spectacle in nature or art; some towering cliff, some deep precipice, "the venerable face of some tall pile." This may be useful for the mental expansion which it occasions, but, as such, it conveys no instruction. We must know, not only what they did, but how they did it. The military reader wishes to learn what it was that enabled the General to secure victory to the army led by him into the battle-field. And so as to character. We contemplate its outward form. But it is not a mask which may be put on the face from without. The character of a tree, for instance, is the appearance which it presents, as caused by the natural development of the leaf- and fruit-bearing powers; that of a man is produced by the development of certain principles. The Christian man is to be a "tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified ;" and in order to this, there is a certain process to which he is subjected by the great Anointed of the Lord. And this, as described to us by the Prophet, has nothing about it of outward clipping into shapes, either fantastic or beautiful,-if indeed anything that is not natural can be beautiful: it is an inward one; and the great instruction that is afforded comes not so much from the presentation of the ultimate form, as from that of the inward process. We wish, or ought to wish, that we knew how we ourselves might become that which, as seen in others, we admire. It is important to know, not merely the outward life of great men, but that which they exhibit in its results, their inward life. We especially wish to know this if they are men of abiding influence. There are many who submit to influence absolutely, to the whole of it, as flowing from any point which may have become influential. Their admiring loyalty gives a sort of despotic power to those who are the objects of it; and they seem to apply to them the valuable maxim of our own constitution,-valuable, as fixing responsibility where an account may be most successfully demanded,— that "the Monarch can do no wrong." They who are influenced cannot so shelter themselves under the authority of those who influence, as to place the moral agency which belongs equally to each in a state of abeyance. Every man must give account of himself to God. We should learn to discriminate, that we may know what ought not, as well as what ought, to exert an influence upon us; that we may know, also, if it is to be known, when the fact is, that while there is much that ought to be allowed to influence us, there is much that ought not, how it has occurred that so it is. Beacons are usefully fixed near spots which threaten danger to the navigator; and the fact has suggested a metaphor, expressing the dangers to be avoided in conduct and character. But the description of visible character can only be partially admonitory. The lamp is without light. Then only is it lit up when we are shown the cause of the evil which we are called to avoid, and which can only be completely shunned when we know the cause, and shun it as knowing it.

Mr. Foster was a great man, and though perhaps influential only in a particular sphere, yet in that, itself influential, very powerfully so. If any portion of the influence be incorrect, as far as the cause can be ascertained, it should be beaconed. We are therefore glad to see this copious memoir. It is executed ably and judiciously. Of the life of a "man of letters" the incidents will usually be few, and to the public unimportant. This was very much the case with Mr. Foster. But to those who can relish his writings, and whose minds can hold communion with his mind speaking in them, this memoir, though comparatively barren of anything like romantic incident, is yet very far from being devoid of interest. What the narrative

of public affairs is to the memoir of the statesman who conducted them, or of battles and campaigns to that of the commanding and directing General, that, to the memoir of a man like Mr. Foster, is the account of his intellectual exercises, in their method, objects, and results. In the place of stirring incidents, therefore, we have references to his studies, in the way in which they were pursued, the objects which they sought to secure, and the mental products in which they issued, and of which so many were given to the world,-sent forth to work continually upon the minds of others, and thus to contribute to other growths and products, as well as to the formation of the average public opinion of the generations in which they are at work. In the case of Mr. Foster, it is no more than common justice to say, that if he be not, in the ordinary sense of the term, as referring to the extent rather than to the value of external approval, a popular writer, read by all orders of intellect, and quoted by superficial as well as by profound, yet he will always be the study-companion of the thoughtful, and find-the number increasing with the improvement of society-"fit audience, though few." Nor does this involve an amount of influence less than it would be, even were his writings as extensively read as may be those of the steamengine manufacturers of the works of modern fiction. The wholesale dealer in reality supplies the articles procured by the public from the large number of tradesmen in retail, though, when the articles themselves are shown, they are referred to him who last sold them, the name of the first seller, who might have been likewise their producer, being seldom, and only on extraordinary occasions, mentioned. We need not, however, repeat

what we have said before. When, soon after Mr. Foster's death, his "Broadmead Lectures," and a selection from the large number of his "Reviews," were published, we embraced an early opportunity of expressing our opinion both of the writer and his writings, prefixing to remarks of a more critical nature a brief sketch of his life and character. Our readers will remember, that whatever the value of our judgment might be, it was decidedly favourable, and very strongly expressed. We should have been ashamed of ourselves could we have allowed the existence of differences on certain (comparatively) subordinate points of theological opinion, to interfere with the acknowledgments due to a man so deservedly esteemed, a student so industrious and profound, an author so justly admired by all who were able to accompany him in his course of thought, as Mr. Foster. As the citizen of Athens, to whatever tribe he belonged, was still an Athenian, and as sometimes the general service done to the state made the member of one tribe the property of them all, so is it with Mr. Foster. He belonged to one section of the visible church,-that to which Fuller, Carey, Ward, Hall, likewise belonged; but such were the nature and success of his pursuits, and such their general reference, that we scarcely see the Baptist in the citizen of the undivided republic of religious literature. John Foster belongs to us all. At the time that we did this, however, we intimated, briefly and respectfully, but decidedly, our disagreement as to some of his published opinions. We thought him wrong, and we said so. Our disagreement was not captious, but it was complete. The opinions to which we objected were, we thought, mistaken as opinions, and in their influence we feared that, as to many of his admirers, especially his younger admirers, they were likely to be very injurious. We likewise thought that some of them-particularly opinions that were to be found in the "Essay" on the "Causes of the Dislike of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion"—indicated mistakes deeper in their origin, and existing there where, most of all, we

should have wished to find the obvious evidences of clear and distinct judgment,—of truth perceived, as well as loved and acknowledged. Those misapprehensions, if such they were, and such we conscientiously believed them to be, we had long seen, and regretted with a regret that increased at every perusal of the Essay. We thought, also, after much examination,— which we endeavoured to make impartial, and which we are sure was conducted with respect to Mr. Foster himself, and even with a willingness to find ourselves mistaken in suspecting him of mistake,—that we could trace them to their source. We felt, at the same time, that for doing this satisfactorily, we did not possess sufficient evidence to guide us; and in the absence of this, the character of a man like John Foster demanded hesitancy in judging, and therefore either a judgment suspended altogether, or delivered only hypothetically. We are now placed in different circumstances. Mr. Ryland's volumes, in which it is Mr. Foster who principally speaks, will enable all who will examine them carefully and impartially, to arrive, more satisfactorily to themselves, at a definite conclusion.

For the complete correctness of his sentiments, and for the exercise of an influence that should be, in every point from which it issued, valuable, his early circumstances were remarkably unfavourable. With the native energies of his character, we only wonder that a different direction was not given to them; and we can only impute his preservation from the dangers that really threatened him, to the sincerity and strength of his early piety. We, at the same time, think that with this some mistaken notions were connected, the effects of which were developed in his subsequent life, and plainly shown in his writings when he became an author; but that it was genuine and decided, we have no doubt, and we are persuaded that, but for its existence, he would have fallen into dangerous errors.

The Dissenting Ministers of the first quarter of the last century constituted a school very different from that to which the Owens, Howes, and Baxters of a former day had belonged. The age was a frigid one, and they, as well as others, felt its power. Without entirely departing from the evangelism of their fathers, they had modified it, and become very much like what Tillotson and Atterbury were in the Church of England. Too many of them, attaching more importance to what they considered as religious freedom, than to the maintenance of sufficient security for the continuance of orthodox belief in their churches, opened the door for a wide departure from the true faith of the Gospel; and too many of them, also, had evidently begun to move in the direction taken in the Establishment by men like Bishop Hoadley. The piety and devotion of Watts, Reynolds, and we doubt not many others, moving in more obscure situations, whose names have not come down to us, under God, preserved them during this temptation to general defection; and the same causes operated in the same manner in the case of Dr. Doddridge, though not so perfectly. He sometimes trembled in the balance, and, but for his piety, error would have preponderated. The Socinian movement had commenced. And when the revival of religion through the instrumentality of Whitefield and the Wesleys began, it was not only regarded by the Church with opposing dislike, but by many Dissenters with great suspicion. Mr. Wesley's avowed Arminianism might have accounted for this suspicion, had he been exclusively its object; but it was alike shared by Mr. Whitefield. One Dissenting Board in London, in writing to Dr. Doddridge, expressed its disapprobation strongly. No one who studies the writers of the day can wonder that, before long, from among those to whom Philip and Matthew Henry had belonged, Price,

Priestley, and Bentham should issue forth. Even those who were decidedly orthodox, though they had escaped the evils themselves, had not escaped the causes that led to them, and exhibited an evangelism far less strongly marked than was their orthodoxy. There was little of that direct reference to conversion, to justification, personally sought, and received by faith, or to the full work of the Holy Spirit, which characterized the ministrations of those who had caught the hallowed fire which had begun to blaze out afresh in the spiritual sanctuary, and which in our own day is spread so widely, that Dissenting Ministers may be said to be as Methodistical as the direct followers of Wesley. With the vast importance of these grand peculiarities of the Gospel, the mind of young Foster was not fully imbued, nor did he ever lose the effects of that projectile force by which he was, in the first instance, moved. He never thoroughly understood the value of certain terms, because he saw not the value of the notions of which they were the only fit expression. He confounded, as it were, sterling English phrases with provincialisms and corruptions, and, to please "Men of Taste," gave them all up together; though, had he thoroughly examined their objections, he would have found that they referred to words only as the signs of things, and yielded, when they did yield, to Mr. Foster's proposed compromise, because they felt, what he did not feel, we believe that if he had so felt, it would never have been proposed, that in renouncing the words, he had at least set aside what they signified. We are not now speaking from hearsay. We have known gifted young men, highly educated, who only barely tolerated the full declarations of plain-spoken evangelism, from respect to others, but who listened with rapture to the public addresses of Mr. Foster; addresses well calculated to profit those who carried along with them a spiritual experience of evangelical blessings and realities, but very imperfectly adapted to the full conversion of the sinner. All was true, but it was not all the truth; and precisely those parts of truth were left in comparative obscuration which, while they direct the man who has begun to yield to the influence of the divine message, and to ask, "What must I do to be saved?" stir up the enmity of the disobedient, whether they be cultivated or uncultivated. His entire ministry proved that he had not merely erased certain terms from his vocabulary, but that he had not found others adequate to the expression of the truths of which they were the verbal symbols. It is not that the conceptions of his capacious and powerful mind were beyond the grasp of such as might be his hearers. They who had truly received the Gospel of salvation, had he, along with all the subjects which the vast mass of his own intelligence included, fed them with what are decidedly the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, "the sincere milk of the word," would have received all with thankfulness, and have "grown thereby ;" and their own increasing intelligence would soon have enabled them to follow him, if with unequal steps, yet in the right direction. Had the topics on which he discoursed been combined with their due proportion of what is often scornfully termed the Methodism of Christianity, we know no discourses in the English language more adapted to the spiritual advancement of all classes of Christians, than his "Broadmead Lectures." It were a libel on Christianity to suppose that it could not avail itself of the very highest species of intellectual character; and it would be a most dangerous mistake were the young and zealous Minister to suppose that he must be meagerly superficial to be simple. Justice is often not done to unlettered Christians. They love intelligent preaching when it is warm and evangelical. It is true that they will

prefer the warm to the intelligent, if the latter be combined with but a small proportion of the element which is the very basis of spiritual nutriment; and this, when joined to the indolence into which an unstimulated hunger and thirst after better things may cast them, may sometimes attach them to an inferior order of preaching. But wherever the experiment has been tried, it has been successful. Let the young Minister look at the congregations attending the discourses of the highly-intellectual men of our own day, and he will see that they are as popular as they are evangelical. The entire scheme of revealed truth contains subjects which can employ in their service the profoundest philosophy, the most powerful logic, the richest imagination; and no matter how high the talent, its exercise will always find willing, yea, thankful auditors, provided the right instrumentality be employed. One instance of this defective evangelism may be found in the remarks made by Mr. Foster, in those of his notices of Robert Hall, published in connexion with his "Life" by Dr. Gregory, in which he remarks on Mr. Hall's method of prayer. It was deficient, Mr. Foster intimated, in intellectual expatiation. For our own parts, we never heard Mr. Hall pray without feeling afterwards-at the time we had something else to think about-the highest admiration. The splendid orator before man, was, before God, the penitent sinner, the confiding believer, asking that he might receive, seeking that he might find. We remember breakfasting with him many years ago at the house of a mutual friend. He had had one of his "bad nights," and his countenance had traces of suffering not to be mistaken. We read the portion of the word of God which came in order for the morning worship of the family, and Mr. Hall was requested to pray. That prayer we shall never forget. True, it was simple; but there was no poverty in its simplicity. In adoring praise and fervent supplication, his address to the throne of grace was that of a man feeling that he was then, as it were, the mouth of others, asking promised blessings from the faithful and blessed God. He understood the true philosophy of prayer. Its real largeness was seen by him to consist in the extension of holy desire to the height, and length, and breadth, of the divine promises. How richly stored was his mind, how capable he was of rich and eloquent discourse, his after-breakfast conversation evinced; but the recollection of the prayer is not less vivid than that of his sometimes profound, sometimes sparkling, and always instructive, remarks, in the subsequent intercourse. And even as to doctrine, Mr. Foster walked on the verge of errors, from falling into which nothing preserved him but, by God's blessing, the sincerity of his piety. Fully preserved, indeed, he was not. The panoply of truth was incomplete. There are portions of the true philosophy of the atonement to which nothing will bring the mind but an unrestricted evangelism; and had he been as conversant with these as he was with other portions of the theology of the Bible, he would not have become, to speak briefly, an universalist. That on the awful subject of the duration of future punishment, his belief was not that of the church from its beginning until now, these volumes only too plainly declare. To those who search the subject to its depths, carrying along with them the light of the holy as well as merciful government of God, as administered on the principles involved in the pregnant phrase of "Christ crucified," the error is not even plausible. But just here it was that this great and good man was most defective.

We are of opinion, too, that the political circumstances in which Mr. Foster's early life was spent, exerted an unfavourable influence on his