Pages might be filled with illustrations of like earnestness, with a similar lack of wisdom; but room remains for only one more example of the Presbyterian parish Minister of the Commonwealth. Thomas Hall spent "three apprenticeships at King's Norton--in addition to a lustre of years (rather more than four), at Mosely." His preface to "The Font Guarded," a publication belonging to the year 1651, compliments his parishioners after the following fashion:--"You have been a people very loving and free to the ministry. Many people deal by their ministers as carriers do by their horses, laying great burdens on them, and then hang bells about their necks; but ye have not so learned Christ. Your gratitude hath not been verbal but real, with your purse, as well as with your persons, you have promoted the Gospel for many years together in your town, to the refreshing of many hungry souls about you, in which number I acknowledge myself to have been one."
This individual affords an example of a common trouble in those days, occasioned by the preaching of sectaries who, in the estimation of the Presbyterian pastor, had received no legitimate call to the office which they exercised. He complained, that such persons interrupted him in the midst of his discourses, and rudely challenged him to a public dispute. Yet he could congratulate his parishioners upon the unity of spirit which they enjoyed, although they formed a large body, and were many of them "knowing people." To his great joy, his flock conformed not to the canons of the Bishops but to the canon of Scripture; and there were but few families which had not submitted to examination before approaching the sacrament.