velop that intellectual strength and acumen which afterwards characterized him.

It was here where, toiling for the bread that perisheth with a might that was the marvel of the neighbouring settlers, he felt called upon to break to them the bread of life. In other words, He who summoned Gideon from the threshing-floor, David from the sheep fold, and Elisha from the plough, inspired His servant in the obscurity of the Scarboro' bush to take up "the burden of the word of the Lord."

It was destined that his godly efforts should not be confined to his own vicinity. For in the course of time the Church's knowledge of his usefulness opened up his way to wider fields.

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Dr. Carroll, in his deftly etched 'Past and Present," tells us that on one Sunday in the early twenties he was requested, in the minister's absence, to supply the pulpit of the church that had recently been erected in Toronto. Some of the more proper people were fairly dismayed to think that they must listen to a preacher who had to labour for a living; but he soon disarmed their prejudices and won their hearts. He was thenceforth in great request in the town, and was held in very high esteem. Says Dr. Carroll:

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We well remember our first sight of him. We went on the morning referred to, as was Our wont, at an early hour to the meeting-house. The congregation had pretty much all assembled before any preacher made his appearance. They began to look inquiringly at each other, when a broad, heavy, masculine-looking man, with plain but agreeable features and a sunburnt, beardless face-perhaps thirty-four years of age-entered, dressed in a well-worn suit of darkcoloured homespun, cut-away coat, and an oaten-straw hat in his

hand. I felt to love him at once. He was the beau ideal of one of the early rustic lay preachers, and might have answered to represent the meek but stout-hearted John Nelson himself. And, oh, what a delightful service we had that morning! Our preacher was modest but composed. His voice was pleasant, and his elocution, or ‘delivery,' as we used to call it, good. An impressive reader was he. Then such a sermon! So clear, methodical, consecutive, and sweetly evangelical. His text was, Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.' He treated it in a way that went to our hearts. He was an easy, natural, ingenious sermonizer. The secret of his amplification was his always noticing what his text implied as well as expressed."

ent.

We later hear of him as an assistant speaker at the first camp-meeting held at Cummer's Mills. Originally a Presbyterian institution, the camp-meeting was adopted by the Methodists of the United States, and subsequently introduced into Canada. Of the initial one, held on the shore of Hay Bay in 1805, we have a lively description from the accomplished pen of the Rev. Dr. Bangs, who himself was presBut it was not until twenty years afterwards that one was held within easy distance of Toronto. In 1825, however, active preparations were made for a great “feast of tabernacles " on the middle branch of the River Don, at a spot directly east of the present village of Newtonbrook. At that time the place was surrounded with towering forest trees which cast a grateful shade over the ground, and busy mills were in constant operation there. For a lengthened period this site was annually the scene of a Methodist camp-meeting, and we have conversed with old people who remember journeying thither in

their childhood with their parents. Lately we drove to the quondam rendezvous, but there was nothing in the landscape to suggest the past. Long years ago the mills fell victims to the devouring flames; and we traversed the waggon-way which passes over the place where once stood the waters of the broad mill-pond. It was indeed difficult for the imagination to cover the sloping fields with trees again, or to fill the forlorn valley with hosts of happy worshippers. Cornelius Flumerfelt's presence at the campmeeting not only increased the number of his friends, but also deepened the admiration of all who knew him for his natural gifts and his lofty character. Had he been a younger man, he would have been urged to prepare himself for entrance into the regular ministry; but his age, his family duties, and his educational disabilities were obviously in the way. Nevertheless, during the next year or so, he was led to dispose of his property, settle his affairs, and enter the work as a hired lay preacher; and in 1827, under the direction of Elder Case, he became associated with the Rev. William Ryerson on the Toronto Circuit, then known as York. Dr. Carroll tells us that he remembered "when he passed up through the town equipped for his circuit. He called at the door of our minister, the Rev. William Ryerson. Mr. Flumerfelt dismounted and led his horse; and the two friends were seen, arm in arm, walking up Dundas Street in earnest conversation. Mr. Flumerfelt told me he received most invaluable counsels in that farewell interview. This was indeed seeing him on his journey after a godly sort.'

The Toronto Circuit then covered eight or ten townships. It reached into Tecumseh and West Gwillimbury on the north, and Caledon on the west, and was bounded on the east by the Yonge Street Circuit.

In discharging each month's duty the subject of our sketch rode hundreds of miles on horseback and preached between thirty and forty times. On his only spare day he travelled twenty miles to see his family, and the next day rode as far in a slightly different direction. again to take up his train of appointments. What his remuneration for these toils amounted to we have no means of ascertaining; but his immediate successor in that field tells us that for four months' labour he received one dollar and a half in cash, and the cloth for a pair of overalls, the waist-bands of which had to be made of something else!

His great usefulness at this time was only equalled by his popularity with the people, who looked forward to his visits to their humble homes with much joy. But an evil eye was following him. An individual, whom we have sought in vain to identify, had long hurled threatenings at his head, and now deemed the time ripe for action. By some unconscionable manipulation of accounts, this scoundrel had brought Mr. Flumerfelt under an entirely unjust financial obligation to himself. Observing his immense. popularity, he swore out a "capias" against him, and had him arrested. He hoped thus to compel the Methodists to pay the amount he was bent upon obtaining, for the release. of their preacher. The scheme would have worked to perfection, for in one place a subscription was actually started among the poor pioneers, and a general agitation had commenced, but Mr. Flumerfelt resolutely refused to allow this Shylock to receive a cent.

He went to gaol; and the patriarchal Colonel Button, of Locust Hill, told us the other day that he remembered when a young boy accompanying his father on a pathetic visit to him there. He added that the stand he took vastly increased

"

the respect in which he had always been held, and raised up many warm friends for him outside the former circle of his acquaintance. It was now his young daughter died, for it is ever true when troubles come they come not single spies." That he could not be near her in her sickness, or afterwards even attend the funeral, was a great grief to him, and evoked the deepest sympathy with him everywhere.

Subsequently, it seems, he was placed upon the limits," or, to be explicit, was allowed his freedom within a certain prescribed area of the town or township, outside of which he might summarily be arrested again. He rented an unfinished loft, and devoted himself to the trade chosen and mastered by our present sovereign, King Edward VII. At the shoemaker's bench he managed to make a living for himself and family; and his shop became a sort of lyceum. For there men sought him out, in order to profit by his conversation, which was marked by the strong sense of a philosopher, and the insight of a prophet.

In 1835, circumstances admitted of his return to the service of the Church as a hired lay preacher, and he was appointed to the Newmarket Circuit, which was at that time under the superintendence of the Rev. Horace Dean, the father of the present Judge. He next spent three years upon the Brock Circuit. While here, the Conference decided that, in view of his splendid usefulness, the rules and standards should be dispensed with in his case, and he should be set apart to the pastoral office. Accordingly, in the year 1838, when Dr. Harvard, who had read the burial service over Dr. Coke on the bosom of the Indian Ocean, was President, Mr. Flumerfelt was solemly ordained to the work of the ministry, and was the next year received into full connection. His name was then first

printed in the "Minutes," where it held an honourable place to the end of his life.

We cannot here follow Mr. Flumerfelt over the various fields he occupied after his ordination. In 1855 he retired as a superannuated minister, and settled in the village of Markham, where six years afterwards he died. But in the interval he had served the circuits then known as Walpole, Gosfield, Thames, Chatham, Muncey, London, Mono, Bradford, Brocka second time-and Stouffville; and there are still with us aged people of those old-time charges whose kindliest memories are kindled by the mere mention of his name. "His preaching," says one, was thoughtful, plain, forcible, and convincing, and was coupled with great tenderness of soul. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he would sometimes plead with the unconverted to turn to God like a parent pleading with an erring child; and his prayers with penitent seekers for pardon were with an unction and power truly wonderful. It appeared sometimes as if heaven and earth had met together."

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If his sermons were occasionally accompanied with pathos, it is not to be inferred that they were so many mere jeremiads. As already intimated, they were thoughtful. But they also revealed him to be a close reasoner. On subjects which he had made his own-for he became a hard student of the best literature of his time-his knowledge was both extensive and well systematized, and the best cultured people of the day were wont to confess themselves edified and delighted, as well as touched, by his preaching. He was indeed all things to all men"; for in the words of the late Rev. John Hunt, who knew him well, he let none go without his portion."

Of course, he never became a classical scholar, and none better

God bless thee, brother muse! and give

Softly the treasure of the years

Into thy bosom ;-make thee live

The life that knows and sees and hears The brightest, fairest of the earth,

The certainties of hope and time, And that supreme immortal birth

Wherein the soul shall reach her prime ;Give thee His patience, kindness, truth, His wondrous, sacrificing love; The stainless innocence of youth, The gentleness of lamb and dove.

And when to thine Emmaus, dini
Thou goest sadly, drooping-eyed,
O may the hallowed feet of Him

Come after, in the eventide,-
And join thee in the way, and make
Thy heart within thee glow and burn,
And then to be His guest thee take ;--
Soon to a shape of glory turn

And vanish. May thy sorrows still Be comforted; thy labour blest; And may His peace thy bosom fill, And bid thee enter to His rest.

God give thee many a sunset-store

Of poet-fancies-golden things; Sweet, simple songs, crooned o'er and o'er, And many bright imaginings; With music thee exalt above

All sense of care on rapture's wing, And make thee yearn, and bid thee love, Where Handel and Beethoven sing; Give thee a fireside nook; the field Besprent with June's fresh largess o'er; The comfort brooks and gardens yield; The uplift of the hills; the lore Of ocean and the bards; the smile

Of wife and child and friends, at even; Rest and refreshment after toil;

And after Earth and Time-then, Heaven!

HAT a man whose only claim to remembrance consists in the fact that he led a life of extreme fashion and folly should be embalmed in cyclopedias, and have his memory handed down to posterity in two large and elegantly published volumes is certainly a satire upon earthly fame. Yet such has been the fate of George Bryan Brummell, known as "Beau Brummell," the word "beau" formerly having the same meaning as our more modern designations fop, dandy, dude.

The author of Brummell's life, one Capt. Jesse, tells us in his preface, that those who expect to find

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in his pages a delightful dish of scandal will be disappointed. That this cleanness arises from the good sense of the author, and not from the life of the subject, is evident from Captain Jesse's addendum to this statement: "I could, it is true, have served up one so hot that it would have shrivelled up the ears of the most inveterate lovers of it."

The Captain certainly goes back far enough in the study of his subject, for he begins by adducing as examples of foppery Milton's description of Eve, "contemplating contemplating her beautiful form in the lookingglass of nature," and Joseph's coat of many colours. He also gives a brief notice of other famous fops, lesser lights in the firmament of folly, as Beau Wilson.

Beau Hewitt, Beau Fielding, and Beau Nash, famous for the stinging rebuke he received at the hand of Wesley, whose preaching he had the temerity to interrupt.

In charming satire, our author tells us that Brummell's origin was "humble," his grandfather being a treasury porter. To his father, Lord North took a great liking and made him his private secretary. Young George was sent to Eton, where he was more noted for his "gentlemanly deportment" and spotlessness of attire than for scholastic attainments. About the only fact that his biographer has dug up of his Etonian career is that as a fag he displayed an extraordinary talent for toasting cheese. From Eton he went to Oxford, where "he consumed a considerable quantity of midnight oil, but very little of it over his books," and became more noted for "his systematic violation of college rules than for his stanzas."

Leaving Oxford, Brummell was appointed to a cornetcy in the Tenth Hussars, at that time commanded by the Prince of Wales. Out of this grew his famous intimacy with his Royal Highness and many events in his subsequent career. Received into the highest circles of society, his wit, elegant manners and quickness of repartee soon made him a general favourite. Brummell was so much about the Prince that the gallant Tenth did not profit much by his services. It is said that he did not even know his own troop. Fortunately, a man in the front ranks had a very large, blue nose. This nose became Brummell's beacon, and when, as