reserve their singing and praying, and all that
was strictly worship, for assemblies of Christians alone. He recommended
that the members of the church should meet first, in a place apart, or
in a part of the chapel marked off for themselves, and go through their
devotions all alone, and that the sermon, addressed both to believers
and unbelievers, should be quite a separate service. He had passages of
Scripture, and church tradition, and considerations of fitness and
propriety, by which he recommended his doctrine, and to some they proved
convincing. I began myself, after thinking the matter over for awhile,
to have a leaning towards his views. My friends could so far tolerate
the new views, that they allowed Mr. Bird to preach in their chapels,
letting some one else conduct the singing and praying parts of the
service. But when they found that their own minister began to look with
favor on the new plan, they became alarmed. They could tolerate
peculiarities in others, but they were not disposed to appear before the
world as reformers and innovators themselves. Nor would they allow their
minister to go any farther in the way of reform than he had gone before
they had accepted him as their pastor. They had reconciled themselves to
the changes of which he had been the subject previous to his special
connection with them, but they would have no new ones. He might go back
a little if he pleased, but not forwards.

Both my friends and I were placed in a trying position. I was bent on
compliance with whatever seemed to be the requirements of the Gospel,
and my friends, who had no misgivings on the subject of public worship,
were resolved not to tolerate a change. I kept the usual course as long
as I could do so without self-condemnation, but at length was
constrained to change. One Sunday night I preached from the concluding
words of the Sermon on the Mount,--"Therefore whosoever heareth these
sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which
built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for
it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of
Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which
built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and
great was the fall of it." I reviewed the sayin