"He is my salvation, he is all my salvation." About eleven o'clock he exclaimed, "I am ready, I am ready, I want to go home." Soon after, when one of his friends looked upon him, and asked him how he did? He replied, "Like a dying man; may the Lord bless you, and your family." He inquired, as some of the family returned from worship, the state of the congregation, and was pleased to learn that it was large.

A little before eight in the evening he said, "Tell my good wife, I am going." He then stretched himself out, laid his arms at length upon his body, and indistinctly said, "Come Lord Jesus;" and without a groan, fell asleep.

Tuesday morning, January the 19th, was the period appointed for his interment. For several hours before the service began, numbers were assembled together. More than thirty ministers, of various denominations, were present on the solemn occasion. While the coffin was within view of the congregation, Mr. Bishop, of Gloucester, delivered a funeral sermon from the charao ter given of Hannaniah, "He was a faithful man, and feared God above many." The reflec tions were as interesting as the text was pertinent. As soon as his remains were laid in the vault beneath the pulpit; a very able and characteristical address was delivered by Mr. Jones, of Chalford.

The

Few services were ever so affecting. place was a Bochim, a place of weeping. Painful as it is to attend such a scene, there is a kind of melancholy pleasure blending with it. To min

>

с

५

gle with a multitude drawn together, not by curiosity, not by the ostentatious pageantry of death, but by esteem and attachment; to witness unequivocal, as well as numerous proofs of departed worth; to see one turning aside to heave a sigh, another raising his streaming eyes to heaven; to hear, as you withdrew, the short but significant eulogiums from many a quivering lip," Ah! he was a good man,"" I have lost a friend indeed." "I shall never find his like again."-Yes-all this affords a mournful satisfaction. And what attendant will ever forget the mixture of grief and gratification he suffered and enjoyed when 'this man of God was carried to his long home? Few men were ever adapted to inspire an affection at once so powerful and tender.There are characters we venerate, that we can hardly be said to love. The apostle has made a difference between the impression produced by righteousness and goodness: "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. It is goodness that makes one man a god to another; we are only to be won by kindness: they are the cords of love, by which hearts are irresistibly drawn, and indissolubly bound together.

Who, therefore, that knew Mr. Winter, can wonder at the sensibility his loss produced. The ́intercourse of the friends that assembled in his own house previously to the funeral, was carried on by looks and tears, rather than words. When the procession came out of his dwelling, the spectators that lined the street, all melted into emotions of grief. When the corpse entered the

chapel, and when it was laid low in the dust, the audience could hardly be restrained within the bounds of decency-all seemed to feel and to verify the words of our great moralist, "The blameless life, the artless tenderness, the pious: simplicity, the modest risignation, the patient sickness, the quiet death, are remembered only to add value to the loss, and to deepen sorrow for what cannot be recalled."

Many who never heard him, came to bedew his grave. Persons of religious sentiments, widely different from his own, opened their houses to accommodate those who came from a distance. The Rector, with a liberality of mind, and tenderness of heart, that did him honour, apologized for his inability to attend, as he expressed it, "The funeral of the ever to be lamented Mr. Winter." Attendants who had waited upon him; the driver at the inn who had carried him to his house, when he fractured his bone, the coachman that had drove him home, when he was seized for death at the house of his friend-all seemed glad to remember, and to divulge, any little kindness they had shwon him.

Two very impressive sermons were preached in the evening of the day, by Mr. Lowell and Mr. Thorp, of Bristol; and on the following Sabbath, all the ministers in Gloucestershire agreed to inprove the Providence in their own congregations. This was done also by his students, and by several ministers in other counties. Two only of these discourses were published, but the number

* The one by Mr. Bishop, of Gloucester; the other by Mr. Bolding, of Fulwood, who had been one of his second clags of pupils.

would have been considerably enlarged, had it not been from a needless delicacy with regard to the intended publication of his life.

Mr. Winter was only turned of sixty-five; but his looks and walk had even long before, led many to suppose that he was much more advanced in age. His person was rather above the middle stature. He was inclinable to corpulency. His face was marked with the small pox, but not disagreeably so. His eye was uncommonly mild and risible. His countenance was all benign.

There is no very good likeness of him. That in the Evangelical Magazine did him no justice; that in the Theological, disgraced him. The image of his placid and heavenly features will long remain in many a fond memory. May the image of his character iemain longer still, and be more vividly recalled-especially by those that enjoyed the advantage of his tuition. May it be present with them alone, and in company in the family and in the church; may they be followers of him as dear children!

An extract containing the preface to his will, may gratify his friends.

"IN the name of God, Amen. I, Cornelius Winter, of Painswick, in the county of Gloucester, minister of the gospel, being of sound disposing mind, memory, and understanding, thauks unto the Lord for the same, do make this my last will and testament, as follows: that is to say, I commit my soul into the hands of God, gratefully acknowledging his discriminating grace, of which he made me an early partaker, and by which I escaped many temporal and moral evils, and have

had life sweetened, and the trials of it rendered supportable. Whenever it pleases him to call me, I would die in a humble, but firm, confidence in Jesus, as my Redeemer; renouncing all pretensions to merit, in any thing I have done, lamenting the imperfections of which I am conscious, and many which my understanding has not discovered, in hope of a blessed resurrection with his redeemed people, in the day when they shall be gathered together, &c.

CHAPTER III.

VIEWS OF HIS CHARACTER.

To consider Mr. Winter personally and relatively, in private and in public life; to give, if not a finished portrait, yet a sketch of his leading features, so as to enable the reader to distinguish and estimate his worth-is the design of this part of our subject. And if the power of representation were always the same with the possession of knowledge, the Editor might hope to suc ceed; having had from domestic residence, and the most unreserved intercourse and correspondence, peculiar opportunities of acquaintance and observation.

Let us first glance at Mr. Winter's TALENTS and ACQUISITIONS.

He was not possessed of first-rate natural endowments; but it is equally certain that he claimed a considerable degree of mental superiority.

S

1