This  change  in  his  religious  views  induced  him  to  enter
upon  a  new  course  of  reading.  He  gave  several  months  to
the  study  of  Luther  011  the  Galatians,  and  read  with  his
usual  avidity  a  whole  library  of  divinity,  devotional  and
polemical.  But  the  works  in  which  he  took  especial  delight
were  those  of  the  great  Puritan  divines  of  the  seventeenth


42  HIS    MARRIAGE.
century,  which  he  studied  with  so  much  intensity  as  to
acquire  the  peculiarities  of  their  style,  which  he  was  never
able  in  after-life  fully  to  correct.  Still  he  was  unable  to
Come  up  to  the  standard  of  the  Westbury  Leigh  church,
consisting  of  about  a  hundred  members,  and  imbued  for  the
most  part  with  those  austere  views  which  had  descended  to
them  from  their  Puritan  founders.  They  maintained  that,
as  a  work  of  grace  once  begun  in  the  heart  could  never
become  extinct,  it  was  more  advisable  to  postpone  the
reception  even  of  those  who  appeared  to  be  sincere,  than  to
admit  a  single  unconverted  person  into  the  fold.  They  re-
garded human  learning  with  suspicion,  though  Robert  Hall
had  once  charmed  them  with  his  eloquence ;  and  when  Mr.
Marshman  sought  admission  into  the  church,  the  deacons
remarked  that  he  had  too  much  head-knowledge  of  Chris-
tianity to  have  much  heart-knowledge  of  its  truths.  He  was
therefore  kept  on  probation  for  seven  years,  and  left  West-
bury  Leigh  unbaptized.
