made neither show nor noise in the discharge of his duty. I have thought he withdrew himself too much from the notice and acquaintance of others. I feel sure that nothing but this voluntary retirement prevented a much wider intercourse and fame, such as he secured wherever he could not keep his worth from being known. His self-renouncing modesty so abstained from the least presuming, as with some to inspire a feeling of awe and distance, like what might have come from another man's pride. He had even a diffidence of granting his services to the Society of which he was a child, which I could but once overcome, though I believe no one was heard among us more acceptably.

Truly he had studied the character of him who was "meek and lowly in heart," and gained the fundamental qualification of a Christian minister, by being a Christian. Yet he was by no means of a weak and yielding temper. He was not the man to surprise into unworthy concessions. No man ever planted himself more firmly on the ground of his convictions and principles, and pursued more without wavering the course they prescribed. Thus he reduced to a beautiful harmony qualities both good and useful, which might seem at first sight incompatible. And of all the unions of opposite virtues, none to my mind is more interesting and striking than this, of a meekness that is gentle up to the very point of principle and duty and the law of God, and there turns to adamant. The flowers may be plucked, but not the rock. Indeed I am not sure but his firmness too sometimes tended to excess. But I am sure that in its main proportions it had the excellent and substantial foundation of righteousness, and that, if he stood fast, he stood fast in the Lord.

But the remarkable composition of his character I have not yet fully set forth. His self-sacrifice was as prominent as his selfreliance; his feeling as warm and flowing, as his resolve was enduring. While his object was ever in his gaze, and his purpose sometimes seemed almost stern, his fervor amounted well-nigh to enthusiasm. Set for the defence of the Gospel, he turned not from his post. His pledge to the great Captain of his salvation he adhered to, and as a good soldier redeemed. But at the same time he denied himself. I do not know whether, should I inquire of some intimate companion here concerning his traits, self-denial

and self-sacrifice would not be the words spoken sooner than any others that I have used. Disinterestedness entered largely into his spiritual elements and his daily walk. No stranger was he to that living, ever-burning, immeasurable principle, the essence of God, the actuating motive of Jesus, and the crown of his religion,—the principle of love.

And all these moral qualities were sustained and made effective in a profession, the demands upon which seem to be daily increasing, by strong and sound powers of mind. He was naturally thoughtful. I have heard from those who had opportunities to know the truth, that his bent was more to inward reflection than to outward observation, though his aims and his method were altogether practical. And I should suppose he inclined rather to the severe processes of reasoning than to flights of imagination. While over all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual predominated. Doubtless he like others had faults, but I have never observed nor been informed of any appearances of such not resolvable into some excess of the main principles entering into the composition of the virtues.

I esteem myself blessed of Providence in one respect in the duty I here perform,—that I have such things to speak of in the disposition and character of the deceased. Here least of all, I trust, could I knowingly use exaggerations of panegyric. The singleeyed and truthful spirit of him I am attempting to portray, as well as this consecrated altar, would rebuke me if I did. But I cannot tell over whom of my friends, were he lying there, I could utter myself with more complete, unmingled respect. And I speak to those who know that this man's soul was in his profession and his work. Alas! in them too absorbingly for the endurance of his bodily frame. He persisted perhaps to a fault in laboring when the state of his health and the advice of his friends and the counsel of his physicians forbade. It was always so. Wherever his lot was cast, persevering toil was the attitude with which he stood in it. He would fain die with his armor upon him. And he did. Well do I remember, on the eve of his leaving his former place of settlement, as with his sainted mother, dear to me also, we conversed together, what an almost invincible reluctance he expressed to giving up his charge, though, remaining in it, fatal dis

ease stared him in the face. To the last I think he was hardly persuaded, though he left. He would have staid there and died in the sweep of those harsh ocean-winds, yet in the embrace of those who loved him as well as people can their shepherd. And when Providence at length sent him hither, he employed, as you know, the recovered remnants of health and strength with the same severe industry and hardy exposure. He hath fallen in the furrow, but not till he had planted in it the good seed, to spring up, I trust, bearing fruit thirty, sixty, an hundred fold to the glory of God and the memory of His servant.

And now he shall go in and out among you no more forever. He has offered up his last prayer in this pulpit, and made his closing exhortation. His hands shall no more break the bread of this communion-table. No more on the forehead of your little ones shall he sprinkle the water of baptism, which could hardly from purer hands fall upon that purity. He cannot again stand with gentle sustaining words by your bedside when you are sick, and cheer earth's despondency by hopes raised to Heaven. Nor yet again can he heal the wounds of your grief with the balm of his comforting words and devotions. Alas! he himself is now the departed, and we have come in his stead, to heal and comfort, if

we may.

How richly has he himself provided for the consolation of those who bewail him, in his own words too often and too strongly spoken to be forgotten. Let them do him this respect-of heeding his lessons. We see the sanctuary this day hung with no dark drapery, and this is a testimony of regard to one of his most cherished opinions, which those who most loved him feel bound in this, and in all ways, sacredly to observe. May we take the very spirit of his view into our minds and maintain that inward cheerfulness he would bid us cherish, could the voice so familiar again reach us, to conduct these accustomed services, which he shall never lead again.

Nay, friends and brethren of this religious Society, if you will, his ministry is not over. Though dead he yet speaketh. And do you not seem to hear still those singularly solemn tones, those peculiarly pathetic pleadings, those pungently earnest remonstrances, with which he has been wont so faithfully to address you? It is

not too late to admit their regenerating and sanctifying influence, which may with some have been too much excluded. What a tribute to him to be born again under the meditation of his counsels, which he can speak now only to your spiritual recollections. He has blown the Gospel-trumpet in your ears,-ah, let some of its sweet and solemn windings come up again even above the horizon, though faint and fading away, till the very echo become your effectual call to repentance and a godly life. Let him repeat these sacred ordinances in your inward thoughts of him, till a seal and sanctification indeed be stamped upon them, for your everlasting edification and peace.

And God bless to us, my brethren and fathers in the ministry, this solemn event. God forbid that you and I should not take its meaning and admonition to ourselves, while we would fain impress it on this mourning flock. Are our loins girded about like his, and our lamps burning as brightly? Are we as ready to fall in the field of the Lord's sowing and harvest, and as ripe for his reaper of Death to gather us into his garner? God grant that while our day and work last, and ere the hour come for us to lie, as he lies, beneath the very place of our prayer and teaching, we may be moved to new diligence and faithfulness by the thought, that so much of diligence and faithfulness has been removed from the earth.

And now, with our prayer and lament over it, this that was mortal of our friend goeth to its rest. This is dead,—but our friend sleepeth,-sleepeth from the struggles of this world, from anxious no less than delightful, and overwearing labors, from the tortures of piercing disease.

He sleepeth in Jesus, and those who sleep in Jesus, awake to glory. Yes, he liveth to God and to the Lamb. What he believed in he sees; what he hoped for he enjoys; what he toiled for on earth, he beholds gloriously accomplished in heaven.

Friends, dear friends he left below: friends, dear friends he has found above. A happy, very happy home he is parted from: a happy, most happy home he has reached. Father, mother, brother, sister have gone before him; and the beloved who yet linger he awaits, till the household-circle, so oft broken, is complete again, and the forms with the feelings of our sorrow forever end.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

THE SOCIAL HYMN BOOK, Consisting of Psalms and Hymns for Social Worship and Private Devotion. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1843. pp. 360, 12mo.

It is gratifying to mark the improvements which within a few years have been made in our devotional poetry. Many gifted spirits have been employed in the production of sacred hymns; and there has not been wanting, either among ourselves or our English brethren, religious taste or industry in collecting them. We welcome, with the rest, the graceful little volume before us, as supplying a want, which has been sensibly felt in a department of our social worship, and as well adapted to private and domestic devotion. The excellence of its typographical execution invites attention, which will be amply rewarded by its skilfully selected and arranged contents. In addition to some of the choicest hymns of other Collections, which, familiar and dear as they have become to every devotional heart, should never be excluded from any such work-as those of Watts and Doddridge, of Wesley, Montgomery, and Barbauld—the Compiler has introduced several bearing the title of "Ancient Hymns" translated by Bishop Mant, which the lover of sacred poetry will be gratified to find here. We notice also with pleasure, in company with a few of Cowper's not usually published, that beautiful hymn of Sir J. E. Smith-on the words "It is I; be not afraid,"-peculiarly suited to seasons of anxiety or grief, and breathing the true spirit of Christian courage and trust.

Large Collections of Psalms and Hymns for the use of churches are already sufficiently numerous. Perhaps we should have regretted to find another added to those which have been already supplied by the careful labors of Sewall and Dabney, of Greenwood and Peabody, of Lunt and Flint. But for infant and feeble parishes, "unable to procure more expensive Collections;" for the meetings of the vestry and all other social services among Christians; for the private and domestic altar we cordially re