habits resumed their sway. It was to the surrounding friends, therefore, in such cases, that he always thought his instructions most likely to prove beneficial to them he considered the scene capable of improvement. With this view he did not allow his visits to terminate with the decease of the sick person. To a friend he said, "You have not done all, when the person you have been in the habit of visiting is dead; continue your calls and warnings still to the living."

His list of sick cases was generally very full; he has oftentimes had more than twenty at once on his book, and as his house was situated in a part of the town at some little distance from his parish, he seldom returned home till a late hour, exhausted by his exertions, by long fasting, and, above all, by the distressing scenes which he had witnessed, and which his sensitive mind felt most acutely. He was always afraid lest familiarity with distress should blunt the edge of his feelings, and he often declared that he was astonished at his indifference : but this declaration must only be taken as a proof of the deep view which he took of the physical and moral evil around him, and the solemn sense which he entertained of the awful responsibility of the Christian priesthood; for never was there a heart more keenly alive to every tender and Christian.

feeling than his. Nothing affected him more than the insensibility in which he found so many sunk, even when on the verge of eternity. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that he should have been at times depressed. Much as he delighted in intercourse with his family, he sometimes found any communication too fatiguing for him. On such occasions he has said, “You must not wonder if I am poor company; I am come from distressing scenes,-from dying beds, from dead souls, from a variety of human woe. Alas! I feel dead myself oftentimes." The value of his sensitive mind has been felt and gratefully acknowledged by many under mental affliction. To them he was ever ready to impart, by letter or in person, sympathy and comfort. He could enter readily into the feelings of others; and no one ever more fully realized the beautiful injunction of the Apostle, to "weep with those that weep." "There was this difference," says one who had experienced the benefit of his consolations, "between our beloved counsellor and friend, and every other teacher I ever knew while others seemed, as part of their dauty, to sympathize with the afflicted, he felt untold, spontaneously."

:

Nature had furnished him with a strong, yet pleasing voice. His reading, on which at an early period of his ministry he had bestowed some pains

and attention, was of the best order: emphatic, without declamation; natural, without familiarity.

That there was something peculiarly powerful in his manner as a preacher, cannot be doubted, from the known effect which it produced. Simplicity, earnestness, and affection, all lent their aid to enforce what he urged on the heart and conscience; but, perhaps, what may be said to have constituted the peculiar charm of his manner, was its genuine feeling. His look, his voice, his action, all attested how deeply he felt the solemn truths which he laboured to impress on others. The tone and character of his preaching were in unison with his manner. He never assumed higher ground for himself than for his hearers. There was nothing harsh or repulsive in his teaching. He could not force men into religion: when he touched on the terrors of the Lord, it was with a feeling solemnity suited to the awfulness of the subject, and with compassion for the impenitent sinners he addressed. He "told them weeping that they were the enemies of the cross of Christ." This was literally true. He delighted to dwell on the winning topics of the mercy and long-suffering of God, and the tender love of the Saviour to a lost world. Those who have been in the habit of attending his church can bear witness how largely these subjects entered into his preaching.

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He preached the joys of heaven and pains of hell,
And warned the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the Gospel rather than the Law,
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.

To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard,
Wrapt in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.
Lightnings and thunder, Heaven's artillery,
As harbingers before the Almighty fly:

Those but proclaim His style, and disappear;

The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there.”—DRYDEN.

Of his Sermons it is not necessary to say much, as those contained in this volume afford a tolerably fair specimen of his general style. They were plain practical addresses, containing strong exhortations to devotion of heart and life, on Christian motives. They abounded in forcible remarks on the uncertainty of life, the vanity and insignificance of temporal compared with eternal objects—with touching appeals to the best feelings of our nature. His deep knowledge of the human heart, and of the world at large, and his adapting his instructions to the circumstances and characters of his congregation, made his sermons come home to every man's conscience and feelings.

His first object was to be understood by all his hearers; his next, to set before them a plain simple statement of the Gospel scheme. He felt and ex

pressed himself strongly on this subject. He had seen and lamented the evil of refining too much in religion, and entangling it with subtleties. "I am not anxious," he says in one of his unpublished Sermons, "to attract you by novelties, or to seek to lead you away into deep and difficult subjects. It appears to me that the practical Gospel-all that is necessary forour salvation-is very plain and very simple; and I would rather be found, sermon after sermon, repeating the same great fundamental truths, than that any of these should fail to be made (through God's blessing) clear to your understanding, and brought home with power to your hearts and my own. In many things I might be a very indifferent and insufficient guide to you. I only pray that I may not deceive you or myself in what I do preach to you; and I am sure, in humble dependence on the Divine aid, that I cannot do this, when I direct you, as lost and perishing creatures, to go all to Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of sinners-exhort and beseech you to cast yourselves on him, to place your whole trust and reliance on his merits, and then (from a grateful principle of love) live to that Saviour who loved you, and gave himself for you. I say this to all, because the Gospel warrants me to hold out the mercy to all. Life, dear brethren, is short-eternity

is near.

It is now several years since I have been