Слике страница
PDF
ePub

annum.

He shall be like a tree that grows

Near planted by a river,

Which in his season yields his fruit,
And his leaf fadeth never.

spent or spoiled; and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft.

There must be some very important advantages to account for an institution which, in the view of it above given, is so paradoxical and unnatural. The principal of these advantages are the following

I. It increases the produce of the earth.

The earth, in climates like ours, produces little without cultivation; and none would be found wil ling to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted to an equal share of the produce. The same is true of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals.

Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fish, are all which we should have to subsist upon in this country, if we trusted to the spontaneous productions of the soil; and it fares not much better with other countries. A nation of North American savages, consisting of two or three hundred, will take up and be half-starved upon a tract of land which in Europe, and with European management, would be sufficient for the maintenance of as many thousands.

So says our old version of the Psalms with respect to the fate of a righteous man, and Paley was a righteous man whose mind yielded precious fruit, and whose leaves will never fade. This excellent author was born at Peterborough in 1743. His father was afterwards curate of Giggleswick, Yorkshire, and teacher of the grammar-school there. At the age of fifteen he was entered as sizar at Christ's college, Cambridge, and after completing his academical course, he became tutor in an academy at Greenwich. As soon as he was of sufficient age, he was ordained to be assistant curate of Greenwich. He was afterwards elected a fellow of his college, and went thither to reside, engaging first as tutor. He next lectured in the university on moral philosophy and the Greek Testament. His college friend, Dr Law, bishop of Carlisle, presented him with the rectory of Musgrave, in Westmoreland, and he removed to his country charge, worth only £80 per He was soon inducted into the vicarage of Dalston, in Cumberland, to a prebend's stall in Carlisle cathedral, and also to the archdeaconry of Carlisle. In 1785 appeared his long-meditated Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy; in 1790 his Hora Pauline; and in 1794 his View of the Evidences of Christianity. Friends and preferment now crowded in on him. The bishop of London (Porteous) made him a prebend of St Paul's; the bishop of Lincoln presented him with the sub-deanery of Lincoln; and the bishop of Durham gave him the rectory of Bishop-Wearmouth, worth about a thousand pounds We may judge what would be the effects of a comper anuum-and all these within six months, the munity of right to the productions of the earth, from luckiest half-year of his life. The boldness and free- the trifling specimens which we see of it at present. dom of some of Paley's disquisitions on government, A cherry-tree in a hedgerow, nuts in a wood, the and perhaps a deficiency, real or supposed, in per- grass of an unstinted pasture, are seldom of much | sonal dignity, and some laxness, as well as an inve-advantage to anybody, because people do not wait for terate provincial homeliness, in conversation, pre- the proper season of reaping them. Corn, if any were vented his rising to the bench of bishops. When his sown, would never ripen; lambs and calves would name was once mentioned to George III., the monever grow up to sheep and cows, because the first narch is reported to have said Paley! what, pigeon person that met them would reflect that he had better Paley?'-an allusion to a famous sentence in the take them as they are than leave them for another, 'Moral and Political Philosophy' on property. As III. It prevents contests. a specimen of his style of reasoning, and the liveliness of his illustrations, we subjoin this passage, which is part of an estimate of the relative duties of men in society :

Of Property.

If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn, and if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse, keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst pigeon of the flock; sitting round, and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about and wasting it; and if a pigeon, more hardy or hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon and tearing it to pieces; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men you see the ninety-andnine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one (and this one too, oftentimes, the feeblest and worst of the whole set-a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool), getting nothing for themselves all the while but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces; looking quietly on while they see the fruits of all their labour

In some fertile soils, together with great abundance of fish upon their coasts, and in regions where clothes are unnecessary, a considerable degree of population may subsist without property in land, which is the case in the islands of Otaheite: but in less favoured situations, as in the country of New Zealand, though this sort of property obtain in a small degree, the inhabitants, for want of a more secure and regular establishment of it, are driven oftentimes by the scarcity of provision to devour one another.

II. It preserves the produce of the earth to maturity.

War and waste, tumult and confusion, must be unavoidable and eternal where there is not enough for all, and where there are no rules to adjust the

division.

IV. It improves the conveniency of living.

This it does two ways. It enables mankind to divide themselves into distinct professions, which is impossible, unless a man can exchange the productions of his own art for what he wants from others, and exchange implies property. Much of the advan tage of civilised over savage life depends upon this. When a man is, from necessity, his own tailor, tentmaker, carpenter, cook, huntsman, and fisherman, it is not probable that he will be expert at any of his callings. Hence the rude habitations, furniture, clothing, and implements of savages, and the tedious length of time which all their operations require.

It likewise encourages those arts by which the ac commodations of human life are supplied, by appro priating to the artist the benefit of his discoveries and improvements, without which appropriation ingenuity will never be exerted with effect.

Upon these several accounts we may venture, with a few exceptions, to pronounce that even the poorest and the worst provided, in countries where property and the consequences of property prevail, are in a better situation with respect to food, raiment, houses, and what are called the necessaries of life, than any are in places where most things remain in common.

652

1

[ocr errors]

The balance, therefore, upon the whole, must preponderate in favour of property with a manifest and great excess.

Inequality of property, in the degree in which it exists in most countries of Europe, abstractedly considered, is an evil; but it is an evil which flows from those rules concerning the acquisition and disposal of property, by which men are incited to industry, and by which the object of their industry is rendered secure and valuable. If there be any great inequality unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected. In 1802 Paley published his Natural Theology, his last work. He enjoyed himself in the country with his duties and recreations: he was particularly fond of angling; and he mixed familiarly with his neighbours in all their plans of utility, sociality, and even conviviality. He disposed of his time with great regularity in his garden he limited himself to one hour at a time, twice a-day; in reading books of amusement, one hour at breakfast and another in the evening, and one for dinner and his newspaper. By thus dividing and husbanding his pleasures, they remained with him to the last. He died on the 25th of May 1805.

:

as a rule of morals, which has been considered as

to feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, probity, charity, and meekness unmatched by an avowed advocate in a cause deeply interesting his warmest feelings. His Natural Theology is the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it; and it could only have been surpassed by a man (Sir Charles Bell) who, to great originality of conception and clearness of exposition, added the advantage of a high place in the first class of physiologists.'

[The World was Made with a Benevolent Design.] [From Natural Theology."]

It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately-discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment; so busy life, with which, by reason of the animal being halfdomesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of conthe offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification: what else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long? Other species are running with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of about with an alacrity in their motions which carries ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins and sprightly natures. of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement), all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side in a calm evening upon a sandy shore and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this; if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view!

If we look to what the waters

No works of a theological or philosophical nature have been so extensively popular among the educated classes of England as those of Paley. His perspicacity of intellect and simplicity of style are almost unrivalled. Though plain and homely, and often inelegant, he has such vigour and discrimination, and such a happy vein of illustration, that he is always read with pleasure and instruction. No reader is ever at a loss for his meaning, or finds him too difficult for comprehension. He had the rarestitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by art of popularising the most recondite knowledge, and blending the business of life with philosophy. The principles inculcated in some of his works have been disputed, particularly his doctrine of expediency trenching on the authority of revealed religion, and also lowering the standard of public duty. The system of Paley certainly would not tend to foster the great and heroic virtues. In his early life he is reported to have said, with respect to his subscription to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, that he was 'too poor to keep a conscience; and something of the same laxness of moral feeling pervades his ethical system. His abhorrence of all hypocrisy and pretence was probably at the root of this error. Like Dr Johnson, he was a practical moralist, and looked with distrust on any highstrained virtue or enthusiastic devotion. He did not write for philosophers or metaphysicians, but for the great body of the people anxious to acquire knowledge, and to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them.' He considered the art of life to consist in properly setting our habits,' and for this no subtle distinctions or profound theories were necessary. His Moral and Political Philosophy' is framed on this basis of utility, directed by strong sense, a discerning judgment, and a sincere regard for the true end of all knowledge—the well-being of mankind here and hereafter. Of Paley's other works, Sir James Mackintosh has pronounced the following opinion: The most original and ingenious of his writings is the Hora Paulinæ. The Evidences of Christianity are formed out of an admirable translation of Butler's Analogy, and a most skilful abridgment of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. He may be said to have thus given value to two works, of which the first was scarcely intelligible to most of those who were most desirous of profiting by it; and the second soon wearies out the greater part of readers, though the few who are more patient have almost always been gradually won over |

[ocr errors]

The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be

attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single word which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say; and with walking, without knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see.

But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less than with the playful kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, ' perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau to be the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life under all or most of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely, our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the only happy one.

[merged small][graphic]

Tomb of Bishop Porteous at Sunbridge, Kent.

lege by a prize poem On Death, which has been
often reprinted: it is but a feeble transcript of
Blair's Grave.' Dr Porteous warmly befriended
Beattie the poet (whom he wished to take orders
assisted Hannah More in her novel of Calebs.
in the church of England), and he is said to have!

DR SAMUEL HORSLEY, bishop of St Asaph (17331806), was one of the most conspicuous churchmen of his day. He belonged to the high church party, and strenuously resisted all political or ecclesiastical change. He was learned and eloquent, but prone to controversy, and deficient in charity and the milder virtues. His character was not unlike that of one of his patrons, Chancellor Thurlow, stern and unbending, but cast in a manly mould. He A new and illustrated edition of Paley's Natural was an indefatigable student. His first public apTheology' was published in 1835, with scientific illus-pearance was in the character of a man of science. trations by Sir Charles Bell, and a preliminary discourse by Henry Lord Brougham.

DR RICHARD WATSON, bishop of Llandaff (17371816), did good service to the cause of revealed religion and social order by his replies to Gibbon the historian, and Thomas Paine. To the former he addressed a series of letters, entitled An Apology for Christianity, in answer to Gibbon's celebrated chapters on the rise and progress of Christianity; and when Paine published his Age of Reason, the bishop met it with a vigorous and conclusive reply, which he termed An Apology for the Bible. Watson also published a few sermons, and a collection of theological tracts, selected from various authors, in six volumes. His Whig principles stood in the way of his church preferment, and he had not magnanimity enough to conceal his disappointment, which is strongly expressed in an autobiographical memoir published after his death by his son. Dr Watson,

He was some time secretary of the Royal Society-
wrote various short treatises on scientific subjects,
and published an edition of Sir Isaac Newton's
works. As a critic and scholar he had few equals;
and his disquisitions on the prophets Isaiah and
Hosea, his translations of the Psalms, and his Bibli-
cal Criticisms (in four volumes), justly entitled him
to the honour of the mitre. His sermons, in three
volumes, are about the best in the language: clear,
nervous, and profound, he entered undauntedly upon
the most difficult subjects, and dispelled, by research
and argument, the doubt that hung over several
passages of Scripture. He was for many years
engaged in a controversy with Dr Priestley
on the
subject of the divinity of Christ. Both of the com-
batants lost their temper; but when Priestley re-
sorted to a charge of incompetency and ignorance,
it was evident that he felt himself sinking in the
struggle. In intellect and scholarship, Horsley was

[ocr errors]

vastly superior to his antagonist. The political opinions and intolerance of the bishop were more successfully attacked by Robert Hall, in his Apo logy for the Freedom of the Press.

GILBERT WAKEFIELD (1756-1801) enjoyed celebrity both as a writer on controversial divinity and a classical critic. He left the church in consequence of his embracing Unitarian opinions, and afterwards left also the dissenting establishment at Hackney, to which he had attached himself. He published translations of some of the epistles in the New Testament, and an entire translation of the same sacred volume, with notes. He was also author of a work on Christian Evidence, in reply to Paine. The bishop of Llandaff having in 1798 written an address against the principles of the French Revolution, Wakefield replied to it, and was subjected to a crown prosecution for libel; he was found guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He published editions of Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, &c. which ranked him among the first scholars of his time. Wakefield was an honest, precipitate, and simple-minded man; a Pythagorean in his diet, and eccentric in many of his habits and opinions. He was,' says one of his biographers, as violent against Greek accents as he was against the Trinity, and anathematised the final N as strongly as episcopacy.' The infidel principles which abounded at the period of the French Revolution, and continued to agitate both France and England for some years, induced a disregard of vital piety long afterwards in the higher circles of British society. To counteract this, MR WILBERFORCE, then member of parliament for the county of York, published in 1797 A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. Five editions of the work were sold within six months, and it still continues, in various languages, to form a popular religious treatise. The author attested, by his daily life, the sincerity of his opinions. William Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant, and born at Hull in 1759. He was educated at Cambridge, and on completing his twentyfirst year, was returned to parliament for his native town. He soon distinguished himself by his talents, and became the idol of the fashionable world-dancing at Almack's, and singing before the Prince of Wales. In 1784, while pursuing a continental tour with some relations, in company with Dean Milner, the latter so impressed him with the truths of Christianity, that Wilberforce entered upon a new life, and abandoned all his former gaieties. In parliament he pursued a strictly independent course. For twenty years he laboured for the abolition of the slave-trade, a question with which his name is inseparably entwined. His time, his talents, influence, and prayers, were directed towards the consummation of this object, and at length, in 1807, he had the high gratification of seeing it accomplished. The religion of Wilberforce was mild and cheerful, unmixed with austerity or gloom. He closed his long and illustrious life on the 27th July 1833, one of those men who, by their virtues, talents, and energy, impress their own character on the age in which they live. His latter years realised his own beautiful description—

[On the Effects of Religion.]

When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigour; when all goes on prosperously, and success seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want of the consolations of religion: but when fortune frowns, or

friends forsake us; when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind, than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach; or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeavours and elude his grasp! To such a one gloomily, indeed, does the evening of life set in! All is sour and cheerless. He can neither look backward with complacency, nor forward with hope; while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself on the fidelity of God; and at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye dim perhaps and feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward to the near possession of his heavenly inheritance, to those joys which eye hath not seer, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.' What striking lessons have we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth, and power, and prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and uncertain! But religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essential superiority of that support which is derived from religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches and fortune. But when all these are swept away by the splendour, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and rude hand of time or the rough blasts of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest, foliage, but more than ever discovering to the observerect and vigorous; stripped, indeed, of his summe: ing eye the solid strength of his substantial texture.

Another distinguished volunteer in the cause of religious instruction, and an extensive miscellaneous writer, was MRS HANNAH MORE, whose works we have previously enumerated.

DR SAMUEL PARR-DR EDWARD MALTBY-
REV. SIDNEY SMITH.

DR SAMUEL PARR (1747-1825) was better known as a classical scholar than a theologian. His sermons on education are, however, marked with cogency of argument and liberality of feeling. His celebrated Spital sermon, when printed, presented the singular anomaly of fifty-one pages of text and two hundred and twelve of notes. Mr Godwin attacked some of the principles laid down in this discourse, as not sufficiently democratic for his taste; for though a stanch Whig, Parr was no revolutionist or leveller. His object was to extend education among the poor, and to ameliorate their condition by gradual and constitutional means. Dr Parr was long head master of Norwich school; and in knowledge of Greek literature was not surpassed by any scholar of his day. His uncompromising support of Whig principles, his extensive learning, and a certain pedantry and oddity of character, rendered him always conspicuous among his brother churchmen. He died at Hatton, in Warwickshire, the perpetual curacy of which he had enjoyed for above forty years, and where he had faithfully discharged his duties as a parish pastor.

DR EDWARD MALTBY, the present bishop of Dur

ham, was the favourite pupil of Parr at Norwich school. He is author of a work on the Christian Evidences; two volumes of sermons, 1819 and 1822; a third volume of sermons preached before the society of Lincoln's Inn, where he succeeded Dr Heber; and also of a vastly improved edition of Morell's Greek Thesaurus, which engaged his attention for about eleven years.

The REV. ŠIDNEY SMITH, well known as a witty miscellaneous writer and critic, is a canon residentiary of St Paul's. Mr Smith published two volumes of sermons in the year 1809. They are more remarkable for plain good sense than for originality or eloquence. A few sentences from a sermon on the Love of our Country will show the homely earnestness of this author's serious style :

[Difficulty of Governing a Nation.]

It would seem that the science of government is an unappropriated region in the universe of knowledge. Those sciences with which the passions can never interfere, are considered to be attainable only by study and by reflection; while there are not many young men who doubt of their ability to make a constitution, or to govern a kingdom: at the same time there cannot, perhaps, be a more decided proof of a superficial understanding than the depreciation of those difficulties which are inseparable from the science of government. To know well the local and the natural man; to track the silent march of human affairs; to seize, with happy intuition, on those great laws which regulate the prosperity of empires; to reconcile principles to circumstances, and be no wiser than the times will permit; to anticipate the effects of every speculation upon the entangled relations and awkward complexity of real life; and to follow out the theorems of the senate to the daily comforts of the cottage, is a task which they will fear most who know it best-a task in which the great and the good have often failed, and which it is not only wise, but pious and just in common men to avoid.

[Means of Acquiring Distinction.]

you;

It is natural to every man to wish for distinction; and the praise of those who can confer honour by their praise, in spite of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart; but as eminence can be but the lot of a few, patience of obscurity is a duty which we owe not more to our own happiness than to the quiet of the world at large. Give a loose, if you are young and ambitious, to that spirit which throbs within measure yourself with your equals; and learn, from frequent competition, the place which nature has allotted to you; make of it no mean battle, but strive hard; strengthen your soul to the search of truth, and follow that spectre of excellence which beckons you on beyond the walls of the world to something better than man has yet done. It may be you shall burst out into light and glory at the last; but if frequent failure convince you of that mediocrity of nature which is incompatible with great actions, submit wisely and cheerfully to your lot; let no mean spirit of revenge tempt you to throw off your loyalty to your country, and to prefer a vicious celebrity to obscurity crowned with piety and virtue. If you can throw new light upon moral truth, or by any exertions multiply the comforts or confirm the happiness of mankind, this fame guides you to the true ends of your nature: but, in the name of God, as you tremble at retributive justice, and, in the name of mankind, if mankind be dear to you, seek not that easy and accursed fame which is gathered in the work of revolutions; and deem it better to be for ever unknown, than to found a momentary name upon the basis of anarchy and irreligion.

[The Love of our Country.]

Whence does this love of our country, this universal passion, proceed? Why does the eye ever dwell with fondness upon the scenes of infant life? Why do we breathe with greater joy the breath of our youth! Why are not other soils as grateful, and other heavens as gay? Why does the soul of man ever cling to that earth where it first knew pleasure and pain, and, under the rough discipline of the passions, was roused to the dignity of moral life? Is it only that our country contains our kindred and our friends? And is it nothing but a name for our social affections! It cannot be this; the most friendless of human beings has a country which he admires and extols, and which he would, in the same circumstances, prefer to all others under heaven. Tempt him with the fairest face of | nature, place him by living waters under shadowy trees of Lebanon, open to his view all the gorgeous allurements of the climates of the sun, he will love the rocks and deserts of his childhood better than all | these, and thou canst not bribe his soul to forget the land of his nativity; he will sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon when he remembers thee, oh Sion!

[ocr errors]

DR HERBERT MARSH.

DR HERBERT MARSH, bishop of Peterborough, who died in May 1839 at an advanced age, obtained distinction as the translator and commentator of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament,' one of the most valuable of modern works on divi nity. In 1807 this divine was appointed Lady Margaret's professor of divinity in the university of Cambridge, in 1816 he was made bishop of Llandaff, and in 1819 he succeeded to the see of Peterborough. Besides his edition of Michaelis, Dr Marsh published Lectures on Divinity, and a Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome. He was author also of some controversial tracts on the Catholic question, the Bible society, &c. in which he evinced great acuteness, tinctured with asperity. In early life, during a residence in Germany, Dr Marsh published, in the German language, various tracts in defence of the policy of his own country in the continental wars; and more particularly a very elaborate History of the Politics of Great Britain and France, from the Time of the Conference at Pilnitz to the Declaration of War, a work which is said to have produced a marked impression on the state of public opinion in Germany, and for which he received a very con siderable pension on the recommendation of Mr Pitt.

About the year 1833 appeared the first of the celebrated Tracts for the Times, by Members of the University of Oxford, which have originated a keen controversy among the clergy of the church of England, and caused a wide rent or schism in that ancient establishment. The peculiar doc trines or opinions of this sect are known by the term Puseyism, so called after one of their first and most intrepid supporters, DR EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, second son of the late Hon. Philip Pusey, and grandson of the Earl of Radnor. This gentleman was born in 1800, and educated at Christ-church college, Oxford, where, in 1828, he became regius professor of Hebrew. In conjunction with several other members of the university of Oxford (Mr Newman, Professor Sewell, &c.), Dr Pusey established an association for spreading and advocating their views regarding church discipline and authority, and from this association sprung the Tracts for the Times.' The tenets maintained by the tract writers were chiefly as follows:-They asserted the threefold order of ministry-bishops, priests, and deacons. They claimed a personal, not a merely official de

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« ПретходнаНастави »