sun rising or setting, as being always up after the one, and abed before the other; so some negligent people never hear prayers begun, or sermon ended, the confession being past before they come, and the blessing not come before they are passed away.

In sermon he sets himself to hear God in the minister. Therefore divesteth he himself of all prejudice, the jaundice in the eyes of the soul, presenting colors false unto it. He hearkens very attentively: 't is a shame when the church itself is cœmeterium, wherein the living sleep above ground as the dead do beneath.

At every point that concerns himself, he turns down a leaf in his heart; and rejoiceth that God's word hath pierced him, as hoping that whilst his soul smarts, it heals. And as it is no manners for him that hath good venison before him to ask whence it came, but rather fairly to fall to it, so, hearing an excellent sermon, he never inquires whence the preacher had it, or whether it was not before in print, but falls aboard to practise it.

He accuseth not his minister of spite for particularizing him. It does not follow that the archer aimed because the arrow hit. Rather our parishioner reasoneth thus: If my sin be notorious, how could the minister miss it? if secret, how could he hit it without God's direction? But foolish hearers make even the bells

of Aaron's garments to clink as they think. And a guilty conscience is like a whirlpool, drawing in all to itself which otherwise would pass by. One, causelessly disaffected to his minister, complained that he in his last sermon had personally inveighed against him, and accused him thereof to a grave religious gentleman in the parish. Truly," said the gentleman, “I had thought in his sermon he had meant me, for it touched my heart." rebated the edge of the other's anger.

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His tithes he pays willingly with cheerfulness. How many part with God's portions grudgingly, or else pinch it in the paying. Decimum, the tenth, amongst the Romans was ever taken for what was best or biggest. It falls out otherwise in paying of tithes, where the least and leanest are shifted off to make that number.

He hides not himself from any parish office which seeks for him. If chosen churchwarden, he is not busily idle, rather to trouble than reform, presenting all things but those which he should. If overseer of the poor, he is careful the rates be made indifferent (whose inequality oftentimes is more burdensome than the sum) and well disposed of. He measures not people's wants by their clamorous complaining, and dispenseth more to those that deserve than to them that only need relief.

He is bountiful in contributing to the repair of God's house. For though he be not of their opinion who would have the churches under the gospel conformed to the magnificence of Solomon's Temple, (whose porch would serve us for a church,) and adorn them so gaudily that devotion is more distracted than raised, and men's souls rather dazzled than lightened, yet he conceives it fitting that such sacred places should be handsomely and decently maintained: the rather, because the climacterical year year of of many churches from their first foundation may seem to happen in our days; so old, that their ruin is threatened if not speedily repaired.

He is respectful to his minister's widow and posterity, for his sake. When the only daughter of Peter Martyr was, through the riot and prodigality of her husband, brought to extreme poverty, the State of Zurich, out of grateful remembrance of her father, supported her with bountiful maintenance. My prayers shall be, that ministers' widows and children may never stand in need of such relief, and may never want such relief when they stand in need.

THI

THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER

THERE is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge, yea, perchance before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others, who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to the children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy of an usher. But see how well our

schoolmaster behaves himself.

His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as lief be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as Cooper's "Dictionary" and Scapula's "Lexiare chained to the desk therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts,

con

are bunglers in this: but God of his goodness hath fitted several men for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State in all conditions may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric thereof may say, "God hewed out this stone, and appointed it to lie in this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth most excellent." And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy success.

He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all, saving some few exceptions, to these general rules.

1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he useth with all gentle

ness.

2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think, with the hare in the fable, that running with snails (so they count the rest of their