venerable servant of God in a time of severe and complicated affliction! The great day alone will reveal the extent of their kindness. What a solace is Christian sympathy in the time of suffering! And this he received from unexpected quarters. But, best of all, Christ became increasingly and unspeakably precious. In the earlier part of his residence as a supernumerary at Liverpool, he suffered from a violent attack of influenza. Before recovery, he had to go as missionary deputation to Bolton, where he preached twice, and attended three meetings, in very stormy weather. Being necessarily out late at night, he renewed his cold, and returned home "spent and poorly." This was in 1864. In the following year he visited the north of England, and spent a fortnight with his son at North Shields. The weather, unfortunately, was rough, and the prevailing winds easterly, To these bleak, merciless blasts he was frequently exposed during his visit, as he would often go down to the sea shore, having always been passionately fond of the sea. The result was another serious illness. Medical advice was promptly sought, and he rallied once more. But it was evident to those who knew him best that his constitution was breaking up. Infirmities multiplied; sufferings intensified. Very soon he had to stand face to face with death. He wasted away under the relentless grasp of consumption. Previous to the Conference of 1866 he was compelled to give up all labour, and retire to a sick chamber to die. Notwithstanding the natural buoyancy of spirits by which he will be long remembered in the circuits he travelled, he became much depressed in mind in the time of nature's final trial. It was a terrible struggle; but he gained the victory through the blood of the Lamb. In a paper that he wrote only a few days before his death, he touchingly says: "In my sore affliction I have reviewed my whole life, and oh, how much to deplore have I seen and felt! Oh, the foul leprosy of sia! yet the Saviour has made my sins, which were as scarlet, white as snow though red like crimson, as wool. Oh, wondrous love of God to me! "O Love! thou bottomless abyss, My sins are swallowed up in Thee; Nor spot of guilt remains on me. While Jesu's blood, through earth and skies, I see Though I have, through mercy, had times of refreshing from above, yet I have been very deficient in all my glorious work. now, in the light of eternity, how great the work, how many the requirements, necessary to a proper discharge of the sacred functions of the holy vocation. A minister must hate sin with the whole strength of his being; be constantly filled and ruled by the saving love and power of Christ, and live for the great end of saving souls; and never satisfied without glorious results. Would that this had always been my case! My brethren have had much to bear with in me; but I trust that they will still cherish some kindly thoughts of one who loves them in the Lord. Our ministers should be of one heart and soul, and determined to make the Connexion a praise in the earth. They should love the community as a kind of second being. May the Connexion abundantly prosper. "How differently we view things in the light of eternity! I am now taken off from earthly dependencies. Christ is my all in all, 'my transport and my trust!' My sufferings have been deep and complicated, yet they have been most wholesome. Oh, glory to God! I am a brand plucked from the fire! Why, I shall be a wonder in heaven, a monument of boundless grace. Oh, the love of Christ to me! What tongue can tell it? What arithmetic compute it? "I, the chief of sinners, am, But Jesus died for me.' "I am near my end; every day getting nearer home. My whole trust is in the precious Redeemer. Oh, glory to the Lamb, the precious, bleeding Lamb of God! Praise Him, oh, my soul! and let praise flow for ever. I shall be like him, for I shall see him as he is. I shall soon be with Jesus. Oh, the Lamb! Oh, the glory!" That is a precious document from which the above extracts are given, as it was written on his dying bed, at intervals of relief from his frequent paroxysms of pain, and was forwarded to me just four days before his lamented decease. The Rev. D. Round, who, though but newly arrived in the circuit, paid him frequent visits, and soothed him in his last days, with fraternal sympathy, can testify to the ripe and joyous experiences of the sufferer. The Wesleyan minister living near him, the Rev. Samuel Lord, often called upon him, and prayed with him. I gratefully record this brotherly act! His last reading was "The Rev. Richard Watson's Memoirs." His last writing was the document previously referred to, in which he strongly expresses his attachment to the Methodist New Connexion, her ministers, her institutions, and her doctrines, and his rapturous and adoring love of Christ. Well may the poet say— "Let reason vainly boast her power, To teach her children how to die, The sinner in a dying hour Needs more than reason can supply. On Sabbath evening, July 15th, 1866, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, he quietly fell asleep in Jesus. As the earthly Sabbath closed, he, without a groan or struggle, was emancipated from the body, and entered upon the Heavenly Sabbath, the "Saints' Everlasting Rest." "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord! Yea, from henceforth, saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." On Wednesday, July 18th, his remains were consigned to the minister's grave in the Liverpool Necropolis; the Rev. D. Round, superintendent of the circuit, reading the service in the chapel, and the Rev. Samuel Hulme, President of the Conference, conducting the service at the grave. The Revs. W. Butterworth, W. J. Townsend, W. A. Baker, and Robert Walker, were the pall-bearers on the sad occasion. On the following Sabbath the Rev. D. Round preached the funeral sermon to a crowded congregation in Chatham Place Chapel, from Rev. i. 18. It would not be decorous for me to attempt an estimate of the life, character, and ministerial ability of the beloved subject of this memoir. Filial attachment would almost certainly warp such a judgment. It may be permitted me, however, briefly to indicate a few facts. As a student he was industrious and resolute. He had a passion for books, not merely for their acquisition, but for their mental digestion. He read extensively; he was very fond of history, but did not neglect profounder studies. It was astonishing the avidity with which he read the leading works on theology, and the zest with which he read and re-read the pages of Brown, and Stewart, and Locke, and Tucker. He seemed to have a firm grasp of philosophical subjects, but lacked the power to assimilate and utilize them. This defect arose, doubtless, from the disadvantages as to mental discipline under which he laboured in early life. He also took great delight in the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and was constitutionally an antiquarian. Old castles, old cities, old walls, old gateways, old ruins, old books, old coins, were invested with an almost supernatural interest to him. While earnest in intellectual acquirements, he often deplores in his journal his forgetfulness of his own rule of systematic study. He intimates that with system and concentration he would have accomplished more. As a public speaker, it is generally acknowledged that he had the gift of ready utterance, and was not seldom highly effective in the pulpit, while on the platform he was specially at home. Some of these off-hand addresses in his palmiest days were most eloquent and telling, calling forth the utmost enthusiasm of large assemblies. The editor of the Wesleyan Times, in a brief obituary notice, says :-"His lively and energetic manner made his discourses welcome; and the interest which was often enhanced by his knowledge of scientific subjects, and by the play of a natural humour, made his pulpit address, even to the young, acceptable and profitable. His lectures. on Snow and Astronomy"—and, I may add, on Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"-" are still remembered with pleasure." He paid special As a minister, he was faithful and conscientious. attention to the young. Children everywhere were fond of him. He never neglected the sick or the poor. I have often been astonished at his diligence in pastoral visitation, and at the number of visits he would accomplish in a comparatively brief period of time. He cultivated a spirit of conscientiousness, which was his mainstay amidst many vicissitudes. The spirit in which he entered upon his work may be gathered from the following resolutions, which he recorded in his journal when received into full Connexion:"(1.) I resolve to rise early every morning. แ 2.) To visit much and often, especially among the poor. "(4.) To study by system. "(5.) To hold as much commerce and conversation with those around me, with whom I have to do, as shall appear advantageous. "(6.) Never expect I can justify such a procedure as to stay at parties when I should be at religious meetings. "I feel myself ignorant, weak, prone to violate resolutions, &c. Lord, help me!" His opinion of the great requisites to good preaching are expressed in another extract :— "(1.) Close union with God. "(2.) Close and regular reading. (3.) Serious meditation. "(4.) Conversation. "(5.) Keeping the mind calm and resigned. (6.) Seek to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit continually." With more or less of fidelity and earnestness, he endeavoured to carry out these principles and resolutions throughout a ministry protracted to nearly half a century. I conclude in the words of the editor of the Wesleyan Times :— "He is remembered with affection and esteem by those who knew him best; and he has left behind him a memory which will be cherished in the circuits he travelled, as having turned many to righteousness who were serving sin and folly." J. C. WATTS. Theology and General Literature. M. GUIZOT'S MEDITATIONS ON THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ON THE ATTACKS WHICH ARE NOW BEING MADE UPON IT. A WORK of the nature indicated by the above title, by one of the leading thinkers of the age, and of European celebrity, cannot but be worthy of attention; and, in the conflict of views and opinions amidst which we live, may help our meditations to instructive and profitable results. Our readers will be better prepared for an examination of the book, by obtaining such an acquaintance with its distinguished author as a rapid sketch can give. M. Guizot was born at Nismes, in 1787. His father, a distinguished advocate and a Protestant, for resisting the fury of the revolutionary government, perished on the scaffold. The widowed mother, an admirable and religious woman, removed with her two sons to Geneva, where she could give them a more solid and serious education than they could obtain at that time in any part of France. The teacher of the young Guizots was a minister of the Reformed Church, and under his tuition the subject of our sketch laid deep the foundations of his future power and fame. At a very early age he had obtained the mastery of the learned, and several modern languages. It is said, indeed, that his abstraction in study, in these early days, was such, ance. that his jacket might be torn off his back by his school fellows without his being aware of it. After passing through a course of philosophy, he went to Paris to study law. This profession he soon abandoned, and in the house of the Swiss minister at Paris read largely in German literature, and otherwise enlarged his intellectual stores and disciplined his powers. His long and brilliant literary career had a singular commencement. A Mademoiselle Pauline de Meulan edited, with great success, a periodical called the Publiciste. Being seized with a serious illness, she feared her publication must be suspended, when an unknown friend generously offered his assistThe offer was accepted, and the benefactor of the editress, M. Guizot, several years afterwards, became her husband. His literary activity has been extraordinary. Scarcely had he completed his majority, when he gave to the world a "Dictionary of Synonyms," with an able dissertation on the peculiar character of the French language; a translation of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," enriched with learned and valuable notes; followed by "Lives of the French Poets of the age of Louis XIV." These works were but an earnest, however, of what was to come. Besides many controversial pamphlets and smaller works, all of which were successful as literary productions, and had great influence on public opinion, one production of his rapid pen was a collection of memoirs relating to the "History of the Revolution in England," extending to twenty-seven octavo volumes; another, a collection of memoirs relative to the "History of France," in twenty-eight volumes-works "full of sound views and curious faets, retracing the history of our Revolution with the calmness of a philosophic statesman, and a spirit of little less than propheey as regarded his own country." We cannot but pause for a moment, to express wonder at the mental power and the capacity of labour, which could not only disinter the mass of materials required by these works, but reduce the chaos to order by complete annotation, and then elaborate the finished productions on so vast a scale. Even these labours, however, combined with the duties of a professorship, left him leisure for historical essays on Shakespeare and Calvin, and for contributing largely to influential works of periodical criticism. He was early appointed to the Professorship of Modern History. His lectures delivered in this capacity have been collected into two publications, the one best known in this country being "The History of Civilization in Europe," a work evincing a masterly power of generalization, tracing the broad streams of events to their obscure causes, and making the facts of many centuries instructive by placing them in the light of a true and Christian philosophy. In his political he was not less active than in his literary life. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, the number of his speeches was extraordinary. He had brilliant speakers in opposition, but seems, on the whole, to have been the master and superior, as a debater, of all living Frenchmen. Into the consideration of his character as a statesman we do not here enter, although, when we remember his diplomacy in reference to Tahiti, we cannot, by any means, pronounce it without blemish. By the course which events have taken in France, however, he has for many years been detached from govern G |