though his testimony was not with the enticing words of men's wisdom, yet it was in the demonstration of that Divine power, which reaches the witness of God in the hearts of the hearers. He underwent great sufferings, from imprisonments, spoiling of goods, mockings and scoffings without, and false brethren within: in all which he stood firm, and faithful in his testimony for Truth, approving himself a true follower of Jesus Christ; suffering joyfully for his name's sake who had counted him worthy not only to believe, but to suffer for him. He was a man of great humility, labouring for [the preservation and promotion of] love and unity among brethren -he was beloved of God, and by all good men who knew him. He died at Eldworth, 1707, in his Seventieth year.-Among many weighty expressions uttered in his last illness, I find the following; I neither desire to live nor die : but am well content, however it shall please the Lord to order it. I have great peace and satisfaction, in that I have done the will of God.' He recited also the text 2 Tim. iv, 6-8. To his grand-children he said, 'Now I think I must leave you. If the Lord had seen meet to have spared me a little longer, I might have been of service to you in counsel and advice: but the Lord, the great and wise counsellor, as you have your eye unto him above all things, will not be wanting to you in counsel. I love you entirely, and the blessing of the Almighty rest upon you if it be his will.' To his son in law John Moore, 'Bear me record, I die in perfect unity with the brethren. My love is as firm and true as ever [to them] in our Lord Jesus Christ, the author of our salvation.' (e) 6. Robert Widders, born in Upper Kellet in Lancashire, of honest parents, was a seeker of the Lord and of his way; and received the knowledge of the truth when George Fox visited those parts, in the year 1652. He was a faithful servant of Christ, and laboured for the good of souls; accompanying George Fox in many of his travels, especially in America, the West Indies, and in Scotland; as related in the Journal of the latter. He was valiant for God's truth; and suffered much, both in person and estate, for his testimony to it. Though not large in declaration, he was great in integrity and zeal; and was endowed with a word of wisdom, and in discerning and sound judgment gave good advice and admonition to Friends, for establishing them in the faith whereever he came and the Lord prospered his work in his hand. He died in the First Month, 1686, in his Sixty-eighth year. During the time of his sickness, he was in a resigned frame of mind-and spoke of the mercies of God to his Church, saying, God will comfort Zion, and repair her decayed places, and make her desert as a paradise, and her wilderness as a garden of the Lord: mirth and joy shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of praise!' At another time speaking of his own experience he said, 'The work of righteous (e) Piety promoted, 4th pt: ness is peace, and the effect of righteousnes, quietness and assurance for ever." And would often upon his death-bed say, his heart was filled with the love of God; and that there was nothing betwixt him and the Lord. (f) 7. William Gibson, born in Caton near Lancaster, about the year 1629, being a soldier in the garrison of Carlisle when Thomas Holmes, a quaker, came thither to preach, agreed to go to the meeting with intent to abuse the preacher. But so powerfully did this Friend declare the truth, that Gibson was affected and reached in his conscience by the testimony, and stepping up into the Meeting waited to become his defender, in case any violence should be offered him. From this time he became a constant frequenter of meetings, quitted his place in the garrison, aud betook himself to the trade of shoe-making, waiting upon God in silence for the space of three years; after which he received a dispensation of the Gospel to preach, and became very serviceable in divers parts of the County of Lancaster. He married a Friend's daughter of that county, and settled in Sankey near Warrington; where some were convinced by his ministry, who continued faithful, and many others confirmed in the blessed truth. Travelling afterwards to the South, he was long imprisoned for his testimony at Maidstone; and when discharged settled with his family in London. He died the 20th of the Ninth Month, 1684, aged fifty-five years; and so well esteemed had he been in London, that many hundreds of Friends and brethren attended his corpse to the grave. On his deathbed he gave a charge to his children to avoid all vain company, to be diligent in frequenting the assemblies of God's people, to have an ear open to receive the good counsel of such as feared the Lord, to be obedient to their mother, and to read the Scriptures, and other good books. (g) 8. Willam Ellis of Airton, Yorkshire, born 1658, convinced of the living and powerful truth, 1676, being called and qualified by the Lord to be a minister of the gospel of peace and salvation, was faithful to the call, and laboured and travelled in the work of the ministry in this nation and Ireland; also in Maryland, Virginia, Carolina, Pennsylvania, New England, and other parts of America. A few days before his departure he said, speaking of his convincement, it was a glorious day to him, and he had large tokens that the day of his death would be so, likewise.' And many sweet and edifying expressions dropped from him, in cheerfulness of mind; which shewed how ready he was to embrace death. He died the 4th of the Fourth Month, 1709, aged near fifty-one. (f) Piety promoted, 1st pt: (g) Idem, 3rd pt. ART. IV.-On BEAUTY, in the Creation and in the Mind. "The generous glebe Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract Of streams, delicious to the thirsty soul, The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense, In this dark world: for truth and good are one: If we enquire what is beauty, we must consider first the term ; which is of foreign extraction-the French beauté, anglicised. "Le beau est [donc] grand, noble et regulier: on ne peut s'empêcher de l'admirer: quand on l'aime, ce n'est jamais mediocrement-il attache. "Le teint, la taille, la proportion et la regularité des traits forment les belles personnes. Les jolies le sont per les agrémens, la vivacité des yeux, l'air et la tournure gracieuse du visage, quoique moins regulière. "En fait d'ouvrages d'esprit, il faut pour qu'ils soient beaux, qu'il y ait du vrai dans le sujet, de l'elevation dans les pensées, de la justesse dans les terms, de la noblesse dans l'expression, de la nouveauté dans le tour, et de la regularité dans la conduite. Mais le vraisemblable, la vivacité, la singularité et le brillant, suffisent pour les rendre jolis. "Le beau est plus serieux et il occupe: le joli est plus gai, et il divertit. C'est à l'âme que le beaux s'addresse; c'est au sens que porte le joli.-Le joli a son empire, separé de celui du beaux. Celuici étonne, éblouit, persuade, entraine; celui-la séduit, amuse, et se borne à plaire. Ils n'ont q'une regle commune-c'est celle du Vrai. "Il est si vrai que le beau emporte souvent une idée de grand, que le même objet que nous avons appelé beau, ne nous paraitrait plus que joli, s'il etoit executé en petit." A due consideration of the matter contained in these definitions (taken from the French Encyclopædists) may serve at once to clear up any obscurity which might attach to the term beauty; and at the same time to exhibit a congruity, not a little striking, between the doctrine of an admired poet of our own, and that of the French philologists. The latter may certainly be allowed to know best the shades of meaning of the words, which we have transplanted (merely) from their language into our own. Beauty, then, is in that which is great, in that which is true, in that which is noble, in that which is good, and pleasing to the goodin that which God, when he had formed it, pronounced good and blessed it! And it is in this, no longer than while it is that which God made it. We perceive it in created objects, only in proportion as they accord with a sense of truth and fitness, and harmony within: which sense we derive from God himself, and hold it in his image. Nature, then, beauteous nature, its mountains and vallies and resplendent rivers, are ours 'T' enjoy With a propriety that none can feel But who, with filial confidence inspired, And smiling say, 'My father made them all.' Cowper. Every thing, then, that is unjust; every thing that is impure, deviates from Gods' rule of beauty and stands deformed- -as truly as, in the animal creation, that which wants a limb, or hath the head too large for the body, or is black and blue when it should be fair and ruddy: and, whatsoever things are true, and just and pure, these have also moral beauty, and are lovely and of good report. 10 Sixth Month, 1829. ART. V.-On strength of Memory. "Strength of memory seems to have been a quality in high esteem, with the Romans. Pliny often mentions it, when he draws the character of his friends, as in the number of their most shining talents. And Quinctilian considers it as the measure of genius: tantum ingeniï (he says) quantum memoriæ. The extraordinary perfection in which some of the Ancients are said to have possessed this useful faculty is almost incredible. Our author [Pliny in one of his Epistles] speaks of a Greek philosopher of his acquaintance, who after having delivered a long harangue extempore, would immediately repeat it without losing a single word. [Query, the evidence of this, in the case of an extempore speech.] Seneca says, he could in his youth repeat 2000 names exactly, in the same order in which they were read to him and that to try the strength of his memory, the audience who attended the same Professor with himself would each of them give him a verse; which [verses] he would instantly repeat, beginning with the last, and so on to the first, to the amount of two hundred. He tells a pleasant story of a poet, who having recited a poem in public, a person present claimed it as his own; and, in proof of its being so, repeated it word for word: which the real author was unable to do!" So much from a Note which I find annexed to one of the Epistles of Pliny, in my Elegant Extracts.' Whether Memory, simply consid ered, as a faculty belonging to the person and inherent in himself, could suffice for such feats as these, or whether we must not call in some sort of confederacy with another in the act, must be left to be decided, with many things of like nature, in a day to come. There was a person in this country, not many years ago, who having been allowed to read a Newspaper once over, would for a wager repeat its whole contents to a company of hearers; another of course looking over the paper the while, to see fair. Ed. ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT. ART. I.-A Chronological Summary of events and circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the doctrine and practices of the Quakers. (Continued from p. 70.) A. D. Party spirit continues to endanger the Constitution and 1710. government of Pennsylvania: a new assembly is chosen, and harmony restored. "While human nature is subject to infirmity, and so long as some men are wiser and better than others, will the actions of mortals, whether good or bad, have different constructions put upon them; and be attended with approbation and contradiction, according to their believed importance, and the various mediums through which they are seen. This province appears to have been never entirely without a discontented and murmuring party in it-who thought it their duty and interest, constantly to oppose the Proprietary in all cases indiscriminately, where his power or interest was concerned.-These, for a number of years past, having by continual complaints of great and numerous grievances unredressed, worked up the minds of many welldisposed persons in the Province, into a belief of more of this kind than ever existed in it, thereby occasioned hard thoughts of the Proprietary; and somewhat of unworthy treatment even from some of his Friends." (a) The Historian, with great probability, ascribes the decline of Penn's personal interest to his absence from his Government, to his not seeing with his own eyes, but trusting his affairs too much to deputies :' |