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me to himself by any of the peculiar motives | abiding and growing conviction of his infinite of the Gospel. When I was about twenty distance from the standard of perfection, and years old, I became utterly sick of the vanity, the little comparative use which he had made and disgusted with the folly, of the world. I of his many means and helps in approaching had no thought of Jesus Christ, or of redemp-that standard-a humility that expressed itself, tion. The very notion of Jesus Christ or of therefore, in a teachableness of mind,* a ready redemption repelled me. I could not endure acknowledgment of excellence in others, and a system so degrading. I thought there might a candor in judging of other persons which possibly be a Supreme Being; and if there are seldom equalled, and which were rare enwere such a Being, he might hear me when I dowments in a mind that could not but feel its prayed. To worship the Supreme Being own powers, and its superiority to that of seemed somewhat dignified. There was some-most other men. But God has a thousand thing grand and elevating in the idea. But unseen methods of forming and cherishing the whole scheme and plan of redemption ap- those graces in his servants, which seem peared mean, and degrading, and dishonorable most opposed to their constitution, and least to man. The New Testament, in its senti- to be expected in their circumstances. ments and institutions, repelled me; and seemed impossible to be believed, as a religion suitable to man."

Mr. Cecil gave me one day the following remarkable illustration of this subject in his own case :-"It is a nice question in casuisThe grace of God triumphed, however, over try:-How far a man may feel complacency in all opposition. The religion which began in the exercise of talent. A hawk exults on his this disgust with the world and disaffection to wing; he skims and sails, delighting in the the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, made consciousness of his powers. I know nothing rapid advances in his mind. The seed sown of this feeling. DISSATISFACTION accompanies in tears by his inestimable mother, though me, in the study and in the pulpit. I never long buried, now burst into life, and shot forth made a sermon with which I felt satisfied; I with vigor; and he became a preacher of that never preached a sermon, with which I felt truth, which once he labored to destroy. Yet satisfied. I have always present to my mind grace did not annihilate the natural character such a conception of what MIGHT be done, and and qualities of the mind; though it regulated I sometimes hear the thing so done, that what and directed them. The Christian's feelings I do falls very far beneath what it seems to me and experience were modified by the constitution of the man. After a long course of spiritual watchfulness and warfare, he spoke thus of himself:

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it should be. Some sermons which I have heard have made me sick of my own for a month afterwards. Many ministers have no conception of any thing beyond their own There is what Bacon calls a DRY LIGHT, in world: they compare themselves only with which subjects are viewed, without any predi- themselves; and perhaps they must do so: if lection, or passion, or emotion, but simply as I could give them my views of their ministry, they exist. This is very much my character without changing the men, they would be as a Christian. I have great constitutional ruined; while now, they are eminent instruresistance. Tell me such a thing is my DUTY-ments in God's hands. But some men see I know it is, but there I stop. Talk to me of too much beyond themselves for their own HELL my heart would rise with a sort of comfort. Perhaps complacency in the exerdaring stubbornness. There is a constitutional cise of talent, be it what it may, is hardly to desperation about me, which was the most be separated, in such a wretched heart as conspicuous feature in my character when man's, from pride. It seems to me that this young, and which has risen up against the gra- dissatisfaction with myself, is the messenger cious measures which God has all my life taken sent to buffet me and keep me down. In other to subdue and break it. I feel I can do little in men, the separation between complacency and religion without ENCOURAGEMENT. I am per-pride may be possible; but I scarcely think it suaded and satisfied, tied and bound, by its is so in me." f truth and importance and value; but I view the subject in a DRY LIGHT. A strong sense of "A friend, who knew him for thirty or forty DIVINE FRIENDSHIP goes a vast way with me. years, has informed me," says Mr. Wilson, in the serWhen I fall, God will raise me. mons preached on occasion of Mr. Cecil's death, When I "that he was more ready to hear of his faults from want, God will provide. When I am in per-persons whom he esteemed, than most men. When plexity, God will deliver. He cares for me any failings were pointed out to him, he usually pities me-bears with me-guides me-loves thanked the reprover, and anxiously inquired for further admonitions. I have observed myself, that, when he gave advice, which he did with acuteness and decision, he was quite superior to that little vanity which is offended if the counsel be not followed."

me!"

But the energy of Divine Grace was most conspicuous in the control and mastery of this resisting and high spirit of which our friend complained. Nay, if there were any one Christian virtue in which he was more advanced than any other, it appears to me to have been HUMILITY-not that humility which debases itself that it may be exalted, and which is offended if its professions be believed; but the humility which arose from an

what of a similar nature to this of Mr. C. on himself. † Mr. Churton has a remark on Dr. Johnson, someHe thinks that "Johnson's morbid melancholy and constitutional infirmities were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very cul

I have alluded to Mr. Cecil's READY ACKNOW- received, because I considered that My account LEDGMENT OF THE WORTH OF OTHERS; and I must of the matter could not be stated to some, add, that he cultivated that discrimination of to whom a different representation would be excellence, which leads a man to discover made. A man who intends to stand immacuand esteem it in the midst of imperfections. late, and, like Samuel, to come forward and He had an unfeigned regard to real worth, say-Whose ox, or whose ass have I taken? unust wherever it was found. The powers of the count the cost. I knew that my character understanding have often fascinated men of was worth more to me than this sum of moinferior wisdom, and lessened the odiousness ney. By probity, a man honors himself. It of an immoral state of heart too plainly seen is the part of a wise man to waive the present in others; but if the excellencies of the head good for the future increase. A merchant and the heart must be disjoined, he never failed suffers a large quantity of goods to go out of to value that which is most truly valuable. He the kingdom to a foreign land, but he has his would say " Such a friend of ours is what object in doing so; he knows, by calculation, many men look down on, as a weak man; but that he shall make so much more advantage I honor his wisdom and his devotedness. He by them. A Christian is made a wise man by throws himself out, and all the powers which counting the cost. The best picture I know God has given him, into the service of his of the exercise of this virtue, drawn by the Master, in all those ways which seem to him hand of man, is that by John Bunyan in the best; and, though perhaps he and I should characters of Passion and Patience. forever differ on the best way, and though I see in him many peculiarities and weaknesses, yet I honor and love the man; I revere his simplicity and his piety. He is what God has made him; and all that he is he puts into action for God." If Mr. Cecil was at any time severe in his remarks on others, his severity was chiefly directed against that ignorant vanity and affectation, which push a man forward where great men would retire, and which make him dogmatical where wise men would speak with humility and candor.

Closely allied with his humility, was that OPENNESS TO CONVICTION, which Mr. Cecil possessed in an unusual degree. He had dived so deeply into his own heart, and had read man so accurately-his short-sightedness, his scanty span, his pride, and his passions-that he was, more than most men, superior to that little feeling which makes us quit the scholar's form. Many men speak of themselves and of all around them as in a state of pupilage and childhood, but I never approached a man on whose mind this conviction had a more real and practical influence.

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Associated with this disinterestedness of spirit, was a singular PRACTICAL RELIANCE ON PROVIDENCE, in all the most minute and seemingly indifferent affairs of his life. He was emphatically, to use his own expression, “a pupil of signs"-waiting for and following the leadings and openings of divine Providence in his affairs. I once consulted him throughout a very delicate and perplexing affair. In one stage of it, he said to me, "You have not done this thing exactly as I should have felt my mind led to do it. I feel myself in such cases like a child in the middle of an intricate and perplexed wood. Two considerations weigh with me: first-If I could see all the involutions, and relations, and bearings, and consequences of the affair, then I might feel myself able to move forward: but secondly-I know not one of them, not even the shadow of one, nay, hardly the probability of such and such issues. Then I am driven to simple reliance. I have never found God fail me in such cases. When I am utterly lost and confounded, I look for openings, clear and evident to my own conviction. I have a warrant for all this. grand danger with reference to Providence is, that we should walk as men-Are ye not carnal and walk as men?"

Our

DISINTERESTEDNESS was a pre-eminent characteristic of Mr. Cecil as a Christian. His whole spirit and conduct spoke one language: "Let me and mine be nothing, so that thy On another occasion he said-" We make kingdom may come!" His disinterestedness too little of the subject of Providence. My was grounded on his conviction of the abso- mind is by nature so intrepid and sanguine, lute nothingness of all earthly good, compared and it has so often led me to anticipate God with the glory of Christ and the interests of in his guidings, to my severe loss, that perhis kingdom. In all pecuniary transactions of haps I am now too suspicious and dilatory in a private or public nature, he was governed by this principle; and made a free and cheerful sacrifice of what he might have lawfully obtained, if he thought his receiving it would impede his usefulness.

On one occasion of this nature, he explained the noble principle on which he acted:" A Christian is called to refrain from some things, which, though actually right, yet will not bear a good appearance to all men. I once judged it my duty to refuse a considerable sum of money, which I might lawfully and fairly have

pable degree."--Boswell's Life of Johnson, 2d Edit. 8vo. vol. iii. p. 564.

following him. However, this is a maxim with me-that, when I am waiting with a simple, childlike spirit for openings and guidings, and imagine I perceive them, God would either prevent the semblance of them from rising up before me, if these were not his leadings in reality, or he would preserve me from deeming them such; and therefore I always follow what appears to be my duty without hesitation."

But the spring of all these Christian virtues, and the master-grace of his mind, was FAITH. His whole spirit and character were a living illustration of that definition of the apostleFaith is the substance of things hoped for, the

evidence of things unseen! He appeared to me never to be exercised with doubts and fears. His magnanimity entered most strikingly into his religious character. He was convinced and satisfied by all the divine declarations and promises-and he left himself, with unsuspecting confidence, in God's hands. *

I quote Mr. Wilson's testimony to the PATIENCE of our friend UNDER AFFLICTIONS. "He was not only, in opposition to all the tendencies of his natural dispositions, resigned, but cheerful under his trials. I have seen him repeatedly, at his Living in the country, return from his ride racked with pain; pale, emaciated, speechless. I have seen him throw himself all along upon his sofa, on his face, and cover his forehead with his hands; and there, without an expression of complaint, endure the paroxysm of his disorder: and I have been astonished to observe him rise up in an instant, with his wonted dignity, and enter upon conversation with cheerfulness and vigor. He has often acknowledged to me, that the anguish he felt was like a dagger plunged into his side, and that through a whole summer he has not had two nights free from tormenting pain. Such were his sufferings for ten or twelve years previous to his last illness. And yet this was the man, or rather this was the Christian, from whose lips I never heard a murmuring word."

It is almost needless to add, that Mr. Cecil possessed REMARKABLE DECISION OF CHARACTER. When he went to Oxford he had made a resolution of restricting himself to a quarter of an hour daily, in playing on the violin ; on which instrument he greatly excelled, and of which he was extravagantly fond: but he found it impracticable to adhere to his determination; and had so frequently to lament the loss of time in this fascinating amusement, that with the noble spirit which characterized him through life, he cut his strings, and never afterwards replaced them. He studied for a painter; and, after he had changed his object, retained a fondness and a taste for the art: he was once called to visit a sick lady, in whose room there was a painting which so strongly attracted his notice, that he found his attention diverted from the sick person, and absorbed by the painting: from that moment he formed the resolution of mortifying a taste, which he found so intrusive, and so obstructive to him in his nobler pursuits; and determined never afterwards to frequent the exhibition.

Nor was his INTREPID AND INFLEXIBLE FIRM

NESS less conspicuous, whenever the interests of truth and the honor of Christ were concerned. The world in arms would not have appalled him, while the glory of Christ was in his view. Nor do I believe that he would have hesitated for a moment, after he had given to nature her just tribute of feeling and of tears, to go forth from his family, and join "the noble army of martyrs" who expired in the flames in Smithfield, had the honor of his Master called him to this sacrifice; nor would his knees have trembled, nor his look changed.

Yet, I cannot but add, that this firmness never degenerated into rudeness. He knew and observed all those decencies of life, which render mutual intercourse agreeable; and he had that ease of manner, among all classes of society, which bespoke perfect self-possession and a thorough knowledge of the world. His address in meeting the manners and habits of thinking of persons of rank, either when they were inquiring into religion or under affliction, was, perhaps, scarcely to be equalled.

The associations in our friend's mind were often of a very humorous kind. He had a strong natural turn for associations of this nature, which threw a great vivacity and charm over his familiar conversation-employed as it was, in the main, like every faculty of his mind, for useful ends. He was fully aware, however, of the danger of possessing such a faculty, and the temptations to which it exposed him; prompted and supported as it was by a buoyancy of spirits, which even great and lengthened pain could scarcely subdue. I have looked at him, and listened to him, with astonishment-when meeting, with a few other young men occasionally at his house, we have found him dejected and worn out with pain--stretched on his sofa, and declining to join in our conversation-till he caught an interest in what was passing-when the question of an inquiring or burdened conscience has roused him to an exertion of his great mind-he has risen from his sofa-he has forgot his sufferings-and he has left us nothing to do but to admire and treasure up most profound and impressive remarks on the Scripture, on the heart, and on the world.

The mention of his humor and his vivacity of spirit leads me to remark, that I am not writing a panegyric, but drawing a character. No likeness can be faithful, while the best original is such as he must be in the present state, if it carry no shades. I have no wish to conceal the shades of this extraordinary character. Sternness and levity were the two constitutional evils, which most severely exercised him. They seem to have been the necessary result, in an imperfect being, of the union of that masculine and original vigor with humor and an ardent fancy, which met

Mr. Wilson justly remarks of our friend, that "the determination and grandeur of his mind displayed his faith to peculiar advantage. This divine principle quite realized and substantiated to him the things which are not seen and eternal. It was absolutely like another sense. The things of time were as nothing. Every thing that came before him was referred to a spiritual in the structure of his mind. So far, indeed, standard. His one great object was fixed, and this object engrossed his whole soul. Here his foot stood immoveable, as on a rock. His hold on the truths of the Scriptures was so firm, that he acted on them boldly and unreservedly. He went all lengths, and risked all consequences, on the word and promise of God."

had grace triumphed over these constitutional enemies, that the very opposite features were the most prominent in his character; and no one could approach him without feeling himself with a most TENDER and SERIOUS mind. I speak of those occasional ebullitions, which

tended to remind him, that, though he was in you, would be expecting what ought not to invested with a new and triumphant nature, be expected. This is a strong alterative in he was yet at home in the body, and subject to your dispensation. Now I have long been in the recurrence of his constitutional infirmities. the habit of viewing every thing of that aspect Yet, though Mr. Cecil felt occasionally rather in a melancholy light. You are standtemptations to levity, through the buoyancy ing on the justice, the reason, the truth of and spring of his animal spirits, his prevailing your cause. I should have heard God saying, temper was of a quite opposite description. Son of man, follow me.' It would have led A sensibility of spirit, with his view of human me into a speculative-mystical sort of way. nature and of the world, threw a cast of ME-I should have seen in it the flood that is sweepLANCHOLY Over his mind. He was far more ing over the earth-the utter bankruptcy of all disposed to weep over the guilt and misery of human affairs. Most men, if they had stood man, than to smile at his follies. "I have," said he, a salient principle in me. My spirits never sink. Yet I have a strong dash of melancholy. It is a high and exquisite feeling. When I first awake in the morning, I could often weep with pleasure. The holy calm, the silence, the freshness, thrill through my soul. At such moments I should feel the presence of any person to be intrusion and impertinence, and common affairs, nauseous. The stillness of an empty house is paradise to me. The man who has never felt thus cannot be made to understand what I mean."

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by and compared our conduct, would have commended yours as rational, but condemned mine as enthusiastic--as connecting things together which had no proper connexion; but this is my way of viewing every alterative in my dispensation."

"The heart," said he, "must be divorced from its idols. Age does a great deal in curing the man of his frenzy; but, if God has a special work for a man, he takes a shorter and sharper course with him. Stand ready for it. I have been in both schools. Bleeding and cauterizing have done much for me, and age has done much also-Can I any longer taste what I eat or what I drink?”

Though the Memoir of Mr. Cecil's life, and the letters which are subjoined, bear ample testimony to the TENDERNESS OF HIS RELATIVE AFFECTIONS, yet I cannot but add here what a friend wrote on visiting him, many years before his decease, at a time when he was ex

"Hooker's dying thought," he added, "is congenial to my spirit. I am going to leave a world disordered, and church disorganized, for a world and a church where every angel and every rank of angels stand before the throne in the very post God has assigned them.' I am obliged habitually to turn my eye from the wretched disorders of the world and the church, to the beauty, harmony, meekness,pecting the death of Mrs. Cecil:-" Mrs. Cecil and glory of a better world."

On another occasion he said "I have been long in the habit of viewing every thing around me as in a state of ALIENATION. I have no hold

was ill. I called on Mr. Cecil. I found him in his study, sitting over his Bible in great sorrow. His tears fell so fast, that he could only utter broken sentences. He said, 'Christians on my dearest comforts. My children must do well to speak of the grace, love, and goodseparate from me. One has his lot cast in ness of God; but we must remember that he one place, and another elsewhere. It may be is a holy and jealous God. Judgment must my particular leaning, but I have never leaned begin at the house of God. This severe stroke toward my comforts without finding them give is but a farther call to me to arise and shake way. A sharp warning has met me- These myself. My hope is still firm in God. He are aliens, and as an alien live thou among who sends the stroke, will bear me up under them.' We may use our comforts by the way. it; and I have no doubt, but if I saw the whole We may take up the pitcher to drink, but the of his design, I should say, 'Let her be taken!' moment we begin to admire, God will in love Yet, while there is life, I cannot help saying, dash it to pieces. But I feel no such aliena-Spare her another year, that I may be a littion from the church. I am united to Christ, tle prepared for her loss! I know I have and to all his glorified and living members, by an indissoluble bond. Here my mind can centre and sympathize without suspicion or fear."

"I feel," he would say, "a congeniality with the character of Jeremiah. I seem to understand him. I could approach him, and feel encouraged to familiarity. It is not so with Elijah or Ezekiel. There is a rigor or severity about them which seems to repel me to a distance, and excites reverence rather than sympathy and love."

In a very interesting case on which I consulted him, he gave me a striking view of this feature in his character-" I should have fallen myself into an utterly different mode of conducting the affair. But you have not the melancholy in your constitution which I have, and therefore to look for my mode of thinking |

higher ground of comfort; but I shall deeply feel the taking away of the dying lamp. Her excellence as a wife and a mother, I am obliged to keep out of sight, or I should be overwhelmed. All I can do is, to go from text to text, as a bird from spray to spray. Our Lord said to his disciples, Where is your faith? God has given her to be my comfort these many years, and shall I not trust him for the future? This is only a farther and more expensive education for the work of the ministry; it is but saying more closely, Will you pay the price? If she should die, I shall request all my friends never once to mention her name to me. I can gather no help from what is called friendly condolence. Job's friends understood grief better when they sat down and spake not a word."

Our departed friend was, at once, a public

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and a RETIRED man. While his sacred office, | one or two which will weigh well, I seem imexercised for many years in a conspicuous patient to stop him if he is proceeding to assphere, brought him much before the world, sign more. He has given me a consideration, his turn of mind was retired-he courted soli- and THAT suffices. The Night Thoughts' is tude-he held converse there with God, and a great book with me; notwithstanding its his own great spirit mingled with the mighty glaring imperfections, it realizes death and dead; he had such a practical knowledge and vanity. And, because this is the frame and deep impression of the nothingness of the habit of my own mind, my ministry partakes whole world compared with spiritual and eter- of it, and must partake of it, if I would preach nal realities, and he had so deeply felt, and so naturally and from my heart.” thoroughly despised its lying pretensions to meet the wants and to satisfy the longings of the immortal soul, that it was no sacrifice to him to turn away from the shows and pursuits of life, and to shut out all the splendor and

seductions of the world.

Yet this retired spirit was not unsocial, morose, or repulsive. No one called him from his retirement to ask spiritual counsel, but he was met with tenderness and urbanity. No congenial mind encountered his, without eliciting sparks both of benevolence and wisdom. Not a child in his family could carry its little complaints to him, but he would stop the career of his mind to listen and relieve.

His study was his favorite retreat. His station exposed him to constant interruption, some necessary, and others arising from the injudiciousness of those who applied to him. It was not unusual with him to make use of his power of abstraction on these occasions. Time was too valuable to be lavished away on the inconsideration of some of those who thought it necessary to call on him. It was generally his practice, not immediately to obey a summons from his study, but when he knew he had to do with persons who would occupy much of his time by a long conversation before the business was brought forward, rather than hurt their feelings he would carry down in his mind the train of thought which he was pursuing in his study, and, while that which was beside the purpose played on his ear, his mind was following the subject on which it had entered before.

Some men are at home in society; the wide world is their dwelling-place; they are known and read of all men; they have a peculiar talent for improving mixed society. But this was not the character of Mr. Cecil. He unfolded himself, indeed, to his friends; but those friends could not but feel, that, when they broke in on his retirement for any other objects than what were connected with his high calling, they were intruders on inestimable time. I had, indeed, the privilege and happiness of free access to him at all times, for a considerable course of years, while I was his assistant in the ministry; but, for the reasons just assigned, though I was a diligent observer of his mind and habits, I feel myself not prepared to speak fully of his more domestic and retired character.

"Retirement," he said, " is my grand ordinance. Considerations govern me. Death is a mighty consideration with me. The utter vanity of every thing under the sun is another. If a man wishes to influence my mind, he must assign considerations; and, if he assigns

In surveying the personal character of Mr. Cecil, it remains to speak somewhat more fully of his intellectual powers.

His IMAGINATION was not so much of the playful and elegant, as bold, inventive, striking, and instinctively judicious and discriminating.

His TASTE in the sister arts of painting, poetry, and music, was refined, and his judgment learned. In his younger days he had studied and excelled in painting and music; and, though he laid them aside that he might devote all his powers to his work, yet the savor of them so far remained, that I have been witness innumerable times, both in public and private, to the felicity of his illustrations drawn from these subjects, and to the superiority that his intimate knowledge of them gave him over most persons with whom they happened to be brought forward. His taste, when young, was for Italian music; but, in his latter years, he was fond of the German style, or rather the softer Moravian. Anthems, or any pieces wherein the words were reiterated, he disliked, for public worship especially, as they sacrificed the real spirit of devotion too much to the music. His feelings on this subject were exquisite. Pure, spiritual, sublime devotion," he would say, "should be the soul of public music." He often lamented the introduction of any other style of architecture in places of worship, beside that which was so peculiarly appropriate, and which, because it was so, called up associations best suited to the purposes of meeting. He said most strikingly-"I never enter a Gothic church without feeling myself impressed with something of this idea Within these walls has been resounded for centuries, by successive generations, Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!' The very damp that trickles down the walls, and the unsightly green that moulders upon the pillars, are far more pleasing to me from their associations, than the trim, finished, classic, heathen piles of the present fashion."

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His powers of comparison, analogy, and JUDGMENT, have been rarely equalled. These had been exercised so long, and with so much energy, on all the conditions and relations around him-on the word of God-on his own mind-on the history, opinions, passions, prejudices, and motives of men in every age, and of every character and station-on moral causes and effects-on every subject that can come within the grasp of a philosophic mindthat the result was a wISDOM SO prominent and commanding, that every man felt himself with a mind of the very first order both in capability and acquirement. In some cases, wherein my wishes, perhaps, formed my opinions; and,

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