to contend earnestly for the best form of godliness, it is equally incumbent on all Christians, to seize the occasions which offer for displaying the power of it unincumbered with the distinctions which arise from the weaknesses of men. That the memoirs of Risdon Darracott should exhibit Christianity in this pure uncoloured light, will appear unquestionable to every discerning reader. This conviction in the mind of the writer, has induced him to pass over one minor occurrence, in which, though Mr. Darracott would have appeared to advantage, his opponents would have been placed in a shade that would displease those who now adopt their views, and whom it was the author's wish not to irritate but to edify.

If any should ask, why attract the public notice to a man who has slumbered among the dead more than half a century? the biographer replies, the powerful principle of sympathy which the Creator has implanted in our nature, renders the examples of holy men peculiarly desirable. Christians feel to their cost that they are affected by the spirit and conduct of the living world. around them, which is too generally hostile to true religion. Should we not then endeavour to counteract this evil by multiplying the incentives to virtue, though it were by calling up those who have been long dead, that we may live in a circle

calculated to inspire esteem for their character, and stimulate to imitation of their conduct? It is hoped that few Christians will rise from the perusal of these memoirs, without feeling his humility promoted by the consciousness of inferiority, or his zeal inflamed by the sight of superior ardour.

Difficult indeed it may be to attract general attention to the memory of one so long gone by in the procession of ages, for it is not pretended that Risdon Darracott was in the church a Luther, confined to no space and claimed by every subsequent age as its own. Nor has the biographer the talent which enabled Johnson to confer notoriety on a friend who could not have claimed it for himself. But the author of these memoirs, by having married a grand-daughter of Mr. Darracott, has come into possession of the documents from which the work is compiled. These furnish such a picture of a heart devoted to the divine glory, a life consumed in most successful evangelical labours, and a death preeminently distinguished by holy joy, that many have considered it not less than a duty to draw them from obscurity and prevent their dropping silently into oblivion.

Should the perusal of these memoirs afford to each reader but a moiety of the edification and delight which they have afforded to the compiler,

they will prove one of the most valuable occasions of usefulness with which he has been indulged. Of this he would not despair. For though some of the effect that he has felt, may have arisen from the sight of manuscripts written with a tremulous hand, on the eve of a triumphant death, and so tinged with age as to recal the memory of those who have long been at rest, yet the principal source of impressions which he could wish ever to retain was the divine sentiments, the devotional feelings, the heavenly anticipations which must ever find their sympathies in the Christian's breast.

The correspondence between Mr. Darracott and his religious friends, might have been swelled to many times the present extent, had not the fear of diminishing the usefulness of the volume by restricting its circulation, determined the editor to keep it within the present size.

MEMOIRS, &c.

CHAP. I.

MR. DARRACOTT'S ANCESTRY AND BIRTH.

FOR Christians to sigh after the honours of heraldry is not ambition, but meanness; since they can claim more than noble or regal descent, being born not of blood, but of God. As, however, the eternal King, the fountain of honour, extends his favour to the seed of those who serve him, calling Israel a 'people near to him, and assigning this reason, "ye are the seed of Abraham my friend;" it would be ingratitude and impiety to throw away honors so sacred, conferred by such a hand. Nor can a Christian look to the general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, and behold there a long line of ancestors who have served God with distinguished devotion, without feeling himself exalted by the relation, and stimulated by their

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