The unhappy man just gone, had begun as a farmer of good prospects; he had taken to drinking, card-playing, horse-racing, cock-fighting, the vices of the age; against which the young clergyman was generously indignant.

Then he had got to poaching and to horse-stealing, for which he suffered.

The divine rapidly drew striking and fearful pictures of these rustic crimes.

He startled his hearers by showing that the Eye of the Law was watching the poacher at midnight, and setting traps to catch the criminal.

He galloped the stolen horse over highway and common, and from one county into another, but showed Retribution ever galloping after, seizing the malefactor in the country fair, carrying him before the justice, and never unlocking his manacles till he dropped them at the gallows-foot.