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fallibly certain and supremely important, a doctrine which is to be the foundation of his hope and the guide of his life, not because there is sufficient evidence of its truth, but because some person who calls himself his spiritual director, tells him it must be believed, does, I confess, appear to me to savour more of the credulity of a child, than of the wisdom of a man. If, however, this complete prostration of the understanding" be, as Mr. Cogan represents it, a matter of necessity, or, according to the doctrine of a Right Rev. Bishop, a duty, in either case, as it appears to ine, Protestantism and every thing connected with it is at an end; since if so great a sacrifice must be made, it is quite obvious, that the Church of Rome has a much fairer claim to it than any other power whatever.

To that part of Mr. Cogan's letter which is intended to shew the unreasonableness of rejecting Christianity, I have nothing to object. I am an advocate for natural religion, not an opposer of Christianity. And I think it important to remark, that in my judgment, the most complete conviction of the eternal truth and universal authority of natural religion, is in perfect harmony with an entire belief in the supernatural origin and great importance of the Christian revelation. From the gracious hand of the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and not through the medium of the unhallowed decrees of usurping priests, or earthly magistrates, I gratefully and joyfully receive both. The latter, I verily believe to be true; the former, I certainly know to be so. W.STURCH.

OBITUARY.

1824. Jan. 5, at his father's house, Oakhill, Somersetshire, PEARD, second son of Wm. Peard JILLARD, Esq., at the early age of 22. Mr. P. Jillard was a pupil of the late Dr. Estlin, of Bristol, for four years, and on the Doctor's giving up his school, removed to Birmingham to com plete his classical studies under the care of the Rev. Mr. Corrie. He then returned to Bristol, and was articled to an eminent solicitor of that city, residing during bis clerkship in the family of his former preceptor, to which he was related. He afterwards went to London, where he passed a twelvemonth in an assiduous attention to those studies which were to complete the period of his professional education, and there is reason to believe that his health was impaired by his unremitting diligence in acquiring all the knowledge he wished to possess. He was particularly ardent in his pursuits during his abode in London, that he might qualify himself for dicharging with advantage to his clients, and credit to himself, the duties of a most eligible connexion in partnership, which had been formed for him with a highly respectable solicitor of Shepton Mallet.

On the first day of the New Year the partnership was to commence; a period anxiously looked forward to by himself, and not less so by his family, who rejoiced at the prospect of having settled near them a son, a brother and a friend, on whose judgment they placed the great

est reliance, and in whose affection they felt a source of the highest satisfaction. Early in December, Mr. P. Jillard having completed his term of residence in Lon don, returned to his father's house to ar range and prepare for entering upon his new duties. It was seen with regret that his health appeared delicate, but no serious disease was either evinced or apprehended. When congratulated on the first of January that the long-expected day was at length arrived, and when welcomed as one of the new partnership, he sighed, and manifested a depression of spirits which was quite unusual to him. He went, however, in a carriage into Shepton, a distance of three miles, on the 1st and 2nd of January, examined the lodgings he was to occupy; saw some of his friends and new clients, and returned to Oakhill. On the evening of the 4th, he appeared much worse than he had been before, and in the course of the night it was evident to his medical attendants that a change had taken place in his disorder, indicating a speedily fatal termination. At the request of his family it was communicated to him by his physician that he had but a few hours to live. This awful information was quite unexpected by him, but he received it with great composure. He said it was a very short warning, and desired that his family would come to his bedside. To cach, he said something kind and affectionate; expressed a grateful sense of

the advantages he had enjoyed from parental solicitude for his welfare; hade them a tender farewell, and hoped they should all be re-united in heaven. He referred to some little remembrances he had brought from London for some friends who were absent, and expressed his wishes respecting them: he desired also that his body might be examined, to discover the nature of his disorder. Before the morning dawned, he expired, retaining his faculties and his firmness to the last.

It was ascertained that the immediate cause of his death was inflammation of the bowels, coming on in an insidious manner, without manifesting the usual symptoms of that formidable malady. There was also some disease of the lungs. His early death has excited much emotion among a large circle of acquaintance and attached friends. He was a young man of considerable talents and acquirements; of great energy of character; possessing a high sense of honour, a strong judgment, a kind and affectionate disposition, and the strictest integrity. Had Providence been pleased to spare his life, there is little doubt that he would have proved an ornament to his profession, and a valuable member of society. His death has disappointed the fondest hopes of his family, but they bow with humble resignation to that will which they are convinced appoints only what is for the best and wisest purposes.

If a parent's heart is wrung by this sudden termination to all his anxious, his active and his successful endeavours to promote the worldly interests of an affectionate and dutiful son, a salutary lesson may have been taught of the wisdom of moderating all our views and wishes respecting the objects and pursuits of this life. To have secured for his son a situation of immediate usefulness, influence and independence, must prove a source of gratifying recollection; but it will be far surpassed by the satisfaction of having given him that education and those principles which have enabled him to meet death with peculiar fortitude, and which have left him to occupy so high and so lasting a place in the estimation and regret of his family and friends.

Jan. 15th, in London, Mr. WILLIAM BARWISE, of Warrington. The deceased was born 1776, and received his first religious impressions among the Methodists, with whom he continued till 1810, when his attention was drawn to the Unitarian controversy by the following

VOL. XIX.

circumstance. The Rev. Mr. Kay, who was then minister of a Calvinistic congregation at Kendal, becoming a Unitarian, preached a sermon declaring his change of sentiment, and dissolving his connexion with the society to which he was then united. With this sermon Mr. Barwise was much impressed. He sat down seriously and impartially to study the subject, and rose from his inquiries a decided Unitarian. For the last eleven years of his life he was a member of the society at Warrington, where his unostentatious piety, his judicious zeal, the integrity with which he followed and the acuteness with which he defended what he conceived to be truth, gained him a general esteem. The circumstances of his death were peculiarly painful; owing to his engagements in the excise, he was obliged for the last eleven months of his life to reside in London while his family remained at Warrington; to this privation he cheerfully submitted, animated by the pleasing expectation of soon returning to the objects of his solicitude with increased means of securing their respectability and augmenting their comfort. He was thus employed when Mrs. Barwise received a hasty summons to London, where she arrived just time enough to witness his last demonstrations of affection, and behold him die. He had been seized ten days previous to her arrival with a paralytic stroke; the attack was too violent to be controlled by medicinal aid, and he sunk under it in the 49th year of his age. The body was conveyed to Warrington and interred in the presence of a crowd of weep. ing friends. Amidst this apparently severe dispensation, his afflicted relatives have but one stable consolation; this exists in connexion with that all-animating hope, which, with a divine munificence, has thrown her fair and everblooming flowerets even across the path of death.

Jan. 22, in the 45th year of her age, SARAH, the wife of Mr. William STEVENS, of Bishopsgate Street. Her maiden name was Hargrave. She was a member of the Church meeting in Parliament Court, under the instruction of the late Mr. Vidler, from the age of seventeen years until that church was dissolved. She then joined the Society called Free-Thinking Christians, of which her husband had been some years a member, and when dissensions drove her husband and about thirty others from that society, she addressed a letter which was read by the Elder expressive of her view of, and re

gret at the conduct she had witnessed in that assembly, concluding by withdrawing herself from that connexion. She, then, immediately joined the Seceders, known as a Christian Assembly, meeting at No. 6, East side of Moorfields, of which so ciety she remained a member till her death. She was beloved and respected for her active usefulness, and her loss has been severely felt by that Church during the last year-a year of sorrow and pain, borne by her with Christian fortitude, the agonies of which terminated a short time before her decease, and her latter moments might from their tranquil nature be considered as falling asleep, but it was the sleep of death.

On Monday, Feb. 16, at the advanced age of 80 years, at his house in Albion Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Mr. WILLIAM ROBSON, formerly a ship and keel builder on the North Shore. In early life he had the management of the keels belonging to the extensive colliery at Willington, belonging to Messrs. Bell and Brown, and in the discharge of his important duty he had the courage to attempt, with happy success, the introduction of a system of moral discipline among the keelmen employed in that concern; a class of men not in general remarkable for orderly and good conduct. By this he engaged the high esteem of his employers, and the almost devoted gratitude of the meu. During the latter years of his life, after he had retired from business, the same goodness of heart and benevolence of disposition impelled him to devote much of his time to the exercise of acts of charity and mercy among the poor and unfortunate, who ever found in him a kind friend and generous benefactor. His modes of doing good were indeed numerous aud varied, according to the various circumstances of individuals. In cases where any disastrous accident or severe misfortune had befallen a worthy individual or family, by which their prospects in life were blasted, and themselves likely to be reduced to a state of indigence and destitution, this worthy philanthropist, whose business and religion was to do good, was frequently known to interpose his kind offices to avert the stroke of calamity; and when his own funds were inadequate to the extent and urgency of the case, he solicited from house to house the aid of his numerous acquaintance in behalf of the sufferers, thus mitigating their sorrows and alleviating the weight of their misfortunes. Solicitous also for the education of the

His

poor, and the moral improvement of the rising generation, he greatly contributed by his exertions to the establishment of the Royal Jubilee Schools; and the success of that useful institution was very much indebted to his continued indéfatigable exertions for its interests. general usefulness and assiduity was acknowledged by the subscribers, by his being annually re-elected a member of their committee. As connected with this public institution, which does so much honour to the town, his death will be felt as a public loss; while the numerous objects of his bounty must long venerate his memory.

In the concerns of religion his conduct was equally exemplary, though it might not be so popular; but that was not his concern. Impressed with an ardent zeal for the true interests of religion, he was equally an enemy to bigotry, superstition and priestcraft, and contributed much to enlighten the minds of those within the circle of his acquaintance, on the most important subjects connected with human happiness. Renouncing entirely all civil authority in matters of religion, he built not his faith on human creeds, and alike despised the dogmas of priests : his theology was wholly drawn from the Scriptures, and there only he wished to learn his duty to God and to his neighbour. In short, his religion was "to do good." In his religious profession he was an Unitarian Christian of the Bap tist denomination, On the minds of young persons he was particularly assiduous to impress the great practical truths of Christianity; and he had a particular affection for serious, ingenuous young men, whose minds he found unsophisticated and undebauched by the popular dogmas of superstition. Such were the peculiar objects of his attention and tender regards; and his highest happiness was to direct and assist them in their honest inquiries after truth. Some of these while they continue to revere his memory, acknowledge that they owed to him the highest obligations.

Newcastle, Feb. 22.

J. M.

Feb. 17, aged 47, Miss ANNE Richards, daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Richards, silversmith, of this place. If the great end of life be improvement and happiness, and example be one of the most efficacious means of promoting these desirable attainments, it follows, that obscurity and retirement are not presumptuously violated, by selecting from those stations such instances of merit as fall

within our individual notice, and exhibiting them as patterns worthy of public regard and imitation. And such is preeminently the case with the name here introduced. The leading and conspicuous features of her character, were gentleness and goodwill to all, affection for her friends and relatives, and gratitude to that Being to whom she owed her existence and her powers of enjoyment. These qualities, which she possessed in no ordinary degree, might, with a less cultivated mind, have easily glided into the delusive mazes of superstition and credulity. Her imagination warm, ardent, and always impressed with the most lively sensibility, was, nevertheless, tempered and corrected by a soundness of judgment, which well fitted her for the duties of life she was called upon to perform, and thus she was doubly endeared to her connexions, and highly respected by the whole of her acquaintance, A feeble and delicate constitution, throughout the course of her life, had made it requisite that she should frequently leave her relatives, and be placed under the care of strangers; and this improved her native propensities to the most indelible gratitude for the kind attentions she received from their hands. No kindness was ever unobserved or forgotten; and if the common maxim has any foundation in the weakness of human nature, that "we write our wrongs upou marble and our benefits on sand," never was there a breast in which the opposites were more decidedly con. centrated than in hers,

With such sentiments and feelings, it might be safely anticipated that the conclusion of her life should be in exact ac cordance with its progress. The heart long accustomed to cultivate and exalt these best endowments of humanity, can never relinquish them, nor suffer any alienation. About a month before her dis. solution, her physician pronounced her continuance as hopeless; she knew his opinion, and contemplated the consequences with indescribable serenity. It was not fortitude that supported her mind, for this implies a conflict to sustain, and a degree of heroism to overcome the difficulty; nor was it exactly the feeling of resignation, for this signifies a subdued and voluntary acquiescence in an event more or less painful; but it was the tranquil composure of an infant reelining its head for repose on the breast of maternal love. "I have no wish for choice," said she, "I have suffered not a little from long-continued imperfect health; and I know that whether I live or die, I am in the hauds of my Almighty Father, who, will surround me with his protection and loving-kindness,"

Though warmly attached to the ministers of the church to which she had given the most uniform attendance, she expressed no desire for their attentions. She felt no need of human passports to ensure her admission through the portals of heaven; nor of any viaticum to operate as a charm or talisman on her future destiny. Totally incapable of affecting to appear to others what she did not feel in strict reality, there was no display for the purpose of exciting any admiration of her energies and self-possession; but every word, look and action bespoke the genuine integrity which cheered her in the trying scene. Not a word of alarm or uneasiness escaped her; nor of regret, excepting for the trouble she occasioned to those kind friends who felt how much she deserved their most assiduous cares. She bid the last farewell to her friends as they individually came before her, with eyes beaming animation, intelligence and affection to the last, and with a placidity of expression, as though she were saying, “Good night, I shall see you again tomorrow ;" and when too much exhausted to continue her attentions to objects without, her countenance and moving lips declared most unequivocally what was passing within.

What, then, was her religious creed? Reader-it was that which has been so vauntingly and falsely denounced as a cold and cheerless system in the appalling hour of trial and need-as affording no consolation when the throbbing heart seeks it in vain from any other source, and as presenting but a broken reed for support, when the torrent is sweeping all before it to inevitable and everlasting destruction. Away with this rant of bigo, try and superstition! A single authenticated fact like the foregoing, is of more importance to prove their futility, than thousands of unauthorized and fanatic assertions-unworthy of utterance, and of the God in whose injured name they are promulgated.

If her creed may be assumed by one who knew her well, and who had the best means of ascertaining its import and extent, he would comprise it in one short sentence, and confirm the whole of his assertions by his signature-"God is love,' and his revealed will is all-sufficient ground for my boundless confidence."

Admitting, then, the propriety and advantage of a faithful delineation of such a character, what vehicle so proper for the purpose as that of her favourite Monthly Repository?

JAMES LUCKCOCK.
Birmingham, Feb. 20, 1824.

Lately, at Barnes, aged 79, the Rev. THEOPHILUS HOULBROOKE, LL.B. F.R. S. E., formerly of St. John's College, Cambridge. For some time he held the office of President of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. (We hope to receive from some correspondent a further account of this excellent man.)

1823. Sept. 7, at Frankford, near Philadelphia, aged 57, Mr. THOMAS SMITH, formerly of Waddington Heath, near Lincoln. Mr. Smith was universally respected for his strict probity, his extensive information, particularly in statistics and rural economy, and his very amiable temper and manners. He was the author of some well-written letters, published in the Lincoln and Stamford Mercury, in the year 1819, principally on the ancient state of the County of Lincoln, under the signature of Antiquarius, which displayed considerable research and a discriminating judgment. He was pressed by many respectable persons to publish them in a collected form, and though he had a very humble opinion of their value, he intended to have complied with the request, and with that view had made some additions to them, but owing to want of time, and a long-protracted state of ill health, he was prevented from completing his design.

Mr. Smith was consulted by the society of gentlemen, formed in London about three years ago, for the purpose of endeavouring to restore what is called the Cottage System; the remains of which, in Lincolnshire and some other counties, are considered to be the principal reason why the poor rates have been and now are so much lower in those places than in most other parts of the kingdom: and it is understood that the Society derived from his communications considerable assistance in the furtherance of their views. He also wrote the short History of the Presbyterian Congregation and its Meeting-House at Lincoln, inserted in this work (Vol. XIV. pp. 213–216). His ancestors for several generations were Dissenters; and he was Trustee for, and a very liberal contributor to, the funds of that Society.

Had Mr. Smith lived to return to England, as he designed to have done in the course of the year, those who knew him would have been anxious to have seen published the opinions of so judicious an observer upon America, after a inore than two years' residence in that country. His views, though probably more favourable than those of Fearon and Faux, were not such as would have

recommended emigration in the present state of things in this country. To one' of his friends, he thus, on that subject, briefly wrote in May last, after a residence there of nearly two years:

"You will expect that I shall give an opinion of this country and people, but this would lead me into a very wide field, which, to travel through in the shortest way, would be too much for my leisure at present; and there are but few things on which I have, as yet, made up my mind to speak of in any decided manner. How the flying travellers who scamper through three or four thousand miles of country, in the course of a summer, in stages and steam-boats, can bring themselves to talk as positively of every thing they see, as if they had been long residents, I am at a loss to imagine: but their random assertions, and foolish and inaccurate remarks, have done incalculable mischief; for never was there a country so falsely described, and in a way most fatally to mislead and deceive, as this has been by that class of travel. lers whose works have been most read by the great body of emigrants; and who have thus come here with the expectation of finding a country in which the cares and troubles of procuring the comforts of life are greatly lessened, compared with the old. For myself, though I had read more on America than most people, I have wondered to find so many things so totally different from what had been impressed on my mind by the tourists; and so many important particulars which had been wholly left unnoticed by them. Of the three most important and leading objects of inquiry respecting the state of a country, viz. the government, the climate, and the character of the people, I can just briefly say, of the first, that it appears to me to have all the excellencies which have been attributed to it by its warmest admirers. The climate is most certainly a bad one, and the people are not so good as they ought to be under such a government. There are glaring faults in their manners and character, which the people in the old countries have not in the same degree. They have, however, some excellencies in which John Bull's people fall short. But merits and faults summed up on both sides, there would be but a small balance remain on either.

"If you are consulted by any one, either farmer, mechanic, or labourer, on the subject of emigration, avoid giving any encouragement. There is not one Englishman in twenty fit to come here; their very prejudice makes then unhappy, though thriving ever so fast."

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