dressed, that he felt sure of touching a responsive string. In his pulpit exercises, as well as in private, he preserved a happy medium between an inactive. state of religious feeling, and excited enthusiasm. For this reason, he was enabled to exert peculiar influence in seasons of excitement. His pure piety gave him influence over the most unenlightened fervour. His reasonable and evangelical delineations of duty exerted a persuasive power over the most enlightened. It was his constant aim to keep alive in his parish a temperate tone of serious piety, equally removed from indifference and fanaticism. In a letter at this period, he writes, "I doubt not but you, have remarked, that those persons who are most awakened about religion, are most apt to censure warmly. Indeed, all their feelings are warm; they can say and do nothing very moderately; they may at such a moment be transported to almost anything. I often suggest this remark, the justice of which is always felt, that religion has more to do with the heart than the head; that it consists more in sweetness of affections, than in the knowledge of mysteries and dark questions; that therefore they need not angrily censure others for their opinions, nor be ruffled by the hard judgment, which others may pass upon their religious state, merely on account of their opinions. Such mild suggestions have much effect, and I have often the pleasure to hear my sentiments of this kind repeated from one to another as their own."

At this period, he felt himself under the necessity of often speaking without much writing, and came to the

conclusion, that a minister, in order to be in the highest degree useful to his people, must form the habit of preaching both with written and unwritten discourses. With this conviction he determined to give a course of expository lectures in the Town Hall, and began in March, 1806. The plan of these lectures is thus stated by himself "designed to show the history and doctrines of Christ in connexion, and to enforce them upon my hearers, in a practical and pathetical, rather than in a learned and theoretical manner." In a note he adds, "Some have professed to be much enlightened and quickened by them, which encouraged me to go on with them, till the Town Hall could not contain the assembly, and we came to this place,"-the church. In a letter written many years afterwards, he speaks of these lectures having been to himself a delightful and profitable exercise, and to his people one of the most popular and useful services he had ever rendered.

In February, 1807, he lost his excellent mother. His filial grief was expressed on this occasion in a sermon to his congregation from the words,-"I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." The following extracts from a private letter, while they constitute a just tribute to her worth, may illustrate the tender sensibility and christian submission, with which he bowed to the most painful visitations.

"Our consolations rise out of the review of as pure a life as is ever witnessed. She had prepared for death by a whole life of constant and lively devotion. If ever children in the world had occasion, we have, to rise up and call our mother blessed. Let us strive after

MEMOIR.

ABIEL ABBOT, the author of the following Sermons, was born in Andover, Mass. on the 17th of August, 1770. He was the youngest, with the exception of one who died in early infancy, of the children of John and Abigail Abbot. The paternal estate, where he continued under the guiding care of his excellent parents to the time of his entering college, had been the residence of his ancestors from so remote a period as the year 1645. To the good understanding and eminent piety of his mother, he was indebted for those religious principles and impressions, which imbued his opening character, and which, in after life, lent an increasing lustre to his piety. When but a child, he was in the habit of private devotion, and often retired for this purpose to the solitary groves, which surrounded his paternal residence. To the benefit, which he had himself experienced of early christian education, may be traced his deep interest and devoted labors in the cause of early moral and religious instruction.

At the age of fourteen, he was the subject of a severe nervous fever, occasioned by thrusting his arm into a cold spring on his father's estate, in the heat of a summer's day; the shock of which was so great as to produce insensibility, and from the effects of which upon his constitution, he never wholly recovered. This incident, from a conviction not then uncommon, had its influence in determining the character of his future pursuits. Under all the disadvantages of imperfect health, to which from this time he was subject, he was remarkable for cheerfulness and a natural elasticity of mind.

From early life he possessed a strong love of books, and an ardent thirst for knowledge. His course had been originally intended for occupation in the labors of agriculture; but his earnest entreaties, seconded by those of his mother, in connexion with the feeble state of his health, induced a change in his father's purposes, and he was placed to pursue his preparation for college, at Phillips Academy, then under the care of the celebrated Dr. Pemberton. He there immediately gave proof of the industry and talent, which marked his future life, occupying the first rank in a large class, mostly his superiors in order of admission, and indulging his love of study to a degree, which essentially impaired his health, and occasioned the necessity of parental interference. The value he attached to these early advantages is indicated by his persevering practice, through the winter months, of rising at the hour of four, and oftener earlier than later. To the general and private attentions he experienced at the Academy, in the cul