Sermons.

A Second Volume. By Edward Maltby. D. D. 8vo. 12s.

Twenty, on the Evidences of Chris tianity, as they were stated and enforced in the Discourses of our Lord, comprising a Connected View of the Claims which Jesus advanced, of the Arguments by which he supported them, and of his Statements respecting the Causes, Progress and Consequences of Infidelity. Delivered before the University of Cambridge, in the Year 1821, at the Lecture founded by the Rev. John Hulse. By James Clarke Franks, M. A., Chaplain of Trinity College. 128.

Six, before the University of Oxford. By T. L. Strong, B. D., of Óriel College, Chaplain to the Bishop of Landaff. 68.

Lectures on the Book of Ecclesiastes. By Ralph Wardlaw, D. D., of Glasgow. 2 vols. 8vo. 18s.

Sea Sermons; or Twelve Short and Plain Discourses for the Use of Seamen: to which are added, a Prayer adapted to each Sermon, and other Prayers. George Burder. 12mo. 2s. 6d.

Single.

By

An Attempt to Ascertain the Import of the Title" Son of Man," commonly assumed by our Lord. A Sermon, preached before several Unitarian Associations, and printed at their Request. By Robert Aspland, Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Hackney. 12mo. 13.

The Character of Jesus Christ, an Evidence of his Divine Mission. A Sermon, preached at the Gravel-Pit Meeting, Hackney, and at Lewin's Mead, Bristol. By Robert Aspland, Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Hackney. 12mo. 1s.

Delivered at the Parish Churches of Soham and Wicken, in the County of Cambridge, on Sunday, August 12, 1821. By Charles Joseph Orman, B. A., late of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, Curate of Soham. 8vo. 1s.

The Coming of the Lord, a Motive to Patience and Stedfastness, preached before the University of Cambridge, on Advent Sunday, Dec. 2, 1821. By William Mandell, B. D., Fellow of Queen's College. 18. 6d.

The Substance of a Sermon at the Church of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, October 19, 1821, before the British and Foreign Seaman's Friend Society. By Richard Marks, Vicar of Great Missenden, Bucks, formerly a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. 1s. 6d.

The Christian Watchman: on Occasion of the Death of the Rev. Thomas Best, late Minister of Cradley Chapel, Worcestershire, August 5, 1821. By John Cawood, A. M. 1s. 6d.

Suicide providentially arrested, and practically improved: preached by the express desire of Mr. G. J. Furneaux, who shot himself at White-Conduit-House, Sept. 19, 1821. By S. Piggott. 18.

Memoir of the Rev. Caleb Evans. [See Mon. Repos. XVI. 735-737.] THE amiable and excellent youth who forms the subject of the present Memoir, was the third son of the Rev. Dr. Evans, of Islington. He was born at Islington, April 29th, 1801. Until upwards of 16 years of age he seldom left the paternal roof, but was educated by his father, whose labours to imbue his mind with solid and useful knowledge, and to implant in his heart the principles of piety and virtue, were abundantly repaid by the avidity with which he received the former, and by the evidence he gave that his conduct was influenced by the latter. In the winter of 1817, he went to Edinburgh, where he spent two winters at college. Both sessions he obtained the leading Mathematical Prize; and by the ability and earnestness with which he availed himself of the opportunities afforded him to correct and extend his

knowledge, he gained the esteem and confidence of those who had the best opportunities of observing him. He was now for the first time the master of his own time and conduct, and was at a distance from every one who could exert any controul over either. In this untried situation, which is never without danger, he gave the first decisive proof of that steadiness of mind and character which every successive year confirmed; for he studied with the diligence of those who love knowledge for itself, and acted with the discretion of those whom experience has taught the value of virtue.*

See an article intitled, "A Ramble into the Western Highlands of Scotland," continued through several successive numbers of the Pocket Magazine, in which the deceased describes in a lively manner a tour which he made in the Spring of 1818, when only in the 17th year of his age.

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In

For a considerable period his attention had been fixed on the Christian ministry as the profession in which he might be most happily and usefully employed, and in the autumn of 1820 he finally determined to devote himself to it. This determination was the result of much serious reflection, and formed in the sincere hope that it would be conducive to his own mental, moral and religious improvement, and to the improvement, in some humble measure, of others. And no mind could be better constituted and no character better formed for this important office.

Having made his election, he immediately applied himself with an extraordinary ardour to those studies which he deemed necessary to enable him to discharge the duties of the Christian minister with honour and usefulness. Not having it in his power to pursue that systematic study of theology and of biblical criticism, under the direction of able and enlightened tutors, which he earnestly wished, he formed a plan of study for himself, to which he adhered with great steadiness, for which he husbanded every hour, and from which even the pleasures of social intercourse could seldom seduce him. Often when friends whose society he highly valued were under the same roof with him, he confined himself to his closet, unwilling to lose any of those precious moments which could not be recalled, and of which, with all his efforts, he felt that he could obtain but too few. The time spent in these pursuits was his season of enjoyment: to other engagements he attended because his duty required it; to these, because they afforded him the highest gratification.

He commenced his studies with an attentive and thorough examination of Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God; and of the Treatise of the same author on Natural and Revealed Religion, together with several other works which treat of the exist

He next applied himself with the same diligence to the study of the Evidences of the Christian Religion. The historical evidence and the philosophical_argument founded upon it made a deep impression on his mind, and produced a firm and unwavering conviction, that the writers of the gospel history must have been the men they purport to have been; must have seen and heard the things which they declare they saw and heard, and must have done and suffered what they are reported to have done and suffered: consequently, that their story must be true, and therefore, that the divinity of the Christian religion is established. He could never sufficiently admire the clear and masterly statement of this argument in Mr. Belsham's Summary of the Evidences of Christianity, a work which the inquiring and upright Deist is bound to study, and with which the Christian parent ought to render the mind of his child familiar.

The next subjects which engaged his attention were the Books of the New Testament. He entered into a careful examination of their genuineness and authenticity, and in this investigation read with extreme pleasure the writings of Herbert Marsh. In like manner he had begun to examine the epistles, the obscurities of which he was anxious to explain to the satisfaction of his own mind: and by the aid of Locke and Taylor, whom he diligently studied, he had already in part succeeded: and, probably, as much for his own improvement as with a view to afford improvement to others, he had condensed and arranged the result of his investigation in a discourse on this subject which he never delivered. Already he had made himself well acquainted with the writings of Dr. Cogan, which he greatly admired.

His first sermon was delivered at Worship Street, Dec. 17, 1820, on the Parable of the Sower, and the satisfaction whieh he gave on that and subsequent occasions may be best estimated from the fact, that within the year which comprised the whole of his ministerial labours, he repeatedly officiated at most of the principal Dissenting places of worship in the metropolis and its neighbourhood, and in that short period preached forty times. On Whitsunday, June 10, 1821,

he preached (by invitation) the annual sermon at Horsham, from Acts ii. 47: "Praising God and having favour with all the people:" a discourse which he likewise delivered at the Gravel-Pit Meeting-house, the last Sunday that he entered the pulpit. At Maidstone he had engaged to deliver two charity sermons on the Sunday immediately following his decease. On these two sermons were employed the last efforts of his mind. One of them, from Psalm exix. 144, "Give me understanding and I shall live," he had completed; it contains the following passage: "If a man direct his thoughts to his own wonderful formation-to the extent and the diversity of the scene which this earth presents-and to the vast, the intricate, yet the unerring process of the seasons and of vegetation; and if from these objects of his more immediate contemplation, he raise his thoughts, baffled in their investigations of the smallest portion of this globe, to the kindred planets which with this world revolve round the sun;-if, too, he forget the grandeur of this our solar system as he extends his vision to the fixed stars, whose immense masses by their incalculable distances are reduced in his sight to twinkling specks; -and if here he gather up the whole energy of his amazed and bewildered thoughts to grasp the idea that these wavering particles of light are each a system, each-worlds revolving round their sun-if thus far he carry forth his thoughts, must he not, when he recals them to his own nothingness, feel the most awful anxiety to shape his conduct in strict subservience to the will of that Being, the effects of whose power he has been contemplating throughout the boundless extent of space?"

The other charity sermon, from Proverbs xi. 24, "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth," was left unfinished; it terminated abruptly with the following

sentence:

"Throughout the works of God man cannot point to a single portion that has not been formed to produce some good." The following description of a bigot is extracted from a sermon, (the last ever preached by the deceased,) from 2 Thess. iii. 14 and 15: "And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." After pointing out the general inculcation of humility and love through all the epistles, he proceeds:

"From the glance which we have now taken at the epistolary portion of the New Testament, we cannot hesitate to allow its direct tendency to promote kindly feelings among mankind. Let us, how VOL. XVII.

ever, be only convinced of this fact;where then do we behold the bigot, who disturbs the happiness of his fellow-man ?

"We see him advance with the writings of the apostles in his hand; with the doctrines of the apostles in his mouth; but not with the spirit of the apostles in his heart.

"He lays before us the doctrines of Paul.These,' he exclaims, formed the faith and hope of an inspired apostle : they must therefore become your faith and your hope.' And he makes this exclamation, and maintains it too, without deigning to give a thought to that love, which the Apostle declares to be greater than the purest faith and the brightest hope; Now abideth faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.'

"We behold the bigot ferociously exacting the belief of mankind to the doctrines of James, Peter and John; but we see him heeding neither the declaration of James, that the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits; nor the exhortation of Peter, to have fervent love above all things;' nor the reasoning of John, he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.'

"Do we then behold the genuine disciple of Paul, James, Peter and John, in this bigot, who, because his fellow-christian assigns to the writings of those apostles a sense different from himself, counts that fellow-christian as an enemy and admonishes him not as a brother? Before we can regard him as the genuine disciple of those apostles, he must destroy the purity and benignity of that spirit which pervades all their writings: he must sacrilegiously tear many a passage from out those very epistles for every tittle of which he avows the most pious reverence. He enforces his doctrines by the severest threats, and sends us to the epistles as the sources of his doctrines. We read the epistles, and whether we discern or fail to discern his doctrines, we peruse the clear condemnation of his malevolence. All the evil that he is willing to heap upon his differing brother, is seen to recoil upon himself. 'He sinks down in the pit that he made; in the net which he hid is his own foot taken.""

It was a favourite plan with him to, unite, at some future period, with the profession of the ministry, the occupation of a public lecturer on natural philosophy. And he had already spent no inconsiderable time in gaining the necessary information, and had nearly completed a Lecture on Air, which seems to have been intended as an introduction to a course of lectures on that and similar subjects.

Such were his wishes and hopes, and such his efforts to realize them. What the fruit would have been of so much ability united to so much diligence, had it been permitted to become mature, it is impossible to say; but it must have been considerable and excellent. That period of maturity, however, was not to arrive. By one of those mysterious dispensations which fill the mind with astonishment and awe, his hopes and his labours have been prematurely closed. He has been snatched from friends who loved him with tender affection, and from a circle in which his worth was appreciated, and which he would have enlightened and improved, and now the memory of his excellence is all that is left. In nothing do the purposes of the Moral Governor of the world appear more inexplicable. That the corporeal frame, just as it has attained the activity and beauty of adolescence, just as all its organs are fully developed, and all the functions of those organs are so vigorously performed, and so exquisitely balanced, that there is not a single movement of the machine which is not perfect, which does not seem to exult in its strength, and which does not produce pleasure: that the mind, just as its faculties are unfolded, just as it is beginning to put forth its power, just as, after immense labour, it has opened to itself the treasures of knowledge, and is beginning to diffuse them with an eager and delighted liberality,-that then the mind itself should suddenly and, as to the eye of sense it seems, utterly perish, and nothing remain of the beautiful fabric in which it resided, but a heap of dusthow irreconcileable does this appear to the wisdom and goodness of the Creator; to that very wisdom and goodness which are exerted in the formation of those very powers and attributes thus prematurely destroyed! To this great difficulty the Christian knows the answer. That death is a good both to the individual and to the system; that unless the natures of each were wholly changed, its existence is indispensable, and that it could not secure the moral advantages it is intended to answer, unless it were constituted exactly as it is; unless its approach were sometimes sudden, always uncertain, and it were able to select its victims alike from persons of every character and every station and every age: of these truths the Christian is well assured, and being so, he can see in some measure the wisdom and goodness of this most awful and afflictive appointment. But nothing can sustain his mind under it, excepting such an enlightened and comprehensive view of its object and end.

In the autumn of 1821, the active mind of this sincere and diligent inquirer after

truth, was deeply engaged in the study of the question of Baptism. In this investigation he read Wall, Gale, Belsham, Taylor, Robinson, &c., and examined for himself the authorities from the Fathers to which these writers refer. After a laborious search he conceived that the evidence in favour of adult baptism by immersion preponderated, and in conformity to this conviction, he thought it his duty to submit to the ordinance. Yet he did not do so until he had again reviewed the grounds of his opinion. Having made an excellent syllabus, arranging in different columns the historical evidence, the facts admitted on all sides, and the deductions fairly to be drawn from both, he was more satisfied than before, that baptism by immersion, on the part of a believer, "coincides with all the data, viz., the evidence of the New Testament, of the Fathers, of the Jewish customs, and with that arising from the nature of the Christian dispensation, while it is really at variance with none." Accordingly he submitted to the rite, and was baptized by Mr. David Eaton at Worship Street, on Sunday, October 28, 1821. But the caution and modesty with which he judged and acted on this occasion, afford a striking illustration of the general character of his mind and conduct. At the conclusion of the memorandum referred to he says, "I frankly confess that if I had now the means of studying theology thoroughly, I might feel inclined to defer my baptism until after I had made full use of those means; but having, I sincerely believe, employed every means which I at present possess, I am inclined to submit to it now. However, I shall consider that I leave a duty undischarged if I do not give the subject a more extensive examination when my opportunities become enlarged. This memorandum will be a bond upon my conscience."

In the like conscientious manner he carefully abstained in his public discourses from entering on any controverted subject which he had not himself thoroughly studied. His mind was not of that constitution which would permit him to take any opinion upon trust, and he had too much probity to speak in the language of conviction on subjects of which he was conscious that he had not made himself acquainted with the evidence. There could be no better proof that he would have become a firm, fearless and zealous advocate of whatever he might ultimately believe to be the truth.

There was one subject of which he was convinced, of which the evidence appeared to him to be most abundant and glorious, and which formed the constant theme of his discourse both in the

social circle and in the pulpit. The evidence of it he felt in himself, and saw in every human being on which his eye rest. ed. Of the abounding goodness of the Creator, and of the general and great preponderance of happiness over misery, he was as fully assured as he was that his senses did not mislead him, when he perceived that all men live as long as they can, and love and value life. He thought it a proof neither of an understanding mind nor of a generous and grateful heart, to fix upon the exception to the rule as the rule itself, and because there are storms, to argue that the sun rarely shines, and because there are sorrows, to contend that there is little or no enjoyment. The earnest and indignant manner in which he opposed every observation and complaint implying the general preponderance of misery, was an abundant proof of his own cheerful and happy disposition, and of that freshness and ardour which form the great charm of youth, and which few of the aged can contemplate without a sigh that it has passed from them for ever. The following passage, taken from one of his discourses, illustrates the manner in which it was his delight to think and speak:

"The doubts of the rational and pious man, in proportion as he contemplates the works of nature and of Providence, subside; and his best feelings are cheered by perceiving how totally unfounded are the melancholy inferences of some respecting the nature of the Deity. By a candid and careful examination of the world around him, even without regarding the inestimable gift of the Christian Revelation, he will be convinced that gloomy notions of the Deity must arise from exaggerations of the misery and from partial views of the happiness that really exist. The inevitable result of his contemplation will be, that the creation teaches, nay commands us to cherish the delightful and animating sentiment of the Apostle John, that GOD IS LOVE!"

It was on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 1, 1821, that he first complained of indisposition. The progress of his disorder was extremely rapid, and was attended with some anomalous symptoms which led his medical attendants to suspect that the cause of it was not common. Early on the morning of the 6th he expired, and the examination after death proved that the melancholy event had been produced by a circumstance of peculiarly rare occurrence. A scarlet bean, which had probably been inadvertently swallowed, had insinuated itself into the vermiform process of the intestine, where, by mechanical irritation, it had produced the most intense inflammation, which had spread over nearly the

whole alimentary canal. In the few similar cases on record, precisely the same appearances presented themselves as in the present instance, and like this also, in all of them death followed with extreme rapidity.

On Wednesday the 12th, his remains were consigned to the tomb by Mr. Gilchrist, who delivered an appropriate address on the occasion. The following Sunday, the 16th, a funeral sermon was preached at Worship Street, by Mr. David Eaton, to a most numerous and respectable audience, from Psalm xxxix. 5: "Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand-breadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee;" the conclusion of which appeared in the last Number of this Repository. [XVI. 735-737.] Several ministers both in the country and in the metropolis testified their respect to the memory of the deceased, by a notice from their pulpits of the awful dispensation which had removed a minister so young and so promising from his sphere of usefulness.

In contemplating the excellencies of the character of the friend we have thus lost, it is impossible not to dwell with satisfaction on the gentleness and purity of his manners. No expressions ever escaped him unbecoming the modesty of youth, or inconsistent with that government of the thoughts and that chastity of conversation which Christianity requires. His performance of the social duties was exemplary; and the remembrance of those virtues which in him appeared to be mixed with almost as few faults as is consistent with the infirmity of human nature, is at once the sorrow and the consolation of his parents, his brothers and his friends. His death was in perfect accordance with his life. That was as peaceful as this was pure. A few hours before he expired, he called his elder brother to his side, and thanked him and another friend who was standing by, in the most affectionate manner for their kindness: he mentioned by name several friends to whom he was attached, and desired that they might be told, that even in that hour he did not forget them, but continued to love them with tender affection. He then said, "I die happy. I could have wished to have lived longer. I am conscious I was enjoying more than I deserved. I could have wished to have done more for Christianity; but I am content. It is a satisfaction to me that the last hours of my life were spent in doing good." He then alluded to another and a glorious meeting with those friends from whom he was now called to separate, and intimated that even in the passage to that brighter and better world, gloomy as it is gene