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The deprivation he had suffered, and his advanced age might be supposed sufcient to have abated the ardour of his mind, and disqualified him for active exertion. But Lay was no ordinary man. He rose superior to the influence of such causes and resumed his labours of benevolence with augmented assiduity. He continued to publish and circulate essays on the subject of slavery, and sought for occasions, both publicly and privately, to speak of its injustice. For this purpose he attended all places of public worship, without regard to the religious professions of their congregations. On one occasion, he walked into the Oxford church, with a mantle of sack-cloth wrapped round him, and stood attentively listening to the sermon which was preaching. When the services of the morning were over, Lay thus began an address to the congregation. "I do not approve of all the minister has said, but I did not come here to find fault with the preaching; I came to cry aloud against your practice of slave-holding." In all the places of worship which he thus visited, he used
