be as long as yours without one. Let this consideration, added to that of their futility, prevail with you to think them, if not long, yet long enough. have parted with a child she loves so much. intending soon to follow her; to find herself arrested before she could set out, and at so great a distance from her most valued relations; her daughter's life too threatened by a disorder not often curable, are circumstances truly affecting. She has indeed much natural fortitude, and, to make her condition still more tolerable, a good Christian hope for her support. But so it is, that the distresses of those who least need our pity excite it most; the amiableness of the character engages our sympathy, and we mourn for persons for whom perhaps we might more reasonably rejoice. There is still however a possibility that she may recover; an event we must wish for, though for her to depart would be far better. Thus we would always withhold from the skies those who alone can reach them, at least till we are ready to bear them company. C Present our love, if you please, to Miss * I saw in the "Gentleman's Maga Yesterday a body of Highlanders passed through Olney. They are part of that regiment which lately mutinied at Portsmouth. Convinced to a man that General had sold them to the East India Company, they breathe nothing but vengeance, and swear they will pull down his house in Scotland, as soon as they arrive here. The rest of them are quartered at Dunstable, Woburn, and Newport; in all eleven hundred. A party of them, it is said, are to continue some days at Olney. None of their principal officers are with them; either conscious of guilt, or at least knowing themselves to be suspected as privy to and partners in the iniquitous bargain, they fear the resentment of the corps. The design of government seems to be to break them into small divisions, that they may find themselves, when they reach Scotland, too weak to do much mischief.zine," for last month, an account of a physiForty of them attended Mr. Bull, who found cian who has discovered a new method of himself singularly happy in an opportunity to treating consumptive cases, which has sucaddress himself to a flock bred upon the ceeded wonderfully in the trial. He finds Caledonian mountains. He told them he the seat of the distemper in the stomach, would walk to John O'Groat's house to hear and cures it principally by emetics. a soldier pray. They are in general so far old method of encountering the disorder has religious that they will hear none but evan- proved so unequal to the task, that I should gelical preaching; and many of them are said be much inclined to any new practice that to be truly so. Nevertheless, General -'s comes well recommended. He is spoken of skull was in some danger among them; for as a sensible and judicious man, but his name he was twiced felled to the ground with the I have forgot. butt end of a musket. The sergeant-major rescued him, or he would have been forever rendered incapable of selling Highlanders to the India Company. I am obliged to you for your extract from Mr. Bowman's letter. I feel myself sensibly pleased by the approbation of men of taste and learning; but that my vanity may not get too much to windward, my spirits are kept under by a total inability to renew my enterprises in the poetical way. We are tolerably well, and love you both. Yours, my dear Friend, W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. My dear Friend,-When one has a letter to write, there is nothing more useful than to make a beginning. In the first place, because unless it be begun, there is no good reason to hope it will ever be ended; and secondly, because the beginning is half the business, it being much more difficult to put the pen in motion at first, than to continue the progress of it when once moved. Mrs. C- 's illness, likely to prove mortal, and seizing her at such a time, has excited much compassion in my breast, and in Mrs. Unwin's, both for her and her daughter. To The Our love to all under your roof, and in particular to Miss Catlett, if she is with you. Yours, my dear Friend, W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.† Νο Olney, April 21, 1783. My dear Friend,-My device was intended to represent, not my own heart, but the heart of a Christian, mourning and yet rejoicing, pierced with thorns, yet wreathed about with roses. I have the thorn without the rose. My briar is a wintry one; the flowers are withered, but the thorn remains. My days are spent in vanity, and it is impossible for me to spend them otherwise. man upon earth is more sensible of the unprofitableness of a life like mine than I am, or groans more heavily under the burden. The time when I seem to be most rationally employed is when I am reading. My studies however are very much confined, and of little use, because I have no books but what I borrow, and nobody will lend me a memory. My own is almost worn out. I read the Bi ographia and the Review. If all the readers of the former had memories like mine, the * Miss Cunningham. compilers of that work would in vain have labored to rescue the great names of past ages from oblivion, for what I read to day I forget to-morrow. A by-stander might say, This is rather an advantage, the book is always new;-but I beg the by-stander's pardon; I can recollect, though I cannot remember, and with the book in my hand I recognize those passages which, without the book, I should never have thought of more. The Review pleases me most, because, if the contents escape me, I regret them less, being a very supercilious reader of most modern writers. Either I dislike the subject, or the manner of treating it; the style is affected, or the matter is disgusting. I see (though he was a learned man, and sometimes wrote like a wise one,) laboring under invincible prejudices against the truth and its professors; heterodox in his opinions upon some religious subjects, and reasoning most weakly in support of them. How has he toiled to prove that the perdition of the wicked is not eternal, that there may be repentance in hell, and that the devils may be saved at last: thus establishing, as far as in him lies, the belief of a purgatory. When I think of him, I think too of some who shall say hereafter, "Have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many won drous works? Then shall he say unto them, Depart from me, for I never knew you." But perhaps he might be enlightened in his last moments, and saved in the very article of dissolution. It is much to be wished, and indeed hoped, that he was. Such a man reprobated in the great day would be the most melancholy spectacle of all that shall stand at the left hand hereafter. But I do not think that many, or indeed any, will be found there, who in their lives were sober, virtuous, and sincere, truly pious in the use of their little light, and, though ignorant of God, in comparison with some others, yet, sufficiently informed to know that He is to be feared, loved, and trusted. An operation is often performed within the curtains of a dying bed, in behalf of such men, that the nurse and the doctor (I mean the doctor and the nurse) have no suspicion of. The soul mikes but one step out of darkness into light, and makes that step without a witness. My brother's case has made me very charitable in my opinion about the future state of such men. Yours, my dear Friend, W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTOŊ. Olney, May 5, 1783. You may suppose that I did not hear Mr. preach, but I heard of him. How different is that plainness of speech which a spiritual theme requires, from that vulgar dialect which this gentleman has mistaken for it! Affectation of every sort is odious, especially in a minister, and more especially an affectation that betrays him into expressions fit only for the mouths of the illiterate. Truth indeed needs no ornament, neither does a beautiful person; but to clothe it therefore in rags, when a decent habit was at hand, would be esteemed preposterous and absurd. The best-proportioned figure may be made offensive by beggary and filth, and even truths, which came down from heaven, though they cannot forego their nature, may be disguised and disgraced by unsuitable inguage. It is strange that a pupil of yours should blunder thus. You may be consoled however by reflecting, that he could not have erred so grossly if he had not totally and wilfully departed both from your instruction and example. Were I to describe your style in two words, I should call it plain and neat, simplicem munditiis, and I do not know how I could give it juster praise, or pay it a greater compliment. He that speaks to be understood by a congregation of rustics, and yet in terms that would not offend academical ears, has found the happy medium. This is certainly practicable to men of taste and judgment, and the practice of a few proves it. Hactenus de concionando. We are truly glad to hear that Miss Catlett is better, and heartily wish you more promising accounts from Scotland. Debemur morti nos nostraque. We all acknowledge the debt, but are seldom pleased when those we love are required to pay it. The demand will find you prepared for it. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. My dear Friend,-A letter written from such a place as this is a creation; and creation is a work for which mere mortal man is very indifferently qualified. Ex nihilo nihil fit, is a maxim that applies itself in every case, where Deity is not concerned. With this view of the matter, I should charge myself with extreme folly for pretending to work without materials, did I not know that although nothing could be the result, even that nothing will be welcome. If I can tell you no news, I can tell you at least that I esteem you highly; that my friendship with you and yours is the only balm of my life; a comfort sufficient to reconcile me to an existence destitute of any other. This is not the language of to-day, only the effect of a transient cloud suddenly brought over me, and suddenly to be removed, but punctually expressive of my habitual frame of mind, such as it has been these ten years. In the "Review" of last month, I met with an account of a sermon preached by Mr. Paley, at the consecration of his friend, Bishop L.* The critic admires and extols the preacher, and devoutly prays the Lord of the harvest to send forth more such laborers into his vineyard. I rather differ from him in opinion, not being able to conjecture in what respect the vineyard will be benefited by such a measure. He is certainly ingenious, and has stretched his ingenuity to the uttermost, in order to exhibit the church established, consisting of bishops, priests, and deacons, in the most favorable point of view. I lay it down for a rule that when much ingenuity is necessary to gain an argument credit, that argument is unsound at bottom. So is his, and so are all the petty devices by which he seeks to enforce it. He says first, "that the appointment of various orders in the church is attended with this good consequence, that each class of people is supplied with a clergy of their own level and description, with whom they may live and associate on terms of equality.' But, in order to effect this good purpose, there ought to be at least three parsons in every parish, one for the gentry, one for traders and mechanics, and one for the lowest of the vulgar. Neither is it easy to find many parishes, where the laity at large have any society with their minister at all. This therefore is fanciful, and a mere invention: in the next place he says it gives a dignity to the ministry itself, and the clergy share in the respect paid to their superiors. Much good may such participation do them! They themselves know how little it amounts to. The dignity a parson derives from the lawn sleeves and square cap of his diocesan will never endanger his humility. Pope says truly— severity. What Paley's arguments may have been, in establishing his first position, we know not, but we should have expected that the poet would have admitted the principle, however he might have disapproved of the comment. There was a time when the proper constitution of a Christian Church furnished a subject of inquiry that engaged the councils of princes, convulsed this empire to its basis, and left the traces of an awful desolation behind. We allude to the times of Charles the First, and to the momentous events that characterized that period. In the present age, the matters in dispute are greatly changed. The important question now agita ted is the lawfulness of the union of church and state, so far as that lawfulness is decided by an appeal to the authority of Scripture. Upon this subject it is not our intention to enter. For able and masterly argument, in defence of establishments, we beg to refer to the work of Dr. Chalmers,* and to the two last Visitation Charges of Chancellor Dealtry. We trust, however, that we may be allowed to express our deep conviction that the timely removal of abuses is not only essential to the efficiency and preservation of the church of England, but also imperatively due to our own honor and credit, to the glory of God, and to the advancement of true religion. In the meantime we would appeal to every intelligent observer, whether there has ever been a period in the annals of our church, more characterized by an acknowledged increase of true piety than in the era in which we are now writing?-whether there is not a perceptible revival of sound doctrine in our pulpits, and of devotedness and zeal in the lives of the clergy? Appealing then to these facts, which he that runneth may read, may we not, though in the spirit of profound humiliation, exclaim with the wife of Manoah, Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow," If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would The rest is all but leather or prunella. not have received a burnt-offering and a meatoffering at our hands; neither would he have showed us all these things; nor would, as at this time, have told us such things as these."† Again-" Rich and splendid situations in the church have been justly regarded as prizes, held out to invite persons of good Let, then, the sacred edifice be suffered to hopes and ingenuous attainments." Agreed. remain, built as it is on the foundation of the But the prize held out in the Scripture is of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself a very different kind; and our ecclesiastical being the chief corner-stone; but let what baits are too often snapped by the worthless, time hath impaired, or infirmity hath disand persons of no attainments at all. They figured, be restored and amended. And let are indeed incentives to avarice and ambition, this be the language of her friends, as well as out not to those acquirements, by which only of every honorable and conscentious oppothe ministerial function can be adorned-zeal nent, which was once expressed by the celefor the salvation of men, humility, and self-brated Beza: "If now the reformed churches denial. Mr. Paley and I therefore cannot of England, administered by the authority of bishops and archbishops, do hold on, as this hath happened to that church in our memory, that she hath had men of that calling, not only most notable martyrs of God, but also * See Dr. Chalmers on Establishments. excellent pastors and doctors; let her, in God's name, enjoy this singular bounty of God, which I wish she may hold forever."* TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Olney, May 26, 1783. I feel for my uncle, and do not wonder that his loss afflicts him. A connexion that has subsisted so many years, could not be rent asunder without great pain to the survivor. I hope, however, and doubt not, but when he has had a little more time for recollection, he will find that consolation in his own family, which it is not the lot of every father to be blessed with. It seldom happens that married persons live together so long, or so happily; but this, which one feels one's self ready to suggest as matter of alleviation, is the very circumstance that aggravates his distress; therefore he misses her the more and feels that he can but ill spare her. It is, however, a necessary tax, which all who live long must pay for their longevity, to lose many whom they would be glad to detain (perhaps those in whom all their happiness is centred), and to see them step into the grave before them. In one respect, at least, this is a merciful appointment. When life has lost that to which it owed its principal relish, we may ourselves the more cheerfully resign it. I beg you would present him with my most affectionate remembrance, and tell him, if you think fit, how much I wish that the evening of his long day may be serene and happy. W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Olney, May 31, 1783. We rather rejoice than mourn with you on the occasion of Mrs C's death. In the case of believers, death has lost his sting, not only with respect to those he takes away, but with respect to survivors also. Nature indeed will always suggest some causes of sorrow, when an amiable and Christian friend departs, but the Scripture so many more and so much more important reasons to rejoice, that, on such occasions, perhaps more remarkably than on any other, sorrow is turned into joy. The law of our land is affronted if we say the king dies, and insists on it that he only demises. This, which is a fiction where a monarch only is in question, in the case of a Christian is reality and truth. He only lays aside a body which it is his privilege to be encumbered with no longer; and instead of dying, in that moment he begins to live. But this the world does not understand, therefore the kings of it must go on demising to the end of the chapter. W. C. Fruatur sanè istà singulari Dei beneficentià, quæ tinam illi sit perpetua."-Beza, Resp. ad Saran. p. 111. ↑ Ashley Cowper, Esq., who had recently lost his wife. TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* Olney, June 3, 1783. My dear Friend,-My greenhouse fronted with myrtles, and where I hear nothing but the pattering of a fine shower and the sound of distant thunder, wants only the fumes of your pipe to make it perfectly delightful. Tobacco was not known in the golden age. So much the worse for the golden age. This age of iron or lead would be insupportable without it; and, therefore, we may reasonably suppose, that the happiness of those better days would have been much improved by the use of it. We hope that you and your son are perfectly recovered. The season has been most unfavorable to animal life; and I, who am merely animal, have suffered much by it. Though I should be glad to write, I write little or nothing. The time for such fruit is not yet come; but I expect it, and I wish for it. I want amusement, and, deprived of that, have nothing to supply the place of it. I send you, however, according to my promise to send you everything, two stanzas, composed at the request of Lady Austen. She wanted words to a tune she much admired, and I wrote her the following,— TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Olney, June 8, 1783. My dear William,-Our severest winter, commonly called the spring, is now over, and I find myself seated in my favorite recess, the greenhouse. In such a situation, so silent, so shady, where no human foot is heard, and where only my myrtles presume to peep in at the window, you may suppose I have no interruption to complain of, and that my thoughts are perfectly at my command. But the beauties of the spot are themselves an interruption, my attention being called upon by those very myrtles, by a double row of grass pinks, just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans already in bloom; and you are to consider it, if you please, as no small proof of my regard, that, though you have so many powerful rivals, I disengage myself from them all, and devote this hour entirely to you. You are not acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Bull of Newport-perhaps it is as well for you that you are not. You would regret still more than you do, that there are so He many miles interposed between us. spends part of the day with us to-morrow. * Private correspondence. + Vide Poems. A dissenter, but a liberal one; a man of letters, and of genius; master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it-an imagination which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs away with him into such fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happiness to be of the party! at other times he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for companions in such a world as this than men of such a temperament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection. Such a man is Mr. Bull. But he smokes tobacco-nothing is perfect My dear Friend,-I thank you for your Dutch communications. The suffrage of such respectable men must have given you much pleasure, a pleasure only to be exceeded by the consciousness you had before of having published truth, and of having served a good master by doing so. I have always regretted that your ecclesiastical history went no further: I never saw a work that I thought more likely to serve the cause of truth, nor history applied to so good a purpose. The facts incontestable, the grand observation upon them all irrefragable, and the style, in my judgment, incomparably better than that of Robertson or Gibbon. I would give you my reasons for thinking so, if I had not a very urgent one for declining it. You have no ear for such music, whoever may be the performer. What you added, but never printed, is quite equal to what has appeared, which I think might have encouraged you to proceed, though you • Here followed his song of "The Rose." † Newton's Review of Ecclesiastical History," so far as it proceeded, was much esteemed,but was incomplete. It had the merit, however, of suggesting to the Rev. Joseph Miluer the first idea of his own more enlarged and valuable undertaking, on the same subject. In this work the excellent author pursued the design executed in part by Newton. Instead of exhibiting the history of Christianity as a mere record of facts and events, he traced the rise and progress of true religion, and its preservation through successive ages; and thus afforded an incontestable evidence of the superintending power and faithfulness of God. missed that freedom in writing which you found before. While you were at Olney, this was at least possible; in a state of re tirement you had leisure, without which I suppose Paul himself could not have written his epistles. But those days are fled, and every hope of a continuation is fled with them. The day of judgment is spoken of not only as a surprise, but a snare, a snare upon all the inhabitants of the earth. A difference indeed will obtain in favor of the godly, which is, that though a snare, a sudden, in some sense an unexpected, and in every sense an awful, event, yet it will find them prepared to meet it. But, the day being thus characterized, a wide field is consequently open to conjecture; some will look for it at one period, and some at another; we shall most of us prove at last to have been mistaken, and if any should prove to have guessed aright, they will reap no advantage, the felicity of their conjecture being incapable of proof, till the day itself shall prove it. My own sentiments upon the subject appear to me perfectly scriptural, though I have no doubt that they differ totally from those of all who have ever thought about it, being however so singular, and of no importance to the happiness of mankind, and being moreover difficult to swallow just in proportion as they are peculiar, I keep them to myself. I am and always have been a great observer of natural appearances, but I think not a superstitious one. The fallibility of those speculations which lead men of fanciful minds to interpret scripture by the contingencies of the day, is evident from this consideration, that what the God of the scriptures has seen fit to conceal he will not as the God of nature publish. He is one and the same in both capacities, and consistent with himself and his purpose, if he designs a secret impenetrable in whatever way we attempt to open it. It is impossible however for an observer of natural phenomena not to be struck with the singularity of the present season. The fogs I mentioned in my last still continue, though till yesterday the earth was as dry as intense heat could make it. The sun continues to rise and set without his rays, and hardly shines at noon, even in a cloudless sky. At eleven last night the moon was a dull red; she was nearly at her highest elevation, and had the color of heated brick. She would naturally, I know, have such an appearance looking through a misty atmosphere, but that such an atmosphere should obtain for so long a time, in a country where it has not happened in my remembrance, even in winter, is rather remarkable. We have had more thunder-storins than have consisted well with the peace of the fearful maidens in Olney, though not so many as have happened in |