placed his back against the wall, and when his assailants came forward he grasped them by the collar, one in each hand, and brought their empty heads into contact with such violence that they soon begged to be released, and were glad to make a precipitate retreat.

The lady alluded to appears to have received the attentions of her unfortunate admirer only for the purpose of rendering him the victim of caprice, and eventually preferred an alliance with property and influence to all the ardour, all the gracefulness, and all the mental attractions of the unrivaled Robert Hall, but recollected ever after with no small degree of complacency the conquest she had achieved. The peculiar sensibility and highly honourable feelings of the disappointed and injured party, added a poignancy to the grief and chagrin which no ordinary mind could well appreciate, though as generally happens, it is from per