cation. He had brought to a close the numerous executorships in which he had been engaged, with only one exception of inconsiderable moment. His wife and younger daughter had been just removed to a better world; his elder daughter had shortly before been married; and his son was happily fixed in a situation very congenial to his wishes.

But, in other respects, his situation was affecting in the extreme. Mrs. Simpson lay in the helpless and dangerous condition we have described, in an adjoining room, while he was unable to afford her the least consolation by his presence. He had nevertheless, the satisfaction of hearing, that as she approached her last hour, her confidence in God increased; and, finally, that she closed an useful and exemplary life, rejoicing in the God of her salvation. At this painful juncture, he felt acutely; but his expressions evidenced the most perfect submission to the will of God. The religion which he had so many years zealously and successfully propagated, was his support. He said, "All is well. -All will be well. These dispensations of God are right and just. I have every reason to praise him." After he had taken finally to his bed, he was quite calm and happy, excepting that now and then he discovered some anxiety for Mrs. Simpson."God" said he, "is going to close up the scene at once, and end our lives and our labours together. It is an awful providence, but it is the will of God."

On Saturday the 16th, on being asked how he was, he replied, very poorly." A hope being expressed that he would get better he said, "No, I shall never get better in this life. I have no desire to come back to life. Our work is done. We leave the great scene of things now passing in the world to you. Why should I wish to live?" That excellent hymn, which has so often brought comfort to the afflicted, was then read to him :———— "L Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly," &c.

When he appeared much affected with the verse beginning, "Other refuge have I none," &c. and said, it was very true of himself, and that he was a poor creature. The next day he desired a friend to read to him, saying, "I want some comfortable portion from the blessed scriptures; all human supports now fail me. Read some comfortable portion.' That text was then repeated to him, "When my flesh and my heart fail me, God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever." He said "That, and other comfortable passages, frequently occur to my mind, and support me." He afterwards said, "I consider all my eternal concerns as settled. All my dependence rests upon the great atonement. I have committed all my concerns into the hands of my Redeemer." He then called to the person who attended him: "Peter," said he, "tell the people I am not dying

as a man without hope;" and expressed his strong assurance of the happiness, that awaited him, and a desire to depart. In the evening he said, "this is a very serious dispensation. It appears severe, very severe; first the shepherdess is taken away, and then the shepherd, and both as by one stroke. But I am perfectly satisfied respecting it; and I know that this light affliction, which is but for a moment, shall work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

His fever continued to increase, and his recovery became extremely doubtful. Every one but himself was, beyond expression, anxious for his life. Prayer meetings were appointed, and numerously attended. Many strong cries and tears were offered up; but the decree was gone forth. The supplications of the flock could not prevail for the recovery of the pastor. The approach of an enemy, which every one around him dreaded, he hailed with composure and joy. One day after a severe fit of coughing, he said to his attendant, "The way seems hard, but it is the way the children of God all go; and I do not wish to be exempted from it. I know that my Redeemer liveth. I feel him precious. He supports me under all. O that I was able to express all I feel." The doctor coming in soon afterwards, asked him, how he was? He replied, "partly here, and partly elsewhere." Another day he said to the person who attended him, "How awful a thing it is for a man to be brought to his dying bed, and to have no hope beyond the grave. It is truly awfulbut, blessed be God, this is not my case."

On Tuesday morning, March 19th, he gave his most affectionate blessing to his son. "I hope," said he, "the Lord will bless you when I am gone. I trust he will; and I commend you to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. The Lord bless you-the Lord bless you."

As his strength declined apace, he was soon unfit to see any of his friends but his immediate attendants, who had now given up all hope of his recovery. The violence of the fever acting on his enfeebled system, had left only the ruins of what he had been; but they were the ruins of a noble mind. He spoke much of the glories of heaven, and the happiness of separate spirits; of their robes of righteousness, and their palms of victory; then, breathing his ardent wishes for the happiness of all who were present, he added, "Pardon, peace, and everlasting felicity, are desirable things." At length the thread of life was spun out, and, after a day of apparent suffering, on Saturday, the 24th of March, 1799, he fell asleep in Jesus, a little after midnight, and spent his sabbath in the regions of bliss. Thus, after an active and laborious life, of which twenty-six years were spent in the town of Macclesfield, this eminent servant of Christ finished his course,

and went to receive his reward. In the new church at Macclesfield, is a very handsome monument erected, with an inscription as follows:

Sacred to the memory

Of the Rev. DAVID SIMPSON, M. A.
The first minister of this church,

Who, after 26 years of laborious and uninterrupted service,
Departed this life, March 24, 1799, aged 54.
As a preacher of the gospel,

He was zealous, faithful, and affectionate;
A pattern of good works in his life;
Pure and incorrupt in his doctrine;
A friend to the poor and distressed;
A comforter of the sick and afflicted;
A father to the orphans ;

A husband to the widow;
And, in his unusual charity,
The good Samaritan.

This monument was erected by an affectionate people, in grateful acknowledgement of the benefits they received from his ministry. Such were the last moments of this excellent man. He lived to promote the happiness of others; he died with a humble hope that he had not lived in vain, and the joyful confidence of his eternal union with "the spirits of just men made perfect," in the holiness and bliss of the heavenly world. In his character there was a visible combination of the most interesting excellencies. Through every department of social life, he maintained all the virtues of a mind sanctified by the grace of God. The christian and the gentleman, piety and politeness, were united in his deportment. His industry in literary pursuits was indefatigable, and his attainments were such as to place him in the ranks of eminence. His person was pleasing; his eye bright and piercing; and his aspect uncommonly commanding. In the pulpit he shone with peculiar lustre. Few preachers had so happy and so natural a manner of delivery. His reading was singularly excellent; the modulations of his voice were so well disposed, and his emphasis so correctly laid, that illiterate people have expressed their opinion of his reading the lessons in the service, by saying, "that it was like an explanation of the chapter as he went along." His zeal for souls, and his endeavours to speak, as Baxter says, "like a dying man to dying men," made his sermons so interesting, that his church was always filled, and frequently thronged to overflowing. It was almost impossible for any one to be inattentive or trifling; a sacred awe generally rested upon the whole congregation. Every one saw that he was powerfully affected with the awful warnings, and encouraging invitations, he gave to others. He was plain and faithful; but his plainness was not VOL. VII.

13

vulgarity, and his faithfulness was free from all that disgusting familiarity, harshness, and severity, which too often degrade the pulpit. Fear and ambition formed no part of his public character. He kept back no truth to avoid offence; he acted no part to gain applause. He had cultivated that style of preaching which he thought most calculated to rouse the careless, and comfort the distressed. His favourite, as an author of sermons, was Davies, whom he most resembled in his own style, and in his general manner of preaching. He had one notion which may be considered as peculiar; but which, I make no doubt, was formed from an attentive observation, as to the sort of style best calculated to arrest and fix the attention of the people; he would say, when reading any well composed tract, or short address, drawn up for the poor, "It is too well written, these finished things are not striking enough; a person must be content to forfeit some of his fame as an elegant writer, if he would be useful." Some persons who have read his last publication, may perhaps recollect passages, in which, they may see reason to think, he occasionally wrote under the influence of this opinion. And as his prevailing endeavour through life, was to be useful rather than to shine, it will be readily believed that he made some such sacrifices himself.

The Attributes of God Displayed.

REFLECTIONS ON VOLCANOS.

(Concluded from page 59.)

KLAPROTH and M. Vauquelin have conjectured that the colour of basalt might be ascribed to carbon; but to confute this supposition, we need only remark, that when a fusible mineral, even if it contains less than ten hundredths of oxide of iron, is heated to a high temperature in a crucible made of clay and pounded charcoal, (crueset brasque) a considerable quantity of iron is produced, as Klaproth has shown in the first volume of his Essays. Messrs. Gueniveau and Berthier assert, moreover, that there remains no more than from three to four-hundredths of oxide of iron in the scoria of highly heated furnances. Now, as lava contains a large proportion of iron, and as the basalt which has been analysed contains from fifteen to twenty-five hundredths of the same substance, it is not probable that carbon could exist in the. presence of so large a quantity of iron without reducing it.*

Is it not possible that if hydrogen be disengaged from volcanos, metallic iron, the oxides of which have the property of reducing

* When these reflections were read before the Academy of Sciences, M. Vauquelin observed that he had found carbon in the ashes ejected by the last eruption of Vesuvius-Annde Chim. tom. xxiii. p. 195.

at a high temperature, may be found in lava? It is at least certain that it does not contain iron in the state of perioxide; for lava acts powerfully on a magnetized bar, and the iron it contains appears to be at the precise degree of oxidation which alone is determinable by water; that is to say, in the state of deutoxide. I have already shown, that if hydrogen be mixed with many times its volume of aqueous vapour, it becomes incapable of reducing oxides of iron.

The necessity which appears to me to exist for the agency of water in volcanic furnaces, the presence of some hundred parts of soda in lava, as also of sea-salt and of several other chlorides, renders it very probable that it is sea-water which most commonly penetrates into them. One objection, however, which I ought not to conceal, presents itself: namely, that it appears necessarily to follow from this supposition, that the streams of lava would escape through the same channels which had served to convey the water, since they would experience a slighter resistance in them than in those through which they are raised to the surface of the earth. It might also be expected that the elastic fluids formed in volcanic furnaces before the ascent of the lava to the surface of the earth, would frequently boil up through those same channels to the surface of the sea. I am not aware that such a phenomenon has ever been observed, though it is very probable that the mophetes, so common in volcanic countries, are produced by these elastic fluids.

On the other hand, we may remark that the long intervals between the eruptions and the state of repose in which volcanos remain for a great number of years, seem to demonstrate that their fires become extinguished, or at least considerably deadened; the water would then penetrate gradually by its own pressure into imperceptible fissures to a great depth in the interior of the earth, and would accumulate in the vast cavities it contains. The volcanic fires would afterwards gradually revive, and the lava after having obstructed the channels through which the water penetrated, would rise to its accustomed vent; the diameter of which must continually increase by the fusion of its coats.These are mere conjectures; but the fact is certain, that water does really exist in volcanic furnaces.

It is evident that the science of volcanos is as yet involved in much uncertainty. Although there are strong grounds for the belief that the earth contains substances in a high degree combustible, we are still in want of those precise observations which might enable us to appreciate their agency in volcanic phenomena. For this purpose an accurate knowledge of the nature of the vapours exhaled by different volcanos is requisite, for the cause which keeps them in activity being certainly the same in each, the products common to all might lead to its discovery. All other products will be accidental; that is to say, they will be the