sons should think as meanly of him as he did himself. He bore all sorts of ill-usage and reproach like a man that took pleasure in it. He had so subdued the natural heat of his temper, that in a great variety of accidents, and in a course of twenty-two years' intimate conversation with him, I never observed the least sign of passion but upon one single occasion. He brought himself into so composed a gravity, that I never saw him laugh, and but seldom smile. And he kept himself in such a constant recollection, that I do not remember that ever I heard him say one idle word. There was a visible tendency in all he said to raise his own mind, and those he conversed with, to serious reflections. He seemed to be in a perpetual meditation. And though the whole course of his life was strict and ascetical, yet he had nothing of the sourness of temper that generally possesses men of that sort. He was the freest from superstition, of censuring others, or of imposing his own methods on them, possible; so that he did not so much as recommend them to others. He said there was a diversity of tempers, and every man was to watch over his own, and to turn it in the best manner he could. His thoughts were lively, oft out of the way, and surprising, yet just and genuine. And he had laid together in his memory the greatest treasure of the best and wisest of all the ancient sayings of the heathens as well as Christians, that I have ever known any man master of; and he used them in the aptest manner possible. He had been bred up with the greatest aversion imaginable to the whole frame of the Church of England. From Scotland, his father sent him to travel. He spent some years in France, and spoke that language like one born there. He came afterwards and settled in Scotland, and had Presbyterian ordination; but he quickly broke through the prejudices of his education. His preaching had a sublimity both of thought and expression in it. The grace and gravity of his pronuncia

tion was such, that few heard him without a very sensible emotion: I am sure I never did. His style was rather too fine; but there was a majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impression, that I cannot yet forget the sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago and yet with this he seemed to look on himself as so ordinary a preacher, that while he had a cure, he was ready to employ all others; and when he was a bishop, he chose to preach to small auditories, and would never give notice beforehand: he had, indeed, a very low voice, and so could not be heard by a great crowd.

THE MILNERS.

The records of fraternal affection contain no example more beautiful and touching than the brotherly love of JOSEPH and ISAAC MILNER. Their father, who had once been a member of the Society of Friends, was a manufacturer in reduced circumstances in the town of Leeds. However, poor as he was, he strove to secure a good education for, at least, one of his sons. Joseph was sent to the grammar-school, and afterwards to Catherine Hall, Cambridge. There he acquitted himself so well that he soon was appointed master of the grammar-school at Hull, and found himself in circumstances to aid his younger brother. He knew Isaac's love of learning, and grieved that the studious lad should consume his days in weaving broad cloth. He asked his friend the Rev. Mr Miles Atkinson to visit him, and test his classical attainments. Mr Atkinson found him seated at the loom, with Tacitus and some Greek author lying beside him. Notwithstanding his long absence from school, the young apprentice acquitted himself so well that Mr Atkinson went to his master and purchased a release from his indentures. "Isaac, lad, thou art off," was the worthy manufacturer's laconic announcement of the fact to the joyful Isaac, who immediately repaired to Hull and commenced as usher

in his brother's crowded school. From thence, at the age of twenty, through the same brother's generosity he was transferred to Queen's College, Cambridge. There he studied to such purpose that on taking his degree the ex-weaver came out senior wrangler, with the epithet "Incomparabilis," besides being first Smith's prizeman, and was soon after elected a fellow and tutor of his college, and commenced the career which ended in his being president of Queen's and Dean of Carlisle.

Joseph Milner was born Jan. 2, 1744. He died Vicar of Holy Trinity, Hull, Nov. 15, 1797.

Isaac Milner was born Jan. 11, 1750, and died April 1, 1820.

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Before his death, Joseph had published three volumes of a History of the Church of Christ." When he died he left some materials so far prepared, that the work was taken up and two volumes added by the surviving brother. That it has all the charms of a first-rate history, or that the portion which passed through Isaac's hands is altogether worthy of the fame of the mighty mathematician, it would be vain to assert; but it is not hazarding much to say that the work of the Milners is the best account of the Christian life of past ages which English readers yet possess, and that for the authenticity of its details, and the truthfulness of its representations, it far surpasses many of its more pretentious competitors.

Anselm.

That good men frequently appear to more advantage in private life than in public, is a remark which was perhaps never better exemplified than in this prelate, of whom all that is known by the generality of readers is, that he was a strenuous supporter of the papal dominion in England. I can easily conceive that he might be influenced by the purest motives in

this part of his conduct, when I reflect on the shameless and profane manners of the Norman princes. But his private life was purely his own, originating more directly from the honest and good heart with which, through grace, he was eminently endowed. As à divine and a Christian, he was the first of characters in this century, and is, therefore, deserving of some

attention.

He was born at Aoust in Piedmont. From early life his religious cast of mind was so prevalent that, at the age of fifteen, he offered himself to a monastery, but was refused, lest his father should have been displeased. He afterwards became entangled in the vanities of the world; and to his death, he bewailed the sins of his youth. Becoming a scholar of Lanfranc, his predecessor in the See of Canterbury, at that time a monk at Bec, in Normandy, he commenced monk in the year 1060, at the age of twenty-seven. He afterwards became the prior of the monastery. His progress in religious knowledge was great; but mildness and charity seem to have predominated in all his views of piety. The book commonly called Augustine's Meditations, was chiefly abstracted from the writings of Anselm. At the age of forty-five he became abbot of Bec. Lanfranc dying in 1089, William Rufus usurped the revenues of the See of Canterbury, and treated the monks of the place in a barbarous manner. For several years this profane tyrant declared, that none should have the see while he lived; but a fit of sickness overawed his spirit; and conscience, the voice of God, which often speaks even in the proudest and the most insensible, severely reproved his wickedness; insomuch that he nominated Anselm to be the successor of Lanfranc. That Anselm should have accepted the office with much reluctance under such a prince, is by no means to be wondered at; and, the more upright and conscientious men are, the more wary and reluctant will they always be found in accepting offices of so sacred a nature; though it is natural

for men of a secular spirit to judge of others by themselves, and to suppose the "nolo episcopari," to be, without any exceptions, the language of hypocrisy.

Anselm pressed the king to allow the calling of councils, in order to institute an inquiry into crimes and abuses; and also to fill the vacant abbeys, the revenues of which William had reserved to himself with sacrilegious avarice. Nothing but the conviction of conscience, and the ascendency which real uprightness maintains over wickedness and profligacy, could have induced such a person as William Rufus, to promote Anselm to the see, though he must have foreseen how improbable it was, that the abbot would ever become the tame instrument of his tyranny and oppression. In fact, Anselm, finding the Church overborne by the iniquities of the tyrant, retired to the Continent with two monks, one of whom, named Eadmer, wrote his life.

Living a retired life in Calabria, he gave employment to his active mind in writing a treatise on the reasons why God should become man, and on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation: a work at that time useful to the Church of Christ, as he refuted the sentiments of Roscelin, who had published erroneous views concerning the Trinity. For, after a sleep of many ages, the genius of Arianism or Socinianism, or both, had awaked, and taken advantage of the general ignorance, to corrupt the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Anselm knew how to reason closely and systematically, after the manner of the famous Peter Lombard, master of the sentences, and Bishop of Paris; and he was properly the first of the scholastic divines. The method of ratiocination then used was, no doubt, tedious, verbose, and subtile, and, in process of time, grew more and more perplexed. It was, however, preferable to the dissipation and inanity which, in many publications of our times, pretend to the honour of good sense and sound wisdom, though devoid of learning and industry.