"Mr. Vaughan's childhood was passed under singularly good influences. The character of his parents is seen in their children, and in old age he was accustomed to attribute whatever there was of good in his views and habits of life to their instructions, which he took delight in repeating. Dr. Price, one of the most distinguished dissenting divines of his day, was the pastor upon whose instructions his family attended; and Mrs. Barbauld, second to none of the female authors of recent times, in the beauty of her writings, was one of his early teachers. The force of the impressions then made on him was visible in his whole character, but especially in his fidelity to the liberal, but then and still unpopular, form of faith, in which he had been brought up by those enlightened and excellent instructors. He came hither in 1782, and was soon in habits of familiar intercourse with the most distinguished persons of the time. Early after the formation of this religious society, which took place in 1796, he connected himself with it, and, mingling as he did in all circles, he shrunk not from bearing the unfashionable name of a Unitarian. He was prompt and zealous in furthering the interests of the infant church, and for more than eight years shared with others the labors of the pulpit. He never obtruded his faith on those who differed from him. He appeared in social intercourse only to recognise our common humanity, and was rejoiced to labor for a good object with good men of any persuasion. By forgetting doctrinal distinctions, he made others forget, despite their sectarianism, that he was a heretic. And yet he did not permit his faith to be denounced. He was always ready with a reason to answer the ignorant and the bigoted."— pp. 10, 11.

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Although no man ever valued money less for its own sake, although he went before all others in the liberality with which he gave, so that his example seemed to lose effect from its singularity,—yet Mr. Vaughan loved best to furnish the destitute, not with money, but with employment; and with this object, there is no trouble that he would not take, no distance that he would not go, no hour of the day or the night which he would not use for the humblest applicant for his assistance. And all this was accompanied with habitual self-forgetfulness. Accustomed to all the comforts and to the luxuries of life, his habits were simple, and his personal accommodations were of the homeliest kind. For years, after long and useful days he threw himself down at night upon a humble cot, and thought of nothing beyond the necessary means of repose. And with the sun, or before it, he was up again, intent upon his benevolent purposes, and perhaps knocking at the doors of his wealthy friends, arousing their drowsy households with his charitable applications."— p. 12.

"Is any one curious to know about his religion? It was in his life. He lived in it, and it in him. For the religion of Mr. Vaughan, you must look upon Mr. Vaughan himself, upon what he was. He could not talk about religion, but he could show us, and he has shown us how to live in it. Words are imposing, but they are cheap and easy, and the true kingdom of God in the soul, as an apostle hath declared, 'is not in word but in power,' in the simple native force of an active, well spent life, in the power of benevolence, in the energy of virtue. Such power our venerated friend has exhibited. We have all seen in what his happiness lay, what his heaven was. That heaven he has

carried with him. It is built out of the elements of his character, at the very centre of his being, and it is wholly out of our power to conceive of him as taking pleasure, save in active, unwearied usefulness, in offices of kindness, in deeds of charity and love." — pp. 29, 30.

Memoir of Elder Abner Jones.
Boston: Crosby & Co.

By his Son, A. D. JONES. 16mo. pp. 215.

MR. JONES has done well to place upon record the life and character of his father; for he was one of those good, and, why should we not add, one of those remarkable men, whose memory ought not to be suffered to perish. To those who knew him this volume must prove a welcome offering; and to those who knew him not it will present one more example of a man, in whom there was no guile, who knew not the meaning of the word selfishness, whose religion was seen, not in words and profession only, but in a devotion to the feeling of duty, and to what he believed to be the will of God, so hearty and so sincere, that it was to him the very breath of his life. He was an original man. The religion he advocated and preached, as far as it was a system of opinion, he formed for himself, from his study of the New Testament. And when he went forth to preach what he believed, with a full heart, he went not in the name of any sect, nor commissioned by any school or college, but on his own authority, in the strength of his own faith, to proclaim it to whomsoever would hear. All the early circumstances of his life were unpropitious, not to the growth of the sentiment of religion, for his father was a pious and virtuous man, but to his enjoying any of those advantages of education, thought essential to a preparation for the calling to which he ultimately devoted himself. His youth was passed in the back-woods of Vermont, where there were neither schools, nor churches, nor hardly inhabitants, and the solitude only now and then enlivened by the appearance of a travelling pedler or preacher. He early became religious under the influences of his parents, and the occasional preacher; and passed through those experiences, which, whatever name we give them, seem to mark the time when religion establishes itself in the soul. We cannot follow his course minutely. Till he was nineteen years of age he lived at home, then, teaching school a single year, he abandoned that employment for a physician's, for which he seems to have fitted himself by private study of such books as he could procure, all the while, however, urged from within to become a preacher of the Gospel. For two years he resisted this inward summons, and practised his profession with reputation and success. At the end of that period he could resist no longer,

but suddenly threw up a lucrative business to devote himself to the life of a Christian Minister. He was at first, and through his life afterwards, esteemed as an interesting and persuasive preacher.

The great distinction claimed for him by his biographer is, his independence of thought and opinion, and his laying the foundations of the so called "Christian Church," which now has its societies spread over the Union, and all of which, as is well known, are Unitarian in opinion. "From the first," he says, "Elder Jones announced his determination to stand alone, and acknowledge the authority of no church or set of men. He and about a dozen others, laymen, and residents of Lyndon, covenanted together in church form, and called themselves CHRISTIANS; rejecting all party and sectional names, and leaving each other free to cherish such speculative views of theology, as the scriptures might plainly seem to them to teach. This was probably, the first FREE CHRISTIAN Church ever established in New England." His life, as a preacher, was one of poverty, incessant labor, and frequent change of residence. But his reason for abandoning one church for another was not, in a single instance, that the one to which he removed was more prosperous and its rewards greater, but, on the contrary, that it was less so and its rewards less, in the hope that by a true devotion of his best powers to its service he might revive and establish it. In this manner he recovered several decaying or dying churches. It would be difficult to find, in the modern annals of any denomination of Christians, an example of a more single-minded, conscientious, disinterested man, one who in all his labors thought less of himself and more of the cause he had at heart. His sphere was what is called a humble one; but whatever it was in itself, he made it great and honorable by his industry, his spirit of self-devotion, his contentedness, and his piety. Although of an inquisitive mind, and a great reader, always, as he says, curious to know what the next leaf of a book he should turn over would reveal, yet he seems to have been strangely insusceptible of the refining effects books usually have on those who are conversant with them. His style was that of an uncultivated man to the last. With more of the power which tolerable literary skill confers, his good influence would have extended farther and deeper while he lived, and would not have been lost when he died. His memoirs, well drawn up by his son, are worth reading, if on no other account, for the glimpses they give of one of the simple, primitive forms of our country life. But they may be read with profit for higher and better rea

sons.

An Offering of Sympathy to the Afflicted; especially to Parents bereaved of their Children. Being a Collection from Manuscripts never before published. With an Appendix of Extracts from various Authors. By FRANCIS PARKMAN. Third Edition. Boston: Munroe & Co. London: J. Green. 1842.

"THE Offering of Sympathy," Mrs. Follen's "Selections from Fenelon," and the "Formation of the Christian Character," are the books which ordinarily a clergyman makes most use of as gifts in his congregation, and to the young. We are not surprised that Dr. Parkman's excellent little volume has reached a third edition. It has carried comfort to many a heart. We wish it well on its errand of peace. The present edition it will be observed is an enlarged one. "The plan," says the author, "has been somewhat extended; and with some connexion and improvement of the former, will be found an original article by a friend, and some additional selections in the appendix adapted to the wants of the sorrowful of all descriptions.'

ts of

Discourses on Human Life. By ORVILLE DEWEY, Pastor of the Church of the Messiah, in New-York. New-York: Published by David Felt & Co. 1841. 12mo. pp. 299.

THESE discourses on human life are worthy of being placed by the side of the volumes that have preceded them from the same author. They are perhaps more universally interesting in their topics than either of the others. All who love wisdom and truth, clothed in the attractive charms of eloquent speech, will be eager to possess and read them. Some of the topics are, The Moral Significance of Life, Life is what we make it, On Inequality in the Lot of Life, On the School of Life, Life's Consolations in the view of Death, On the Religion of Life, &c.; eighteen discourses in all. We do not intend that the present brief notice shall preclude us from an extended review of these discourses hereafter; and we cannot but express our hope, that another occasion for recurring to them will be furnished by a second edition in some more comely shape. In the present instance, the publisher has by no means done justice to the great worth of the book. So much beauty within should have been recommended by some beauty without. We are confident the work would meet with a much wider sale, were it more attractive in its form. Mere policy would seem to dictate a tasteful exterior. We should like to see a uniform edition of Mr. Dewey's Sermons in a form as neat, nay as elegant, as the press can give.

The Object of the Ministry. A Sermon preached at the Installation of Rev. Samuel Osgood, as Pastor of the Westminster Congregational Church, in Providence, December 29, 1841. By EPHRAIM PEABODY. Providence: B. Cranston. 1842.

THIS pamphlet, beside the Sermon of Mr. Peabody, contains the Charge by Mr. Folsom, the Right Hand of Fellowship by Mr. Simmons, and the Address to the People by Mr. Thompson, of Salem. Together, they may be commended as a model of what these services at an ordination should be. It cannot be often that services, prepared without previous concert, should so perfectly harmonize in their spirit and aim. They all, one as well and as much as another, breathe the deep seriousness that becomes such an occasion. They all are concerned with themes of infinitely more moment, and we believe always more interesting to a listening people, than the topics which formerly and usually it has been one's misfortune to hear discussed at such times. If ever there be a distinct propriety in presenting to an audience subjects that shall possess a universal interest, that shall appeal to feelings and affections common to all who hear, that shall raise no angry emotion, but tend to disclose new grounds of agreement and love, it is at an ordination of a young man as a preacher of the Gospel of peace and good will. That there may have been formerly a propriety and advantage in pursuing an opposite course, we would not hastily deny; but we can see neither advantage nor propriety in continuing the practice at the present day. At an ordination we hope never again to hear discussed, either the points of difference between the Unitarian and the Trinitarian, or between different portions of the Unitarian body itself. New school and old school, reform and conservatism, bigotry to the old and bigotry to the new, all this and the like grate harsh music to the ear and the spirit. It seems to be a time and occasion for union at all points where it can possibly take place, rather than for probing, or even touching the sore spots of division and difference, - a time, in a word, for music rather than discord, for communion rather than antagonism. The services at the installation of Mr. Osgood were just such as we would have them always to be. They are all concerned with the deep things of the spirit and the life; leaving far behind, as if they did not exist, the husks and the chaff, the beggarly elements of controverted doctrine. These things, great in their way, are rightly left to the review, the tract, and the set occasion.