There is room to fear that too much like this might have been the end of the writer himself had he chosen an artist's life. The uncertainties, and ups and downs so incident to that vocation, could not present an agreeable prospect to a mind so sensitive as his, and so little sanguine as to its own future. The effect, however, of this feeling in relation to art on his subsequent productions as a man of letters is very perceptible.

His admiration of effective public speaking was great; but the study of the law had no attraction for him; nor would his organization have been equal to the wear and tear inseparable from the life of a barrister much upon circuit; added to which, his religious character, as we have seen, had by this time become settled. While history in general was his favourite field of study, the section of that field in which he felt the greatest interest was the ecclesiastical. I did what I could to encourage him in that preference. It seemed reasonable to hope that he might thus be led by degrees to concern himself with those higher regions of thought which he had not hitherto been disposed to estimate at their real value. Church history not only gives us men in action, but in action to a large extent on grounds embracing great principles, and principles related to some of the most subtle forms of speculation. The man calling himself a theologian, while affecting to despise metaphysics, simply proclaims his own folly.

The juncture at which my son had to come to his decision on this important matter was one of considerable mark and excitement. Great social changes had come, and were still in process. The hollow conventionalities of the reign of George IV.—that feeble collapse after the long death-struggle of the Napoleon war—had passed away. The Revolution in France under Charles X. had given its impetus to political feeling in Europe, especially in England. The

Catholic Relief Bill had been carried, and concessions had been made to Protestant Nonconformists. The battle on the question of Parliamentary Reform, and of Municipal Reform, had been fought and won. The contest in relation to the great question of Free Trade was at its height. A strong tide had for some time set in on the side of Liberalism. Men's hopes and fears had become extravagant; everything was exaggerated. Liberals had learned to demand more than was reasonable; Conservatives were often in great fear where no fear was. One very conspicuous form assumed by these fears, amidst the action and reaction of the times, came up in the Tractarian controversy. The vain purpose of that movement was to prostrate Romanism by fighting it with its own weapons, and to sweep away Dissent as a nuisance under a religious name. Even the Evangelical clergy now added to their hereditary horror of Popery a scarcely less horror of Dissenters. The Methodist body, too, shared in this feeling of alarm, and were much more with the past than with the present. In politics and in religion, dispassionateness and candour were in those days very rare. Every indication of such feeling was denounced by extreme men as so much mean trimming or unfaithful compromise. In such seasons the soberminded and the honest have to bide their time.

It was while the affairs of parties, political and religious, were in this posture that my son felt constrained to look to the work of the Christian ministry. This disposition came mainly from his religious feeling. But in his case, as in many more, there were subsidiary considerations which had their weight. How many men become clergymen to a large extent from their utter distaste for the coarse collision and vulgar brawl with which they would often be mixed up in other pursuits? What they covet in the Christian ministry, is its comparative quiet, and the sense of being useful

without taking much part in the worldly contentions ever going on about them. It is well, no doubt, that among the ministers of religion there should be men of courage, capacity, and knowledge of affairs, capable of sustaining the interests especially entrusted to them in the presence of the powers that be, whatever they may be. But the men of this sort needed are the exception, not the rule. The pastoral life in its ordinary routine makes only a moderate demand on such qualities. My son was not wanting in courage. He could, I believe, have gone to the block or the stake for a great principle. But he was not formed, either in body or mind, for taking a prominent place in the rough encounters of public life. He greatly admired the qualities which fitted some men for being quite in their element in the midst of such scenes. He could enter into the spirit of the struggle, could delineate its passions, and describe its action, with great truth and force. But he felt that his own vocation did not lie in taking part with such actors. At the same time, what some men would have construed in him as timidity, or a love of ease, was really something different, and something much better. It was a love of quiet for the sake of thought, and for the sake of the kind of usefulness to be realized by thought. He knew that there was nothing necessarily discordant between ministerial duty and his literary tastes. He always regarded his capabilities and tastes as a Divine bestowment, and never ceased to feel himself responsible for the best possible application of them. He knew that the Christian priesthood should be, at least in the case of a portion of its members, eminently a priesthood of letters, and that in giving himself to the work of the preacher and the pastor, it might behove him to endeavour to do service to religion in many ways beyond those limits. The following passages from his diary show the earnest feeling of self

consecration with which he gave himself to the work of the ministry, as to be the great work of his life.

April 3rd, 1843.-My object must be to look on myself as called by my Redeemer to set myself apart for his ministry, looking up to Him my only hope; to pray that I may do his will concerning me. How can I be disobedient to the will of such a Master? One day I shall be with Him alone, I shall be casting myself on his righteousness as all my help; let me then now unite my heart to fear his name by the help of the promised Spirit. I should not have been satisfied that I was doing right if I had been anything but what I am about to become. And is not that a call? Could I but look up to Him with constancy as the Redeemer who is indeed my salvation, and to whom I ought to devote every capability—what success will be produced by the concentration -what good with the success-what joy with the good! The fruits of this decision would probably surpass all I have dared to hope. O God! grant it me— grant it me!

Sunday, July 17th, 1843.-I earnestly desire to devote every capability in the utmost to Christ-to spend my life in the immediate service of such a Master, and, as far as my poor ability goes, to be made useful to the cause of his truth in my day and generation. I consider No labour too great to endure for the realization of success as a preacher of the gospel. In that occupation alone do I expect happiness, because then alone can I be most entirely devoted in my gratitude to the Redeemer. It is my fervent hope that my weakness may be made strength in so great a cause. To be presented faultless, unblameable. And by what means? At what cost?

What is the beautiful or the great of earth compared with this? Here is a subject, at the very least, worthy all the puny powers of any child of man. Well may angels desire to look therein. This is the thing, whatever we remember, which we mortals are constantly forgetting-this is the thing which I wish constantly to proclaim, and to ring it in men's ears till I die. This is the thing of which I hope ever to have such a growing conviction myself, that no prosperity, or adversity, or chance, or change of this life, may be able to shake my humble trust in Him in whom I have trusted, or obscure my increasing knowledge of Him in whom I have believed.

Sunday, July 24th.-Sheppard recommends, when we would indulge devotion, and are distressed by an insurmountable preoccupation of the mind, that we endeavour to make our devotion partake of the nature of that preoccupation rather than seek to run directly counter-to take advantage of that in tacking which would effectually bar all progress if our souls were squared against it. Thus, in my own instance, Poetry, which so much absorbs my thought, as

indeed all intellectual engagements must in their nature do, may be made use of as a means of elevating my thoughts to Him who made the poet, and the nature which the poet pictures, and who must be so far more beautiful than the genius of the one or the realities of the other; or, again, it may be poetry consecrated to his service, and endeavouring to invest with all the interest that imagination, harmony, and fancy can throw about the subjects of a sacred nature.

October 17th, 1843.-I feel the necessity of self-confidence. I am determined to possess it. How many inferior minds have succeeded because they could push on with undaunted assurance. Relying on Christ, I will become an efficient preacher of his gospel. I will succeed, nothing shall deter me. I will shrink from no sanguine vision, and accompany my high hopes with a concentrated and tireless effort. I am confident that it is in my power, and it is my duty, and shall be my happiness to struggle with a determination not to be weakened, with a spirit not to be repressed.

It was in this spirit that my son became a student in the Lancashire Independent College, in 1843, the year in which the opening of that College was inaugurated, and in which I became its President. The full course of study extended to five, sometimes to six years. But as my son had graduated in arts, his entrance, according to the rule in such cases, was only for the theological course, which was restricted to three years. During those years, his previous acquisitions made it easy for him to keep pace with the work of the class-room. But the history of his mind during this interval was far from being included in such exercises.

His religious feeling was deep and strong, much more so, as now appears from his diaries, than the persons about him at the time supposed. In some seasons it was of a happy description, full of hope, and of Christian aspiration. In others his upbraidings of himself were severe, and must have been attended by much pain. And there were intervals it appears, in which his hope as a Christian seemed to be all but extinct. The many hours in the day, and sometimes in the night, which he gave to study of one kind or another, and the earnestness with which he endeavoured to make