which the ancestors of Judge Phillips enforced all moral duties, and especially those which tended to deepen the impressions of the Sanctuary. The Judge imitated, but in his own thoughtful way, the godly example of his progenitors. In his zeal for the observance of the Sabbath, as in other particulars, he reminds us of Sir Matthew Hale. Every Sabbath noon, during the intermission of the church services, this farmer, merchant, senator, judge, Governor, was in the habit of reading some treatise on practical religion, to the worshippers who could not return to their homes; he continued this exercise after his declining health had rendered it oppressive to him, and on his death-bed he earnestly requested that his survivors would persevere in the duty thus begun by himself. In all his outward observances, he remembered with a filial piety, the exemplary life of his father, and not seldom did he breathe out such words as the following, which were among the last utterances ever penned by him:

"Who can tell how many blessings the prayers of our pious ancestors have procured for their descendants! Let us, my dear son, be equally faithful even unto death, to our God, to ourselves, and to those who shall be born after us. Greatly aggravated will be our condemnation, if we should degenerate with such examples before us. Should we ever be left to such a woful defection, (which God forbid !) what reason will our posterity have to upbraid us therefor!"1

With all his caution, he was, and was considered to be, a "Progressive" in the church. His reverend ancestors had been such before him. "Thus, as early "Thus, as early as the year 1788, we find him elaborately discussing with his uncle at Exeter, the question whether the interests of religion and the general good might not be advanced, by removing gentlemen of the clergy from places of less to those of "When a greater consequence in particular cases.' "2 council was convened in 1792 at Newbury, in the case of his friend Dr. Tappan's call from that church to the Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge, he attended as dele

1 Memoir, p. 293.

2 Ibid. pp. 295, 296.

gate with his pastor, and assisted in adjusting the very delicate questions which were mooted." He was careful not to open the door of innovation further than necessary to introduce improvements, but his mind was fertile in the suggestion of new plans for doing good. As in his early life he had instituted measures which were connected ultimately with the originating of the American Education Society, so in the last year of his life did he devise a scheme which had an obvious influence in the establishment of the New England Tract Society; both of these Societies being afterward formed under the shadow of his own elms at Andover. Such was his grave and didactic style of conversation, that aged Christians prized his intimacy and counsel, yet in an eminent degree was he the friend of the children. "I have travelled with him," says the now venerable Quincy, "from Boston to Andover alone, then a journey of the chief part of a day; his discourse, adapted to a boy as I was then, was full of sweetness and instruction." "I cannot, in language, do justice to the interest and affection with which, on these occasions, he excited the young mind." "His love of the young was intense. He delighted in the poetry of Watts, which he seemed to have, all of it, by heart, so readily and appositely he introduced it in conversation, accompanied by a never ceasing flow of wise maxims, given not with an air of authority, but as the natural outpouring of a good and kind heart." 2

But we will do no further wrong to Mr. Taylor's Memoir, by attempting to transfer to these pages his graphic portraiture of Judge Phillips's consistent, stable, energetic and tender piety. We must leave the best part of the Biography untouched.

Our readers will anticipate that a life so overtasked with labor, was prematurely closed. On the tenth of February, 1802, the good man died, aged fifty years and five days. He had been afflicted with a chronic asthma, which terminated in a pulmonary consumption. On the eleventh of

1 Memoir, p. 296.

2 Ibid. p. 326.

February, his friend, Governor Strong, in an appropriate message, announced the decease to the Legislature then sitting in Boston. On the fifteenth, appropriate solemnities were held both in Boston and Andover.

In Boston, "the members of the Legislature moved in procession to the old brick meeting-house, where the Rev. Dr. Baldwin, Chaplain of the House, delivered a very pertinent and pathetic discourse from John i. 47, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.' The Rev. Dr. Thacher, Chaplain of the Senate, concluded the solemnity with prayer. At two o'clock, all the bells in town commenced tolling, and continued until four o'clock, during which time minute guns were discharged by Captain Johonot's company.

"At Andover the remains of the deceased were entombed with those demonstrations of esteem, respect, and affection, which his singular worth demanded." "At the meeting-house, a select choir of singers performed an anthem. The throne of grace was pertinently and fervently addressed by the Rev. Mr. French, whose fast flowing tears testified his sincere grief for the loss of his most excellent parishioner and beloved friend. The Rev. Dr. Tappan delivered an affecting discourse from the words,‘Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men;' in which he delineated in just and glowing colors the character of the illustrious deceased Christian, Patron of Science, and Patriot. An anthem suitable to the solemn occasion closed the service. His Excellency Governor Gilman, and other eminent characters from New Hampshire, paid a just tribute to departed worth, piety, and patriotism, by attending the funeral rites of this highly venerated and esteemed magis

trate.

"The Committee of the Legislature omitted to recommend any military escort on the occasion, in consequence of the carnest request of the deceased, expressed a few days before his death, he being apprehensive that the health of his fellow-citizens at this season of the year might be affected by the service."1

We recently looked upon Judge Phillips's coffin, honored with the armorial bearings of the Commonweath, and lying in his family tomb, within a few inches from the remains of his grandfather, the Andover divine. Not many years ago, the old inscription having been effaced, the name of PHILLIPS was carved upon the granite slab covering the tomb. But a few years hence, this new inscription will be obliterated, and a newer will take its place. Still, he has one monument

1 Boston Centinel, quoted by Mr. Taylor, pp. 318, 319.

that time will never wear away. His epitaph is written upon the Institution which he reared, and which stands as his enduring memorial. Other men have been ambitious of a posthumous fame. He was willing to lose renown, and has therefore attained it. Not less than five thousand men have carried into the learned professions an impress from his mind. He will enstamp his influence on thousands yet to be educated in one or another of the schools which he started into life. His deeds form an instructive commentary on the uses of wealth. Had he died a merely rich man, the letters which compose his name might still have been seen. But now, the man himself is known and loved; his example is a stimulus to enterprise, and every College in New England has reason to rejoice in his abiding influence. Some men have been careful to write the inscription to be placed upon their own tomb-stones. But his is a living inscription, that flourishes and grows broader and higher in the augmenting multitude who enjoy his charities and distribute the fruits of them among the churches of our land. There is no way in which a man of wealth can be so certain of a beneficent life through succeeding ages, as in the endowment of a Christian school; for a school has, in itself, an element of power; and a Christian school retains, augments, and diffuses the influence which it has once acquired.

The history of Judge Phillips affords a vivid illustration of our "social liabilities." The firm and stern moral principle of his ancestors, remained a blessing to the third and fourth generation of their descendants, and will continue to enrich them. Those old Puritan divines made a strong impression upon their contemporaries, and it is not effaced by the friction of succeeding ages. But influence works upward as well as downward, backward as well as forward. The iniquities of children are visited upon their fathers, as well as the iniquities of fathers upon their children. So the virtues of descendants are an honor to their ancestors, as well as the virtues of ancestors are an ornament to their posterity. There were other pastors in the New World, as estimable as the second pastor of Rowley. But some of them had no children, and are forgotten. Many

women were in New England, as goodly as Sarah Appleton, whose sermon was preached by her grandson; but she was the mother of the Salem goldsmith, and from him has come a long line of men more precious than rubies. The rich life of Gov. Phillips has incited the recipients of his charities to inquire for his ancestors, to commemorate their virtue, and give them a fitting place among the benefactors of the world. Without such a race of descendants, those noble men and women might have carried into the grave with them much of that historic life, which is to be embalmed in the reverence of a coming age.

We close this notice with an expression of our earnest hope, that statesmen, jurists, and clergymen, men of wealth and men of popular influence, young men who need a lesson on the value of time, and the worth of a well balanced mind and heart, will peruse this Memoir of a Christian whose character, unlike that of many exalted personages, "will bear examining." The volume, which we have read in its unbound sheets, is beautifully printed by the Congregational Board of Publication, and is enriched with costly engravings. We had previously studied with some care, the life and labors of Judge Phillips, and when we learned, to our surprise, that the plan of his Memoir had been matured, and the materials of it accumulated by Mr. Taylor, we were solicitous to ascertain how far the results of his larger investigation corresponded with our ideal. He constructed and arranged the Biography without consulting a single individual, and he wrote the entire volume without the knowledge of more than one or two individuals, concerned in the Institutions at Andover. Yet his careful mind has arrived at conclusions, some of which are new to us, but all of which we have ample reason to believe are accurate. His own still and solitary investigation has made him an independent witness to various important truths, involved in the deeds of one who died before his biographer was born. Voltaire once remarked: "I write history to be read, not to be believed." Mr. Taylor writes designing and deserving to be believed; for he