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iour when you are well, and who sit by you with sleepless eyes, and smooth your pillows with gentlest hands, in all your little ailments. A mother's love, my young friends, is the love of God himself, breathed into, and flowing through those hearts of devoted tenderness, of which you will dream in your slumbers when your mothers themselves may be far away, or cold in the grave; for among the recollections of a virtuous mind, a mother's memory will always, next to God, have the highest and the holiest place. The value of all these gifts you may not understand fully for you are not in the circumstances that most forcibly press their value on the mind. You may pray that your present state of happy thoughtlessness may last for ever,-nay, in your ignorance of the world, you may be looking forward to your release from school as merely the beginning of your freedom and enjoyment. But you must soon discover, by a stern experience, that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." Your youth is only the blossom, whose beauty must wither, making way for the far less showy, but more useful fruit; or it is the school in which you learn how to use your hands, and eyes, and understandings, that they may be serviceable to you in the everyday duties of a rugged world. When you meet these duties, you will discover how much God has given you in giving you health, and intelligence, and education, and parents; and since you cannot but know, will you be so heartless as not to feel, that you are bound to remember and love God for all his goodness?

And you know how in love God sent his Son to teach, and suffer, and die, that he might save men. "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." You know, too, that all of us have sinned, and deserve to perish; young as you are, you have done much that is wrong, and are therefore guilty before God; why then, should we not be punished by him, driven away to the darkness and sorrows of an eternal death? This must have been your fate and mine, had it not been that God loved us and gave himself for us,-nay, it must be our fate still, unless we take Christ for our only Saviour, and put our trust in him. But why should we perish, since he is earnestly inviting us to his friendship? he is inviting all, and especially the young: "suffer little children to come unto me," he said, when on the earth, and says so still; "suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." This is his special call to you, and young as you are, you are old enough to obey it. Samuel became a prophet when he had hardly passed his infancy; Timothy knew the Scriptures from his childhood; and Christ, who inspired their hearts with piety, still loves to watch over you, though you see him not, and is at this day gathering from your ranks, young saints, whose pure and holy minds, and whose clear views of religious truth, set an example to the best and most learned of their instructors. How cold then and senseless must that heart be, which does not remember this God of love, and this affectionate Redeemer, with gratitude and delight!

And if you have much reason to "remember your Creator in the days of your youth," on account of the way in which he provides for your happi- There are, besides, many other reasons of a toness, you have infinitely more when you think of tally different kind, which should persuade you to him as a perfectly good and glorious being. He remember your Creator in the days of your youth. whose armies are angels, and his servants flaming Some of these I shall now shortly state. You are fire,-whose garments are light, and his throne well aware, that without piety, which is merely established amid the brightness of heaven, is so another name for the devout and affectionate regracious that he cares even for the least and the membrance of God, your souls must perish for worst of the children of men. Nay, though ever. Unless you learn to love and serve God dwelling amid the songs of holy seraphim, yet he here, you cannot enter into his presence hereafter. delights in the humble piety of such as you are, And you have read in your Bibles, that there is a for he ordains praise from the mouths of babes and place of fearful darkness, where the devil and his sucklings; and not only so, but he is perfectly angels dwell-a bottomless pit-a lake of fire— good in his whole character, without spot or ble-prepared for all who forget God. Those of you mish, holy, just and true, full of loving kindness and tender mercies. Your affections, my young friends, although subject to the evil bias which we all inherit, are still comparatively sound, they have not been debauched by habitual profligacy, nor checked by that caution which time must soon teach you; and, accordingly, you love all who shew you kindness, with a readiness which you will see reason to correct; surely, then, with hearts thus overflowing in your attachments, you will have some deep and pious remembrances of a Creator who is so worthy of all the love you can possibly bestow on him. In this world, you may be cheated of your affections by objects the most unworthy, but assuredly God will never disappoint you, for his goodness is unchangeable as well as universal.

who go on thoughtlessly in sin, may indeed have to pass through a long life of various fortune before you be cut off and turned into hell. But if you live without thinking of God and praying to him, without striving to glorify and serve him, all your happiness must end with your lives, while your misery will then begin, never to have an end. But, on the other hand, if you do remember your Creator devoutly and constantly, you shall, through Christ, be admitted into heaven, there to live with God and blessed angels for ever. And heaven is a place of perfect peace. No sorrow at all is there, neither sickness of body nor anguish of mind. Trouble is shut out with the sin that causes it, and all who enter there, enter to everlasting rest. No sun shall rise and set there, a

which they might enjoy the permanent services of their favourite preacher. This was the origin of Surry Chapel, the first stone of which was laid by its future minister sembly who repaired to witness the ceremony from on June 24th 1782, when he addressed the vast asthese words:" Therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth, shall not make haste." Isaiah xxviii. 16. That chapel, from various circumstances, became a place of very general resort. It has been the scene of many a remarkable event in the religious occurrences of the age, and of very numerous and striking conversions; and many who came from no better motive than to gaze upon the beauty of the building, or to hear the exquisite music, or the original observations of the preacher, were happily, through grace, arrested, and verified the remained to pray." statement of the poet, "that some who came to mock, "Once, however, Mr Hill had a narrow escape from the iniquitous design of some miscreant, who fired at him while in the pulpit, through one of the low windows next Blackfriars' road. report was heard, and the ball, or other hard substance, passed to the left of the pulpit, through the window attempted this diabolical act was never discovered, nor near the organ, which it broke. The individual who did he repeat it; and whenever Mr Hill mentioned the circumstance, he always expressed his thanks to Providence for delivering him from so great a danger : for had not the substance aimed at him risen in its projection, it passed so directly over him that there is every

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reason to fear his valuable life would not have been spared."

bright and serene day shall shine on perpetually. No death shall waste the inhabitants of heaven, or take friends away from one another. Parents and children, brothers and sisters, who had parted here amid the sorest grief, shall meet again in heaven, to be torn no more asunder. If, then, you would seek this most blessed home, and shun that other place of endless woe, you must do so by striving to remember and love your Creator. You never can love him, or live with him in heaven, unless you begin to do both on the earth. In this life, too, the advantages that flow from early piety are both many and important. Passing over the circumstance that the youngest of you may soon sleep beneath the waving grass of the church-yard, and therefore need to be prepared, it is clear that youth is, in several views, the most favourable season for the growth of piety. I cannot indeed believe, that even in your minds, there is any native bent to religion. Nay, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and man's thoughts are evil from youth upwards. But, if in young minds there be no disposition to piety, there are, at least, fewer obstacles to it than in old. You are not yet hardened against all that is good by the force of long habit, nor are your hearts opened to the power of our worst appetites. Ungodliness and vice are not, as with aged sinners, mixed up in all your thoughts, nor are your de- The Sabbath schools attached to Mr Hill's chapel sires fixed on wealth and honour, with the force were among the first institutions of the kind established that holds the hoary worldling in almost hopeless in this country. He himself took a lively interest in thraldom. Follies of a lighter kind do occupy understandings and gaining the affections of children, them, as he had a particular turn for addressing the your attention; but they want the desperate ob- and many were brought by the instructions they restinacy of vices that have been long indulged.ceived in these schools, to love and profess the Gospel Take advantage, therefore, I entreat you, of the softness of your hearts, and seek to have the image of God early stamped on them. Strive to remember him, and to have your feelings melted with love to him, before your thoughtlessness shall have ripened into crime. Every day you live without remembering God, you are straying farther and more hopelessly away from him, and your return to his love and obedience is becoming more difficult and desperate. Knowledge you may gain, but what you gain in knowledge you will lose in sensibility. Your consciences will become seared as with a hot iron. Truths that alarm you now, will cease to affect you. Wedded to sin, you will grow indifferent to all that is good. God may even withdraw his Spirit from struggling against your rooted obstinacy, and leave you to follow the course of your own deluded minds. Thus, through neglect of God in your youth, you may be left a hopeless prey to sin in old age,-to sorrow and despair in the hour of death.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE REV. ROWLAND HILL. Concluded from Page 189. AMONG the crowds in London that followed Mr Hill in the varied scenes of his pastoral addresses were several persons of fortune, who were willing to consecrate no small portion of their income to the service of their Saviour, and who were naturally desirous to have some commodious and respectable place of worship in

at a very early age. With those who were thus distinguished, he ever kept up a friendly correspondence; and some of the teachers became afterwards well known to the religious world, as, for instance, Ellis, the missionary in the South Sea Islands. The lively fancy of Mr Hill found congenial exercise in composing little hymns for the children under his pastoral care, and by far the greater portion of these poetical effusions may, in simplicity, pathos, and general execution, bear a favourable comparison with those of Dr Watts.

Mr Hill took a warm interest in the formation of the Missionary Society, and the honour of preaching the sermon, at the first anniversary of that noble association, was conferred on him. His text was, "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come:"Matt. xxiv. 14. "There were present about two hundred ministers of various denominations, forming a most impressive and animating spectacle, which nesday in May, in the same place. The missionary has been repeated for many years on the second Wedday at Surry Chapel was, to its devoted pastor, in the brightest sense, a gala. On that morning he rose

earlier than usual, and before breakfast was seen seated
at a table near the window of his room, looking alter-
nately at the people as they gathered in the chapel-yard,
hours before the opening of the doors, and at the Bible
and Book of Common prayer, to select the lessons for
the day, and to refresh his recollection of the service he
was about to read. When any one entered the room,
he would say,
see what a churchman I am; I must
have it all correct;' then perhaps he would make a few
remarks on the first movements of his mind towards the
great cause of missionary labours. Presently Mrs Hill
came down, when he said to his servant,
come up to

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prayer.' The family were soon assembled, and in a short, but sublime supplication, he poured forth the deep feeling of his soul. It was a solemn and affecting moment; few could have heard him unmoved. At breakfast he was interrupted every instant, but not at all annoyed, by the entrance of those connected with the management of the society, or by the introduction of some distinguished foreigner, who desired to witness the routine of the day. Now and then he was called out to prevent the persons in the yard from rushing through the house into the chapel, in their anxiety to gain early admission; and it was only by the strongest remonstrances that many of them were prevailed on to wait for the opening of the doors. As soon as the hour of service arrived, he went to the vestry; presently there was a general movement in the chapel, and all eyes were fixed on his venerable figure as he slowly ascended the steps of the desk. No reader ever gave a more solemn effect to the liturgy of the Church of England; his deep feeling, brought out by the scene and the occasion, his powerful and melodious voice, and his thorough conception of the beauty and spirituality of the form of prayer he loved, combined to give a pathos and dignity to his performance of this part of the service, which has never been surpassed by any minister. After the prayers, the missionary hymn was given out by one of the phalanx of ministers who occupied the front of the galleries, and sung by the immense congregation, all standing. The full tones of the fine organ, the combination, in a simple melody, of three thousand voices, and the recollection of the object of their meeting, inspired an emotion which thrilled through every Christian's breast. After the sermon, Mr Row

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beings, silent as the breathless evening of autumn, fixed in deep attention to the words that issued from the sonorous and commanding voice of the speaker, as he delivered, in all the majesty and dignity of his office, his message of mercy to the lost and ruined sinner. The retiring of the multitude under the most solemn impressions was, indeed, a touching sight; every person seemed deep in thought, and numbers were, for the first time, absorbed in the concerns of their souls and of eternity. The old women, as they looked out of their doors at the slowly passing stream of human beings, observing a party of soldiers among them, exclaimed, Eh, Sirs, what will become of us now! what will this turn to the very sodgers are ganging to hear preaching.' It was always a principle with Mr Rowland Hill to expect great things from his labours: While we are straitened,' he says, in our expectations, the blessing is withheld; but when our hearts are enlarged, the more we ask, the more we have.'"

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The indefatigable exertions he made in this tour through Scotland, of which his appearance in Edinburgh was, as it were, but the commencement, may be judged of, by a short account of it preserved in his journal. "I have now finished a nine weeks' Gospel tour of full 1200 miles; have preached in much weakness to many thousands; and have been more or less engaged on different calls, near eighty times, with no other calamity than a little indisposition for a few days, and the temporary lameness of the same horse which conveyed me through all my journey, excepting the short respite he required till he could overtake me on the road; without also the least personal insult from any quarter, excepting a small share of a distant hiss of false asper. land Hill held a plate at one of the doors, and the peoplesion, and I trust unjust reflection. For them I only seemed to strive for the honour of putting their dona- quote that fine expression in our church liturgy, partions into his hands. If the collection went on well, don our persecutors and slanderers, and turn their his countenance beamed with delight, and he hastened hearts.' at its conclusion up the steps o his own house, to reckon its amount, surrounded by those whom he had invited to dine with him in the school-room. The sum gathered was seldom found deficient. Once, in times of difficulty, it was less than usual by nearly a hundred pounds. His depression was evident to all near him; but in the evening, as he sat silent and in low spirits at the falling off, a gentle tap was heard at the door, a letter was brought in, and carelessly opened, with the remark, a begging letter, I dare say.' It contained a draft for one hundred pounds, from a generous individual, who had observed the effect of the diminution in the collection on his mind, and who expressed his anxiety for the honour of Surry Chapel, and the comfort of its then aged pastor. His eye brightened, and he exclaimed, The Lord hath not forsaken us, we shall now do better than ever; we should never doubt.'"

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It was shortly after this, in the year 1798, that Mr Hill paid his first visit to Scotland, which produced so great a sensation. He had come on the invitation of a few zealous individuals, who engaged the Circus at Edinburgh for a chapel to him for a year; and the time of service was fixed at 7 o'clock in the morning, and 6 o'clock in the evening, in order not to interfere with the view of those who wished to continue attending their own places of worship. "The singularity of the stranger's manner, the fervour of his address, and the brilliant powers of his active and energetic mind, soon drew vast multitudes around him. The Circus, large as it was, could not contain half the numbers who flocked to hear him; and they cried out that the galleries were giving way under the pressure of the crowd. He accordingly went forth to the Calton Hill, where he preached from a platform to a mass of people, amounting to at least ten thousand in number. The spot was well adapted to such a purpose; the platform was placed in the centre of a sort of natural basin, and the green slopes which surrounded it were covered with innumerable immortal

Many readers of this memoir, who have heard any thing of Mr Rowland Hill, may have heard of bin as an eccentric minister, whose preaching was made up of anecdotes, and a combination of circumstances and images calculated to strike and amuse the fancy. There can be no doubt that there was some foundation for this description of him, for he had so lively and active a mind, and so strong a sense of the ludicrous, that things which might have passed unnoticed by any ordinary person, made an impression on him sufficient instantaneously to interrupt, or to give a new direction to the train of his ideas; and besides, his habit of preaching the unpremeditated effusions of the moment, threw him upon his resources, and forced him often to take the most obvious and homely illustrations that suggested themselves, and that were sometimes not altogether suited to the dignity and decorum of the pulpit. But his mind was so deeply pervaded with a sense of the solemnity due to the worship of God, and of the importance of the message he bore to perishing sinners, that if, even for a moment, he produced any light emotions in the breasts of his audience, he was sure to follow it up the next with a most rousing appeal to the conscience; and he sometimes rose on such occasions to a pitch of awful sublimity, that overwhelmed his hearers with astonishment and terror. His style of preaching was altogether peculiar; possessed of a warm heart and fertile imagination, he laid hold of every image and illustration that occurred to him at the moment, and he formed such striking pictures with them, that one of the greatest masters of pulpit oratory, Robert Hall, said of him "no man has ever drawn, since the days of our Saviour, such sublime images from nature: here Mr Hill excels every other man.

In the summer of 1824, it was proposed to Mr Hill once more to visit Scotland, and though he was then in the 80th year of his age, such was the buoyancy of his spirits, that he readily and joyfully accepted the invita

tion. Having embarked on board a steam-packet, he | set sail, and reached Leith in two days and a-half. During the voyage, he was solicited by two Scotch members of parliament to preach to the passengers; and having assented, he chose the Sermon on the Mount for his subject, and commented on it in an easy and impressive manner for nearly three-quarters of an hour, standing all the time without much fatigue. On his arrival, he preached on the only Sabbath he spent in Edinburgh, both in the morning and the evening, to vast crowds who repaired full of anxiety to hear so celebrated a character, and next day attended for a short time, a meeting of the Missionary Society in the Assembly Rooms. Those who saw him on that occasion, as the writer of this had the happiness of doing, will not soon forget his venerable appearance, the Christian dignity and simplicity of his manner, and the devoted carnestness with which he entered into the sacred cause and object of the meeting.

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he cast himself into the dust, and only said “I shall creep into heaven through some crevice in the door." To a reverend friend who was standing at his bed-side, he said, You have often seen me ill, and I recovered; but this is an irrecoverable complaint, I shall not get over it; it is a solemn thing to die. I have no rapturous joys, but I have a peace, a good hope through grace, all through grace." Another friend who was in the room observed, "You would not give up the hope you have, Sir, for all the world." "No," said he, "not for ten thousand worlds. Christ is every thing to a dying man ; but I want to be perfectly holy, perfectly like my dear Lord; without holiness there is no such thing as getting to heaven." About twenty-five minutes before six on Thursday evening, April 11, 1833, he breathed his last, and without a struggle or a groan, so easily and gently, that he might be said to fall asleep."

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Mr Hill was too busily and constantly employed in preaching to have any leisure to dedicate to literary pursuits. The only compositions given by him to the world, were "The Warning to Professors," "Village Dialogues," Hymns and Tokens for Children," Aphorisms on the Stage," and one or two sermons preached on special occasions. It is not on literature, therefore, that his fame rests. He has a more imperishable glory, and though there is nothing on earth to perpetuate the memory of this faithful and laborious servant of Christ, save the monumental tablet in his chapel; yet his record is on high. "He has rested from his labours, and his works have followed him.'

THE TESTIMONY OF INFIDELS TO THE

VALUE OF

CHRISTIANITY.

After his return to London, Mr Hill continued for several years, in the midst of increasing infirmities, to preside over the service in his chapel. For a considerable time, however, before his death, he engaged in almost every public duty with an impression that it would probably be his last; and he frequently shewed by many involuntary tokens, of which, perhaps, he was himself unconscious, that he was keeping himself in habitual preparation to meet his God. One very affecting instance is thus related by Mr Clayton : "The last time he occupied my pulpit at Walworth, when he preached excellently for an hour, on behalf of a charitable institution (it was in the winter twelvemonth before his death,) he retired to the vestry after service under feelings of great and manifest exhaustion. There he remained till every individual, save the pew-openers, his servant, and myself, had left the place. At length, he seemed with some reluctance to have summoned energy enough to take his departure, intimating that it was, in all probability, the last time he should preach in Walworth. His servant went before to open the carriage door-the pew-openers remained in the vestry, I offered my arm, which he declined, and then followed him as he passed down the aisle of the chapel. The lights were nearly extinguished, the silence was pro-law of nature shew us the Supreme Being, manifested found; nothing, indeed, was heard but the slow majestic tread of his own footsteps, when, in an under tone, he thus soliloquized,

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That he'll not be in glory and leave me behind."

To my heart this was a scene of unequalled solemnity, nor can I ever recur to it without a revival of that hallowed, sacred, shuddering sympathy which it originally awakened." This description is not overwrought; no man could witness Mr Hill's manner, when he contemplated his departure, without an impression, which probably will never be obliterated from his memory.

We must hasten, however, to contemplate the closing scene of Mr Hill's life, and of him it may be truly said, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." The hope which he had cherished through life, supported and enlivened the hour of his departure, for he knew in whom he had believed, and he felt persuaded that He was able to keep what he had committed to Him, against that day. It is most interesting and edifying to listen to the dying sayings of an aged and experienced Christian, and to receive, in circumstances which give assurance of its truth and fidelity, his testimony to the divine character and power of the Gospel. Reviewing his past doctrines," Mr Hill said, "were I to live my life over again, I would preach just the same;" looking upwards to eternal glory,

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IT is a circumstance well worthy of remark, that the importance of scriptural truth has often been admitted by those who have been usually ranked, and have even boasted of ranking themselves, among the opponents of our holy faith. A collection of the recorded opinions of such individuals has been industriously made by the Rev. Mr Whyte, of Fettercairn, in a very sensible and judicious work on the Duty of Prayer" :

"Lord Bolingbroke allowed that the religion and

in all his works, to be the true and only object of our adoration; and that it teaches us, no doubt, to address ourselves to the Almighty in a manner consistent with an entire resignation to his will;' and Gibbon called the Gospel a sublime theory,' and a model of pure and perfect simplicity;' which, of course, implies a spirit of prayer; for otherwise it could not be sublime and perfect.'

"Lord Chesterfield, after long experience of the heartless and miserable nature of dissipated and ungodly habits, made the following remarkable confession, which evidently implies a conviction, that if he had devoted his life to God instead of the world, the result would have been very different from what it was: 'I have run the silly round of business and pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which in truth is very low, whereas those who have not experienced always over-rate them. They only see their gay outside, and are dazzled with their glare. But I have been behind the scenes; I have seen all the coarse pullies and dirty ropes which exhibit and move the gaudy machine; I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and adiniration of an ignorant multitude. When I reflect upon what I have seen, and what I have heard, and what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry Published by Oliphant and Son, Edinburgh, 1834.

and bustle, and pleasure of the world, had any reality; but I look upon all that has passed as one of those romantic dreams which opium commonly occasions; and I do, by no means, desire to repeat the nauseous doze for the sake of the fugitive dream.' Solomon declaring all to be vanity of vanities, Manasseh returning from his sins to God, Nebuchadnezzar honouring the King of Heaven, Dioclesian laying aside royal cares and retiring to the peace of private lie, and Charles the Fifth exchanging the pomp and power of empire for the obscurity and humility of a cell, are all instances of feeling and conduct, more or less resembling those of his lordship when he thus acknowledged the unsatisfying nature of worldly things, and shewed that he felt the need of those supplies that are given only to devotion. In all these cases, not excepting even the heathen Dioclesian himself, who had so long laboured to keep up the falling shrines of paganism, and utterly destroy the Christian name in every part of the Roman empire, there were manifestations of the working of that part of our nature which cannot be satisfied with any worldly attainments, and which seeks its happiness in the higher enjoyments of moral and religious views.

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"Voltaire had been accustomed for years to call the adorable Saviour the wretch,' and to vow that he would crush him. He closed many of his letters to his infidel friends with those words: Crush the wretch.' From a man who manifested so bitter a spirit, and had done so much against religion, one could have hardly expected any admission in its favour. Yet, when writing to a nobleman who seemed to pay much deference to his opinion, he made use of these words: My dear Marquis, there is nothing good in atheism. This system is very bad, both in physics and morals. Will men be more virtuous for not acknowledging a God, who enjoins the practice of virtue? Assuredly not. I would have princes and their ministers to acknowledge a God; nay more, a God who punishes and who pardons.' Again, wherever society is established, there it is necessary to have religion; for religion, which watches over the crimes that are secret, is, in fact, the only law which a man carries about with him, the only one which places the punishment at the side of the guilt, and which operates as forcibly in solitude and darkness, as in the broad and open face of day." Would the reader have thought it? These are the words of Voltaire. Even Robespierre himself, whose reign of blood and terror may be considered as an exhibition of all the wildness of infidelity in its most unrestrained state, felt that irreligion is the soul of anarchy, and was desirous to establish the worship of the Supreme Being.'

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Notwithstanding the dissipated life, and the immoral tendency of many parts of the writings of the late Lord Byron, which led many honest-minded persons to count him an infidel, his friend, Count Gamba, maintained that he was no stranger to devotional sentiments. I had occasion,' said he, to observe him often, in those situations in which the most sincere sentiments of the mind are unfolded, in serious danger of the stormy sea, or otherwise; and I have observed his emotions and his thoughts to be deeply tinctured with religion.' And his lordship himself, when conversing with another person on this subject, said, 'prayer does not consist in the act of kneeling, nor in repeating certain words in a solemn manner. But devotion is the affection of the heart, and this I feel; for when I view the wonders of creation, I bow to the Majesty of heaven; and when I feel the enjoyments of life, health, and happiness, I feel grateful to God, for having bestowed them upon me.' Farther, in his lordship's reply to a letter addressed to him by one who felt an interest in his welfare, he made use of these expressions :- Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others,

for this simple reason, that if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be no bezegiter, † zeg can be but with the infidel in bis eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through it, without subsequent disappointment, since, (at the worst for them,) out of nothing, nothing can arise, not even sorrow.' The Earl of Rochester admitted, that 'the whole system of religion, if believed, was a more secure foundation of happiness than any other;' and declared, that he would give all he was master of to be under persuasions of its truth, and to have the comfort and support which necessarily dow from them:' and well he might say so, from the bitter feelings which his irreligious conduct often occasioned, as the following anecdote will shew:- At an atheistical meeting, in the house of a person of quality, where he undertook to manage the cause of infidelity, and was the principal disputant against God and religion, he maintained the contest with such ingenuity and success, that his performance received the applause of the whole company. But this awful exhibition of irreverence and impiety, he could not contemplate without some feeling of remorse. The strange inconsistency of his conduct, struck his mind so forcibly, that he immediately made use of these words, Strange! that a man who walks upright, and sees the wonderful works of God, and has the use of his senses and his reason, should use them to the defying of his Creator!' Many such occasions of reprehension and remorse occurred, during his career of unbridled licentiousness. He had often moments full of terrors, and sad intervals of melancholy reflections, in which he felt, in all its bitterness, the deep anguish that springs from a wounded heart.'

"Count Struensee had, for a long time, similar compunctions of mind when running his profligate career, as appears from the account which he gave of himself to Dr Munter; and when better feelings began to take possession of his soul, he said, there is but one thing in this world that makes me really and continually uneasy, which is, that I haye seduced others to irreligion and wickedness. It is my most fervent wish, nay, my own happiness depends on it, that God would shew mercy to all those I have, by any means, turned from him, and call them back to religion and virtue. I pray for this to God most fervently.' 'I formerly thought, that whoever embraced Christianity was to renounce all reason. But now I see plainly, that nothing stands more to reason than it does.'

"The confession of Cardinal Wolsey, when very nearly in a similar situation, is well known to every reader of English history. He said, a little before he expired, had I served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is the just reward that I must receive for my indulgent pains and study, not regarding my service to God, but only to my prince.'

"Imminent danger, or the appearance of the near approach of death, also, very often calls forth nature from its hiding-place, even in the most hardened unbelievers, who have long borne down its efforts to maintain the cause of God, and obliged it, for a time, to lie bye in secrecy and silence.

"The apprehensions of death will soon bring the most profligate,' said the Duke of Buckingham, to a proper use of their understanding. I am haunted by remorse, despised by my acquaintance, and, I fear, forsaken by my God. How despicable is that man who never prays to God but in the time of his distress.' Of this, Voltaire and Paine were very remarkable instances. As to Voltaire, dangerous sickness and approaching death, though they could not soften the hard heart of the hypocritic infidel into real penitence, filled him with agony, remorse, and despair.' Those about him, 'could hear him, the prey of anguish and dread, alternately supplicating or blaspheming that God whom he had

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