mous.

Having preached in the chapel, I shall now return home; and, if I hear no more from you, you will hear no more from me.'-In a few weeks the election took place: Do other person was proposed; and I was appointed, with only three opposing voices. This was unexpected: and I saw more and more reason, on every consideration and inquiry, to conclude that, if I acceded to this appointment, I should be plunged into difficulties and trials of a most dismaying nature. Yet I did not dare to give a direct refusal, without taking further advice upon the subject. It might be an opening to more enlarged usefulness; and my own personal feelings must not be allowed much weight in such a case. I am conscious that I wished to know and do my duty: and I went again to London, on purpose to consult such ministers as I thought most competent to advise me. But most of those whom I consulted, assuming, groundlessly, that I was bent on coming, did not think it worth while to waste counsel (as they supposed,) on one who would not take it. Their objections were suppressed till the die was cast; and then I heard them in abundance. Mr. Robinson of Leicester, indeed, to whom I wrote, gave me his sentiments faithfully and unreservedly; stating every objection strongly, yet not absolutely deciding that they ought to prevail.

"Here I must observe, that it is a very great fault, and instance of unfaithfulness, especially in senior ministers, when, from a supposition that a person who consults them has already made up his mind, they decline giving him their plain and honest opinion. This leads inexperienced persons to conclude that, as little or no objection is made, the proposed measure is approved by those who are consulted, and has their sanction. Yet, as, in many instances, respectable men find that their advice is not followed, and in few is received with implicit submission; they often consider themselves jutified in withholding counsel from those who ask it. Now, not as one requiring advice, but as one that has been long in the habit of giving it, I must say, that I think implicit compliance with advice given ought not to be expected. If those who scek counsel are willing to give it attentive consideration, accompanied with prayer for divine direction, it is all that we are entitled to look for: and, even if this is not done, yet, in giving the best advice in our power, we deliver our own souls: whereas, by withholding it, we render ourselves partakers of other men's sins;

and much of the blame of that conduct, which perhaps we severely censure, really belongs to us.

"For myself I am conscious, that I was fully disposed to give to the most faithful advice, about, or against, acceding to the proposal of the governors of the Lock, an attentive hearing, and careful consideration; and the Lord knoweth, that every step in the business was taken, on my part, with many earnest and anxious prayers for direction: but, not finding the objections urged which I had expected, I began to consider the offer made me as a call to a self-denying duty; and was really afraid that I should commit a great sin if I pertinaciously refused it. Had I heard all those things previously to my consent, which I heard subsequently, I certainly should never have consented at all. Thus I should have escaped much distress: but, taking the whole together, I now think I should have been far less useful."

This subject of giving advice, and of what may reasonably be expected from those who ask it, was one on which my father frequently spoke; and from his letters it appears that it was one on which he early formed very just opinions. Thus in 1773 he writes to one of his sisters: "I shall, I hope, ever be obliged to my friends for advice, but I do not promise always to obey it. I will promise to add the reasons they offer to my own, to give them a vote in the consultation, and at last to let the majority carry the day, as far as I am able to discern it. That is, so long as advice serves to direct my own judgment, I shall be glad of it: but will not supersede it." Again: "One friend gives me this advice, another that: one advises me to act in this manner, another directly contrary: and what am I to do? The answer is plain: Has not God given me reason? and for what purpose, but to direct my conduct? But to what then tends advice? To inform that reason: and, if two persons give me different counsel, I am not at liberty to act (implicitly) according to either one or the other; but to weigh the arguments on which they are both founded, and to act accordingly.”— There is not here that humble appeal to superior direction, which he would never, at a later period, have omitted to mention, but in other respects the principle is the same as he ever afterwards maintained.-And, if this be a just rule for the conduct of a person asking counsel, it forms also the just measure for the expectations of the persons giving it. In this way likewise he early applied it. In 1777 he says to the same relative: "You ask my pardon for not

taking my advice. This, I assure you, was needless: for I gave you my advice for your sake, not my own, and should be equally glad to hear that you succeeded well in rejecting it, as in following it." And again in 1789: "I will by no means agree that you should implicitly follow any advice, which I now, or at any other time, may give. I would propose hints and assign reasons, and then leave you to think of them, and pray over them: which is the best way of inquiring of the Lord, to discover his will.”

If to all this we add the observation of the wise and holy Halyburton, that "the promise of God, to direct our steps, does not extend always to teaching others what is our duty," it may reconcile us to persevere in giving the best advice we can to those who ask it, without requiring or expecting to see it implicitly followed; which is what my father wished to inculcate.

He next observes in his narrative: "A circumstance which had considerable weight in deciding my mind was, the hope of getting one who, I trusted, would prove an able and useful laborer ordained to succeed me at Olney." This was the Rev. James Bean, who, though the prospect of his immediately succeeding to Olney was not realized, “was at length ordained, went thither, and became vicar of the place; was useful there, and very acceptable to my friends and favorers; but ere long resigned the living, by which means my sanguine expectations were painfully disappointed. Still, however, I did not give my answer to the governors of the Lock till the last day, and almost the last hour, allowed me for deliberation.

"Whatever others judged, my own people, who were most attached to me, and most grieved to part with me, were convinced that I was called by providence to remove, and that I did my duty in complying with it. I am not, however, myself to this day satisfied on the subject. I cannot doubt that my removal has, especially by means of my writings, (as far as they have been, or are likely to be, useful,) been overruled for good; but, when I consider what a situation I inadvertently rushed into, I fear I did not act properly, and I willingly accept all my unspeakable mortifications and vexations as a merciful correction of my conduct; which, though not, in one sense, inconsiderate, yet shewed strange inattention to the state of parties, and other circumstances, at the Lock; which, had I duly adverted to them,

would have made me think it madness to engage in such a service."

It may well be allowed that several circumstances at that time attending the situation at the Lock, could they previously to experience have been fully realized, might not only, with good reason, have produced great hesitation as to the acceptance of it, but even have appalled a mind firm and courageous as my father's was. To be subject to the control of a board of governors, many of them looking only to the pecuniary interests of the charity; and what must, if possible, be still more adverse to a minister's repose, many of them thinking themselves both qualified and entitled to dictate as to his doctrine: this must, of itself, be deemed sufficiently objectionable. Moreover, the board was then split into parties; such as frequently arise when a concern, once prosperous, becomes involved in difficulties. Still further, from the different character and sentiments of the two ministers, and the manner of my father's introduction the chapel, and even the pulpit, was likely to be the scene of no less division than the board-room. The Lock also might, at that period, be considered as almost the headquarters of that loose and notional religion, on which my father had commenced his attack in the country. Laying all these things together, and taking into account his obscurity, and the humble rustic society in which, almost exclusively, he had hitherto moved, we shall cease to wonder at his last-recited remark. Still, however, contemplating the consequences of his removal to the Lock, only as far as we can now trace them;-that, without this step, we should never, humanly speaking, have had his Commentary on the scriptures, (to name no others of his writings;) and that the great and effective stand, which he was enabled to make in London, against a very meagre, defective, and even corrupt representation of Christianity, would never have been made: when all this is considered, I trust we may say, that thousands have reason to pronounce it a happy inadvertence, by which he overlooked difficulties that might have led him to decline the call made upon him; and that impartial bystanders will be disposed to consider "the unspeakable mortifications and vexations" which followed, as the necessary trials of his faith, the preparatives for the peculiar services he was to render, and the requisite counterpoise to prevent his being "exalted above measure," by the flattering celebrity and the great usefulness he was ulti

mately to attain, rather than, as he himself was ready to think them, the corrections of a great impropriety of which he had been guilty.

His narrative proceeds: "My salary at the Lock was no more than £80 a year, nearly £40 of which was necessary for rent and taxes. I had, however, golden promises; but I never greatly relied upon them: and I became more and more convinced, even before I left Olney, that they would not, in any measure, be realized. I discovered that party was much concerned in the whole business; and I said to my family, when coming to town, 'Observe, many of those who now appear to be my friends will forsake me; but God will raise me up other friends.**

"I had indeed imagined that I should, without much difficulty, procure a lectureship on the Sunday afternoon or evening, and perhaps one on the weekday; and I stood ready for any kind or degree of labor to which I might be called. But, whilst almost all my brethren readily obtained such appointments, I could never, during the seventeen years of my residence in town, procure any lectureship, except that of St. Mildred's, Bread Street, which, in a manner, came to me, because no other person thought it worth applying for. It produced me, on an average, about £30 a year. Some presents, however, which I received, added considerably to its value during the last two or three years that I held it. For some years also, I preached at St. Margaret's, Lothbury, every alternate Sunday morning, at six o'clock, to a small company of people, and administered the sacrament. The stipend, however, for this service, was

* It is amusing to me to recollect, and it may not be altogether impertinent to mention, that the text, Prov. xxvii, 14, has been for thirty-six years distinctly impressed upon my mind, owing to my having, so long since, heard my father apply it to the then loud and ardent friendship of one of the governors of the Lock. The words are: "He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him." The anticipation was realized; and the friendship of this gentleman (who died many years ago) soon cooled into indifference.

One honorable exception from the number of those persons who, having brought my father to the Lock, afterwards deserted or neglected him, is intitled to be mentioned. I refer to John Pearson, Esq. of Golden-square, for many years surgeon to the hospital. My father always attributed more to the arguments of that gentleman, in deciding his acceptance of the situation at the Lock, than to those of any other person: and in Mr. P. he found a constant friend to the end of his life; to whom he was indebted for many personal favors, besides the most skilful professional assistance, promptly and gratuitously rendered to him and his family, on the numerous occasions which required it.