him its power; but it did secure it. The love of Christ went to his heart, reached his spirit and temper, and became to his mind the all but ever-present principle, the all but ever-constraining motive of action, and, if we are correct in our estimate of his natural character, especially of his stern, frigid, and obstinate mental tendencies, accomplished more for him than for any man we know. To his native kindness and benevolence it gave the fixedness of a deep religious principle, and imparted a peculiar grace. It taught him to love and honour, where he would otherwise have hated and despised; to forgive, where otherwise he would have been implacable; whilst it enabled him to bear, if not without anguish of mind, without either the feeling or the expression of resentment, what he would otherwise have scornfully rebuked, or, in a tempest of furious and indignant passion, made to recoil in tenfold force on the head of the offender. It checked ambition; against vanity and pride it brought a healthful antagonist power to act; so that, if its manifestations could not at all times be repressed, they were seen associated with deep contrition and self-abasement, with increasing meekness and lowliness, gradually, but surely, producing in him the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus. But we must not pursue the subject; yet we cannot pass from it without requesting the reader to study the history of the two remarkable men who have been the subject of our comparison and contrast, and to mark the infinite superiority of the gospel of Jesus Christ to every system which man can devise. Only suppose the statesman to have yielded to its power, and there seems no limit to the benefit he might have conferred on the world; only suppose the preacher to have been destitute of its grace, and how feeble the charm of his character, how transient the glory of his life!

We must pass on to that period in the history of Dr. M'All, which, though in a high degree trying and afflictive, we regard as having been made by him that ruleth over all, to contribute, in the largest measure, to the happy development and stability of his religious character-the period which he spent at Edinburgh. We cannot but confess our surprise at the difficulty felt by his biographer in reconciling the various accounts of his states of mind, and determining the amount and causes of his alleged scepticism. We do not think it correct to designate him a speculatist, though he applied to himself the term. He did speculate: but the tendency was quite as much induced as it was natural. The real cause, we feel quite sure, was THE TREATMENT HE HAD RECEIVED-treatment we will not venture to characterize, and on which we cannot reflect without grief and shame. Neither Mr. Brotherston nor Dr. Wardlaw, though each has noticed it, has at all appreciated the influence it had, and could not but have, upon his mind. His expulsion from Axminster, at the dictum of one man, not only reflects indelible disgrace on that man himself, but much discredit on all who in any way consented to it; nor could we ever learn that there was aught in his creed that rendered even expedient, his exclusion from Hoxton. It is painful to us to be obliged to state, that we have known more than one, possessed not only of great talents, but sterling piety, who has

been lost to the church or serionsly injured, through the want of wisdom or forbearance on the part of those whose office it was to guide and direct. There might be eccentricities of character, or even faults; but are there not several individuals, now the boast of Christendom, whose early career was similarly marked? We fear that both tutors and committees are too apt to regard the relation in which students stand to them, as that of subjects to rulers only, instead of younger brethren in Christ Jesus; and when the former, especially in a theological seminary, know no method of maintaining their authority but by the rod and air of the schoolmaster, the effect must be greatly mischievous. We are firmly persuaded, that if, in several instances, the paternal had been blended with the magisterial character-if there had been more of the spirit of the apostle, who comforted and charged the young disciples, as a father his children—and if, when the persuasions and tears of professors failed, and it became necessary to appeal to a committee, the accused could have gone into their presence with a feeling of confidence, instead of suspicion or dread, assured of witnessing in each of those about to sit in judgment, the temper uniformly displayed on such occasions by our departed friend-compelling respect, if not affection, whilst giving utterance to the most faithful rebuke or severest sentence, we are firmly persuaded that he would have been spared much of the torment and peril of the most trying period of his history; and that others, who are either in their grave or pursuing some secular calling, would now have been adorning the gospel ministry. We rejoice to know that a great improvement has taken place, and that, at the present moment, so many of our professional chairs are filled by men who possess what we think to have been the qualifications that met in him, that presided in Carmel, at the most flourishing period of the school of the prophets.

The second disappointment of young M'All's hopes left a wound in his heart, which, though ultimately healed, distinctly showed its marks to the close of life. It well nigh proved fatal: he was saved from utterly falling, only by the mighty power of God. The soft and tender hand of his friend Dr. Collyer, whose name, in this connexion, we cannot mention but with filial reverence, could not reach this sore. The immediate symptoms were such, (and no one who knows any thing of human nature-certainly no one acquainted with his mental conformation-will be surprised at it) that the result could not be predicated. The latent irritation was still more dangerous; and it is one of those cases which constrains us to give all the glory to God. A deep sense of injury-of injury, too, received, not at the hands of a few undiscriminating and irresponsible individuals, but of the recognised leaders in Israel-injury which he thought undeserved, and which clouded his prospects for ever-was lodged in his mind. To his view that injury was doubtless exagge rated; he could not be expected to form a strictly sober judgment of the case, and he left Hoxton necessarily fretted and mortified in a high degree. Great additional bitterness and irritation, perhaps, were given to his spirit, by an impression that he was the victim of a feeble and contemptible jealousy. The fact that the occasion of

his expulsion was the alleged defence of heterodox doctrine, would of itself be sufficient to give a direction to his subsequent speculation; and it is easy to see how, in such a state of wounded feeling, he might wish to find false the religious creed of those who were supposed to have treated him with so much ignorant severity, and true, the opinions which he indeed believed not, but which he fancied he saw they could not subvert; and how, by a process similar in its operation, though different in its circumstances, to that through which the Psalmist passed, he was brought into the state in which "his feet were almost gone, and his steps had well nigh slipped."

As to his having been shaken in mind on the subject of the christian evidences, we cannot, with all respect for Mr. Brotherston's testimony, believe a word of it. Assuredly, Mr. B. greatly mistook him. That there were moments in his young friend's history, when the infidel arguments appeared to possess greater weight than at others, may be admitted; but most men have had their days and weeks of vacillation and of darkness, and especially in the season of adversity. It might be at such a season that the conversations alluded to took place; and the young disputant, in a mood which many can understand who never really questioned the truth of the Bible history, and, without at all "arguing for argument's sake," might press them on his friend so closely, as to induce the suspicion that he was in danger on that score. And we are the rather inclined to this opinion, because we can find no evidence that M'All ever unbosomed himself to Mr. Brotherston, or made him his religious confidante. He appears to have conversed with him as a senior friend, whose character he highly esteemed, and for whose kindness he was grateful. Indeed, we have reason to think, that from the period when he permitted his parents to inspect his diary, till within a few years prior to his decease, he suffered no man, not even Collyer, or Raffles, or Fletcher, to know the secrets of his soul. To his scepticism, then, on the evidences of Christianity, as far as it went, we infer, that he was driven or tempted by a troubled mind, if peradventure he might find some relief, and that it was never seriously entertained.

Nor are we sure that he was at any time so far gone in doctrinal error as his biographer seems to admit. The same causes chiefly operated here also in producing the deflection that did take place. In the trial to which he was subjected, his trust and submission were undoubtedly shaken, and so far shaken as to lead him to speculate freely. Certain ties were snapped; he imagined himself at liberty to canvas afresh every disputed point, and he launched forth, angrily, perhaps, if not recklessly, into the deep. But time only, (we speak after the manner of men) time only was wanting to right his mind, by soothing the wounded spirit. The grace of God was in him. There never was a period when he did not feel and acknowledge that the negations of Socinus would not do for guilty man; though there was a season through which, for wise and important ends, as the issue proved, though then mysterious, he was suffered to be tossed to and fro; but the cable was not cut, nor the moorings loosed, and, as the storm subsided, he found that his hope,

which he had as an anchor of the soul, and which entereth within the vail, was returning, and he was still safe beside the cross.

But how came it to pass that his speculation took this precise turn? Was there nothing in the state of his mind, prior to the troubles which depressed his faith, which may account for it? We have reasons for saying that there was, and that the tritheistic aspect of several of the prevailing formularies of Christendom, had arrested his attention, and suggested to his mind, as it has to others, many grave inquiries. The difficulty presented on this subject by the Athanasian Creed, is very candidly and fairly stated, by the Oxford Tract writers, to consist in the details and nice distinctions, not to be found in Scripture, which are made in that formulary. The reply of those writers to that objection, however, miserably disappointed us, and, had we needed it, would have afforded us no relief. We as firmly believe in the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ as in his humanity, and we hold Sabellianism as abhorrent as Tritheism; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that no such formula as "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost," is found in the Bible. We deprecate the addition as a gratuitous encouragement of heresy, and as affording, to an evil heart of unbelief, positive materials to its scepticism, whilst we feel assured, that if the phrase that is really scriptural, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is not suffi cient to guard the triunity of the Godhead, the explanations of man will never accomplish it. But it is; and we become increasingly confirmed in opinion, that it is because the doctrine is otherwise presented (connected, we should add, with that of the eternal generation of the Son,) in the only confessions of faith which are brought under the notice of educated men, that Socinianism is still alive in this country. We have said that the mind of our friend was stirred up to inquiry. We believe, however, that his perplexity would soon have terminated, but for his sore disappointment. It protracted the struggle, and greatly increased the danger. Through the mercy of God he recovered at once the rectitude of doctrine and the strength of faith, which, notwithstanding some unjust, if not jealous surmises, noticed by his biographer, he retained, with singular steadfastness and clearness, to the close of life.

The religious character of our friend was not less marked and interesting than his mental. He was truly a man of God. His mind, though singularly bold and independent, was at the same time naturally disposed to what is ancient and venerable. Whilst, therefore, in some of its moods, it could resist all authority and power, in others it bowed down in profoundest adoration. As a Brahmin, he would probably have been a devotee; as a Catholic, a monachist of the strictest and purest order. But he was a Christian and a Protestant; he was, moreover, a dissenter, and his congregationalism was the result of careful inquiry; it did not descend to him from his fathers; strong conviction of its scriptural authority only, at tached him to it. The altar and the crucifix, the vaulted aisle and

It is but right to state, that Dr. M'All was ultimately inclined to adopt, though not without some misgiving, the eternal generation scheme.

dim religious light would have been more congenial with his natural taste; and had he been an episcopalian, he might have been a pietist; there were elements in his character which, we can easily conceive, would, in certain circumstances, have led him to sympathize with the Froudes, and Newmans, and Puseys of the day; not in their doctrinal contradiction and absurdities, we know, but in the peculiar tone of their devotions, their seemingly refined sanctity of mind, their austere and rigid holiness. But he was better instructed, and possessing, in a remarkable degree, the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind; those features of character, which in them are so imposing, even associated with error, in him lent all their charms to truth, and rendered his piety at once manly, and dignified, and lovely. There was freedom, but it was allied with the profoundest submission; there was great purity and spirituality of mind, with no tincture of asceticism; there was the firmest adherence to truth, associated with the largest charity and the tenderest compassion for error; there was much, very much, of the mind of Christ.

About seven or eight years before his death, a great and visible advancement in personal religion began. Previously strong in faith, and eminent in godliness; now, his rapid progress could not escape observation. His spirit was greatly mellowed; the deep wounds inflicted in early life began to close; whatever was unseemly and repulsive, gave place to the peaceable fruits of righteousness, and the heavenly mind took the place of the earthly. Several circumstances concurred, instrumentally, in producing this change; the important station which he found himself occupying in Lancashire and at Manchester; the death of that "greatly good" man, Mr. Roby; the feeble state of health of his only two children; the accounts of revivals of religion which reached him from various places, were amongst the number. But these were only the means employed by the Great Agent. The Spirit was poured out upon him from on high; and to have produced such a change in the circumstances in which he was placed, large measures of his influences must have descended upon him. Mr. Griffin says, "I know and should deem it wrong not to say, that Dr. M'All was naturally of the aspiring and ambitious order of minds." (p. 44.) Mr. Fletcher's statement is, that his "disposition was naturally lofty and proud. He felt the consciousness of his superior powers. and he was not the man to be satisfied if they were not in some measure appreciated. . . . . This, indeed, may be regarded as his chief failing.' (p. 150.) Whilst his biographer admits that his "bosom was the seat of a somewhat unduly proud and touchy sense of honour." We feel even less inclination than they to conceal or excuse his fault. We scarcely know what to call it; it was not haughtiness nor pride. Vanity would best express it, if we could divest the term of all that is mean and vulgar; for not only was the tendency of which we speak altogether free from such qualities, it was singularly, if not contradictorily, allied with an unusual and even magnanimous generosity of spirit. Vanity, then, thus explained, was, we think, undoubtedly the type which the great moral malady

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