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in his preaching nothing labored or far-fetched. He was too much a lover of nature, to be trammeled by a very nice observance of the dry formal rules of rhetoric in his popular discourses. He aimed at the heart and conscience, threw himself upon his audience without embarrassment or reserve, gave a loose to the warmth and energy of his feelings, and frequently closed his sermons leaving almost the entire congregation in tears. This effect of his preaching was not a little aided by the manifest and unquestionable air of sincerity which pervaded his performances; his hearers all knew, that in what he said, there was nothing put on for the occasion, that he was "honest in the sacred cause," and that he himself fully believed what he commended with so much directness and simplicity to the hearts of his hearers.

As a writer, his friend Dr. Speece speaks of him as "the first in his synod." His letters, of which the book before us is chiefly composed, show a readiness and care in communicating his thoughts, and a talent at just and powerful description, which we think are rarely surpassed. Upon the whole, we were interested in his character before we read his life; we are much more so since. In his death, the Presbyterian church and the cause of christianity at large have lost an able, a judicious, and a warmly attached friend and supporter.

His views on the delicate and difficult subject of slavery, many of our readers may wish to learn. And it will not be out of place, perhaps, at the present time, when this subject is undergoing so vigorous a discussion, to give them. As a Virginian, educated amid the associations and under the many influences of this strong feature in the laws and the social economy of his native section of country, his views on this subject are, perhaps, as enlightened and liberal as from the nature of the case they could be expected to be. We are not quite sure, that, when they are looked upon in their application to the existing state of things at this moment, and with all the advantage of our position as northern men, they are not both just and important. The following remarks are extracted from a letter to William Maxwell, Esq. :

I am most fully convinced that slavery is the greatest evil in our country, except whiskey; and it is my most ardent prayer that we may be delivered from it. But it is my full belief that the deliverance is not to be accomplished by the combination of benevolent societies. The great body of persons composing such societies are too little accustomed to calculate consequences. They go directly at their measure, and have no means of accomplishing it but the producing, by means of speeches and addresses, a strong excitement. But on a subject of this delicate character, where much opposition is to be encountered, these very means give the adversary an advantage, which he will not fail to use to the injury, perhaps to the destruction of the society. While,

therefore, I do most devoutly wish success to the Colonization Society, I do earnestly wish that its friends may not refer to it as a means of deliverance from slavery. Should that success which I hope for, crown the efforts of this association, the existence of a prosperous colony on the western coast, will of itself do more for the cause of emancipation, than all that any, or all of us, now can effect by speaking of these things. So fully am I convinced of this, that I deplore every movement that raises any thing like opposition to the society.

The reason why I am so strenuously opposed to any movement by the church or the ministers of religion on this subject, is simply this. I am convinced that any thing we can do will injure religion, and retard the march of public feeling in relation to slavery. I take the case to be just this: as slavery exists among us, the only possible chance of deliverance is by making the people willing to get rid of it. At any rate it is this or physical force. The problem to be solved is, to produce that state of the public will, which will cause the people to move spontaneously to the eradication of the evil. Slaves by law are held as property. If the church or the minister of religion touches the subject, it is touching what are called the rights of property. The jealousy among our countrymen on this subject is such, that we cannot move a step in this way, without wakening up the strongest opposition, and producing the most violent excitement. The whole mass of the community will be set in motion, and the great body of the church will be carried along. Under this conviction, I wish the ministers of religion to be convinced that there is nothing in the New Testament which obliges them to take hold of this subject directly. In fact, I believe that it never has fared well with either church or state, when the church meddled with temporal affairs. And I should-knowing how unmanageable religious feeling is, when not kept under the immediate influence of divine truth-be exceedingly afraid to see it brought to bear directly on the subject of slavery. Where the movement might end, I could not pretend to conjecture.

But I tell you what I wish. While we go on minding our own business, and endeavoring to make as many good christians as possible among masters and servants, let the subject of slavery be discussed in the political papers, reviews, &c., as a question of political economy. Keep it entirely free from all ecclesiastical connections, and from all the politics of the general government; and treat it as a matter of state concernment. Examine its effects on the agriculture, commerce and manufactures of the state. Compare the expense of free and slave labor. Bring distinctly before the people the evil in its unavoidable operations and its fearful increase. Set them to calculating the weight of their burdens. Let them see how many old slaves, and young slaves, who produce nothing, they have to support. Show them how slavery deducts from the military force as well as the wealth of a country, etc. Considerations of this sort, combined with the benevolent feelings growing out of a gradual, uninterrupted progress of religion, will, I believe, set the people of their own accord to seek deliverance. They will foresee the necessity of a change; soon begin to prepare for it; and it will come about without violence or convulsion. Such is my opinion.' pp. 306–308.

etc.

The work before us has suggested some general observations, with which we will close this article. First, in regard to the best method of writing memoirs of the dead. The method most in vogue at the present day is, to make the subject of the memoir his own biographer, by publishing, in chronological order, a series of letters and papers, such as the deceased may have left behind him at his death, and which may be deemed proper for the public eye; taking a little pains to connect these manuscripts together, by interposing, here and there, a few explanatory remarks; the whole object of the biographer being, to make the dead tell his own story. This method of writing memoirs has, unquestionably, some advantages peculiar to itself, and many illustrious names in the literary world to give it currency. One obvious advantage which it possesses is, that it makes the reader acquainted not merely with the subject of the memoir himself, but with all his correspondents, and (as the case may be) with the taste, and fashion, and literature of the day and circle in which he lived. This is throwing into the department of biography an amount of interest, a variety in the materials, and a stock of information, which can be secured in no other way. A single volume or two of biography composed after this manner, may embrace the history and progress of literature for half a century, and bring up to the reader's view all the distinguished actors in that portion of the great drama of life in which the deceased himself figured. Such, for example, is the life of Hannah More. It is also a comparatively easy task to make up a pretty good sized book in this way, especially if the deceased possessed but a tolerable share of the "cacoethes scribendi." There is another method of writing memoirs, differing widely from the foregoing, and demanding much higher powers in him who undertakes it. It goes more into the hidden springs and causes which give a particular cast to men's characters, showing what influence such and such things had to evolve such and such traits, intellectual or moral, and to give them strength and prominence after they had been formed. It is, of course, more abstract and philosophical than the other method, and on that account less entertaining to general readers. The work before us belongs to the former of these two kinds of writing. It professes to do little more than to select and arrange a mass of materials already provided to hand. And this task, we think, is well executed. The compiler of the work is content to be a compiler, and to let his deceased friend speak for himself, or to draw testimony to his friend's character from others, in their correspondence with him. But we are inclined to think, that the compiler might have made his interesting book still more interesting, by indulging himself a little more freely in apposite remarks and brief disquisitions of his own, intended to lay open to view, more fully and minutely, the VOL. VIII.

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character of the excellent individual whose history he has detailed before us. We think in other words, that the memoirs of eminent men would, upon the whole, be more interesting and more useful, if, in preparing them for the public, somewhat of both the above methods of writing were adopted and blended together. In the compiler himself of the memoir under our review, we were particularly gratified to see throughout the work so much sympathy, both in sentiment and feeling, with his departed friend, on the great subject of experimental religion. We cannot but feel, that gentlemen in the legal profession, and of eminence in that profession, have a more important part to act, in urging forward the triumphs of christianity, than as a body they have hitherto acted, or, perhaps, thought compatible with their professional engage

ments.

Another general observation suggested to us from this work is, that the feeling which is so prevalent among religious men,—to wit, that they are necessarily obnoxious to statesmen and politicians, who are destititute of piety, on account of their religious character, so that they cannot hope to gain access to them, and do them any good,-is to a great extent an unwarrantable feeling. Dr. Rice had among his personal friends men high in political life, and who are not known to the writer to have been religious men at the time. We are not aware that Mr. Wirt was regarded as a religious man during his earlier acquaintance with the subject of this memoir. Eminent in his profession, possessed of taste and various learning, an eloquent advocate at the bar, a good classical scholar, and a beautiful writer; we are not aware that to these attractive characteristics he added the higher and better distinction of being a decided christian, till long after the acquaintance we have spoken of commenced. And yet between him and Dr. Rice there was a warm friendship and free and easy intercourse. We know too from their letters to each other, that the subject of religion was very far from being kept out of view. The late brilliant, though somewhat eccentric orator of Roanoke, who was for many years one of the most distinguished men on the floor of our national legislature, was also an acquaintance and correspondent of the subject of this memoir; and an extract of a letter from the former to the latter of these gentlemen will show, that religion was not a prohibited subject between them:

'My good Sir, I fear that you have bestowed your culture upon a most thankless soil. I am led to this apprehension from the consciousness, that this world and all that it inherits have no longer value in my eyes. Am I not then more than usually culpable if I set not my heart upon another and a better world? And yet with a firm conviction of the necessity of pardon and of reconciliation, with a justly offended God, I am almost insensible to the motives that ought to actuate one in my

condition. Occasionally indeed I am penetrated, as I ought to be, with the sense of the mercy of my Creator, but the weight of my unworthiness bows me down, and seems to render impossible the idea that such as I am should be accepted by him.' p. 115.

His letters to Mr. Madison have been already mentioned. These, not to name other instances, show that there is no such necessary separation between distinguished laymen who feel no particular interest on the subject of religion, and evangelical clergymen; as that the latter could not gain access to the former, and be the means of doing them great good, would they only try. No class of men are in more danger, perhaps, than those who are high in political station, and who are supposed to be hostile to religion. They are shut out almost entirely from all friendly and faithful religious counsel. There is nobody to administer such counsel to them, and that too in many instances when they would rejoice to have some judicious christian friend to guide them to a surer and better portion than that which they are seeking here. Mr. Randolph, in the letter from which the above extract is taken, says: "I wish to thank you for your kind attention to me, and therefore this letter has been written. How inadequate to the expression of my feelings, no one but myself can tell. The want of some friend, to whom I can pour out my thoughts as they rise, is not the least of the privations under which I labor." Almost every man, whatever his station in life, has felt at times the same need which Mr. Randolph here expresses, of some christian friend to whom he could freely impart his feelings, and who knew how to deal with "a wounded spirit." Let ministers, then, whose business it is to "watch for souls," remember, that great men have souls to be saved or lost as well as others, and be faithful in the discharge of their duty to them; and their labor, there is abundant encouragement to believe, will not be "in vain in the Lord." Let ministers of influence especially turn their attention to this subject, and go and act as duty may require. One thing is certain the testimony of an approving conscience is more to be desired than any possible ease or advantage which can result from connivance at the sins of the great, or from a neglect of duty to them.

ART. IV. DOMESTIC EDUCATION.

On the Education of Children, while under the care of Parents and Guardians. BY JOHN HALL, Principal of the Ellington School. Second edition. Hartford: Canfield & Robbins. 1836.

WE hail with satisfaction the appearance of any work calculated to assist those who are intrusted with the education of children and youth, in the discharge of their arduous and responsible

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