(from seven or eight years of age,) might be present, as well as in the morning. He much recommended extemporary prayers in the family, glancing at existing circumstances, in preference to any fixed forms; especially among young persons,

"6. He pressed the importance of gaining the affections of our children; drawing them to choose our company, to enter into our conversation, and to make us their confidents.

"7. He expressed his hope, that there might be little need to say to us, Let brotherly love continue; but, said he, let every thing be done to train up your children also to union and cordiality: let them be guarded, and taught themselves to guard, against whatever might, violate it. There will be different turns of mind: there will be occasions tending to excite jealousy, envy, and grudging: but let the demon of discord be watched against, as the deadliest foe to a family. Respectability, happiness, usefulness, all depend on its exclusion. A threefold cord is not easily broken; but a divided house cometh to desolation.

"My father concluded with prayer for all present, and for all those belonging to us who were absent; for us and our children after us, and our children's children, to future generations, if there should be such; that religion might not decline, and become extinct among us, but that all might prove (like Abraham, who had furnished our text,) blessed ourselves, and blessings to others.

"After the prayer, I took his opinion on the subject of introducing young persons to the sacrament of the Lord's supper; which I was the more desirous to do, from knowing his sentiment, that it is an ordinance for the edification of believers, not for the conversion of sinners. I observed, that I trusted we had seen good effects result, in many instances, from encouraging young persons to come, who appeared hopeful and promising; who shewed feeling, and an apparent desire of religious improvement; though we could not arrive at a decisive judgment concerning their piety. He fully acquiesced in this, and expressed his approbation of inviting the attendance of such persons, with proper explanations, and when it meets their own desire. He thought it often proved a decided event with them, and the means of fixing them.-The distinction was marked between such an approach to the Lord's table, and persons coming merely because they have attained a certain age, and have been 7 confirmed: as likewise between coming in order to establish

a satisfaction with what they are, and using it as a means of being made what they should be.”

A striking amplification of some parts of the preceding paper may be found in a note of my father's on a passage in the Pilgrim's Progress, where Demas, who "loved this present world," is introduced with the epithet gentlemanlike attached to his name. After some excellent remarks on the effects arising from the affectation of gentility in persons in trade, he thus proceeds: "But none are in this respect so much exposed as ministers, and their families, when, having no private fortune, they are situated among the affluent and genteel: and, by yielding to the temptation, they are often incapacitated from paying their debts with punctuality; they are induced to degrade their office by stooping to unsuitable methods of extricating themselves out of difficulties, from which strict frugality would have preserved them, and by laying themselves under obligations to such men as are capable of abusing this purchased superiority; and, above all, they are generally led to place their children in situations and connexions highly unfavorable to the interests of their souls, in order to procure them a genteel provision. If we form our judgment on this subject from the holy scripture, we shall not think of finding the true ministers of Christ among the higher classes in the community, in matters of external appearance or indulgence. That information and learning, which many of them have the opportun ity of acquiring, may render them acceptable company to the affluent, especially to such as love them for their work's sake; and even the exercise of Christian tempers will improve the urbanity acquired by a liberal education, where faithfulness is not concerned. But if a minister thinks, that the attention of the great or noble requires him to copy their expensive style of living, he grievously mistakes the matter. For this will generally forfeit the opinion before entertained of his good sense and regard to propriety: and his official declarations concerning the vanity of earthly things, and the Christian's indifference to them, will be suspected of insincerity, while it is observed that he conforms to the world, as far or even further than his circumstances will admit: and thus respect will often be changed into disgust. Nay indeed the superior orders in society do not choose to be too closely copied, in those things which they deem their exclusive privileges; especially by one who (they must think,) secretly depends on them to defray the

expense of the intrusive competition. The consistent minister of Christ will certainly desire to avoid every thing mean and sordid, and to retrench in every other way rather than exhibit the appearance of penury: but, provided he and his family can maintain a decent simplicity, and the credit of punctuality in his payments, he will not think of aspiring any higher. If, in order to do this, he be compelled to exercise considerable self-denial, he will think little of it, while he looks more to Jesus and his apostles than to the few of a superior rank who profess the gospel: and, could he afford something genteel and fashionable, he would deem it more desirable to devote a larger portion to pious and charitable uses, than to squander it in vain affectation."

In addition to the observations here detailed, the reader may be referred for a further explanation of my father's views on education to the twenty-first of his Essays, which treats of the relative duties.

On the subject of "establishing authority," (which was to be accomplished early,) he used to observe that it generally cost him a sharp contest, sometimes more than one; but that, when it was once settled who was master, the parent and not the child, the path was ever after comparatively smooth and easy.

On correction, he was decided as to its propriety and necessity, as the appointment of God. At the same time he thought it need by no means be frequent, if it were properly administered He would not have it applied for small faults; for what resulted from childish levity and inconsideration; but only for what was wilful, rebellious, or immoral. "A child," he observed, "was to be punished, not for being a child, but for being a wicked child." Of course he taught that chastisement was to be applied coolly and with deliberation, to fulfil a duty painful to our feelings, not for their gratification.

It was a rule with him, that, from the time children became capable of making their wants known in any other way, they were to obtain nothing by crying for it, or by any other misconduct. The contrary practice, he said, was bribing them to behave ill.

He much lamented to see parents so often inverting the proper course to be pursued, leaving their children almost without restraint when young, and then attempting to impose too severe restrictions upon them when grown up.

Each error was highly pernicious; the combination of the two, of most ruinous consequence.

A lady who was for a considerable time resident in his house, and who has very successfully brought up her family by rules principally derived from him, mentions in a letter two circumstances which particularly struck her in his management: one was his "never resenting misconduct in any way when the contest was over. I used to admire," she says, "his being so soon kind again to the offender. This I judge to be important, though it may seem trivial." The other was, "his plan of letting his authority go by imperceptible degrees, as his children grew up. In this," she remarks, "he excelled, I am ready to say, even his management in childhood: and the observation of many unhappy cases, arising from a contrary course, has convinced me of its great importance. He would have been a wise father, even had he not been a religious one; just views were so obvious to his wise mind. I think the dissatisfaction, which you tell me he expresses in the close of his narrative, arose from his not having had great opportunity of comparing his plan with those of others, and of observing how miserably many children have been brought up. There is however a great improvement, at least in my circle. I take the opportunity of speaking of him in every company into which I go, when there is a young mother present."

I

CHAPTER XVIII.

HIS WORKS HIS THEOLOGY-CONCLUSION,

"THE characteristic excellency of his writings," Mr. Wilson says, "is a calm, argumentative, determined tone of scriptural truth; a clear separation of one set of principles from another; a detection of plausible errors; an exhibition, in short, of a sound, comprehensive, adequate view of Christianity; such as goes to form the really solid divine. His motto may be conceived to have been, Knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel."

1. On my father's first work, the Force of Truth, and on his principal work, the Commentary on the Scriptures, Mr. Wilson has spoken with sufficient copiousness in what has been already inserted from his sermons.

I may be allowed however to remark it, as shewing a very different state of feeling upon such subjects from that which now exists, that a narrative so striking in itself, as the Force of Truth exhibits, and one so strongly tending to support what, amid unceasing obloquy and opposition, are contended for as the great doctrines of the reformation and of the holy scriptures, should for a long time have attracted so little attention. Ten years, it has been seen, passed before a thousand copies were sold. Yet, several years before that period had elapsed, it had been translated into a foreign language and published on the continent.

I subjoin a well known instance of the effect of the work on a character which has much interested the public mind. "About this time Mr. Pigott, the curate of St. Mary's, Nottingham, hearing what was the bent of his (Henry Kirke White's,) religious opinions," namely, 'inclining towards Deism," "sent him, by a friend, Scott's Force of Truth, and requested him to peruse it attentively; which he promised to do. Having looked at the book, he told the person who brought it to him, that he could soon write an answer to it; but about a fortnight afterwards, when this friend inquired how far he had proceeded in his answer to Mr. Scott, Henry's reply was in a very different tone and temper. He said, that to answer that book was out of his power, and out of any man's, for it was founded upon eternal truth; that it had convinced him of his error; and that so thoroughly was he impressed with a sense of the importance of his Maker's favor, that he would willingly give up all acquisitions of knowledge, and all hopes of fame, and live in a wilderness, unknown, till death, so he could insure an inheritance in heaven. A new pursuit thus opened to him, and he engaged in it with his wonted ardor."*

To what Mr. Wilson has said concerning the Commentary, I would annex the opinion expressed by the late Rev. Andrew Fuller-"I believe it exhibits more of the mind of the Spirit in the scriptures, than any other work of the kind extant:" and the following testimony of the author of the "Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." Having quoted Mr. Wilson's account of the work, Mr. Horn adds: "To the preceding just character of this elaborate Commentary, the writer of these pages (who does not view all topics precisely in the same

*Southey's Life and Remains of H. K. White.