nature, from its anticipations of the Divine presence, as he approached the hour of death.

"After above twelve months of acute and almost incessant pain, he was compelled at last to relinquish the instruction of his beloved pupils; a work which had been the delight and glory of his better days. He resigned his office as tutor, but continued to reside in the Academy-house. During the early part of his affliction, he expressed but little of the state of his mind. It seemed to be peaceful and resigned; and though from the first he was aware of the dangerous nature of his complaint, no murmuring word ever escaped him. He was always cheerful, and always instructive. But within the last three months of his life, his frame of mind became unusually spiritual. His soul seemed daily to be ascending towards the skies. He felt not only ready to die; he welcomed the hour. He longed to be gone. The eye of faith beheld the glittering prize, far surpassing all worldly pomp and power; and he panted to embrace it. During this period I had very frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with him, and engaging in devotional exercises. Many of his sayings, which fell from his lips trembling through the rapid decay of bodily strength, yet seemed like gleams of most heavenly light reflected from the bright eye of that ascending spirit, which had already left this atmosphere of clouds, and was rapidly passing into the region of uncreated light. The rays of glory fell upon the pinions of his faith, and from this vale of tears we caught the reflected beam, as he went upward towards the radiant throne of his Father and his God. But it is impossible to impart, in the repetition of his sayings, that emphasis, that ineffable effect which he gave them, even with an enfeebled and emaciated body, and a dying voice. Many of these sayings I was privileged to hear; and many have been already made public in a sermon preached by Mr. G. Clayton. I shall add two or three others, which have not yet been related. A very few days before his death, standing at his bed-side, I said, 'Well, sir, you are getting nearer home.' 'Home!' he exclaimed: 'yes, it will be an indescribable home to me.' I added, it will be rendered sweeter by the pains and sufferings you are now enduring. 'Sufferings !'

he replied; 'my sufferings, sir, will all be forgotten in an instant, when I come to his presence.' To the Rev. Mr. Turnbull he said, 'Do you know what it is to be in the PRESENCE of God?' He replied, 'No, sir, I know but very little indeed about that.' *No!' said Dr. Simpson; nor I either; but I soon shall know.' Referring to several friends in the room, I said to him, on another occasion, 'Well, sir, we shall follow you; and what a consolation it is to think we are all going one way, and shall soon meet. He said, 'Yes, that we shall, it is certain and sure: there is no doubt at all about it: Christ will take care of that; he is quite full of the Father's love.'

In comparatively early life Dr. Simpson entered into conjugal relation with a lady of truly amiable character, and distinguished piety, with whom he lived in unbroken harmony and love to the close of his earthly pilgrimage. He was much blessed in his children, several of whom survived to emulate the virtues of their revered parent, and occupy spheres of honour and usefulness in the church and in the world. Some of them soon joined him in the skies, while those that remained longer in the wilderness "pressed onward toward the mark of the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

364

MEMOIR

OF THE LATE

REV. WILLIAM ROBY,

OF MANCHESTER.

THERE is not, perhaps, on the records of the London Missionary Society a name more sacred to the cause of Missions than that of William Roby. He was one of the first to respond to the appeal of the venerable Bogue, in 1794, and, for the space of thirty-six years, employed his vast influence in the county of Lancaster, in extending the interests and consolidating the claims of an institution, whose catholic principles, and unsectarian procedure had won the entire confidence of his generous and comprehensive mind. No pastor in this land ever identified himself more closely or energetically with the labours and triumphs of the London Missionary Society, than did the devoted subject of this memoir. His heart glowed with sympathy for the perishing heathen, and both in his pulpit labours and private walks, he aimed, with fervent and steady zeal, to imbue the minds of his flock with a portion of his own apostolic spirit. A hundred such ministers as Mr. Roby would speedily double the income of the Society, and render all our principal towns and cities as much centres of Missionary operation as the far-famed town of Manchester. It is no disparagement to the nobleminded Christians of that place to say, that, instrumentally, they owe to Mr. Roby's missionary spirit and devoted character much of that disinterested benevolence, by which for many years past they have been so honourably distinguished. The writer of this sketch well remembers touching on this very topic, on the missionary platform, at the memorable anniversary of 1829, when Manchester first distinguished itself by the unrivalled munificence of its contributions to the cause of Missions; and how the reference convulsed the assembly with applause, as the venerable patriarch of their town sat in meek humility in the front-rank of the ministers convened, indicating but too plainly,

by his enfeebled appearance, that he had well nigh reached the close of his brilliant and useful career.

In the life of Mr. Roby, we have a fine illustration of the principle, that if a Christian minister will but devote himself, with full purpose of heart, to the cause of Christ, and the good of souls, he will be sure to gain for himself an envied distinction among his contemporaries, and to pass down to posterity among the friends and benefactors of his species. To his warm and energetic espousal of the Missionary cause, Mr. Roby owed a large portion of that extensive influence which he acquired in his native county; and, as one conscious of the liveliest emotions of gratitude, he gave back to the object of his early and conscientious preference, every particle of the influence which he thus acquired. The Missionary enterprise had ennobled all the perceptions and faculties of his intelligent mind, and gave a character of unity and dignified bearing to all his ministerial engagements. He was always at home when urging the claims of the perishing heathen, and, to the very close of life, clung with stedfast attachment to an undertaking, which, like some mighty current, had borne him along triumphantly upon its surface, from the first moment that he embarked on its mighty waters. To him pertained the honour of rearing up in his church some of our most useful Missionaries; and, while the London Missionary Society exists, the name of Roby will be associated with its early progress, and with its later triumphs.

William Roby was born at Haigh, near Wigan, in the county of Lancaster, on the 23d day of March, 1766. His parents belonged to the Established Church, and, being in comparatively easy circumstances, determined on training their son for the office of the ministry in that particular community, though it does not appear that either they or their son had any just conception of the nature of true religion. In furtherance, however, of their plan, they placed him, when young, in the grammarschool at Wigan, where he enjoyed the benefits of a good classical education, and where his progress in human learning was in every way hopeful. At the close of his grammar-school course, it was their purpose to introduce him to one of the universities, and thus to place him in a sphere of active and honourable occupation in the national church of his native land. Their plans, however, were speedily interrupted, by one of those revolutions of mind which illustrate, in a remarkable way,

the wisdom and sovereignty of the Divine government. While thousands glide along the stream of education into the most sacred of all human occupations, and have no other call to the ministry of the word but the wishes of their parents, and the appointments of their ecclesiastical superiors, it was far otherwise with Mr. Roby. As a boy, indeed, he might have dreamt with others of the mere honour and respectability connected with the office of a clergyman, and might have gladly seconded the wishes of his revered parents; but when at the early age of nineteen, he began, under the ministry of Mr. Johnson, of Wigan, one of Lady Huntingdon's ministers, to contemplate the awful responsibility connected with the care of souls, and felt, as he did, by Divine grace, the unutterable value of his own, he shrunk with instinctive dread from an undertaking, to the duties of which he regarded himself as wholly inadequate. By a train of events, and, as the result showed, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God, he was at this time roused to an impressive sense of his guilty state before God, and his sad unpreparedness to stand before the bar of an avenging Judge. So deep was the current of religious conviction, that it threatened to overwhelm his spirit, and followed him day and night into all the scenes of his more active or retired moments. He formally renounced all idea of the Christian ministry, and with it all purpose of entering the university; being far more concerned to find peace with God, than to foster dreams of a calling for which he perceived that nothing but solid religious character could be an adequate preparation. In all this he acted with deep sincerity, as before God; and he who listens to the sighing of a contrite heart, soon poured into his bosom the balm of heavenly peace, and enabled him to discern and embrace the revealed method of acceptance by faith in the atonement of the Son of God.

Having relinquished all design of accepting orders in the church, he became anxious to devote himself to some regular occupation in life; and that Providence which so remarkably guided all his future steps, opened to his acceptance a congenial occupation connected with the education of the rising generation. About this eventful period in his history, a vacancy occurred in the classical department of the endowed school at Bretherton, and being invited to occupy it, he felt it his duty to obey the call, partly from his love of youth, and partly from the desire of prosecuting his classical and other studies. In the full vigour

of opening manhood he entered upon this interesting post of labour, with a heart panting to be useful. The first object which powerfully arrested his attention, in commencing his official labours, was the extremely ignorant and profligate state of the peasantry, among whom he was called to discharge his scholastic functions. He deplored their sad neglect of God, and the guilt and crime with which it was associated. Having just come to feel the power and comfort of religion in his own heart, he was animated with the generous desire, common to new converts, of doing something, if possible, to meliorate their wretched state. But what to do, he scarcely knew. He was young and inexperienced, and the tide of prejudice against vital religion ran very high. But here again he found direction, where it is never sought in vain. On examining the trust-deed of the school, he found, to his inexpressible joy, that one of its clauses required that the classical master should devote a portion of every week to the religious instruction of his pupils; and though the wholesome practice had fallen into shameful disuse, he determined to revive it, and to make trial of what he could do in this way, through the medium of the children, to reach the minds of the parents. He entered on his delightful task, on the evenings of the Lord's days, taking as the basis of his instructions the Articles of the Church of England, and portions of the Church Catechism. The exercise was so new and striking at that time, and the parents were so much pleased with the care which Mr. Roby took of their offspring, that many of the inhabitants of the place flocked to the school-room, to listen to the devoted teacher, as he stood amidst his youthful group, inculcating the great lessons of Christian truth. In these labours of love, God was pleased eminently to smile upon him. Some, both of the young and old, were brought to "repentance and the acknowledgment of the truth;" and there is reason to believe that a calm review of the results of these simple efforts to benefit a village-population, exerted a powerful influence upon his mind, in inclining him, notwithstanding all his previous resolves to the contrary, to devote himself to the work of the Christian ministry. He had shrunk from it only because he deemed it presumptuous for one estranged from God to aspire to so high a calling; but since then, Divine peace had not only flowed in upon his soul, but God had taught him, by palpable facts, that he had purposed to employ him as an instrument of good to the