xvni THE SHEWBREAD ON THE ALTAR 247 



my feelings while I listened as to an angel's voice. When he 

 addressed the youth ' O, you who in a state of innocence 

 often lift up your hearts to God, you who have not known 

 the depths of Satan ' I have seen the tears stealing down 

 the cheeks of the thoughtless, and all that seemed to 

 obstruct the power of religion melt away as wax before 

 the sun." x At the Yearly Meeting of 1768, though feeble, 

 hoarse and with a hollow cough, he had " a very fine 

 and high opportunity." At the next Yearly Meeting 

 he was taken ill : Lettsom, who had been his ward and 

 loved him truly, had to accompany him home to Cheshire ; 

 and he was never afterwards well. Yet we find him 

 again in London later in the year, visiting in series the 

 families of Friends, and preaching at Horsleydown, 

 Southwark, one of his most famous addresses, long 

 circulated in manuscript and in print. 2 He was present 

 too once more at the National Meeting in Dublin, where, 

 writes Richard Shackleton to his father, he seemed " as 

 burning incense " ; he was " made like the shewbread 

 on the altar " : glorious as some sacred symbol, to 

 enamour the people with the beauty of truth. 



At length the ardent spirit sank low. " I know not 

 how to exert myself," he wrote ; " there seems in every 

 case a lion in the streets." Deep was the sorrow of the 

 doctor and his sister in London as the end drew near. 

 Their letters had long been a mutual delight. " By a 

 happy collision," wrote S. Fothergill, " we may fetch out 

 the sparks of divine fire from each other." " Farewell," 

 the doctor ended one letter, " our brother, our friend, 

 our joy." The tender sister remembered him when on 

 her pillow : "I could offer myself in thy stead if Provi- 

 dence would accept so mean an offering." The dying 



1 MS. Journal of Sarah Champion, afterwards Fox. 



* " Blow the Trumpet, Sanctify a Fast, etc.," Joel ii. 15. This and other 

 of his discourses were printed in many editions between 1773 and 1803, and 

 in America 1781-1792, long after his voice was still. Few extempore sermons 

 will bear such record, but in S., Fothergill's case there is much freshness and 

 choice of language, and his prayers sometimes exhibit the chastened thought 

 of a collect. A visitor to a remote parish church in the Scilly Isles early in 

 the next century found a little volume of S. Fothergill's discourses in weekly 

 use : one was read by the clerk, save on the infrequent days of the minister's 

 attendance. MS. Memo, of Elix. Fothergill, Fds. Ref. Lib. 



