Colley Cibber,
apprehend any such Passions as Malice and Envy to exist in Mankind, which was
indeed less remarkable in a Country Parson than in a Gentleman who hath past his
Life behind the Scenes, a Place which hath been seldom thought the School of
Innocence; and where a very little Observation would have convinced the great
Apologist, that those Passions have a real Existence in the human Mind.
    His Virtue and his other Qualifications, as they rendered him equal to his
Office, so they made him an agreeable and valuable Companion, and had so much
endeared and well recommended him to a Bishop, that at the Age of Fifty, he was
provided with a handsome Income of twenty-three Pounds a Year; which however, he
could not make any great Figure with: because he lived in a dear Country, and
was a little incumbered with a Wife and six Children.
    It was this Gentleman, who, having, as I have said, observed the singular
Devotion of young Andrews, had found means to question him, concerning several
Particulars; as how many Books there were in the New Testament? which were they?
how many Chapters they contained? and such like; to all which Mr. Adams
privately said, he answer'd much better than Sir Thomas, or two other
neighbouring Justices of the Peace could probably have done.
    Mr. Adams was wonderfully sollicitous to know at what Time, and by what
Opportunity the Youth became acquainted with these Matters: Joey told him, that
he had very early learnt to read and write by the Goodness of his Father, who,
though he had not Interest enough to get him into a Charity School, because a
Cousin of his Father's Landlord did not vote on the right side for a
Church-warden in a Borough Town, yet had been himself at the Expence of Sixpence
a Week for his Learning. He told him likewise, that ever since he was in Sir
Thomas's Family, he had employed all his Hours of Leisure in reading good Books;
that he had read the Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas à Kempis; and that
as often as he could, without being perceived, he had studied a great good Book
which lay open in the Hall Window, where he had read, as how the Devil carried
away half a Church in Sermon-time, without hurting one of the Congregation; and
as how a Field of Corn ran away down a Hill with all the Trees upon it, and
covered another Man's Meadow. This sufficiently assured Mr. Adams, that the good
Book meant