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THE righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance,” when heroes and potentates pass into oblivion. To allow such a man as the subject of this brief Memoir to go down into his grave without notice, would be as unjust to the individual as to the cause which he so faithfully and so firmly advocated. Yet he needs not the meed of human praise; he has passed beyond the sphere of mortality-he has stretched his wing, and soared high above the applauses and the censures of man-he has received his recompence in the approving smiles of his Lord.

JOSEPH BROOKSBANK was born at Thornton, a village near Bradford in Yorkshire, Feb. 21, 1762. His father was a respectable farmer, in easy, not to say affluent, circumstances; the future steps of his life, therefore, were dictated by choice, and not by necessity, and decide the unbiassed bent of his inclinations, and the deliberate preference of his judgment. He did not enter the ministry for "a morsel of bread." He was educated at the grammar school in the neighbourhood, where he remained until he was seventeen years of age. His

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religious impressions commenced at a very early period; and it is thought that his conversion may be fixed so far back in his life as about the ninth or tenth year of his age. This important circumstance appears to have been effected by the prayers and conversation of an aged female of the name of Coulter; and furnishes another, among innumerable instances, of the influence of unpretending piety, in the most private stations, upon the hearts of others; and those, perhaps, destined hereafter, as in the present instance, to fill public and sacred offices. The impressions which he thus received were neither effaced from his own bosom, nor, under their powerful agency, could he consent to restrict their efficacy to himself. He began earnestly to desire the salvation of others; and then was enkindled that hallowed flame of love to Jesus, and to the souls of men, which burnt with unextinguishable ardour upon the altar of his heart to the last hour of his mortal existence, and shed its pure and heavenly light even upon his dying pillow. In September 1780, he went to the Old College, Homerton, for the purpose 2 E

of pursuing his studies preparatory to the work of the ministry, upon which his judgment and his affections were alike fixed. That ancient Academy, always distinguished for its learning and utility, was then under the superintendence of Doctors Gibbons, Mayo, and Fisher. The first of these, after having finished his academical course with great credit to himself, and not less satisfaction to his tutors, he succeeded in his pastoral office at Haberdashers' Hall. The Independent church now meeting in this place, (and which succeeded the Presbyterian interest formerly meeting there, which was dissolved about 1734,) is of great antiquity, having been gathered by the Rev. William Strong in the year 1650, before Cromwell attained his supremacy, and met in Westminster Abbey. The church-meetings are supposed to have been originally held in the House of Peers. While he was a student, it appears that Dr. Watts was a member of this church. In 1785 Dr. Gibbons entered his rest, and in September of the same year Mr. Brooksbank was ordained pastor over this religious society. On that occasion the Rev. Mr. Clayton, Sen. gave the charge, Dr. Davies preached to the people, Dr. Fisher offered the ordination-prayer, and Mr. Hamilton read the hymns. Of these, the first only remains, full of years and of honours; bearing on his venerable head the almond-blossoms of immortality; giving thus the sign of an approaching spring which can never fade the rest have received their palms and their crowns, and have entered into the joy of their Lord. On the first of January 1788, he married Miss Shrimpton, daughter of Thomas Shrimpton, Esq. a lady of whom it is not too much to say, in respect of her intellectual endowments, that had she turned her attention to literature, as an authoress, enough yet remains of her casual compositions to prove, that she would

not have fallen short of the highest attainments of her sex, to whom the world is so much indebted, in any department which she might have chosen. She was pre-eminently distinguished for her love to her husband and to her children: in June 1805, she left him a widower indeed, and them orphans! Long before this blank in his domestic comforts, Mr. Brooksbank had distinguished himself as the steady friend of every cause of real religion, and of humane tendency. These were indebted, not indeed to his public plead.. ings, but to his heart, and to his countenance. When Bigotry would have laid restraints, if the infant Sampson could have been fettered, upon the gigantic efforts of the Missionary Society, the struggles of whose childhood demonstrated what must be the greatness of its strength in that maturity of vigour to which it has not even yet attained, and of which we are still but very inadequate judges, he stood firm to the causethe first to support it; and when clouds and darkness appeared to encompass it, the last to despair of it; absolutely incapable of deserting it. In his own place of worship its first sermons were preached; there the first Missionary communion was held; and during many years the meetings for public business continued there to be convened. Thus he pursued the even tenour of his way; always keeping pace with the march of the times; having no bigotted attachments, amidst the firmest fidelity; possessing a heart which spontaneously expanded as new schemes of benevolence and religion arose; the friend of God and the friend of man can a higher tribute be paid to any man? And breathes there the man who will not acknowledge that it was due to Joseph Brooksbank? He was, at the outset of his ministerial career, popular, very popular. That popularity gradually declined; and this declension is to be attributed to no