with useful learning, his judgment formed upon the most liberal and enlightened principles, his zeal for the solid and lasting improvement of those who should be committed to his care, sincere and ardent. When he had been several years engaged in that ministry, the removal of the distinguished Priestley from this highly favoured congregation, opened the way for his settlement amongst you: and a connexion of more than ordinary duration, was continually, receiving additional strength by unremitted kindness and attention on your parts, and on his by a faithful, regular and uncommonly able discharge of those duties which had for their object your perfection, your peace of mind, your everlasting welfare.

The voice which is now hushed into silence will never cease to vibrate in your ears, the very striking and impressive manner in which the most momentous truths have, sabbath, after sabbath, been unfolded and recommended to you, will never be forgotten; the ingenuity and force with which the lessons of eternal wisdom have been set forth and inculcated, will never cease to be the subjects of your grateful and admiring recollection. God grant that the great

end which our departed friend proposed by every means which he so carefully employed to convey to your minds, and deeply impress there the great truths of the gospel, may not have been used in vain! God Almighty grant, that those principles of rational piety, of active benevolence, of social and of personal virtue, which he taught you to consider as deserving of your constant and most serious regard, which by every motive he could suggest, he urged you to adopt and practice, may be immoveably implanted in your breasts, govern your whole temper and conduct, and render you his crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord!

You will bear me ready witness, my friends, that I am not guilty of flattery, when I add, that my departed friend endeavoured to instruct you by example no less than by precept, and was so far as the inevitable frailty of human nature would permit, in every respect, such as he exhorted you to be. Did he recommend piety to God? To God he was himself pious; pleased to trace his perfections most perfectly harmonizing in his words and in his works, chearfully paying to him the homage of a contented and a grateful heart, and humbly sub

missive to those mysterious dispensations which removed the friend, the child who largely shared in his paternal affections, the companion of his life and the partner of his bosom. Did he invite you to rejoice in the hopes and privileges of the gospel of Christ? In his own habitual moderation with respect to the pleasures of this life, in his own habitually cheerful temper, in bis resignation and patience in the hour of affliction, he proved to you how full of comfort and of joy those hopes and privileges are. Did be faithfully tell you what the Lord your God requires of you, and exhort you to unwavering obedience? In all the important relations which he sustained, he endeavoured to be a pattern of good works, and in his own temper and conduct exemplified the duties which he enjoined upon you. Equally removed from ostentation and severity, pretending to no greater degrees of holiness than are really attainable in the present imperfect state, and at the same time far superior to all the false maxims and artificial glosses which are too commonly suffered to influence the practice of the world, his religion was the fruit of a rational

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piety and a sober judgment; adapted to awe and silence the scoffer, and to lead the humble, teachable and well-disposed mind, to glorify the, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The reasonableness of his piety, the sound ness of his judgment, the extent of his knowledge, the cheerfulness of his temper and the delight with which he viewed the happiness of those who are in the morning of their days, admirably qualified him for usefulness far beyond the line of his professional duty, and particularly for that most important office of instructing the young. In the light which he thus diffused, many of you, my young friends, rejoiced, and amidst this scene of sorrow, no grief is more lively and sincere than that which fills your breasts as you contemplate the narrow abode in which your instructor and your friend is deposited. Your tender hearts can never lose the impression of his kindness, his patience, his anxious solicitude to improve your understanding, and to confirm your love of virtue; you can never forget the concern which he manifested for your happiness, and the delight with which he viewed your innocent joy! His labours, I am confident, will not be

lost; you will lay up those lessons of wisdom as your choicest treasures, and in the relations which you may hereafter fill, you will so diffuse their influence, that in the future assembly of the just made perfect in heaven, rany, besides yourselves, shall gratefully own their obligations to him, for no small share of the happiness of their mortal life, and of their eternal reward.

That all the duties of his station were most punctually fulfilled, you, my brethren, will willingly testify; but his active mind could find leisure for other pursuits, and he rose to eminence in some of the most pleasing branches of human knowledge. He delighted in the works of God, and largely investigated them, and thence he drew not only the most satisfactory pleasure, but lessons of considerable value and importance to you; and of late and of late years the knowledge he had acquired has been imparted through different channels to the world, and justly entitled him to a distinguished rank amongst the promoters of the knowledge of nature, in this country. The loss therefore extends far beyond ourselves: Science bends with Filial Affection and with Friendship over that

grave,