the congregations of the Nonconformists,
and used his talent to the great good-liking of the hearers. Thus he
spent his latter years. But let me come a little nearer to particulars
of time. After he was sensibly convicted of the wicked state of his life
and converted, he was baptised into the congregation, and admitted a
member thereof in the year 1655, and became speedily a very zealous
professor. But upon the return of King Charles II. to the Crown in 1660,
he was on November 12 taken as he was edifying some good people, and
confined in Bedford Gaol for the space of six years; till the Act of
Indulgence to dissenters being allowed, he obtained his freedom by the
intercession of some in power that took pity on his sufferings; but was
again taken up, and was then confined for six years more. He was chosen
to the care of the congregation at Bedford on December 12, 1671. In this
charge he often had disputed with scholars that came to oppose him, as
thinking him an ignorant person; but he confuted, and put to silence,
one after another, all his method being to keep close to Scripture.

At length, worn out with sufferings, age, and often teaching, the day of
his dissolution drew near. Riding to Reading in order to plead with a
young man's father for reconciliation to him, he journeyed on his return
by way of London, where, through being overtaken by excessive rains and
coming to his lodgings extremely wet, he fell sick of a violent fever,
which he bore with much constancy and patience. Finding his vital
strength decay, he resigned his soul into the hands of his most merciful
Redeemer, following his Pilgrim from the City of Destruction to the New
Jerusalem. He died at the house of one Mr. Straddocks, a grocer, at the
Star on Snow Hill, in the Parish of St. Sepulchre, London, in the
sixtieth year of his age, after ten days' sickness; and was buried in
the new burying ground in Artillery Place.

* * * * *

ALEXANDER CARLYLE

Autobiography

Alexander Carlyle, minister of the Church of Scotland and
author of the celebrated "Autobiography," was born at
Cummmertrees Manse, Dumfriesshire, on January 26, 1722, and
died at Inveresk on August 25, 1805. His commanding appearance
won for him the sobriquet of "Jupiter Carlyle," and Sir Walter
Scott spoke of him as "the grandest demi-god I ever saw." He
was greatly respected in Scotland as a wise and tolerant