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He replied, however, that he would never have it said that Bishop Young had pulled down what Bishop Butler had set up, and so the cross retained its place until the palace was burnt in the great Bristol riots in 1831, when the marble was so shattered by the heat that it could not be recovered. The cross itself was about three feet high and eighteen inches wide, let into a large slab of black marble surrounded by wood carving.

The merchants of Bristol assisted in the restoration of their Bishop's palace by presenting him with a large quantity of cedar; so much indeed, that he afterwards carried some to Durham with him, to help in the works there.

Butler, like almost all great thinkers and great saints, seems to have delighted in silent meditation. It was his custom when in Bristol to walk in his garden there after nightfall. On one occasion, when Dr. Tucker his domestic chaplain was with him, he stopped suddenly and asked "What security is there against the insanity of individuals? the physicians know of none !"-and then, after a pause— Why may not whole communities be seized with fits of insanity, as well as individuals! Nothing but this can account for a great part of what we read in history." "I thought little," says Tucker, in relating this, "of that odd conceit of the Bishop's at the time, but I own I could not avoid thinking of it a great deal since, and applying it to many cases."

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Another and a different specimen of his meditations we have in a note, in his own handwriting, which strongly illustrates the manner in which he realized his own saying, that resignation to the will of God is the whole of piety. It runs thus :-" "Shall I not be faithful to God? If He puts a part upon 4 Cole MSS.

me to do, shall I neglect or refuse it? A part to suffer, and shall I say, I would not if I could help it? Can words more ill-sorted, more shocking be put together? And is not the thing expressed by them more so, tho' not expressed in words? What then shall I prefer to the sovereign Good, supreme Excellence, absolute Perfection? To whom shall I apply for direction in opposition to Infinite Wisdom? To whom for protection against Almighty Power?" This beautiful fragment is dated, "Sunday Evening, June 17, 1742." A word in it has been subsequently altered in a different ink, and beneath it was written:-" Hunger and thirst after righteousness, till filled with it by being made partaker of the Divine Nature." Such were the fervid thoughts which stirred the heart of the most dispassionate of theological writers. Butler was a true Englishman, calm and sober in his language, deep and strong in his inner nature.

In the year that Butler was consecrated, John Wesley returned to England from Georgia, and soon began his wonderful career as a preacher. He first preached in the open air at Kingswood, near Bristol, a strangely savage place, inhabited by a lawless population of miners. The Bishop could not fail to have a great interest in what followed; and it is said that Wesley, who was an admirer of the "Analogy," had an interview with him, in which Butler expressed his pleasure at the seriousness which his preaching awakened, but blamed him for sanctioning the violent physical excitement that was considered almost a necessary part of the so-called new birth.

Kingswood was not forgotten by its Bishop, who set himself to procure the erection of a church in its neighbourhood. At first it was to have been a

Chapel of Ease to St. Philip and Jacob; but at the desire of the inhabitants an Act of Parliament was procured, constituting it the New Parish of St. George. To its endowment Butler gave 400l. (a whole year's income, be it remembered, of his Bishopric), and he procured a further gift of 200l. from a lady of his acquaintance. He evidently took a warm interest in the welfare of the hospital at Bristol, which had been opened the year before his consecration, as well as sharing in the establishment of the London Hospital, for which he preached in 1748, taking occasion to dwell upon the religious character it might enjoy.

He was, we are told, most careful in the disposal of his patronage, seeking out worthy men wherever they were to be found. Thus Dr. Tucker, afterwards Dean of Gloucester, owed his first rise to Butler's notice of his diligence as Curate of St. Stephen's, in Bristol; and there is a monument in Bath AbbeyChurch to the Rev. Daniel Watson, recording his obligations to the Bishop, to whom he had no recommendation except his own merits. At the same time he refused to do anything for one of his own nephews, who did not quite come up to his standard of what a clergyman should be. Here, as afterwards at Durham, Butler endeavoured to make himself personally acquainted with his clergy in their own parishes. But one small fragment of his Episcopal Charges has been preserved; it is enough, however, to show their solid practical cha

racter.

His appointment as Dean of St. Paul's, as well as his parliamentary duties, called him frequently to London, where he had a house at Hampstead, praised very highly in the letters of his friends as an enchanting place. He adorned it, amongst other

things, with a series of scriptural pieces, in old stained glass, which some liked as little as his Bristol altar-piece. Secker, and Benson, and Miss Talbot were his constant guests, frequently dining with him every day. There is a journal of the parliamentary proceedings of this period, now in the British Museum, which was kept by Secker, from which we learn that Butler attended very regularly, and voted with the Government, though he does not appear to have spoken. The three Bishops of Oxford, Gloucester, and Bristol seem almost always to have attended and voted and retired together.

These three true friends were all of them much interested in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. They all had preached for it, all left it large legacies, and all took an active part in the design for planting bishops in America, which was so long laboured for by good churchmen, and for which the Society had already received donations. Butler drew up a paper on the subject, which is interesting, as showing the sort of objections he had to meet, and as it became afterwards a kind of text-paper in the discussion, it deserves to be preserved at length. It consisted only of the following four short articles :

"1. That no coercive power is desired over the laity in any case, but only a power to regulate the behaviour of the clergy who are in episcopal orders; and to correct and punish them according to the laws of the Church of England, in case of misbehaviour or neglect of duty, with such power as the Commissaries abroad have exercised.

"2. That nothing is desired for such Bishops that may in the least interfere with the dignity, or authority, or interest of the Governor, or any other

office of State. Probates of wills, licence for marriages, &c. to be left in the hands where they are : and no share in the temporal government is desired for the Bishops.

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3. The maintenance of such Bishops not to be at the charge of the colonies.

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4. No Bishops are intended to be settled in places where the government is left in the hands of Dissenters, as in New England, &c. But authority to be given, only to ordain clergy for such Church of England congregations as are among them, and to confirm the members thereof."

It was a great sign of the real weakness of the Church that even so extremely moderate a scheme as this could be frustrated by the vehemence of the New England Puritans. Butler's efforts were all in vain. Benson showed his interest in the cause by leaving a large legacy, which he directed, in his own words, "to be added to the fund for settling Bishops in our plantations in America, hoping that a design so necessary, and so unexceptionable, cannot but at last be put in execution." Secker, when both his friends were dead, revived the subject as Archbishop, but in vain ; and it was reserved for Archbishop Moore, whom Benson had noticed when a poor boy in Gloucester, and himself supported at College, to consecrate the first of those American Bishops that now exceed our own in numbers.

Already, in 1746, Butler had been made Clerk of the Closet to the King, and it was understood that the rich See of Durham had been promised to him on its next avoidance. He is said to have refused the Archbishopric of Canterbury in 1747, saying that it was too late for him to try to support a falling Church. Perhaps this refusal, if the story be true, may have arisen from an inward consciousness that