Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/581

 neglect of the true interests of the church. If Dr. Darwall sometimes appeared to countenance such vulgar bigotry, he could not escape imputations alike unjust and degrading. But no member of the church less deserved to be numbered with the mob of the bitter and the intolerant: and if he, occasionally, appeared more to favour them than beseemed a man of his acquirements and understanding, this fault was more than atoned for by the sincerity and the fervour of his own piety, and by his irreproachable life. No day ever passed without his thoughts being turned to a subject which he always considered to be, and always spoke of, as of the first importance. He had read, with much attention, the works of most of the great divines whose learning and whose virtue reflected honour on the church of which he professed himself a member; and had, if I may so speak, imbibed, from the perusal, an habitual devotion, but without a tinge of fanaticism. Few general readers were so conversant with the writings, of Barrow, of South, of Hooker, of Horne, and of him the most attractive, perhaps, of all, the imaginative and pious Jeremy Taylor; whose works, the reflection of his truly Christian spirit, alluring many readers by splendid images and words of captivating eloquence, have sometimes made religious thoughts familiar to minds which would have turned away from religion invested with monkish gloom, or leaning for support on mere temporal authority.

Dr. Darwall was a punctual attendant on the services of the church; and no one better knew or more undisguisedly deplored the coldness, the indifference,