upon him, who not only pursues his course with irrepressible energy and invincible constancy, but the object of whose pursuit is high and holysuch as commands the approbation of our moral nature. It is the consistent elevated Christian character, that claims our warmest admiration. Here is a combination of qualities that may well challenge our reverence. For here that determined energy of will and action to which we so spontaneously render homage is combined with all that is grand and holy in purpose, and all that is touching in unaffected benevolence. It appeals to all that is holy and elevated and generous within us. Here the voice of our moral nature can impose no check upon the feeling of grandeur and dignity, with which undeviating adherence to principles and determined energy in sustaining them inspires us.

In the character of Jesus is met every thing that forms the ideal of human perfection. He is presented to us as the impersonation of human excellence. And here our highest admiration, our profoundest veneration must be given. But since there is apt to be felt by us in the contemplation of his character, something so super-human and unattainable in his divine excellence, blessed be God that in his sacred word and in the history of the Christian church, there are also presented to us examples with which we may perhaps feel more vividly the kindlings of a hu man sympathy. And as Christians gaze on such, must they not feel how noble, how sublime, how venerable is the Christian hero? Or shall we be so poorly in love with our own principles, that consistent energetic adherence to them, moves our admiration less than the false grandeur of an earthly character? Nay; this may not-must not be so. Burning ineffable shame would it be to us, were it so. No-we will tell the deluded admirers of that false greatness which God abhors, that here, in

the character of the Christian hero, are met a grandeur and a glory before which sinks down all earthly grandeur, fades utterly away all earthly glory. That by as much as heaven transcends the earth, by as much as self-sacrificing benevolence embracing even its bitterest foes, is more worthy of our love than the selfishness that cares not at what expense of human happiness its own designs are gained,-by so much does such a character surpass in dignity the proudest specimens of worldly greatness to which a deluded populace have ever paid their insensate adulations.

But it were a poor gain to have contemplated the excellence of such a character, if our assent to its excellence were all that were gained. It were all a poor thing to have felt the grandeur of such a character, if that it have awakened our admiration, be all that is effected. But shall it be all? Shall not such an example awaken our ardent emulation? Does not the very acknowledgment of the excellence of such a character show us our obligations to labor after a like excellence? Does not the very admiration we express, lay us under a pledge to be ourselves all that which we admire? Do we not in the very act of confessing how noble and excellent a thing it is to be a decided and energetic Christian, confess ourselves bound to be all this in our own persons?

And in order to be all that the Christian's principles demand him to be, they must have the supreme dominion over him. No noble consistency, no onward and determined progress can he exhibit, whose bosom is the seat of conflicting incompatible principles. In order to attain any thing great and noble, the soul must be yielded up with its whole capacity of devotion to the high object of its pursuit.

It is a master passion only that can make an harmonious character. How poor a spectacle do they exhibit

in whom their Christian principles are so feebly held, that the grovelling objects of the world are each day contending for the mastery. What Christian acquainted with the history of human effort and human achievement, can see the aspiring, invincible ardor of men excited and sustained by the motives of a merely earthly ambition, and not feel the dishonor they reflect on him. O to witness the labors, the vigils, the all-grasping and ceaseless activity of such men after an earthly eminence and an earthly excellence, and then to see the feeble, niggardly energies which the cause of God and human happiness is able to command! How many humiliating spectacles of indolent irresolution does the Christian world exhibit. What numbers of us sleep out our existence in the midst of the most stirring excitements. Upon thousands of others, who are not sunk in the slumbers of total insensibility, how does indolence sit, the night-mare of the soul. We feel indeed its influence suffocating the energies of our being, but we cannot shake it off. Our whole existence is a painful sensation that something should be done, but we cannot do it. Degraded beings! miserable spectacle of boundless capabilities sunk and debasedof the glorious destiny of being indefinitely holy and useful, disgracefully foregone and forfeited!

There are here and there indeed discerned a few who have shown in their own persons what the efficacy of a single human being may be, when emancipated from all earthly and selfish aims, and excited and sustained solely by the love of God and man. God be thanked for such names as Luther and Whitefield, Howard and Clarkson, Buchanan and Martyn --and in our own country and in our VOL. II.-No. X.

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own times, for such men as MILLStaken early away indeed to witness from Heaven the mighty and everwidening results of those schemes of love to which he had given origin and impulse; and ASAMUN, just called home to his reward, for whom Africa and humanity are now bathed in tears. And what hinders every Christian from being such as these, in that sphere in which God hath placed him,-such I mean in spirit and single-hearted devotion to his principles? There is nothing hinders. Such every Christian may be. Let us not then resign ourselves to those poor and drivelling views which would make us contented with a pitiful modicum of excellence and usefulness. We may-we must be animated with an unquenchable ardor to realize all that excellence and holy influence which God permits to the last possibilities of human exertion. And consequently we must labor with most earnest effort after every thing which will render our characters more excellent in themselves, and increase that moral power, which love to God and man should employ in hastening the day of universal holiness and happiness. These are the objects of our existence. High and holy objects! Glorious incitements! Happy, honored beyond measure, if we fulfil them; if we are not wanting to God and to ourselves. Unspeakably calamitous and miserable, if we decline the noble career which is proposed to us, or fail of the glory which is destined to us. We have no other election. We must run this noble career, we must realize this glorious destiny, or the fate of the poorest lowest Hottentot that bows down by the path side to worship the beetle he had nearly trodden on, is more happy than our own. MATHETES.

minister of Christ, whether he labor as a settled pastor or as an evangelist, finds his work light, or finds not occasion to say with the great Apostle, Who is sufficient for these things? but that in his arduous way, he does not feel as though he was sustaining what "ought rather to be made the punishment of a state of fence," than laid on one who has undertaken the charge of souls; and prosecuting the studies which are necessary to enable him to bring forth things new as well as old, does not view himself as the slave of an eternal round of artificial duty,' and is not provoked to say of his beloved people, whose welfare is ever powerful to constrain him, that if a "sermon which they have heard a second time is a good one, and fitted to their case, it were a pity they were not obliged to sit under its perpetual reading,till they were much better." Widely different from those of Antipas, were the fellings of that much loved minister of Christ, the venerable Mr. Hallock. "No place," said he, is so agreeable to me as my study, and it is often delightful to read, write, &c." Again. "O how needed and inestimably precious is the gospel of Christ, as the true and only light of life. I think I can say, my study was never so delightful. I would write my sermons if it were only for the pleasure of writing them." Life,pp. 257, 273. There are others who, should they publish what they have felt,' and give a picture' from the results of their own experience, would give one similar to this.

6

But I should not have asked a place in your miscellany for these remarks, were its pages not read by those who are without experience in relation to the sacred office, and must judge respecting it from testimony only. I am unwilling that these should entertain such views of the office, of the feelings of those who are employed in it, and of the inefficiency of their labors, as are

imparted by your correspondent. The labor of writing which devolves upon a settled pastor is great, but it is often delightful. The sacred studies of one who has, weekly, to prepare "beaten oil" for the sanctuary, are sweet. To David, God's word was sweeter than honey; more to be desired than much fine gold ;he delighted in it as those that find great spoil. To study it must of course be sweet to the spiritual mind; and to study it with pen in hand cannot destroy the delightful gust. The pen, if the expression be allowable, is a kind of magic instrument, as respects the aid which it affords in investigation. While it records, it seems to originate the thoughts which are the subject of its record, to reduce them to order and subject them to control. Many a minister when closeted to the labor of writing for the Sabbath, instead of claiming that any man ought to be sorry for any man' in his condition, has been ready to thank the Lord for his seclusion from the world, and for the privilege of spending so much of secular time in such spiritual employ.

This is not the place to give lessons respecting the state of mind which a minister must cultivate in order to render his laborious duties pleasant ;-nor in relation to the economy of time he must practise, in order that there may not remain a field of influence around him, which he does not even approach. Suffice to say that as his work is spiritual, so must he be emphatically, spiritually minded. A minister of the gospel who is not a spiritual man, may well stand aghast in view of his labors, as well as in view of his personal responsibility; and is to be commiserated above all other men.

With respect to the matter of writing, which is considered as constituting such a disadvantage as to render the expediency of a settled ministry doubtful, where is the minister, let me ask, that is confined to writing,-whose occasional discour

ses, if not the more formal services of the Sabbath, are not extemporaneous? And how many ministers are there who write what they do write, as being an advantageous and pleasant method of study; and particularly useful both to themselves and people, in discussions that require exactness; while much to their own comfort, they can discourse on common subjects and occasions,as profitably without,as with, writing. While the number of such is supposed to be increasing, 'the disadvantage' now considered, 'of the pastoral office and relations, in the existing forms' which have been handed down to us from bygone times, and which the Holy Ghost has blessed abundantly, need not operate to their abolition.

B.

To the Editor of the Christian Spectator.

ALLOW me to remark, to the author of the communication in your last on "moral painting," that the fine delineation of the portrait of the Infernal as it is to be in the day of judgment, which he has credited to Milton, is from the moral pencil of another Poet, and may be found in Young's Night Thoughts, Night IX. nearly two hundred lines from the beginning.

If the poet has given "his due," to the physiognomy of the abhorred original, let the poet, I say, have also his due, in the affixing of the name of the proper author to the inimitable piece. And so we say all.

X.

DISTINGUISHED MEN IN ENGLAND.

Two American Gentlemen who late

ly visited England, one of whom is understood to be a Clergyman of the Congregational, and the other a Clergyman of the Episcopal Church, are publishing "Notes" of their travels, in the New-York Observer, and in the [Hartford] Episcopal Watchman.

From their many interesting descriptions of persons and things, we select, for the gratification of our readers, the following notices, (somewhat abridged) of distinguished men in England. We may add some further selections, if our correspondents leave us room, in our future numbers.

ROWLAND HILL.

The writer in the Watchman thus notices this singular man.

Rowland Hill is one of the few men in the world, who combine much eccentricity of character with an ardent spirit of Christian benevlence. Possessed of an ample fortune, he early devoted himself to the ministry, in connexinon, I believe with the Whitefield Methodists; and erected at his own expense, on the Surrey side of the river, a large Chapel, for the use of the poor population in the neighborhood. I set off one Sunday morning, to be one of his hearers; but having a long distance to walk, I did not arrive till the service was partly over.

The service being over, Mr. Hill entered the pulpit-a venerable, goodlooking man, apparently near eighty; but like Moses, "his eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated," of which he gave proofs by the occasional loudness of his voice. I had taken my seat in the free sittings near the door, among carters, coalmen and artizans, some of them the lowest class; and had a noble view before me. The chapel, which is said to contain 5,000 persons, was quite full. It has sixteen sides; and the seats are disposed with their backs to the walls, and look towards the pulpit, which stands near the

centre.

the building, and supports an organ A gallery runs quite round said to be the most powerful in London; although that of St. Sepulchre's, I should think, was not inferior. It is deficient, however, in richness and mellowness of tone. Every one must acknowledge that the effect of