In the year 1818, great destitution existed among the Moravian missions in Greeland. Though there were no Moravian congregations in Sheffield or the vicinity, Montgomery printed an earnest appeal in behalf of the mission, in the columns of the Iris, and, in response to his call, within a few weeks nearly £130 flowed into his hands, besides a great variety of clothing, and other useful articles. His interest in the mission gave rise to a poem, entitled "Greenland," emphatically a missionary poem, which was well received, and yielded him pecuniary profit.

He

For successive months and years he was engaged in a quiet but active course of doing good. Ever industrious, sowing beside all waters, and opening channels of blessing wherever he trod, he fulfilled his course, with honor and usefulness, as a cloud full of rain, which distils its fertilizing influence on every field, interposes its grateful shade to the sun-scorched laborer, or gratifies the sense of beauty in every beholder by the brilliant hues which it assumes. was a judicious friend to the poor; he took an active interest in whatever could promote the welfare of his town; he advocated sanitary reforms, as an editor and author, and labored with others in many of the beneficial enterprises of the day. He was full of employment with Bible, Missionary, Tract and Sunday School Societies, and his life was one of unceasing usefulness and happiness.

In September, 1825, an opportunity offering to dispose of his interest in the Sheffield Iris, he gladly embraced the occasion to escape from the toils and anxieties of editorship. He had pursued an upright and independent course in his responsible position, sometimes of necessity provoking censure; and it must have been a great relief to his sensitive heart, to retire from a sphere where, unpleasant collisions were at times almost inevitable. In testimony of their high regard for his worth and talents, his fellow-townsmen tendered him a public dinner on this occasion, and on his fiftyfourth birth-day, he was thus set free, after a service of more than thirty years, from the drudgery of a newspaper. The ladies of Sheffield presented him a beautiful inkstand, and a thousand dollars were subscribed to found a mission

to be called by his name, at Tobago, where his parents had labored forty years before. This station was blessed by the God of grace, and at this day numbers in its congregations fourteen hundred adults, and, including the schools, as many children.

Shortly after this liberation he published the "Christian Psalmist," a compilation of psalms and hymns, including a hundred of his own, and a sequel, entitled the "Christian Poet." The" Christian Psalmist" passed through several editions, and proved very acceptable to the religious public.

In the year 1829, the journals of Messrs. Tyermann and Bennett, who had spent several years, as a deputation from the London Missionary Society, in visiting the Society's missions in the South Sea Islands, were put into the hands of Mr. Montgomery by the Society, to be re-cast in a form suitable for publication. The volumes appeared in June, 1832, and were afterwards re-printed in this country. The readers of the missionary literature of that period will easily remember the deep interest attached to these volumes.

In May, 1830, Montgomery delivered a course of very acceptable lectures on English Literature, before the Royal Institution in London. Five years later he received, through Sir Robert Peel, a pension of £150 a year, “as a reward for service rendered to the department of letters." In 1836 appeared his poetical works in three uniform volumes, containing all that he thought worthy of preservation. He also delivered lectures on the British Poets, at Manchester and Leeds, to very large audiences, spoke before the literary societies of some of the principal cities of the kingdom, and was a favorite pleader in behalf of benevolent institutions.

Such was the general character of the occupations of the venerable poet, now verging towards threescore years and ten. Occasionally his friends dropped around him, calling forth testimonials of tenderness and sympathy, and giving opportunity to survivors to see how much he cherished of the spirit of the world into which those friends had preceded him. But he went on in his works of love, bearing about with him the blessings of a grateful community.

A visit which he made to Scotland in the autumn of 1851, in behalf of the Moravian missions, was an occasion of thrilling interest. He was honored by public demonstrations in all the principal cities, and the object of his mission was liberally patronized, no less for its own sake than for his. In a month's sojourn in Scotland, £600 were obtained for the missionary treasury, to say nothing of the gain of prayerful interest to the cause of missions, which no money could measure. Though his health and strength were evidently waning, and he was unequal to the task, he afterwards performed a tour for the same object in Ireland.

In the year 1849, appear d a revision by Montgomery of the Moravian Hymn Book,-a work to which he had been appointed by the brethren, and which cost him no little care and anxiety. The volume contains twelve hundred hymns. In February, 1853, when he was eighty-two years of age, appeared a volume of his hymns, entitled, "Original Hymns, for public, social and private devotion." He had little more to do with this world, beyond affording his presence at the meetings of the benevolent committees with which he was associated. He had for some time ceased to be present at evening assemblies, and enjoyed chiefly the more quiet sources of occupation, which he found at home. The infirmities of age were asserting their supremacy, and he found it necessary submissively to yield. The wheel at the cistern turned with an obstructed motion, and the sweet draughts of life came up with more difficulty from the deep and secret fountain, till at length, full of years and of honors, he departed on the 30th of April, 1854. The silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl broken; but so gently, and with so little special premonition, that it seemed less like death than a sudden translation. To use his own beautiful words

"Life so gently ceased to be,
It lapsed in immortality."

He was honored by a public funeral, "amidst such demonstrations of respect as were never paid to any individual in Sheffield before;" and at the grave was sung a portion of his own glorious hymn:

"Go to the grave, which, faithful to its trust,
The germ of immortality shall keep;
While safe, as watched by cherubim, thy dust
Shall, till the judgment day, in Jesus sleep.

Go to the grave, for there thy Savior lay
In death's embraces, ere he rose on high;
And all the ransomed, by that narrow way,
Pass to eternal life beyond the sky.

Go to the grave;-no, take thy seat above,
Be thy pure spirit present with the Lord,
Where thou, for faith and hope, hast perfect love,
And open vision for the written Word."

In this notice of the Life of Montgomery, we are not called upon for an extended essay on his genius and poetry. Such an essay belongs rather to the reviewer of his Works. It is enough here to say, without an examination of his individual efforts, that he was animated, beyond a doubt, by the true spirit of the art. He showed the poetic tendency in his earliest years, and by the progress of time and culture, he acquired strength and beauty, force and polish. The development of the religious tendency was the development of his power. It was only when he drank of the brook

"That flowed fast by the oracles of God,"

and dipped his pencil in the dyes of the rainbow round about the throne, that he soared to the noblest elevation. If in his earlier efforts he gave the Edinburgh Reviewers reason to treat his poetry with harshness, it was not because he lacked genius or power; but because at that time he lacked a highly developed delicacy of taste, or because he was impatient of the labor limae, or because, like the amiable and sweet-mouthed Tappan, now, alas, no more, he was so much in haste to see his productions in print, that he could not wait to put upon them the finishing touch of an artist. He sent forth his noble sculpture, at times, in the rough,-all the gorgeous outlines being complete, but demanding the patient hand, and the keen, cultivated eye of the sculptor, and the bold stroke of the chisel, to secure perfection.

Some of his sacred pieces are worthy to be compared with

the best productions of Watts. His hymns on prayer are clear, natural and well expressed. They are every where known and esteemed. They call forth the vibrations of an echoing chord in every heart. They condense as much matter into a narrow compass, as the nature of language renders possible. His jubilee hymn, though in parts a little prosaic, is splendidly dramatic, and fit to herald the triumphant march of Jehovah's armies, and to strike the key-note of the lofty hosanna, when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. His hymn to a departing Christian has merit enough to be esteemed a celestial summons, caught from the lips of guardian angels, and translated with consummate beauty into the dialect of mortals. His hymn on the death of a young minister

"Go to thy grave in all thy glorious prime,"

is as nearly faultless as any human production-dignified, terse, strong, evangelical and effective. Its movement is like the onward tread of the thunder-storm. Its grandeur awes the soul. It is like the Psalmist's "Be still, and know that I am God." His pastoral-"The Lord is my Shepherd "--is sweet as an idyl of Theocritus, or an elegy of Tyrtæus. His hymn of the redeemed in heaven

is an echo of the better world-a beam of glory from the intense brightness, penetrating into the abodes of mortals. His harvest hymn

"Sow in the morn thy seed".

is wonderfully graphic, grouping a mass of brilliant pictures, foreground and background in rich perspective,—in a manner that indicates a true inspiration. His

is fragrant with the simple piety and devout faith of his Moravian brethren, and in its closing strain,