Page:Annals of the Poor (1829, London).djvu/17

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

termed an ægrotat degree; commencing B.A. in 1794; and with some intermissions he resided in the university three years longer.

We are now to view Mr. Richmond in a totally different character. In the summer of 1797, he became, within the space of a very few weeks, (to borrow his own words,) "academically a master of arts, domestically a husband, parochially a deacon." He had been originally destined to the law; but having imbibed a distaste for that profession, his attention was subsequently directed to the church, and he was now admitted to the sacred office. Brading, a secluded village in the Isle of Wight, was the scene of his earliest pastoral labours. He was ordained to the curacy of this place and the little adjoining village of Yaverland; and in Yaverland church he delivered his first sermon.

These scenes will long be dear to Christian remembrance. Lovely in themselves, and