abound in the charity, zeal, and hopeful ardour, which I have thus attributed to him: and, from letters which have passed between us, under circumstances that might well have inflamed an angry spirit, or hardened a contracted one, I have additional cause to know, that, in the uprightness of Mr. Kelly's heart, there lives the high-born spirit of what is truly "honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report," the express characteristic of a Christian gentle

man.

With Mr. Kelly I have been thus brought into communication, in consequence of certain notices which appeared in the Christian Observer for the January of the present Those notices were called forth in consequence of year. Mr. Kelly's letter on the last days of Mr. Knox, and of a communication from myself to the Review. They are so essentially personal to me, and so wholly innocuous, that (as altogether irrelevant to the point at issue) I pass them by without a remark.

I proceed, therefore, to the question in debate between Mr. Kelly and myself; and if, in discussing this, I am compelled to be diffuse, I may hope to be excused by all who are alive to the value of truth; and who attach to the truths which this question involves, a great, and perhaps not an undue, importance.

In examining testimonies, on both sides, it is my wish to act fairly; not, in any degree, in the spirit of a bigoted partisan. I have, certainly, a formed opinion; but, so far as I knew myself, that opinion was not confirmed until after examination of the entire evidence. I came to the inquiry with no determination of opinion: in conducting the examination, I wish to prejudice no man. I desire to lay the aspect of the whole truth open; and I leave every one (I may say with indifference) to judge impartially for himself. Truth is, conscientiously, the one object I have in view. Truth--(the great truth, the truth of God's word) -that cannot be, in any way, affected by the result of the inquiry whether Mr. Knox thought, at the last, as he had been thinking through life. The alleged versatility of his opinions does not affect the solid character of his argument

ative proofs. If he had died recanting every doctrine he had formerly upheld, such recantation would not weaken. one link in the chain of his reasonings, nor detract one tittle of evidence from the word of Scripture, and the concurrent sense of primitive antiquity-those solid grounds on which he studiously founded. To say otherwise, is to say that the right interpretation of God's word varies with the impression which it makes, at various times, on an individual's feelings. It is to say, virtually, that, if, in the days of his impaired mental powers, Newton had begun to suspect that he was not sufficiently Ptolemaic, that doubt would have unhinged the frame of his well-compacted and immutable Principia.

But Mr. Knox's recorded sentiments will be found to bear out, to the last, the opinions and reasonings of his former years. To the end, he will be seen to be in harmony with himself; he uttered only one voice as to the uniform tenor of his doctrinal belief; his hope rested always on the same support; he derived comfort under one view of Christ, his Saviour, alone; and he confidently appealed to one only test, that, in relying so on Christ, he did not deceive himself.

There are three points to which I wish to direct attention first, that Mr. Knox is charged with depression of spirits; secondly, that this depression is accounted for by the failure of religious support necessarily consequent on unsoundness of doctrinal opinions; or (as it is called) "not sufficiently evangelical views;" and, thirdly, that, before his death, Mr. Knox "began to suspect" the correctness of his views, and that he was "disposed to trace the existing depression of his mind to the fact that his views had not been sufficiently evangelical."

These several points are so implicated, that, in dealing with one, I may trench sometimes on the province of the others; but the reader will, I hope, without confusion, be able to retain, throughout, distinct impressions of the several portions of the one kindred and connected subject.

I apply myself, first, to the fact of Mr. Knox's depression, and of its real nature, as opposed to that which is

assigned; and, secondly, to the alleged fact that he did, himself, trace that depression to the failure of his theories, which, however ingenious, he began to suspect were unsound, or defective at least, as not being sufficiently evangelical.

As to the fact of Mr. Knox's depression, there exists no difference of opinion. All who knew him are aware that he was, through life (though with great difference of intensity at different periods), subject to occasional physical depression, from severe nervous disease. Of that, the present volumes will furnish evidence-evidence which the feelings of private affection, commiserating this frequent infirmity of the noblest minds, would, to a considerable degree, have veiled; but from which the veil is now torn by hands that have sought to shroud his mind in a darker-a spiritual— covering. The volume which contains Mr. Knox's Letters, and, still more affectingly, that portion of it which embraces his diary, will sufficiently declare the amount of his nervous depressions, the modes in which his disease operated, and the causes to which he attributed it. We have the evidence of others, as well as of himself, to this part of our subject. I refer to the entire tenor of that volume; contenting myself, at present, with fixing the attention on some prominent features of his constitutional disease.

That it was rooted in him from youth, we possess the remarkable evidence of one of his earliest, truest, and most distinguished friends. That it rose, at one period, to an alarming height, threatening almost a temporary subjugation of his fine powers of reason, the testimony of his own pathetic writings will declare: that, through the mature stage of his existence (and, strikingly, from the time of his devoting himself wholly to the pursuit of religion) the constitutional tendency was wonderfully overruled and modified, will be seen in a course of more than thirty years' letters; and that, finally, the clouds of nature were mysteriously permitted to gather round him, but never so as to eclipse the sun of heaven, though the light was often deeply sobered, and broke out in gleams only of partial brightness. That such was his course, and such his end, these volumes will

testify and, while they testify it, they will bear witness that his hope never failed him; that he beheld God always under one aspect; and that the character of his support was invariably the same.

The fourth volume commences with letters from the celebrated John Wesley. That venerable and amiable man was the early, the hereditary, and paternal friend of the young Alexander Knox. He loved him tenderly; and faithfully did he give him strong and cheering comfort, with sound advice. In the year 1776 (Knox being then eighteen), his great friend thus notices the fact of his depression, and accounts for it after his own way: "Your almost continual depression of spirit is a bodily as well as spiritual malady; and it is permitted to repress the fire of youth, and to wean you from the desire of earthly things." "I judge your disorder to be but partly natural, and partly divine,—the gift of God." Again, in 1777, “No, God has not forgotten you. You must not say, 'He hideth away his face, and he will never see it.' Surely God hath seen it, and He cannot despise the work of his own hands; but he frequently delays giving bodily health, till he heals soul and body together. Perhaps this is his design concerning you. Meantime, I give you a word for your consideration: Why art thou so heavy, O my soul? and why art thou so disquieted within me? O put thy trust in God! I shall yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God."

In the year 1778 he continues writing in a like strain: "It is a natural effect of your bodily weakness, and the turn of your mind, that you are continually inclined to 'write bitter things against' yourself. Hence, you are easily persuaded to believe him that tells you that you are 'void of every degree of saving faith.""

In 1779: "The whole account which you still give convinces me more and more of what I have, once and again, observed concerning the nature of your disorder. It is undeniable, 1st, that you have a bodily complaint-your nerves are greatly disordered; and, although it is only now and then that this rises so high as to occasion a fit, yet it has a

constant influence upon you, so as to cause dejection of spirit: this dejection is no more imputed to you as a sin, than the flowing of the blood in your veins," &c.

In 1780: "You are very ingenious in finding out arguments against yourself; and, if you set your wit to it, they will never be wanting. Besides, there is an old Sophister who has been puzzling causes for these six thousand years, that will always be ready to supply you with reasons for every kind of unbelief."

The fact of Mr. Knox's habit of depression in early youth, amounting almost to despondency, is clearly proved by these extracts: it is clear, also, that, even then, he was accustomed to bring severe and exaggerated accusations of conscience against himself.

From 1790, in which year the last of Mr. Wesley's letters is dated, I possess, not only no consecutive record, but have discovered scarce a trace of Mr. Knox's thoughts or feelings till 1795. Soon after this period they again appear, marked in dark characters by his own hand. In 1799 a severe nervous illness withdrew him (at a time of most deeply interesting engagement) from the occupation in which he was then employed, under his friend, Lord Castlereagh; and he came to England to seek health, at once from change of air and scene, and by estrangement from the perplexities of political business. In the letters and diary of this period, he paints his depression in the gloomiest colours. He alludes to feelings of a similar character, under which he suffered in 1797, when, says he, "I went down to Derry for medical advice, which availed nothing I fell into black despair.” "But (he adds) it was not stupid despair, like what I now feel." This expression sufficiently denotes the dark and dead character of his depression at that period. For the more enlarged particulars, I refer to the diary and letters of the years 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802.

About the year 1803 a brighter period commences. His epileptic fits had then entirely left him; and, as the consequence or accompaniment of this constitutional amendment, a quieter, more cheerful, and more settled state of spirits