No Carthusian's breast could glow more intensely with the zeal which is the offspring of remorse.

Newton was a Calvinist of course, though it seems not an extreme one, otherwise he would probably have confirmed Cowper in the darkest of hallucinations.

His religion was one of mystery and miracle, full of sudden conversions, special providences and satanic visitations.

He himself says that "his name was up about the country for preaching people mad:" it is true that in the eyes of the profane Methodism itself was madness; but he goes on to say "whether it is owing to the sedentary life the women live here, poring over their (lace) pillows for ten or twelve hours every day, and breathing confined air in their crowded little rooms, or whatever may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen in different degrees disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly gracious people." He surmises that "these things are permitted in judgment, that they who seek occasion for cavilling and stumbling may have what they want." Nevertheless there were in him not only force, courage, burning zeal for doing good, but great kindness, and even tenderness of heart.

"I see in this world," he said, "two heaps of human happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other I carry a point--if, as I go home, a child has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something." There was even in him a strain, if not of humour, of a shrewdness which was akin to it, and expressed itself in many pithy sayings.