Had not Mr. Wilson been a religious man, or, being one, had his religious character been less matured, he would not probably have retired from business so early. As it was, he acted from the noblest impulse, and his reward was large.

'My father,' says the biographer, 'was enabled to avoid a great error into which persons retiring from business often fall. They are too apt to consider themselves at liberty to live in a desultory, irregular manner -to suppose that they may pass the remainder of life without a fixed plan, a determinate scheme of action-the consequence of which is, they have no practical aim-no definite object of pursuit. My father formed his purpose advisedly, and arranged his plan deliberately. The object selected by him is the greatest that can engage the attention or occupy the faculties of man, to which he had in previous years devoted a considerable portion of time, and to which he now determined to devote the whole of his remaining life. That object was USEFULNESS, which has been well designated the very excellency of life' He selected, too, that department of service which may be called the flower of usefulness-beneficence in regard to the spiritual and eternal interests of mankind. Charity to the soul-to adopt a quaint phrase of the Puritan divines-is the soul of charity.'-pp. 163, 164.

From this period his usefulness may be dated. Not that he was inactive or niggardly before, but that his opportunities were now more ample, and his energies were undivided. He continued to occupy the same house in Artillery Place, in one room of which, true to his purpose, 'he sat during great part of the day, devoting many hours to transact that which he had determined henceforth to make his business-' the happy, joyful business of doing good,'-and to which he attended with all the energy and vigour which he had learned in his secular calling.' The habits of business were carried into his higher occupations, and greatly aided him in the various and sometimes perplexing engagements of his later life. As his example, in the stedfast pursuit of religious service, was worthy of imitation, so his wisdom was strikingly evinced in the department of usefulness which he selected. He did not fritter away his strength on many objects, but wisely concentrated it. The principle of a division of labour is yet to be applied to religious service. Its wisdom is admitted in the factory and in the shop, but from the Christian church it has been almost wholly excluded; and we consequently find the same men attempting a dozen different things, any one of which would afford them sufficient occupation. The committees of our religious societies furnish melancholy illustrations of this. Men hurry from one to the other, or give their attendance only occasionally to each, so as to embarrass the councils or to overrule the decisions of those who

There

are most conversant with the matter to be determined. is no work, therefore, which is done so ill, or which affords more frequent occasion to retrace the steps taken.

Mr. Wilson acted otherwise, and his success was proportionably great. As his son remarks, he formed his purpose advisedly, and arranged his plan deliberately.' He selected his own department-made himself master of its details-personally superintended and concentrated upon it the whole force of his mind. The result was what might have been looked for. His labours were crowned with pre-eminent success, and thousands who were strangers to his person were led to revere and love him.

'As my father's character affords a striking instance of unity and singleness of purpose, so his life furnishes abundant proof of what extensive good may result from individual effort-how much may be done by one man devoting himself to one thing-consecrating all his energies to one object. This lesson is rendered the more impressive from the fact, that my father possessed no brilliant qualities of any kind-neither splendid talents nor profound acquirements. If, however, he did not possess the dazzling and showy qualities, neither was he destitute of the more sterling, solid, and valuable endowments-a vigorous understanding, strong good sense, a sound judgment, considerable penetration, and great practical wisdom. He possessed an eminently sound mind, distinguished for sobriety. Above all, he was firm, determined, and decisive in purpose, prompt, vigorous, and persevering in execution-resolute in will, and energetic in action. His natural endowments admirably fitted him for the work assigned to him, and that work was, in some respects, peculiar, and exclusively his own.'—p. 543.

The department of labour to which Mr. Wilson devoted himself naturally divided into two branches, one of which seems to have grown out of, and to have been suggested by, the other. All our readers will understand us as referring to the college formerly at Hoxton, now at Highbury, and to the erection of places of worship in various parts of the kingdom. To the former of these he was introduced by his father, whom he succeeded in the treasurership in March, 1794, having been a member of the committee from 1786. It is impossible to speak too highly of the exertions he made on behalf of this institution, nor can we venture on any details. During my father's life,' he himself said, 'I felt much interest in this object; and when I undertook the office of treasurer, I determined to devote myself to its duties; and, to do this more effectually, I gave up my connexion with business in the year 1798.'

'It was greatly owing to my father's influence,' says his son, 'that,

after he became treasurer, the number of students was year after year augmented. When Mr. Simpson entered upon the office of tutor at Hoxton in 1791, he had only three young men under his charge. In 1794 there were not more than thirteen. In 1798 the number had increased to twenty, in 1801 to twenty-five, and in 1803 to thirty. He was in the habit of seeking out young men who appeared suitable, and encouraging them to offer themselves as candidates.'—p. 176,

In 1793 the annual subscriptions to Hoxton College amounted only to £368 11s., but in 1803, ten years afterwards, they had advanced to £1171 9s. 6d. His subsequent labours in this department are well known, and stand recorded in the noble edifice at Highbury, a monument of unwearied, self-denying, and high-minded service, of which any man might well be proud. His exertions on behalf of the college were incessant, and involved an amount of personal labour from which most men would have shrunk. He visited various parts of the country in order to advocate its claims, and set, in his own contributions, a worthy example before the more wealthy members of his community. Nor was he less mindful of what he deemed the interests of the students. Whatever opinion may be entertained respecting the weaker points of his character-and who is there without such ?-he doubtless cherished the kindest and most paternal feelings towards them. He was amongst them, in intention at least, as a father; and the volume before us furnishes evidence of his having frequently succeeded in impressing them with this conviction. That he was somewhat accessible to flattery, that in occasional instances he repaid servility in other coin than the contempt it deserved, that he was slow to perceive merit where homage was not rendered to himself, and reluctant to abandon the unfavourable impression which had once been made,—in a word, that he was somewhat despotic in temper and unattractive in outward demeanour, are admissions required, we apprehend, by truth, and which may readily be made by his warmest and most attached admirers. No good end is gained by a delineation of spotless excellence. None believe in its truthfulness, for it is not human. It is a mere fancy painting, with the beauty of which we may be pleased, but which no one imagines to be the likeness of a human being. It is far better in such cases to state the whole truth, and religious biography would be much more useful than it has been, if this rule were strictly observed. The inspired writers did so, and were never, therefore, guilty of painting a faultless mortal. Mr. Joshua Wilson is not wholly unmindful of this canon, though with natural partiality, he fails to apply it as extensively as should have been. In one short paragraph, how

ever, he has furnished an explanation of some cases which occurred more frequently, as we have reason to believe, in the early than in the latter part of his father's life. Although,' he remarks, I believe his meaning was always kind, yet there. was perhaps, occasionally, a degree of bluntness and apparent harshness in his mode of speaking. He did not at all times completely succeed in combining the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re.'

His constant intercourse with the students gave him opportunities, of which he freely availed himself, to urge on them a simple, earnest, affectionate, and evangelical style of preaching. Mr. Wilson's views on these points were in the main sound. He regarded human nature from the right point of view, and was intensely solicitous to preserve the religious aspect and bearing of the ministry. Nothing is more seriously to be deprecated than a cold, formal style of preaching, the mere discussion of topics, a scholastic exhibition of the skeleton of theology, apart from the living spirit which gives it animation and value. The truths with which the preacher is conversant are pre-eminently adapted to move the deepest feelings of the soul. They address themselves to the whole manto the affections as well as the judgment, and are never fairly dealt by, unless exhibited in such form as is suited to engage the one as well as to command the homage of the other. Many of them lie on the borders of the profound and the mysterious, and the rash, the unreflecting, the half-thinker, is thereby tempted beyond his depth. But in no case is this inevitable. The reverent mind will respect the limits which infinite wisdom has imposed, and from the regions of clouds and darkness, will bring back lessons of piety to cheer and strengthen the devout believer. The pulpit is desecrated when the remedial character of the Christian system is lost sight of, or when any other purpose than the spiritual benefit of mankind is proposed in its ministrations. In order, however, that its object should be attained, its style both of language and illustration must be suited to popular apprehension. What is recondite, involved, or metaphysical, should be admitted but rarely, and then only with an obvious subordination to the spiritual interests concerned. For the most part the Christian teacher has to do with the unreflecting and illiterate-we use the word in an inoffensive sense -and his mode of address should be level to their comprehension. He should speak so as to be readily understood, so as to raise no unnecessary barrier to the excitement of emotions, so as to involve in the least degree that cooling process through which the human being passes, when the intellect has much to do prior to the form of truth being presented to the heart. Now it is obvious that the reverse of all this is becoming

fashionable with many of our ministers. There is a false style of preaching growingly prevalent amongst those who affect intellectual superiority. The un-English and barbarous phraseology rendered fashionable for an hour amongst little men, by the authority of the school of Carlyle, is waging war with the simplicity of the pulpit, to the serious detriment of popular instruction. Against this evil-enormous as we verily conceive it to be the best antidote is found in deep earnest sympathy with the religious ends of the ministry. Let men feel, as the Christian preacher should feel, the compassionate tenderness and awful fidelity of the Gospel, and we defy them to speak the jargon in which the airs of the metaphysician are assumed. The following extract is eminently honourable to Mr. Wilson, and may be usefully pondered over by the Christian teacher.

'Often have I heard him in earnest, animated conversation with the students, urge upon them to combine what is accurate and judicious, with what is free an unpremeditated; to unite in their sermons the mature product of patient thought and laborious study with the warm and fresh effusions of natural feeling, the spontaneous outpourings of genuine emotion, excited at the time by the subject absorbing their own minds, and the scene before them awakening the deepest sensibilities of their nature, and inspiring the liveliest concern for the salvation of their hearers. The perfection of preaching certainly consists in blending thought and feeling, so as both to communicate luminous instruction, and to produce vivid impression. My father, while he considered it an important part of a minister's work to inform the understanding, and to convince the judgment, regarded it as yet more his office, by a persuasive, pathetic address to touch the feelings, to move the passions, and thus, by the blessing of God, to warm and melt, to soften and subdue the heart— in short, to persuade men to be reconciled to God. In order to this, it is indispensable to let the hearers see that he is himself in earnest, and that his own heart is set on their salvation.

As a specimen of my father's mode and style of conversation with the students, I may insert the following extracts from a communication lately received from one of the most honoured and useful ministers of the present day, Rev. John Raven, of Dudley, who entered Highbury College in 1827.

I shall never forget my interview with him in his own house, at the close of my first session at Highbury College. After informing me that I was to preach for six Sabbaths of the vacation at Writtle, in Essex, he inquired whether any of the deacons or members of the church with which I was connected would hear me? On being answered in the affirmative, he said, 'Well, sir, they will expect to discover some improvement after a year's study. They will make their observations; and recollect, sir, that your conduct and preaching will either honour or disgrace your tutors and the college. People sometimes say, that young men are spoiled