heats in
relieving the Colonel from the imbecility of extreme decrepitude. Dr.
Beaumont was then to join the hands of Arthur and Isabel, and they and
their father were to remove to Holland, where every friend of the Royal
Martyr was affectionately welcomed by the Princess of Orange, whose only
consolation in her deep affliction for him, was to cherish those who
suffered in his cause. Arthur possessed a small private fortune
independent of his parents, which, when converted into cash, would be
adequate to their frugal support; and it was agreed, that while they
waited the chance of the Colonel's recovery, no disclosure should be
made of the change in his principles. He, therefore, retained the title
of Sedley; continued to visit Morgan; talked of the friendship of
Cromwell; and pretended that he resided with the Beaumonts, because he
still required the assistance of his surgeon, and that he wished to be
fully convinced of their inoffensive conduct before he recommended them
to the General's favour.

During this time the Sunday assembling of the church in the wilderness
was repeated as often as the safety of the congregation would permit.
These were Dr. Beaumont's halcyon moments; the refreshing balms which
enabled him to support his public and private affliction. The terrible
death of Humphreys had made a great impression in the village, the
outrageous blasphemies of the self-condemned reprobate in his last
moments, and the utter inability of the various teachers of different
opinions who gathered around him, to tranquillize his disordered
imagination or quiet his alarmed conscience, led the beholders of that
heart-rending scene to recollect, that no such occurrence had taken
place during the quiet ministry of him who had preached the comfortable
doctrine of God's universal acceptance of penitent sinners, and who had
ever aimed rather to reform their lives than bewilder their
understandings or influence their imaginations. Many of the neighbours
who wanted courage to attend his more public services, visited the
Doctor by night, and besought his instruction as a preceptor, or his
judgment as a casuist. One wished him to talk with his wife, who was so
much engrossed with spiritual things, that she thought it sinful to
attend to temporal concerns. He said she left him alone in a severe fit
of sickness, while in extreme danger, to listen to a favourite preacher;
and, when reproved for her inhumanity, she burst into a transpo