beauties. The glorious achievements of primitive believers, and the unparalleled life of Jesus Christ, fail to attract them. Can it, therefore, be expected, that the exhibition of a comparatively modern disciple should be more successful? Besides—with true history, and especially biography, death stands inseparably connected. This produces unwelcome thoughts of mortality; and, in the cases referred to, every conscious approach to a dying hour is intolerable. The evolutions in a dance of dervishes are not more consentaneous and exact, than the uniformity of such persons in banishing the consideration of futurity.

-"O that men were wise, that they would consider their latter end!"

Ill-tempered bigots, the narrow minded and self-righteous, will find as little to attract their good will. They will, indeed, discern the out-goings of Christian love, and the expansiveness of humility and faith; and the sight, how momentary soever, will operate like dazzling sunbeams upon tender and diseased vision.

It will be far, also, from pleasing the advocates of a spurious, but prevailing, candor; a candor which, though denominated charity,' is the bane of principle, and the murderer of truth. It is certain that Mr. Henry united the boldness indispensable to an earnest contention of the faith with charity ; but it was that charity which, resting upon the basis of inspiration, discovers itself only in connexion with the heart-searching and unerring dictates of the Bible. This will offend, if it does not irritate, the lukewarm, the sceptical, and the careless. By the severity of silent censure it may even provoke malignity.

Nor will this Memoir obtain any better reception among doctrinal and practical Antinomians. They will find such ease in selecting statements opposed to their favorite and pestilential dogmas, as, probably, to provoke their pity for Mr. Henry as a legalist; they will hardly refrain from despising him for the scantiness of his knowledge; his intense opposition to moral evil will amaze them. It will be well, if, in self-defence, they are not driven to bring his very Christianity into question.

But "wisdom," after all, is justified of her children;" and thus much having been said, it shall only be added, in conclusionthat while upon ministers the volume has some peculiar claims, no

individuals can be imagined who may not find in it much that is adapted for their instruction and encouragement. In the display of piety, indeed, all persons, especially Christians, are interested : and all Christians are, or ought to be, preachers; not officially, as Mr. Henry; but by well-doing; by the influence of a conversation becoming the Gospel; by the energy and contrivances of a godly zeal. It is the transcendent praise of the Church of the Thessalonians, that they were not only followers of the apostles, butheralds of the word of the Lord.

Shrewsbury,

May 3, 1828.

JOHN BICKERTON WILLIAMS.

THE LIFE

OF THE

REV. MATTHEW HENRY.

CHAPTER I.

A. D. 1662 to A. D. 1680.

Mr. Henry's Birth-Education-Alarming Illness-Memorial of Mercies -Self-examination, and Evidences of True Grace-Inclination to the Ministry-and Habits.

MATTHEW, the second son of Philip Henry, M. A. and Katherine his wife, was born, October 18, 1662, at Broad Oak, a farm-house situate in the township of Iscoyd in Flintshire, and about three miles from Whitchurch, in the county of Salop.

The learning and piety of Philip Henry have been recorded in a memorial so singularly beautiful,* as to have shed around the name a lustre peculiarly brilliant and sacred, if not unrivalled. Mrs. Henry also, though not equally honored, no memoir having been written concerning her, was a woman of uncommon excellence. She united a cheerful and tranquil mind with intellectual endowments of a superior order; and, in full exemplifi

* See the Life of the Rev. Philip Henry, by his son, the Rev. Matthew Henry.

cation of an inspired portraiture, habitually walked in all the "commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Her celebrated son remarked, that, "in her sphere, and capacity, she was not inferior to what his father was in his.

It will not escape notice, that the natal year of Matthew Henry was that in which, by the well known Act of Uniformity, his apostolical father, and about two thousand other invaluable ministers, were separated from their flocks; prohibited to exercise their high vocation; and, as far as human intent could go, consigned to oblivion.

The circumstance did not pass unobserved; and he records it in his diary, as a thing which "affected" him, that it pertained not to himself only, but to some of his particular friends also: he instances Mr. Matthews of Leicestershire, and Mr. Tong, who were respectively born in 1662. If the observance of divine dispensations be the way to "understand the loving-kindness of the Lord," surely that attribute may be seen in the birth, at such a juncture, of a "holy seed." The constancy of God's injured servants was thus rewarded; and provision was made, in the ministry, for another generation, for whom, in providential mercy, fairer and more peaceful days were appointed. * Re

It is said that Mr. Henry's birth was premature. cently ejected from Worthenbury, his persecuted parents had removed to Broad Oak only about a fortnight before the event; his appearance, therefore, under circumstances so unsettled, created inconvenience, and, being unexpected, surprise. The following day, which was the Sabbath, the ordinance of baptism was adminstered by Mr. Holland, the excellent rector of Malpas.† Mr. Philip Henry desired him to omit the sign of the cross; but its indispensableness being urged, the good man replied, Then, Sir, let it lie at your door. There were, however, no sponsors.

* See his Memoirs, by the Rev. S. Palmer, prefixed to the Exposition.Philadelphia ed. 1829.

t Life of P. Henry. Mr. Tong mentioning Mr. Holland, supposes him Minister of Whitewell Chapel, and probably he was so. That Chapel is served by the Rectors or Curates of Malpas.

During infancy Matthew's health was delicate; and the malady which removed his brother John to heaven threatened his life also. But God, who had a great work for him to do, spared the tender grape for the blessing that was in it; a great blessing to his family, his friends, and the church.

At a very early period his mind displayed the vigor and acuteness for which, through life, it was remarkable ; and it is credibly stated, that, at the early age of three years, he could read in the Bible with distinctness and observation.

The honor of initiating the young nonconformist in grammatical studies devolved upon Mr. Turner, a gentleman who, for a season, resided at Broad Oak, preparatory to an abode at the University. He was a man of integrity and worth, and became afterwards Vicar of Walburton in Sussex. He is chiefly known to the world as the author of a curious" History of Remarkable Providences." The efforts of the scholar kept pace with his privileges; and childish things being put away early, the usual temptations to sloth, and negligence, and frivolity, were voluntarily escaped. His tender mother was often afraid lest he should apply too closely, and was forced, when he was very young, to call him out of his closet; and that his health might not suffer by inordinate confinement and application, to advise him also to take a walk in the fields.

If at Broad Oak the facilities for the attainment of literature were appropriate and valuable, a fact which cannot be doubted, those for acquiring the far more important knowledge of religious truth were no less so. There were the morning and evening exposition of Holy Scripture; the unceasing prayers of eminently devout parents; and, in extraordinary abundance, the instructions which associate with a consistent and holy example.

Some extracts from a letter written in 1671, when Matthew was only nine years old, to his father, then in London, will illustrate this period: and whether viewed as a developement of progress in learning, or, as evincing the effects of a godly education; or, as being probably