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The balance, therefore, upon the whole, must preponderate in favour of property with a manifest and great excess.

Inequality of property, in the degree in which it exists in most countries of Europe, abstractedly considered, is an evil; but it is an evil which flows from those rules concerning the acquisition and disposal of property, by which men are incited to industry, and by which the object of their industry is rendered secure and valuable. If there be any great inequality unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected. In 1802 Paley published his Natural Theology, his last work. He enjoyed himself in the country with his duties and recreations: he was particularly fond of angling; and he mixed familiarly with his neighbours in all their plans of utility, sociality, and even conviviality. He disposed of his time with great regularity in his garden he limited himself to one hour at a time, twice a-day; in reading books of amusement, one hour at breakfast and another in the evening, and one for dinner and his newspaper. By thus dividing and husbanding his pleasures, they remained with him to the last. He died on the 25th of May 1805.

to feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, probity, charity, and meekness unmatched by an avowed advocate in a cause deeply interesting his warmest feelings. His Natural Theology is the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it; and it could only have been surpassed by a man (Sir Charles Bell) who, to great originality of conception and clearness of exposition, added the advantage of a high place in the first class of physiologists.'

[The World was Made with a Benevolent Design.]

[From Natural Theology.']

It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately-discovered No works of a theological or philosophical nature faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is have been so extensively popular among the edu- one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked cated classes of England as those of Paley. His per-upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment; so busy spicacity of intellect and simplicity of style are and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect almost unrivalled. Though plain and homely, and life, with which, by reason of the animal being halfoften inelegant, he has such vigour and discrimina- domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than tion, and such a happy vein of illustration, that he is we are with that of others. The whole winged insect always read with pleasure and instruction. No tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their reader is ever at a loss for his meaning, or finds him proper employments, and, under every variety of contoo difficult for comprehension. He had the rare stitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by art of popularising the most recondite knowledge, the offices which the Author of their nature has asand blending the business of life with philosophy. signed to them. But the atmosphere is not the only Plants are The principles inculcated in some of his works have scene of enjoyment for the insect race. been disputed, particularly his doctrine of expediency and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of suckcovered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, as a rule of morals, which has been considered as trenching on the authority of revealed religion, and ing. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of also lowering the standard of public duty. The gratification: what else should fix them so close to system of Paley certainly would not tend to foster the operation, and so long? Other species are running the great and heroic virtues. In his early life he is about with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of reported to have said, with respect to his subscription to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters England, that he was 'too poor to keep a conscience; produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins and something of the same laxness of moral feeling of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so pervades his ethical system. His abhorrence of all happy that they know not what to do with themhypocrisy and pretence was probably at the root of selves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps this error. Like Dr Johnson, he was a practical out of the water, their frolics in it (which I have moralist, and looked with distrust on any high- noticed a thousand times with equal attention and strained virtue or enthusiastic devotion. He did amusement), all conduce to show their excess of not write for philosophers or metaphysicians, but spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. for the great body of the people anxious to acquire Walking by the sea-side in a calm evening upon a knowledge, and to be able to give a reason for the sandy shore and with an ebbing tide, I have frehope that is in them.' He considered the art of life quently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, to consist in properly setting our habits,' and for this or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge of no subtle distinctions or profound theories were the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and necessary. His Moral and Political Philosophy' is of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along framed on this basis of utility, directed by strong the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always sense, a discerning judgment, and a sincere regard retiring with the water. When this cloud came to for the true end of all knowledge-the well-being of be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so mankind here and hereafter. Of Paley's other works, much space filled with young shrimps in the act of Sir James Mackintosh has pronounced the following bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the opinion: The most original and ingenious of his water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a writings is the Hora Paulinæ. The Evidences of mute animal could express delight, it was this; if Christianity are formed out of an admirable trans- they had meant to make signs of their happiness, lation of Butler's Analogy, and a most skilful abridg- they could not have done it more intelligibly. Supment of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel His-pose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual tory. He may be said to have thus given value to two works, of which the first was scarcely intelligible to most of those who were most desirous of profiting by it; and the second soon wearies out the greater part of readers, though the few who are more patient have almost always been gradually won over

of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view!

The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be

attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single word which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say; and with walking, without knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see.

however, was a man of forcible intellect, and of various knowledge. His controversial works are highly honourable to him, both for the manly and candid spirit in which they are written, and the logical clearness and strength of his reasoning.

DR BEILBY PORTEOUS, bishop of London (17311808), was a popular dignitary of the church, author of a variety of sermons and tracts connected with church discipline. He distinguished himself at col

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But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less than with the playful kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, perception of ease.' Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau to be the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratifica-1806), was one of the most conspicuous churchmen tion is appointed to advanced life under all or most of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely, our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the only happy one.

A new and illustrated edition of Paley's Natural Theology' was published in 1835, with scientific illustrations by Sir Charles Bell, and a preliminary discourse by Henry Lord Brougham.

DR RICHARD WATSON, bishop of Llandaff (17371816), did good service to the cause of revealed religion and social order by his replies to Gibbon the historian, and Thomas Paine. To the former he addressed a series of letters, entitled An Apology for Christianity, in answer to Gibbon's celebrated chapters on the rise and progress of Christianity; and when Paine published his Age of Reason, the bishop met it with a vigorous and conclusive reply, which he termed An Apology for the Bible. Watson also published a few sermons, and a collection of theological tracts, selected from various authors, in six volumes. His Whig principles stood in the way of his church preferment, and he had not magnanimity enough to conceal his disappointment, which is strongly expressed in an autobiographical memoir published after his death by his son. Dr Watson,

Tomb of Bishop Porteous at Sunbridge, Kent.

lege by a prize poem On Death, which has been
Blair's Grave.' Dr Porteous warmly befriended
often reprinted: it is but a feeble transcript of
Beattie the poet (whom he wished to take orders
in the church of England), and he is said to have
assisted Hannah More in her novel of Celebs.
DR SAMUEL HORSLEY, bishop of St Asaph (1733-

of his day. He belonged to the high church party,
and strenuously resisted all political or ecclesiastical
change. He was learned and eloquent, but prone
to controversy, and deficient in charity and the
milder virtues. His character was not unlike that
of one of his patrons, Chancellor Thurlow, stern
and unbending, but cast in a manly mould. He
was an indefatigable student. His first public ap-
pearance was in the character of a man of science.
He was some time secretary of the Royal Society-
wrote various short treatises on scientific subjects,
and published an edition of Sir Isaac Newton's
works. As a critic and scholar he had few equals
and his disquisitions on the prophets Isaiah and
Hosea, his translations of the Psalms, and his Bibli-
cal Criticisms (in four volumes), justly entitled him
to the honour of the mitre. His sermons, in three
volumes, are about the best in the language: clear,
nervous, and profound, he entered undauntedly upon
the most difficult subjects, and dispelled, by research
and argument, the doubt that hung over several
passages of Scripture. He was for many years
engaged in a controversy with Dr Priestley on the
subject of the divinity of Christ. Both of the com-
batants lost their temper; but when Priestley re-
sorted to a charge of incompetency and ignorance,
it was evident that he felt himself sinking in the
struggle. In intellect and scholarship, Horsley was

vastly superior to his antagonist. The political opinions and intolerance of the bishop were more successfully attacked by Robert Hall, in his Apology for the Freedom of the Press.

GILBERT WAKEFIELD (1756-1801) enjoyed celebrity both as a writer on controversial divinity and a classical critic. He left the church in consequence of his embracing Unitarian opinions, and afterwards left also the dissenting establishment at Hackney, to which he had attached himself. He published translations of some of the epistles in the New Testament, and an entire translation of the same sacred volume, with notes. He was also author of a work on Christian Evidence, in reply to Paine. The bishop of Llandaff having in 1798 written an address against the principles of the French Revolution, Wakefield replied to it, and was subjected to a crown prosecution for libel; he was found guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He published editions of Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, &c. which ranked him among the first scholars of his time. Wakefield was an honest, precipitate, and simple-minded man; a Pythagorean in his diet, and eccentric in many of his habits and opinions. He was,' says one of his biographers, as violent against Greek accents as he was against the Trinity, and anathematised the final N as strongly as episcopacy.' The infidel principles which abounded at the period of the French Revolution, and continued to agitate both France and England for some years, induced a disregard of vital piety long afterwards in the higher circles of British society. To counteract this, MR WILBERFORCE, then member of liament for the county of York, published in 1797 A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.

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Five editions of the work were sold within six

months, and it still continues, in various languages, to form a popular religious treatise. The author attested, by his daily life, the sincerity of his opinions. William Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant, and born at Hull in 1759. He was educated at Cambridge, and on completing his twentyfirst year, was returned to parliament for his native town. He soon distinguished himself by his talents, and became the idol of the fashionable world-dancing at Almack's, and singing before the Prince of Wales. In 1784, while pursuing a continental tour with some relations, in company with Dean Milner, the latter so impressed him with the truths of Christianity, that Wilberforce entered upon a new life, and abandoned all his former gaieties. In parliament he pursued a strictly independent course. For twenty years he laboured for the abolition of the slave-trade, a question with which his name is inseparably entwined. His time, his talents, influence, and prayers, were directed towards the consummation of this object, and at length, in 1807, he had the high gratification of seeing it accomplished. The religion of Wilberforce was mild and cheerful, unmixed with austerity or gloom. He closed his long and illustrious life on the 27th July 1833, one of those men who, by their virtues, talents, and energy, impress their own character on the age in which they live. His latter years realised his own beautiful description

[On the Effects of Religion.]

When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigour; when all goes on prosperously, and success seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want of the consolations of religion: but when fortune frowns, or

friends forsake us; when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind, than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach ; or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeavours and elude his grasp! To such a one gloomily, indeed, does the evening of life set in! All is sour and cheerless. He can neither look backward with complacency, nor forward with hope; while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself on the fidelity of God; and at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye dim perhaps and feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward to the near possession of his heavenly inheritance, to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.' What striking lessons have we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth, and power, and prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and uncertain! But religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essential superiority of that support which is derived from religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches and fortune. But when all these are swept away by the splendour, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest, rude hand of time or the rough blasts of adversity, foliage, but more than ever discovering to the observerect and vigorous; stripped, indeed, of his summer ing eye the solid strength of his substantial texture.

Another distinguished volunteer in the cause of religious instruction, and an extensive miscellaneous writer, was MRS HANNAH MORE, whose works we have previously enumerated.

DR SAMUEL PARR-DR EDWARD MALTBY-
REV. SIDNEY SMITH.

DR SAMUEL PARR (1747-1825) was better known as a classical scholar than a theologian. His sermons on education are, however, marked with cogency of argument and liberality of feeling. His celebrated Spital sermon, when printed, presented the singular anomaly of fifty-one pages of text and two hundred and twelve of notes. Mr Godwin attacked some of the principles laid down in this discourse, as not sufficiently democratic for his taste; for though a stanch Whig, Parr was no revolutionist or leveller. His object was to extend education among the poor, and to ameliorate their condition by gradual and constitutional means. Dr Parr was long head master of Norwich school; and in knowledge of Greek literature was not surpassed by any scholar of his day. His uncompromising support of Whig principles, his extensive learning, and a certain pedantry and oddity of character, rendered him always conspicuous among his brother churchmen. He died at Hatton, in Warwickshire, the perpetual curacy of which he had enjoyed for above forty years, and where he had faithfully discharged his duties as a parish pastor.

DR EDWARD MALTEY, the present bishop of Dur

ham, was the favourite pupil of Parr at Norwich school. He is author of a work on the Christian Evidences; two volumes of sermons, 1819 and 1822; a third volume of sermons preached before the society of Lincoln's Inn, where he succeeded Dr Heber; and also of a vastly improved edition of Morell's Greek Thesaurus, which engaged his attention for about eleven years.

The REV. SIDNEY SMITH, well known as a witty miscellaneous writer and critic, is a canon residentiary of St Paul's. Mr Smith published two volumes of sermons in the year 1809. They are more remarkable for plain good sense than for originality or eloquence. A few sentences from a sermon on the Love of our Country will show the homely earnestness of this author's serious style :

[Difficulty of Governing a Nation.]

It would seem that the science of government is an unappropriated region in the universe of knowledge. Those sciences with which the passions can never interfere, are considered to be attainable only by study and by reflection; while there are not many young men who doubt of their ability to make a constitution, or to govern a kingdom: at the same time there cannot, perhaps, be a more decided proof of a superficial understanding than the depreciation of those difficulties which are inseparable from the science of government. To know well the local and the natural man; to track the silent march of human affairs; to seize, with happy intuition, on those great laws which regulate the prosperity of empires; to reconcile principles to circumstances, and be no wiser than the times will permit; to anticipate the effects of every speculation upon the entangled relations and awkward complexity of real life; and to follow out the theorems of the senate to the daily comforts of the cottage, is a task which they will fear most who know it best-a task in which the great and the good have often failed, and which it is not only wise, but pious and just in common men to avoid.

[Means of Acquiring Distinction.]

It is natural to every man to wish for distinction; and the praise of those who can confer honour by their praise, in spite of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart; but as eminence can be but the lot of a few, patience of obscurity is a duty which we owe not more to our own happiness than to the quiet of the world at large. Give a loose, if you are young and ambitious, to that spirit which throbs within you; measure yourself with your equals; and learn, from frequent competition, the place which nature has allotted to you; make of it no mean battle, but strive hard; strengthen your soul to the search of truth, and follow that spectre of excellence which beckons you on beyond the walls of the world to something better than man has yet done. It may be you shall burst out into light and glory at the last; but if frequent failure convince you of that mediocrity of nature which is incompatible with great actions, submit wisely and cheerfully to your lot; let no mean spirit of revenge tempt you to throw off your loyalty to your country, and to prefer a vicious celebrity to obscurity crowned with piety and virtue. If you can throw new light upon moral truth, or by any exertions multiply the comforts or confirm the happiness of mankind, this fame guides you to the true ends of your nature: but, in the name of God, as you tremble at retributive justice, and, in the name of mankind, if mankind be dear to you, seek not that easy and accursed fame which is gathered in the work of revolutions; and deem it better to be for ever unknown, than to found a momentary name upon the basis of anarchy and irreligion.

[The Love of our Country.]

Whence does this love of our country, this universal passion, proceed? Why does the eye ever dwell with fondness upon the scenes of infant life? Why do we breathe with greater joy the breath of our youth? Why are not other soils as grateful, and other heavens as gay? Why does the soul of man ever cling to that earth where it first knew pleasure and pain, and, under the rough discipline of the passions, was roused to the dignity of moral life? Is it only that our country contains our kindred and our friends? And is it nothing but a name for our social affections? It cannot be this; the most friendless of human beings has a country which he admires and extols, and which he would, in the same circumstances, prefer to all others under heaven. Tempt him with the fairest face of nature, place him by living waters under shadowy trees of Lebanon, open to his view all the gorgeous allurements of the climates of the sun, he will love the rocks and deserts of his childhood better than all these, and thou canst not bribe his soul to forget the land of his nativity; he will sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon when he remembers thee, oh Sion!

DR HERBERT MARSH.

DR HERBERT MARSH, bishop of Peterborough, who died in May 1839 at an advanced age, obtained distinction as the translator and commentator of 'Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament,' one of the most valuable of modern works on divinity. In 1807 this divine was appointed Lady Mar- || garet's professor of divinity in the university of Cambridge, in 1816 he was made bishop of Llandaff, and in 1819 he succeeded to the see of Peterborough. Besides his edition of Michaelis, Dr Marsh published Lectures on Divinity, and a Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome. He was author also of some controversial tracts on the Catholic question, the Bible society, &c. in which he evinced great acuteness, tinctured with asperity. In early life, during a residence in Germany, Dr Marsh published, in the German language, various tracts in defence of the policy of his own country in the continental wars; and more particularly a very elaborate History of the Politics of Great Britain and France, from the Time of the Conference at Pilnitz to the Declaration '| of War, a work which is said to have produced a in Germany, and for which he received a very conmarked impression on the state of public opinion siderable pension on the recommendation of Mr Pitt.

About the year 1833 appeared the first of the celebrated Tracts for the Times, by Members of the University of Oxford, which have originated a keen controversy among the clergy of the church'¦ of England, and caused a wide rent or schism in that ancient establishment. The peculiar doc trines or opinions of this sect are known by the term Puseyism, so called after one of their first and most intrepid supporters, DR EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, second son of the late Hon. Philip Pusey, and grandson of the Earl of Radnor. This gentleman was born in 1800, and educated at Christ-church college, Oxford, where, in 1828, he became regius professor of Hebrew. In conjunction with several other members of the university of Oxford (Mr Newman, Professor Sewell, &c.), Dr Pusey established an association for spreading and advocating their views regarding church discipline and authority, and from this association sprung the Tracts for the Times.' The tenets maintained by the tract writers were chiefly as follows:-They asserted the threefold order of ministry-bishops, priests, and deacons. They claimed a personal, not a merely official de

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scent from the apostles; that is, they declared that stirring-possessing, indeed, the fire and energy of not only had the church ever maintained the three a martial lyric or war-song. In November 1804 orders, but that an unbroken succession of indivi- the noble intellect of Mr Hall was deranged, in conduals, canonically ordained, was enjoyed by the sequence of severe study operating on an ardent and church, and essential to her existence, in short, that susceptible temperament. His friends set on foot a without this there could be no church at all. They subscription for pecuniary assistance, and a lifeheld the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, of sacra- annuity of £100 was procured for him. He shortly mental absolution, and of a real, in contradistinc- afterwards resumed his ministerial functions, but in tion to a figurative or symbolical presence in the about twelve months he had another attack. This Eucharist. They maintained the duty of fasting, of also was speedily removed; but Mr Hall resigned his ritual obedience, and of communion with the apos- church at Cambridge. On his complete recovery, tolic church, declaring all dissenters, and, as a ne- he became pastor of a congregation at Leicester, cessary consequence, the members of the church of where he resided for about twenty years. During Scotland, and all churches not episcopal, to be mem- this time he published a few sermons and criticisms bers of no church at all. They denied the validity in the Eclectic Review. The labour of writing for of lay-baptism; they threw out hints from time to the press was opposed to his habits and feelings. time which evidenced an attachment to the theolo- He was fastidious as to style, and he suffered under gical system supported by the nonjuring divines in a disease in the spine which entailed upon him acute the days of James II.; and the grand Protestant prin- pain. A sermon on the death of the Princess Charciple, as established by Luther-the right of private lotte in 1819 was justly considered one of the most interpretation of Holy Scripture-they denied.'* The impressive, touching, and lofty of his discourses. tracts were discontinued by order of the bishop of In 1826 he removed from Leicester to Bristol, Oxford; but the same principles have been main- where he officiated in charge of the Baptist contained in various publications, as in MR GLADSTONE'S gregation till within a fortnight of his death, two works, On the Relation of the Church to the State, which took place on the 21st of February 1831. and Church Principles; MR CHRISTMAS's Discipline The masculine intellect and extensive acquireof the Anglican Church, &c. In 1843 Dr Pusey was ments of Mr Hall have seldom been found united suspended from preaching, and censured by the to so much rhetorical and even poetical brilliancy university for what was denounced as a heretical of imagination. His taste was more refined than sermon, in which he advanced the Roman Catholic that of Burke, and his style more chaste and cordoctrine of transubstantiation. The publications on rect. His solid learning and unfeigned piety gave this memorable controversy are not remarkable for a weight and impressiveness to all he uttered and any literary merit. The tracts are dry polemical wrote, while his classic taste enabled him to clothe treatises, interesting to comparatively few but zea- his thoughts and imagery in language the most lous churchmen. appropriate, beautiful, and commanding. Those who listened to his pulpit ministrations were entranced by his fervid eloquence, which truly disclosed the 'beauty of holiness,' and melted by the awe and fervour with which he dwelt on the mysteries of death and eternity. His published writings give but a brief and inadequate picture of his varied talents; yet they are so highly finished, and display such a combination of different powers-of logical precision, metaphysical acuteness, practical sense and sagacity, with a rich and luxuriant imagination, and all the graces of composition-that they must be considered among the most valuable contributions made to modern literature. A complete edition of his works has been published, with a life, by Dr Olinthus Gregory, in six volumes.

REV. ROBERT HALL.

The REV. ROBERT HALL, A. M. is justly regarded as one of the most distinguished ornaments of the body of English dissenters. He was the son of a Baptist minister, and born at Arnsby, near Leicester, on the 2d of May 1764. He studied divinity at an academy in Bristol for the education of young men preparing for the ministerial office among the Baptists, and was admitted a preacher in 1780, but next year attended King's college, Aberdeen. Sir James Mackintosh was at the same time a student of the university, and the congenial tastes and pursuits of the young men led to an intimate friendship between them. From their partiality to Greek literature, they were named by their class-fellows 'Plato and Herodotus.' Both were also attached to the study of morals and metaphysics, which they cherished through life. Hall entered the church as assistant to a Baptist minister at Bristol, whence he removed in 1790 to Cambridge. He first appeared as an author by publishing a controversial pamphlet entitled Christianity Consistent with a Love of Freedom, which appeared in 1791; in 1793 he published his eloquent and powerful treatise, An Apology for the Freedom of the Press; and in 1799 his sermon, Modern Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society. The latter was designed to stem the torrent of infidelity which had set in with the French Revolution, and is no less remarkable for profound thought than for the elegance of its style and the splendour of its imagery. His celebrity as a writer was further extended by his Reflections on War, a sermon published in 1802; and The Sentiments proper to the Present Crisis, another sermon preached in The latter is highly eloquent and spirit

1803.

* A New Spirit of the Age. Vol. i. p. 207.

[On Wisdom.]

ferior to wisdom, in the same sense as the mason who Every other quality besides is subordinate and inlays the bricks and stones in a building is inferior to the architect who drew the plan and superintends the work. The former executes only what the latter contrives and directs. Now, it is the prerogative of wisdom to preside over every inferior principle, to regulate the exercise of every power, and limit the indulgence of every appetite, as shall best conduce to one great end. It being the province of wisdom to preside, it sits as umpire on every difficulty, and so gives the final direction and control to all the powers of our nature. Hence it is entitled to be considered as the top and summit of perfection. It belongs to wisdom to determine when to act, and when to ceasewhen to reveal, and when to conceal a matter-when to speak, and when to keep silence-when to give, and when to receive; in short, to regulate the measure of all things, as well as to determine the end, and provide the means of obtaining the end pursued in every deliberate course of action. Every particular faculty or skill, besides, needs to derive direction from this;

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