to him an eternal fountain of peace. These are the fruits of the
Spirit, and this the soul that emanates from our sacred religion. If
ye bear these fruits now in the time of this life, if ye write these
laws on the tablets of your hearts so as ye not only say but do them,
then indeed are ye the true servants of Jesus and the children of His
redemption. For you He came down from Heaven; for you He was scorned
and hated upon earth; for you mangled on the Cross; and at the last
day, when the trumpet shall sound, and the earth melt, and the heavens
groan and die, ye shall spring up from the dust of the grave, the
ever-living spirits of God."

All the sermons breathe the same fiery indignation against cruelty and
tyranny, the same quick sympathy with poverty, suffering, and debasement;
and, here and there, especially in the occasional references to France and
Switzerland, they show pretty clearly the preacher's political bias. In his
own phrase, he "loved truth better than he loved Dundas,[18] at that time
the tyrant of Scotland"; and it would have been a miracle if his
outspokenness had passed without remonstrance from the authoritative and
privileged classes. But the spirited preface to the second edition shows
that he had already learned to hold his own, unshaken and unterrified, in
what he believed to be a righteous cause:--

"As long as God gives me life and strength I will never cease to
attack, in the way of my profession and to the best of my abilities,
any system of principles injurious to the public happiness, whether
they be sanctioned by the voice of the many, or whether they be not;
and may the same God take that unworthy life away, whenever I shrink
from the contempt and misrepresentation to which my duty shall call me
to submit."

The year 1800 was marked, for Sydney Smith, by an event even more momentous
than the publication of his first book. It was the year of his marriage.
His sister Maria had a friend and schoolfellow called Catharine Amelia
Pybus. He had known her as a child; and while still quite young had become
engaged to marry her, whenever circumstances should make it possible. The
young lady's father was John Pybus, who had gone to India in the service of
the Company, attained official distinction and made money. Returning to
England, he settled at Cheam in Surrey, where he died in 1789. In 1800 his
daughter Catharine was twenty-two y