ture afforded him much comfort, by looking at which his dying exercise may be easily collected Job xix. 25; the xxiiid. Psalm; Song, ii. 16; Heb. vi. 18; and 2 Tim. i. 12. A little before his departure he sung, with his family standing round his bed, the closing part of the lxxiiid. Psalm, beginning with the 26th verse.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.'"

Dr. Jerment died on the 23d day of May, 1819. He preached on the preceding Lord's-day; but in the night following was visited by a stroke of apoplexy, which confined him to his bed till the Wednesday morning following, when he was happily released from his labours and his sufferings, and elevated to the joy of his Lord.

Dr. Jerment left a widow and children to mourn their loss.

MEMOIR

OF THE LATE

REV. WILLIAM GRAHAM, A. M.

FOR THIRTY YEARS MINISTER OF THE SECESSION CHURCH, NEWCASTLE-UION-TYNE.

THE Rev. William Graham was born March 16, 1737, in the parish of Carriden, near Borrowstoness, upon the banks of the Frith of Forth, and in the shire of Fife. His parents were distinguished by a consistent piety, and were much esteemed for their general excellence of character. The family held a respectable station in society; his father being factor, or landsteward, to the Earl of Hopetoun. At an early age, the subject of this memoir was sent to the Grammar School at Borrowstoness, where, by his ardour and diligence, he made rapid progress in the educational courses he had to pursue. Having been destined by his friends for the study and practice of the law, he was placed, on leaving school, with a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, where he continued for three years. The legal profession, however, was not to his taste, although it was one in which, by his talents and acquirements, he was fitted to excel. Had he prosecuted that profession; had worldly greatness been the chief object to which his ambition aspired; had the love of

fortune or of fame been his ruling passion, he might have been allured, in his favourite pursuit, by the brilliant prospect of success. But he determined to adopt another course. A nobler enterprise attracted him; and that enterprise was rendered sublime by the sacred character with which it was invested. If his aim was more lofty, his ambition burned with a purer flame, because it was the kindling of a holy fire from heaven.

The love of Christ constrained him to devote himself to the Christian ministry. With that object, as his chosen occupation, in view, he set himself to acquire a liberal education, preparatory to the sacred function. He passed through the regular curriculum at the University.

At that time the academical seminary which the Fathers of the Secession Church in Scotland had founded, for training young men for the ministry, was stationed at Abernethy. The Rev. Alexander Moncrieff, as professor of theology, presided over that department with distinguished ability. Under the tuition of that learned and excellent man, Mr. Graham entered on his theological course, and prosecuted his studies with great assiduity and success. The native ardour of his mind, governed by Christian principle, prompted him in his biblical researches. He was earnest also in the pursuit of general knowledge, for the enlargement of those mental resources which he felt to be requisite for the sacred undertaking to which he was devoted. The mathematics and other abstract sciences he cultivated with delight. Such were his acquirements, that, at the early age of eighteen, he was appointed professor of philosophy in the Abernethy institution. The department of academical education, for those who were candidates for the ministry of the Secession Church, had originated in the circumstances of its position in the earlier period of its history. The chairs of science in the Scottish universities were then, in many instances, occupied by men in whom, as to the soundness of their religious sentiments, full confidence could not be safely reposed. It was therefore deemed important for those who were in process of preparation for the holy ministry, that they should have an opportunity of studying the various branches of philosophy in a school where sound principles, both in science and religion, were maintained. While in charge of the philosophical class, Mr. Graham was a skilful teacher of science; he was also an ardent and indefatigable student of theology.

In 1758, he became a preacher of the gospel, and was much esteemed by those who heard him. In the following year he was ordained to the pastoral charge of the congregation connected with the Secession Church which had been recently formed in Whitehaven. Soon after his settlement there, he married Miss Mary Johnstone, third daughter of George Johnstone, Esq. of Whiteknow, in Dumfriesshire, who brought him seven children. In 1771, he received a call from the congregation of the Secession church assembling in the Close, Newcastleupon-Tyne. He accepted their invitation, and in the course of the same year was inducted into his new charge, which he retained until the time of his death.

During his residence in Newcastle for the period of thirty years, he was most faithful and assiduous in discharging the various duties of the pastoral office, of which he deeply felt the importance, and under the pressure of which the native vigour of his constitution was broken down, long before the time when, in the ordinary course of things, it might have been expected to be impaired by advanced age. The ardour of his mind exhausted and at length overpowered the strength of his body. By the strong mental excitement, connected with the hard study and laborious efforts in which he was employed, his nervous system was unstrung, and a general debility ensued. Owing to this state of things, which had occurred when he was little more than fifty years of age, his congregation, by whom he was much and deservedly esteemed, wishing to prolong his life by lightening the labours of their beloved pastor, resolved to provide for him a colleague in his pastoral charge. With this view, the Rev. William Syme was ordained in 1791, to labour among them as the colleague of Mr. Graham. After this, by diminishing the pressure of his official responsibilities, which another had now come forward to share, the native elasticity of Mr. Graham's constitutional vigour and health was partially restored. But the fatal blow had been struck; the basis of his physical energies was undermined. He continued, amidst many fluctuations in the state of his health, to perform the duties of his ministry until the month of October, 1800, when a stroke of paralysis overwhelmed him. He lingered in a state of great debility until the 19th January, 1801, when exhausted nature yielded up the ghost, and, his life and labours coming to an end, he fell asleep in Jesus, entering into the joy of his Lord. His remains were

deposited in the Dissenters' Burying Ground in Newcastle, amid the tears of his bereaved family and flock, and the regrets of the public, by whom he was highly esteemed.

Thus lived and died the faithful and eminently-gifted servant of Christ, to whose memory this humble monument is now reared. As a man, he was distinguished by a high order of intellectual endowment. His mind possessed great independence and decision of character. He was penetrating and profound. His judgment was prompt, clear, and discriminative. Candid, and even considerately indulgent in forming his opinions of others, he yet refused to yield submission to systems of mere human authority. Nobly disdaining to crouch as the slave of other men's opinions, in all matters he maintained the right and duty of thinking for himself. By his courtesy and kindness, by his wisdom and the consistency of his character and conduct with the sacred station which he filled, he stood high not only in the affection and warm regard of religious society, but in the esteem of the public at large.

He was emphatically a man of God. In early life his Christian character was formed. By godly parents he had been consecrated in his infancy to God. As he grew up in life, but still in the days of his youth, divine grace displayed itself in his love of the Holy Scriptures, in that tenderness of conscience and self-denial with which he relinquished flattering prospects of secular aggrandisement, and counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord, determined to devote himself to the ministry of the gospel in circumstances where little or no scope could be given for worldly motives to impel him. His brethren in the ministry, his family, and his friends, with whom he lived on terms of most confidential intimacy, were accustomed to speak of him as evincing great fervour of spirit in introducing and cherishing conversation upon the precious things of the gospel; showing that by faith he walked with God, and that the love of Christ constrained him.

His ministry was characterized by that decided tone of evangelical sentiment, which is maintained in the religious body to which he belonged. Profoundly skilled in the scriptures, and accustomed to read and study them in the original languages, with which he was critically acquainted, he brought forth from this treasury of inspired wisdom rich and striking illustrations of the truth as it is in Jesus. As an expositor of scripture he

excelled, and was much admired by those who heard him. His discourses on particular subjects, doctrinal, experimental, and practical, were clear and instructive, and delivered with an animation which proved that the preacher was in earnest, having his heart in his work, and with a fervid impassioned eloquence, which made a deep and enduring impression upon those to whom they were addressed. Thus the persons who had long enjoyed the advantages of his ministrations, and who blessed God for the spiritual benefit they had derived from them, were accustomed to describe them. In addition to his able and stated labours in the pulpit, he convened portions of his congregation, according to the different districts in which they lived, and conducted among them public examinations on religious subjects. By this means their attention to divine truth was much excited, and their acquaintance with it enlarged. Besides, in the private duties of the pastoral care, he not only was employed in the visitation of the sick, but he visited and exhorted from house to house, breaking the bread of life in devout familiar conversations with the different families of whom he had the oversight. was peculiarly attentive to the religious instruction of the young, and many who enjoyed the benefit of that instruction found that thus by the Divine blessing they had been led from their childhood to know the scriptures, which made them wise unto salvation.

He

While he acted on the conviction that his time and labours were chiefly due to his pastoral charge; feeling that he stood also in certain influential relations to the church and to the world, he devoted his energies to the welfare of those around him, and to all to whom his influence could extend. He was an excellent scholar, not only learned in the original languages of the scriptures, but in the Greek and Roman classics, and acquainted with several modern languages of Europe. To the study of mathematics, of which, from his strong mental constitution, he was fond, he devoted some of his leisure hours. In following out the principles of science in their practical bearings, he set himself to discover an exact method of finding the longitude at sea. For this purpose he had a machine constructed under his direction, by Mr. Coventry, a skilful watchmaker in Newcastle. But though this was admired for the ingenuity it displayed, it did not prove successful, and was therefore abandoned. He published a system of stenography,