lands, when he ought to have been casting up accounts; and this, not from wilfulness, or from any pleasure he took in shirking his duties, but from the necessity of his nature. He could not help himself, and a series of misunderstandings commenced in consequence between him and his uncle, which ended in his running away to Liverpool. The chapters in the "Autobiography," wherein he speaks of these disagreements, and his own feelings under them, are very remarkable, and present as fine an analysis of his own mind at that period as could possibly have been written. He loves his uncle, wishes to please him, tries hard, and alternately fails and succeeds. But the uncle never gave him a kind word, and but seldom an unkind one, although he was far from being a hard-hearted man at bottom. Once Pemberton received from him a piece of money, but no loving expressions accompanied it, and he felt as if he had been a beggar, and the recipient of a cold charity. His poverty, too, afflicted him; he was, as he says, "nobody," and he resolved to be "nobody" no longer. And in a state of morbid feeling he ran away to Liverpool. Here, whilst he and a companion whom he had induced to join him, were admiring the shipping, with their steeple masts, and splendid appointments, he was entrapped by a press gang, and sent to sea. His name was entered on the ship's books as "Charles Reece," and he served in various ships of war for several years, and was engaged in many skirmishes and battles, and passed through many extraordinary adventures, which he has related in a graphic manner in the "Autobiography." Unfortunately, however, he did not finish his history, and there is a gap of twenty years in it, from the end of his seafaring life up to 1828, when he returned to England. All that is known of him during this period is, that he became an actor, and was manager of several theatres in the West Indies. "By this profession he there earned a brilliant reputation," says Mr. Fowler, "with a prospect of great pecuniary success. Untoward circumstances destroyed his hopes. He married a lady of great beauty and talent (Fanny Pritchard was her name, I believe), and he anticipated a life of domestic happiness; but the marriage was not fortunate, and his promised joy proved his certain misery. They had one son, of whose fate I am ignorant. His desire for change of scenes returned-if it had ever left himwith the departure of his heart's dear hopes. He was without house and without home, and roamed all the world over. He was acquainted with all classes of society, as well as with all coasts of country, and was subjected to all manner of vicissitudes." became emphatically "a wanderer." He In March, 1829, he appeared, as we have already seen, at Covent Garden Theatre, in the characters of "Virginius" and "Shylock," and spent the intervening time, until 1834, in lecturing in the provinces, and contributing the "Pelverjuice Papers" to the Monthly Repository," commencing them in 1833. In 1834, he visited Sheffield for the first time, and was received with real enthusiasm. He again lectured there in 1835, at the Mechanics' Institution, and gave a subscription course on Shakespere's characters towards the end of that year. In 1836, he performed "Macbeth" and "Shylock" at the Birmingham Theatre, for the benefit of the Birmingham Mechanics' Institution, and on both occasions that large theatre was filled to overflowing. About the end of this year his general health became much impaired, and he was induced to visit the south of Europe, to enjoy the advantage of a milder climate. He went to Gibraltar, Malta, and several other places on the coast of the Mediterranean. All the letters he sent home were written in a cheerful tone, and every one of them conveyed an intimation that he believed he was getting better. Several of these communications appeared in the "Sheffield Iris," and greatly delighted his numerous friends and acquaintance. He remained abroad many months, and returned to England early in the summer of 1838. It was soon found that his health was not re-established. He had many engagements offered, and he soon commenced lecturing again; but that which had formerly been his pleasure, was now labour and pain to him. After Birmingham, Wisbeach, and other places, he lectured at Sheffield, where his presence was hailed with enthusiasm. This was in the month of August, 1838. Of his first lecture on this occasion, a correspondent of the "Sheffield Independent" said, "when he stepped upon the platform there was a tremendous outburst of cheering, which speedily sank into a more subdued manifestation of welcome. What a change had come upon him! He was but the shadow of himself; his manly bearing, and his free action were gone, and in their place were come the stooping gait and the feeble walk. But oh! what a tale of suffering was told when he opened his mouth and spoke. His voice, which had been sweet as the lute, and loud as the trumpet, had become weak, cracked, and discordant. And there was the dreadful cough, that appeared to be everlastingly tearing at his heart-strings! Well, but he did speak; and wonderful to behold, as he gradually advanced he got the mastery of his infirmities. The subject of the evening's lecture was Brutus, in Julius Cæsar. He brought out, one by one, the beauties of his character; and when he made it appear, as it really is, a glorious specimen of the best qualities of human nature, he held it up for admiration and instruction. Pemberton was no longer the man he had been some short time before; he had left all his own weaknesses, and entered fully into the loveliness and truth of Brutus. The illustrated passages were given with the delicacy and power of former times. It was life in death, and showed how the vigorous soul can impart energy to the wasted body." Before his lectures on Shakespere's characters, he delivered a course to the Sheffield Mechanics' Institution, descriptive of his travels on the coast of the Mediterranean. On many evenings his bodily weakness was so great that he could not ascend the steps of the lecture platform without crawling up on his hands and knees; and yet his unequalled mental energy and unflinching self-reliance always enabled him to speak with fluency and power. He now frequently spoke of himself as being under the actual stroke of death, and yet his gentleness and cheerfulness never, except in some agonizing moments, forsook him. His Sheffield friends gave him a public dinner, which was very numerously attended; T. A. Ward, Esq., the Town Regent, presided as chairman, and he was supported by Ebenezer Elliott. Pemberton subsequently lectured in Manchester and Liverpool, on Shake | spere, to crowded audiences. His Sheffield friends, however, were exceedingly anxious about his health, and set afoot a private subscription to enable him to leave England for Egypt. He went, and remained in Egypt several months, with little or no benefit to his health, and left behind him, in various letters which are appended to his "Remains," the impression which the solemn monuments of that old land made upon his mind. He returned to England to die, spending his last days with his brother, Mr. W. D. Pemberton, of Ludgate Hill, Birmingham. "On the 3rd of March,' says Mr. Fowler,-"a bright, sunny spring day-with a full knowledge that his time was come-for he occasionally said to his niece: 'This is death,'-he died like a child going to sleep, serenely and happily. He was borne to the grave by a few members of the Birmingham Mechanics' Institution, and lies buried in the Key Hill Cemetery." Mr. W. J. Fox delivered an oration on Pemberton's death, in his chapel, South Place, Finsbury, London, when the following lines by Ebenezer Elliott were read, amidst the tears of the congregation: POOR CHARLES. "Shunn'd by the rich, the vain, the dull, His painful course hath run; "A god-like child hath left the earth; And well he earned thy scorn; For he believed that all may be, What martyrs are in spite of thee, Nor wear thy crown of thorn. "Smiling, he wreathed it round his brain, And dared what martyrs dare, For God, who wastes nor joy nor pain, Had armed his soul to bear; But vain his hope to find below That peace which Heaven alone can know; He died-to seek it there." A stone slab, subscribed for by those who loved and honoured him, with an inscription written by W. J. Fox, covers his remains in that Birmingham cemetry; and so, if I were a Catholic, I would say, with all my heart: "God rest his soul !" JOHANN AUGUST WILHELM NEANDER. THE year 1789 was a memorable one, not merely from the stirring events which it produced, but also for the contrary characteristics developed in it. In this year the feelings of the French people, stung by an accumulated mass of suffering and injustice, heaped on them by their quasi religious rulers, broke out in a wild, blatant shout of infidelity, at which the walls of the Bastile fell with a terrible crash and a series of startling exploits followed, of frightful import to kings and priests. This whirlwind of insulted feeling was maddened into a hate against all rule and religious restraint; and the godly looked on it with sad apprehension, expecting that with its overthrow of an imbecile political dynasty, it would cause an irreparable desolation in the sanctuary, would ostracise religion and inaugurate a thoughtless atheism. Nor was such an apprehension altogether ungrounded. It was a year of great promise for the spread of infidelity, not only in France, but throughout the continent of Europe; and the condition of the British dominions, especially of Ireland, contributed largely to the same prospect. But we, regarding that year historically, can moderate such feelings. We can see in it the contemporaneous growth of a power, which, ranging itself side by side with the spreading infidelity, was ever and anon administering to it the sternest of rebukes, and staying in its rampant course, with heaviest bit and bridle. We see in this year an illustration of that law of compensation, which works so constantly and perceptibly in all things human. When the storms of the French Revolution were gathering, when the moral atmosphere was infected with deadly poisons, and black thickening clouds were spread over the political and religious horizons, at this point of time, on the 16th of January, 1789, Johann August Wilhelm Neander was born-a man in whom, more than in any other, was that power which Providence was ordaining should brush away those fuliginous clouds, purge the atmosphere, and throw upon it the reviving rays of the great sun of Christian truth. The place of his birth was Göttingen, His name in the kingdom of Hanover. parents were Jews of the of Mendel, by which name, also, the subject of this sketch was known in the earlier years of his life. His father was an opulent merchant in Göttingen, but a series of losses and misfortunes reduced him to very great straits, and while Augustus was but a child he had to remove with his father and his family to Hamburg. The children were five in number-one son studied medicine, but died young; another went to reside in Russia as a merchant; there were two daughters, one of whom became insane, and died before Augustus; the other, Johanna, who was his beloved and affectionate attendant all through his life, and his mourning survivor. From the earliest blossomings of childhood Augustus was distinguished by a thirst for study. We are told that when he was eight years old, he could learn no more from his private teacher. Just about this time, the story goes, that a kind bookseller in Hamburg was struck with the frequent visits to his shop of a bashful, ungainly boy, who used to steal in and seize upon some erudite volume that no one else would touch, and utterly lose himself for hours together in study." Now he entered the Johanneum of Hamburg, at which he won the high esteem of the celebrated Gurlitt, the president. The good-will of Gurlitt towards him subsequently proved highly serviceable; and never was it interrupted in its flow. Whilst pursuing his preparatory studies at the Johanneum, he was diligent, thoughtful, and somewhat reserved; timidity may account for the last-named characteristic, or perhaps the prejudices against his race and religion may have kept him aloof from his companions. Thus, while there was no one of whom he could make a confidant, there was all the stronger inducement for constant contemplation and self-association. About the year 1806, however, an incident occurred which served to draw him somewhat away from his retirement, and which yielded to him that sympathy of kindred love, which he had hitherto been unable to discover. We must tell the story, as it had a momentous influence over his future life. There was, in Berlin, a club of literary young men, which comprised Varnhagen Von Ense, Chamisso, Neumann, Hitzig, Theremin, and subsequently Klaproth, and Neander. The club published a magazine which they called "Musen Almanach," or more familiarly "The Green Book;" to this they all contributed the effusions of their young, ardent, and poetic minds; the magazine elicited a variety of criticism, but it had the good fortune to obtain the commendation of Schlegel. After the business of the day was over, these young men would spend the half or even the whole of a starry night with Chamisso, who stood sentinel at the Brandenburg, or Potsdam Gate, discussing poetic subjects or laying out plans for study. Another re-union used to be held among these glowing young literati, called the "Poetical Tea of the Green Book;" this was a tea-drinking, which used to be held at the house of Theremin, or any one of the club who had the means of such accommodation at command. An union with such fine and noble objects in contemplation, it were a pity to disturb, but it became necessary to separate these loving, poetical brothers. Chamisso, who was a lieutenant in the army, was draughted off from Berlin to Hameln, in Hanover; Varnhagen Von Ense and Neumann went to Hamburgh to complete their preparations for the university; shortly after Klaproth went to China. But, before they separated, they struck a permanent bond of union in the formation of a literary society, called, “το του πολου αστρον,” or the "North Star," a lively and enthusiastic correspondence was carried on between the members of this fraternity, and to this we are indebted for much that we know of Neander at this period of his history. We have said that in the dispersion of the friends, Neumann and Varnhagen Von Ense migrated to Hamburg, where by some spiritual impulses, Neander and they were attracted into each other's confidence and sympathy. The correspondence of the "North Star" opens a great deal of Neander's character to us. Shortly after the Berliners came to Hamburg, Neumann thus writes to Chamisso:"We have become acquainted, among our fellow-students, with an excellent young man, who is in every respect worthy of being admitted into our Society of the North Star. Plato is his idol-his perpetual watchword. He pores over him day and night; and there are few probably who receive him so completely into the very sanctuary of the soul. It is wonderful how entirely he has done this without any foreign impulse, merely through his own reflection and downright pure study; without knowing much of romantic poetry, he has, so to speak, constructed it for himself, and found the germ thereof in Plato. On the world around he has learned to look with a deep contemplative glance." Attracted by this introduction, Chamisso wrote to Neander to welcome him into the North Star; and a correspondence went on between the two brethren, for two years before they had seen each other. Scarcely any of Chamisso's letters are to be found, but many of Neander's we have read, and in them we can see what mighty intellectual and spiritual struggles were passing within him at this time; they indicate his progress from barren Judaism up to Platonism, and thereby onward to Christianity. Chamisso was enraptured with the prize he had gained in securing Neander as an associate and correspondent; he speaks of him as a first-rate genius, and of his correspondence as being "most admirable letters." We have just seen Neander immersed in an enthusiastic devotion to Plato. Plato had appealed to his very soul. Plato had anticipated and expressed all his wants. Judaism was cold, dismal, and barren, and could supply him with nothing satisfactory, whom Plato had taught to consider himself in close alliance with the Divine nature. Plato had shown him the necessity of a closer union between earth and heaven, that his present life was one that was to be spent in communion with God, and as a preparation for a higher state of living in God. With such new light and such exalted thoughts within his soul, he bids adieu to Judaism, as something that has waxen old and whose spirit has long since vanished away. must go onwards and upwards. Plato has given him an impulse whose momentum carries him beyond Plato; the philosopher has expounded his wants without satisfying them, has made him thirst after the water of life without opening to him the crystal He fountains. Now a long painful struggle takes place in his soul. That bread of life, if he is to eat it, must be gotten by the sweat of his soul. He has failed to find it in the religion of his race. The great Grecian could not give it him, he has made him dissatisfied with all religions and has forced him up to the very portals of Christianity. Can it help him towards the light? Plato cannot open its door to him. It is reserved for another to do this for him. While his soul is thus tossed about in painful disquiet, he reads Schleiermacher's celebrated "Discourses on Religion," and the veil is torn off from his mind. The gates are unbarred and the wide beneficent plain of Christianity is thrown open to him, his wondering gaze is riveted, his panting soul is refreshed and satisfied. He becomes a Christian. He has found the Messiah. Heart to heart they are united. A living personal Saviour and healer! What a grand discovery for this panting Platonist! The Christian Faith is his. How real, how deep, how earnest is his faith! 'Tis his by labour, conflict, and pain. How precious his faith Not a family heir-loom, not a traditional belief, not an hereditary creed shaped and arranged for him centuries ago, not a vapid confession of flippant verbiage! Nay, but an achievement won by his devout spirit and philosophical genius. The result of distracting interior fightings, brought forth by bitter spiritual throes, and clung to with the fondness of a mother for her first-born. He has been feeling his way up to faith, has struggled thither through the dusky twilight of doubt, through the spectral midnight of dark desperation and disbelief, and has caught a glimpse of the morning-star, and the Sun in his strength has now blazed upon him! How sharp has been his contest, every position of his faith has been gained by a fiery fight that has cost him a right eye in his lineal prejudices, a right hand in disengaging himself from the conservatism of his nation; but, as his reward, the "desire of all nations" has come into his soul and compensated for every renunciation. Early in the year 1806 it was, when he was seventeen years old, that he was baptized into the Christian church; and at this period, it was, that he adopted the name by which he has since been so well known and loved. Neander, how beautifully significant of his new state (vtov avopa), the new man-born again. His preparatory studies at Hamburgh were now completed, and he was intent on entering the University, but where were the means to be found? We are told by some that Gurlitt and the Baron Von Stirglitz, a distant relative of his family supplied him with these; by others, that the generous old bookseller was the friend in need; perhaps all helped him together; however, they were raised, and Neander determined to go to Göttingen, but waived his preference for the University of his native city to accompany Neumann and Varnhagen to Halle,the project was for them all to go round. Hameln, and induce Chamisso to give up his military duties and become their associate in the University; Neumann and Varnhagen went first for this purpose, and it was supposed that they had succeeded in their object, but from some cause or other Chamisso could never join them. The three, however, entered the University of Halle, Neander as a student in law. So little did this enlist the sympathies of his nature, that we soon find him writing to Chamisso to tell him that he had given up the law and had become a student in theology. The University of Halle was at this time one of the most famous in Germany. Wolf, the great Homeric critic and philologian, was there in the zenith of his reputation. Schleiermacher had recently gone there. Steffens, the poet and philosopher, had come thither from Copenhagen. Among the students, the companions of Neander, were Raumur, Bekker, Borckh, and G. F. A. Strauss. Here was the scene, and here was the company that Neander loved; here he was diligent, devout, and enthusiastic. While at Halle, Neander began to study the history of Christianity, especially in its twofold relation to Judaism on the one hand, and on the other, to the Platonic philosophy. It is mentioned that the first thing which gave him notoriety, was his answering a question of Vater in Church History, that had passed all the rest of the class, and this he did in such a manner as to disclose his deep hidden powers and to win the affections of both professor and students. |