zeal united with personal affection. They came from a mind filled at all times with the momentous truths of the religion it had embraced, but now in particular excited by sentiments of the warmest friendship for the person whom he addressed; by a sense, as it should seem, of responsibility for his conduct, and by the most ardent desire for the success of his ministry. Still more important would this correspondence become, if any of the letters should appear to have been written under circumstances the most trying to human sincerity of any in which mankind can be placed the view of impending death; because we should presume, that under such circumstances we were reading the mind of the author without reserve or disguise the thoughts which most constantly dwelt in it, and with which it was most powerfully impressed, without the admixture of any thing futile

or extraneous.

The account which we have given does nothing more than describe the epistles of Saint Paul to Timothy, and the last part of the account belongs to the second of these epistles. "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." In this situation of mind, and under the solemnity of these impressions, the apostle sat down to exhort his friend and his disciple. And what is there which

can come with more weight to the votaries of Christianity, and above all, to the teachers of that religion, in every age of its duration, than admonitions so delivered, and from such authority? Nor do the admonitions themselves fall short of the occasion"Watch thou in all things; endure afflictions; do the work of an evangelist; make full proof of thy ministry; preach the word; be instant in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine." These are the lessons of a master in Christianity: every word is ponderous and significant.

The peculiar circumstances under which these two epistles were written,-partaking of the qualities of a private correspondence, displaying those strong emotions of mind which the author's interest in the subject, the native earnestness of his temper, and the pressing dangers of his situation, conspired to produce these circumstances, I say, give to them a character in some measure distinguishable from the rest of Saint Paul's writings. They are, more than any of his epistles, methodical. They embrace three objects; they have three parts: they are doctrinal, economical, personal. But these parts, whilst each exhibits sentiments and precepts which can nowhere be excelled, are intermixed, not to say confounded, with one another. The writer is at one moment impressing upon the mind of his disciple the important propositions which constitute the religion that he taught in the next, is called away perhaps

from his train of reflection by some circumstance of local urgency, which the thea state of the new society, or, it might be, of that particular church, forced upon his attention. He passes from both these topics to rules of personal conduct, adapted to the office which Timothy sustained; and the delivery of these rules formed perhaps the proper and immediate occasion of his letter.

This description accords with what might be expected in private letters between real parties, on real business. The subjects which possess the mind of the writer are seen in his letter; but seldom with the same degree of order and division as when a writing is prepared for public inspection. If this difference be observable even at present, when the advantages of method and order are understood, and when method and order themselves are become so habitual as to have pervaded every species of composition, the observation will hold still more true of the writings of an age and country in which much of this sort was unknown; and of an author, the energy of whose thought was not wont to be confined by rules of art, and whose subject overpowered all the lesser considerations and attentions which a colder mind, on an occasion more indifferent, would have employed in the composition of his epistle. If we perceive, therefore, unexpected and unnoticed transitions from one topic to another, frequent recurrences to those which were left, and a consequent mixture and discontinuance of thought; what do we perceive but

the effusions of a mind intent, not upon one, but upon several great subjects, occasionally possessed by each, and set loose from the restraints of method by the liberty natural to an affectionate and confidential correspondence? But I hasten from these observations on the general character of the two epistles, to the single subject which I have selected for my present discourse.

In what we have called the personal part of the epistle, Saint Paul gives to Timothy directions, as well for discharging the occasional offices of his ministry, as for the habitual regulation of his private conduct; and amongst these, as indeed it was of the first importance to do, for the fit employment of his time. The apostle expected, it appears, ere long to visit the church in which Timothy was placed. When he should do so, he might require, it was possible, from his disciples more active services in the mission in which they were both engaged. But in the mean time-in an interval, as it should seem, of comparative repose-he fails not to point out to the Ephesian bishop, beside the extraordinary or critical exertions to which he might be called by the demands of his station, the objects which ought to engage his regular and constant attention.

How then was the man and minister of God to divide his time? Between study, you hear, and teaching: "Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." Exhortation and doctrine are both put down as being, as indeed they are, different

things: the first relates to practice, the second to belief. The first is to urge upon our hearers the duties of Christianity, the second to communicate the knowledge of those articles which compose its faith-but both are parts of public instruction; and what could be spared from these was to be bestowed upon "reading." From this advice, therefore, and from this example, we collect the recommendations of a studious life; and to set forth some of the advantages and some of the satisfactions of such a life will be no unsuitable employment of the present

occasion.

of

Now wherein, we may ask, consists the satisfaction life whatever?

any

They who have observed human nature most closely will tell you, with one voice, that it consists in a succession of exercise and rest, in the exertion of our faculties in some pursuit which interests them, and in the repose of these faculties after such

exertion.

The inert and passive pleasures, as they are called, of life, or those in which we are mere recipients, are of small account in the sum and constitution of human happiness. Man was made for action-the seat of action is the mind; when he ceases to employ its powers, he not only neglects, it is probable, the duties of his station, but loses the source and principle of his own enjoyment.

These being truths drawn from experience, we are authorized to teach what is their necessary result