the active evangelizing operations? He can only act upon the knowledge gained by his predecessors in the field. He must inevitably be superintended by them, or only embarrass and mar plans which they alone are competent to form.

Long as this article is, its limits have compelled us to exclude several topics, and many reflections and suggestions, which it was our anxious wish to present. To the large class of our readers, who think silence should be observed in regard to deficiencies and errors such as we have dwelt upon, we submit in all humility that, in our opinion, great harm has already been done by the want of the disclosures which the Report under review contains; and that it is a first principle with us to trust unreservedly the candor and discretion of the church, in all that concerns the church's interests and responsibilities. To this and all other objections we offer as our final reply, that we have been led into the train of remark which terminates with the present sentence, by a sense of duty as clear and constraining as any to which we ever yielded a reluctant obedience.

ART. VII.-The Life and Correspondence of John Foster: edited by J. E. Ryland. With Notices of Mr. Foster as a Preacher and a Companion. By JOHN SHEPPARD, Author of "Thoughts on Devotion," &c. In two vols., 8vo., pp. 306, 385. New-York: Wiley & Putnam. 1846.

JOHN FOSTER was a man of great and extraordinary qualities. His "Essays" are among the most masterly productions in the English language. They have made a deep and indelible impression upon the age, and given immortality to the author's name. That a man who lived so long, and was so extensively known and admired, should have left behind him a multitude of letters and private documents which would illustrate his character, is what might be expected, and their publication would naturally excite deep interest.

The present work is almost wholly composed of Foster's productions. The editor gives us a rapid sketch of the life and labors of his subject; but even in this he weaves in passages from his letters and other documents in great abundance: so that there is scarcely a page that is not adorned by the scintillations of his genius. It is rare, indeed, that the letters of a shining character, written to his intimate friends, serve to elevate their author

in public estimation. There are many sad evidences of the truth of this remark in the numerous biographies which are extant. By this means a multitude of things freely and carelessly written, which their authors never intended for the public eye, are handed over to posterity as part and parcel of the evidence upon which a correct judgment is to be formed of their spirit, talents, and character. All this would be right, if the world is entitled to an acquaintance with the secret workings of men's minds, and to gaze upon the sanctuary of their private communings with their intimate friends. This is a question upon which we have strong doubts for it is rarely the case that the world, for generations after a man has been dead, is competent to judge correctly of his private and confidential communications. They are generally made upon the assumption of a state of mind, and a knowledge of facts, upon the part of those to whom they are addressed, which are peculiar to them as individuals, and consequently cannot, with perhaps a few rare exceptions, be transmitted to others, even those who live in their own times; and much less to such as shall live generations afterward.

There are several of Foster's letters to his confidential friends which we regret to see. We should infinitely prefer to have known him only through his published works, illustrated by such private letters and papers as breathe the same spirit and speak the same language, to the vexation of a labored effort to reconcile John Foster the essayist with John Foster the correspondent.

We are aware it may be urged that impartial history requires that everything which is tangible, that goes to illustrate a man's character, should be brought out. And we confess there is force in the plea, and it would be perfectly conclusive, provided we could have his own explanations and qualifications, just as he would have made them if he had been writing for the gaze of the world. In his private communications he supposes these explanations and qualifications to be unnecessary; but if he had imagined himself in communication with millions of minds, extending down through countless ages, he would have judged them indispensable; or, possibly, would have withheld altogether the matter, which, if published to the world, would require them.

We have been led into this train of reflections by the perusal of the work now before us; though the matter which we deem exceptionable occupies comparatively but a small space. The letters, as a whole, rank among the most spirited and instructive compositions of the class. The exceptions are like spots upon the sun; and we confess we are grieved to see them. Indeed, we most VOL. VII.-20

heartily wish, as we have no doubt the author now does, that they were annihilated. But before we proceed to particulars, we must give our readers a brief sketch of Mr. Foster.

John Foster was born Sept. 17, 1770, of poor, industrious, honest, and pious parents, in the parish of Halifax, between Wainsgate and Hebden-bridge, England. He says of himself, that "when not twelve years old he had a painful sense of an awkward but entire individuality." In his youth his manners and his observations upon men and things were such that he was characterized by his neighbors as "old-fashioned." His early years were spent in weaving coarse fabrics,-a business for which he had no relish, and in which he manifested little skill. He was retiring and studious. His biographer says: "While residing with his parents he studied closely, but irregularly; he would often shut himself up in the barn for a considerable time, and then come out and weave for two or three hours, working,' as an eye-witness expressed it, 'like a horse."" In his eighteenth year he became a member of the Baptist Church. He commenced his studies under Dr. Fawcett at Brearley Hall, and after about three years was admitted into the Baptist college, Bristol, where, it seems, he remained only about one year. In 1792 he entered upon his first engagement as a preacher in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here his success was small, and he only remained about three months. Next he engaged "to a Baptist society, meeting in Swift's Alley, Dublin." Here he remained but about a year. He next undertook school-keeping, taking charge of a classical school in Dublin. But he says: "The success did not encourage me to prosecute it more than eight or nine months." In 1797 he "was invited to become the minister of a General Baptist Church at Chichester. He remained there about two years and a half, and applied himself with greater earnestness than at any former period to his ministerial duties;usually preaching three times on the Sunday, and in various ways striving to promote the piety and general improvement of the congregation." ." After this he spent one year "with Mr. Hughes at Battersea ;" and "in 1800 he removed to the village of Downend, five miles from Bristol, where he preached regularly at a small chapel erected by Dr. Caleb Evans." After he "had resided about four years at Downend, in consequence chiefly of the high testimony borne to his character and abilities by Mr. Hall, he was invited to become the minister of a congregation, meeting in Sheppard's Barton, Frome." "It was during his residence at Frome that the Essays,' by which Foster attained his great celebrity, were published." Mr. Foster held the office of pastor at Frome a little

more than two years, when he became a regular contributor to the Eclectic Review; and henceforward gave himself almost entirely to literary pursuits. The occasion of Foster's giving up his pastoral charge at Frome was a disease in the throat, which was much aggravated by public speaking. In 1808 Mr. Foster married. In relation to this event he remarks:

"We are thoroughly well acquainted with each other's character, tastes, and habits; and both of us believe there is a singular, even an extraordinary, degree of mutual adaptation, in all our views, feelings, and wishes. Perhaps I might have mentioned that my dear friend is about six years younger than myself. Two months hence I shall be thirty-seven years of age. Our acquaintance has now been as much as seven years, and our avowed connection about five. I regret that the union has been, though unavoidably, deferred to so advanced a period of life, but I never wish I had been married very young. My general health is very good. The state of my eyes is not worse, nor the complaint which has compelled me to desist from preaching."Vol. i, p. 192.

After his marriage he settled at Bourton; and though when he relinquished his pastoral duties at Frome, he supposed his labors as a Christian minister had closed, yet, "within little more than a year after his marriage, the morbid affection in his throat had so far diminished as to allow of his once more speaking in public." He seems for about nine years to have preached whenever an opening occurred, in all sorts of places: for he says in relation to this period, "I am become accustomed to pulpits, desks, stools, blocks, and all sorts of pedestal elevations." "Toward the close of 1817 Mr. Foster left Bourton, and became once more a resident and a stated preacher at Downend;" but "scarcely six months had elapsed when the failure of his efforts was so evident, that he could not hesitate on the propriety of relinquishing the situation." His "mode of exhibiting religious subjects" did not meet the taste of the people, and he was not much disposed to change it for he says, "I cannot feel the duty of making a laborious effort to change my manner for the sake of attracting persons, to whom, after all, it would be less attractive than the crudest exhibitions at the Methodist meeting." Dry, hard, intellectual essays, in the shape of sermons, without evangelical life or fire, never were and never will be "attractive" to people who feel that they have souls to be saved.

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In 1821 Foster removed from Downend to Stapleton, within three miles of Bristol. In the following year he complied with the solicitations of his friends in Bristol to deliver a lecture once a fortnight at Broadmead chapel. These lectures he continued until

Robert Hall's settlement in Bristol, in 1825; when, out of deference to this prince of Christian orators, he discontinued them. He continued his residence at Stapleton until his death, which occurred Oct. 15, 1843.

Foster, as a thinker, was slow but profound and majestic in his evolutions. His mind was of a peculiar mold. No theme was too deep and mysterious for his adventurous and powerful genius. He seems even to prefer dwelling upon inscrutable mysteries. His disappointments in endeavoring to perforate the veil which separates between the present and the future world did not discourage his repeated efforts; and he often seems uneasy under the restraints which the wisdom of God has laid upon the mind of man in his best estate.

He was a careful and critical observer of nature. In his rambles in the field he was constantly storing his mind with minute facts, which served him as illustrations in the consideration of the laws of the universe. The following passage from his Journal shows how minutely and accurately he analyzed the most trivial

"Observed a long time, through a small opening in a completely built and closed shed, a cow and calf. The cow advanced her head to the opening to observe me too. We looked at each other's face, at a very short distance, a long time, and I indulged in a kind of wondering about the nature of our mutual consciousness and thought of each other. (By the way, the mutual recognition of beings of any order is a very strange and mysterious thing.) I observed the great difference between the degree of intelligence expressed in the eyes and looks of the cow, and in those of the calf. Yet vastly less difference than between the looks of a human infant and a mature person.

"Observed the beautiful appearance of the numerous shining flexures or wrinkles on the neck and shoulders of the cow. Noticed, also, an exquisite beautiful cerulean appearance within the eyes of the calf, in the half-darkness (more than half) of the shed.

"Observed that the cow's attention was much more excited, (even when the calf did look at me,) and much longer fixed and continued, than that of the calf."-Vol. i, p. 235.

In the same manner he remarked upon rocks and hills, plants and flowers. The "butter-cup" was with him an object of as absorbing interest as a kingdom was to Napoleon. He had a strange sympathy for flowers-seldom plucking them, not being willing to hasten the period of their glory.

As a writer, Foster was copious, nervous, and majestic, though not remarkable for beauty or correctness. The following critique upon the style of his "Essays," by Robert Hall, is measurably