and saw the interruption came from an aged man, bowed down with the weight of eighty years; it was with much difficulty that he could persuade him to be silent until his sermon was ended. Once more addressing his congregation, he was again grieved by a body of armed men bursting into the nave, led by a gentleman carrying a red hand in defiance on the point of a spear. Blood would have been soon shed, but Gilpin came down, and would not suffer them to depart until he had brought the disputants to a reconciliation.

Many a widow's weed and orphan's tear did he prevent by his timely interference: many a soul ready to perish did he support and comfort. Not only in the pulpit was he mighty in word, but in very deed throughout those waste places. Death was then the common penalty of offences great and small; for many who were condemned to the scaffold, he procured reprieves or pardon. Those in prison he visited, urging them to repentance, and often with signal success: those who were in want he relieved by alms and liberal bounties. In his own town of Houghton, on every Thursday throughout the year, might be seen a goodly caldron, full of meat boiling, to be dispensed to the indigent deserving; so that he was called the "father of the poor." Many of his acts were known only to GOD, of many angels were the only spectators. One day as he was returning from a journey, he found a countryman in deep sorrow,—one of the team at plough fell down dead. Gilpin slacked rein to see the issue of his attempts, aided by his fellows, to raise up the motionless beast. The man was in despair, as undone by the misfortune: Bernard bade his faithful Airay alight, and carry the saddle and bridle of the horse on which he rode, and give it the man. sir," said the man, "I shall never be able to pay you the price of a horse so good as this." "Take heart," said noble Gilpin, "you shall never pay, till I ask. Meanwhile, go on with your work."

Ah,

This is not the only instance of his generosity. The naked poor he clothed on his journeys, taking off cloak or doublet to cover the shivering limb. The common jest was if a beast were cast loose, it would travel to

Houghton parsonage. At home, he fed at his own table, not only at Christmas-tide, but on every Sunday from Michaelmas to Easter, gentlemen, husbandmen, and the poorer sort, set every degree by themselves, and ordered ín ranks, parishioners and strangers alike. His doors were ever open to the wayfarer; austere to himself, an ascetic in his own diet and dress, he was bountiful to all else; he kept seldom fewer than four and twenty scholars, learned men, and candidates for the ministry. They could have had no better or sounder guide. As he fearlessly opposed the erroneous teaching of his chaplains, when in the Bishop of Durham's house, so on all occasions he spoke with freedom. He firmly opposed all the solicitations of the Romanist to return to his faith. To a pert Cambridge man who insisted on a new discipline, he replied, "I suspect that form, which appeareth not to have been received in any Church. I hold not the virtues of these latter men worthy to be compared to the infirmities of the Fathers." When a puritan sent him Cartwright's recent work on proposed reforms in the Church, he wisely answered, "I have read much, but there is I have left to read; whenever I have leisure, I will read all. Men wish the Church had no blemishes; this present denies it; the life to come shall grant it."

The north remained attached to the Roman faith, and on hearing of the sorrows of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the imprisonment of the Duke of Norfolk, rose to a

man.

A terrible distress filled the good man's heart, when in 1569, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland raised an insurrection; fearful of causing sorrow or annoyance to his masters and scholars, he withdrew to Oxford. Elizabeth had summoned those nobles to London: urged on by apprehension for their lives and estates, they gladly headed the tumultuous multitudes which surrounded them, when in the dead of the night, they were rudely wakened by the din of voices, the clang of bells ringing backwards, and the glare of beacons blazing on every hill top. With old Richard Norton, his grey hair streaming to the wind, bearing a cross and streamer before them, they rode into Durham, and celebrated High

Mass in the Cathedral. Villainy, treachery, and divided counsels drove the leaders beyond the sea, or betrayed them to the enemies. The retainers were soon dispersed by an army under the Earl of Sussex.

Gilpin returned to find his cattle slain, his corn sold, his granaries empty, his fields untilled, and traces of havoc on every side. His just anger did not prevent him from pleading for the lives of those ungrateful men, whose families he had so often assisted in their hour of need, when Elizabeth was proclaiming legal attainder and confiscation against the wealthy, and martial law for the miserable poor, yet more impoverished by the need of the princely houses which employed them; when blood of the innocent was shed, and the defenceless plundered by a brutal soldiery, and in a district of sixty miles, there was not a village but gave a victim to the revenge of the Tudor queen, enriched by forfeiture, or high treason and felony.

Some years after, his patron, Lord Burleigh, then on his return from a mission of state to Scotland, turned aside to spend some days with Gilpin. The noble guest so unexpectedly arrived, was received with all respect, courtesy, and easy hospitality: he found all that rumour had said surpassed in the quiet and generous parsonage. His last words at parting were-" I could have looked for no handsomer greeting at Lambeth. If you have any suit at Court or in Council, I pray you use me." As he passed on his way to Durham, he drew up on Rainton Hill, and looking back over the plain country below, so calm and still, towards the parsonage secluded in repose, the weary statesman broke out into the words, "I blame not the man for refusing a bishopric: wherein lacks he a mitre? how could it more enrich him? and now he is free from a mighty weight of cares."

The grave Bishop Pilkington was a good friend to Gilpin, who prompted the foundation and revised the statutes of that prelate's school in Lancashire: his successor Barnes arrived full of prejudice against him. He desired him to deliver a sermon in his presence. Gilpin sent word that he was on his journey to Debateable Land, and praying to be excused. No answer was re

turned. "Silence gives consent," quoth Bernard. When he came back he found himself suspended from preaching. Soon after Barnes summarily ordered him to preach before the Clergy at Chester. Gilpin knew his danger, and pleaded want of notice and his suspension. "I charge you," said the Bishop, "go up and preach." His enemies were taking notes, yet that brave man inveighed against the disorders of the northern diocese, and solemnly concluded thus:-"Most reverend Father, GOD hath exalted you to be Bishop of this diocese, and requireth an account of your government thereof. Behold, I bring these things to your knowledge this day. Therefore, in the presence of GOD, angels, and men, I pronounce you to be the author of all these evils: yea, in that strict day of the general account I shall be a witness against you; and all these shall bear witness, who have heard me speaking unto you."

A loud murmuring filled the Church; his enemies thought his doom sealed; his friends in tears assured him that he had put a sword in the hands of his foes to slay him. "Be the truth propagated, be God glorified, and His will done concerning me," replied Gilpin. After the usual visitation dinner of the Clergy, he came to bid farewell to the Bishop.

"I will bring you," said the prelate visibly touched, 66 to your own house ;" and as he stood before the porch, took the honest pastor's hand, adding, "Father, I confess it were more meet for you to be Bishop of Durham, than for me to be Rector of the Church of Houghton. Forgive me as long as I continue in this See, no man shall harm you; live in peace." The Bishop was his coexecutor with Mr. Heath whom we have before mentioned: they were bequeathed silver spoons with the Gilpin crest, the acorn, as a remembrance.

We have drawn towards the close of the life of one who has justly earned the high title of the Apostle of the North-it is the life that is an existence beyond its account in days, and is spent but for a better world to come, already almost within the veil, by conformity with it, and close apprehension of Him, Who makes its glory. Gilpin was eminently a practical man; his theology was

no mysticism. He did the work of a missionary, when the harvest was ripe and the labourers were few. The pious founder of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, printed his life as a model to the priest in the wild; and at this moment two of his descendants àre earnest clergymen in one of the North American colonies of England. His labours wore down his naturally strong frame, tall and powerful; and an attack from an infuriated ox in Durham market-place, completely shattered the remains of his broken constitution. So weak did he grow, that he felt beforehand the time of his dissolution drew nigh; but for years had he toiled in anticipation of Heaven; the world in a manner had been passed, and earth was in ashes to him. He had neither wife nor child; but he gathered the poor about his dying bed, the servants and his scholars, and took his sad leave of them. He disposed of his goods in a will singularly simple, which is a striking evidence of his own frugality and tender care for all connected with him. "Weak in body, yet of good remembrance," (so it begins) "GOD be praised, knowing the frailty and uncertainty of man's life, seeing even now before mine eyes in this time of GOD's visitation many and daily examples of death, Ι bequeath and commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my Creator, not trusting in mine own merits, which am of myself a most wretched sinner, but only in the merits of JESUS CHRIST, my Redeemer and SAVIOUR." His books, with a few exceptions, he left to Kepyer School and Queen's College.

Winter was passing swiftly away, amid the lingering snow-drifts of February, the golden crocus shot up its blossoms; in the wood side the star-like celandine, the blue periwinkle and the aconite clustered on the bank; the fieldfare and redwing were ready to seek a colder air; and all the fair promise of spring was calling forth the early song of the birds; but no more should the pale form of Bernard feel the enlivening of the pleasant sunlight, or go out to do his Master's work. Lent had scarce come, when the hour of his rest drew nigh; and the blessed hope of keeping an eternal Easter in a glorious Presence enlightened his enfeebled eyes; he