devoted to sensuality and aggrandisement, that we hold the censers with
unhallowed hands, and in reality love the riches and pleasures which in
our pulpits we affect to renounce."

"You have wandered from the subject, my good brother," said Mrs.
Mellicent; "I was not talking of riches and pleasures, but of preserving
a father for a poor girl, who, if any evil befall you, will have no
protector. It is a long time since we heard from the mountains, and
Isabel's last letter gave no hope that poor Evellin would ever be able
even to take care of himself. She says that their dwelling is
comfortable, their farm equal to their support, and that the disturbers
of the world have not got among them. She writes cheerfully, but her
writing is much altered. I was thinking we might take shelter there
whenever those awakening providences, which my forebodings tell me are
at hand, shall compel you to own that you are discharged from the care
of ungrateful Ribblesdale."

The conversation was interrupted by Dame Humphreys, who rushed abruptly
into the house, lamenting that things should come to this pass, and
conjuring his reverence not to think any of her family were concerned in
it. It was with difficulty that her agitation permitted her to state,
that a mob bent on mischief were coming to the rectory; whether the
house or the life of the pastor was threatened she could not discover,
but the purport of her visit was to put them on their guard. A riotous
crowd, inflamed alike with liquor and fanaticism, is a formidable object
to the most determined courage; but escape was now impossible, and
remonstrance would be utterly unavailing; there was only time to put up
the slight fastenings to the doors and windows, which, as they
corresponded to the peaceful and unsuspecting character of the owner of
the mansion, could not long resist the infuriate attack of the besotted
populace.

But their rage was pointed at another object, the Doctor's library,
which was placed in a detached building in the garden, and fell an
undefended sacrifice to their rage. The voice of Davies was heard,
encouraging the destruction of a treasure which he had long envied, and
the flames soon afforded him sufficient light to point out the objects
of his particular abhorrence to which his ignorance gave false or
exaggerated descriptions. A cast of Apollo destroying Python, he termed
Moses and the brazen serpent, and named himself the Hezekiah who would
break it in p