"Like us, who, 'mid the various hours Led on and taught as we have been, "Darkness, 'tis true, and death must come; Oh, who will keep a troubled mind, An equal calmness let us wear; We may not lean on things of dust; Salisbury and Vergennes, September 4th and 5th."-Pp. 220, 221. Mr. Ware's indisposition continuing, it became evident to himself that it was necessary to resign the charge of his congregation. Alas! that it was so soon necessary! We never remember to have read a more affecting testimony of regard towards a minister from his flock than that which emanated from the committee appointed to take the subject of his resignation and the choice of a successor into consideration. The strength of the affection which it expresses, the earnestness of tone which pervades it, will make it deeply impressive to every reader. 66 It having pleased God, in his afflictive providence, to stay our Pastor in his course, by visiting him with severe sickness, and depriving him of his strength, so that, for many months, he has been unable to minister at the altar, or teach and guide his flock, he has been led, after anxious deliberation, to resign the office he has held, and ask that the connection between us may cease. "The solemn question is then before us, Shall we accede to this proposal, and consent that the connection between us and him shall be dissolved? "He tells us, that he is no longer able to fulfil his duties towards us, that he has attempted to perform some part of them and his strength has failed him, that he sees us as a sheep without a shepherd, that he is, by night and day, anxious on our account, while his anxiety avails not to our benefit, and only adds strength to his own disease. "We know his character and feelings. We understand what he refers to, when he speaks of duties he is no longer able to perform. We have had him before us for twelve years, and we cannot soon forget the example he has set of the pastoral character. "He, indeed, hears instruction given us, and prayers offered for us, on the Sabbath. But he asks in vain, as we ask in vain, Who fills his place in the chamber of the sick, by the bed of the dying, and in the house of the poor, the widow, and the fatherless? Who is there to go about, as he did, doing good among our families, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and sharing the sorrows of those who weep, bringing to our firesides and to our domestic circles an example of the Christian life, and shewing to all what a cheerful and blessed thing it is to be religious after the religion of the Gospel? "While these offices are not performed, we, who know our Pastor's sense of their importance, cannot be surprised that his solicitude on our account should be unfavourable to the restoration of his strength. "He speaks of the happiness of his connection with us for twelve years, and of the ties which he had hoped that death only should dissolve. We can bear our testimony to the faithfulness and success of his labours during that period, and feel that these ties are as binding upon each one of us as upon him. "For twelve years he has given his strength, his time, his powers of mind and of body, by night and by day, to us. We believe, that, in sincerity, in fidelity, in constancy and disinterestedness, his services have been without example. He has always cared for us, for our families, and for our children, more than for himself. He has spared himself no trouble; he has omitted no occasion of doing us good. He has worn himself out in our service. And now, when his health is gone and his strength has failed, he comes to render back his office into our hands, and asks to depart in peace, that, as he can do no more for us, he may not come between us and our welfare, and we may be relieved from the burden of his support. "In this state of things we believe we give utterance to the single and universal feeling of his people when we say, that we cannot consent to the separation. 'We are not yet willing to give Mr. Ware up.' We therefore unanimously recommend, that our Pastor be desired to remain with us; and that measures be taken for the choice of some person of piety and ability, on whom we may unite, to be his colleague; to assist him in the discharge of his duties, and share with him the burdens of his office."-Pp. 242-244. Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson was chosen colleague to Mr. Ware in Jan. 1829, and soon afterwards Mr. Ware set forth on his visit to Europe, in company with the beloved Mary, his second wife, daughter of Mark Pickard, Esq., merchant of Boston, to whom he was united in June 1827. Mr. Ware's merits as a writer have an inseparable connection with his value as a pastor. To elevate the character and assist the influence of the Christian ministry, and to put new materials into the hands of his brethren for the improvement of the young, were objects nearest and dearest to his heart; and in these objects he has been eminently successful. His "Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching," and his discourse "on the Connection between the Duties of the Pulpit and the Pastoral Care," both reprinted in this country, are full of important practical suggestions. They breathe and cherish that earnestness of spirit and purpose which the ministry absolutely requires, and which it is necessary and delightful to keep alive and foster, even when the practical course which education, habits and talents recommend, may be very different in different individuals. His "Life of the Saviour," "Recollections of Jotham Anderson,” treatise "on the Formation of the Christian Character," and discourse "on the Duty of Improvement," are admirable auxiliaries to the minister who would implant and sustain the most salutary religious impressions in the youthful mind. They have often been reprinted, and they are highly and justly appreciated. If Mr. Ware's enthusiasm had not been devoted so resolutely to the results of his profession as a Christian minister, he would have been greatly distinguished as a poet. Some very pleasing specimens of his poetical powers and taste are given in this Memoir. We admire the lines beginning, ""Tis well to worship where the pomp of man intrudes not," and the lines on that affecting circumstance, the destruction of the family who left the Willey House for safety when part of the White Mountain fell. The whole family perished in their flight, while the house itself remained standing and safe. "In their fear they fled -fled from their shelter to the very death they feared." We should quote them for our readers' gratification, but for the length to which our notice of the departed friend is extending. All know, or should know, Mr. Ware's beautiful lines on Prayer. They are to be found in Mr. Martineau's admirable collection of Sacred Poetry. When La Fayette visited the United States in 1824, Mr. Ware participated deeply in the general enthusiasm ; and the person originally appointed to deliver a poem at the annual celebration of the Phi Beta Kappa Society having failed to make his appearance, Mr. Ware came to supply his place, and produced some verses founded on two dreams which, as related by two friends, had struck his fancy, and which he had versified amid the strong excitement of the week. A sweet and beautiful domestic picture is given in the Memoir of a family meeting which took place at his father's house on the 20th of August, 1835,-a father-Dr. Ware, Senior-who deserved all the attachment and honour which such a meeting indicated, and all the happiness which can accompany such meetings. Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, assembled to the number of fifty-two, and dined in one room, of all ages, from the patriarch of three-score years and ten, to the infant of a few days old. "We are coming! we are coming! What a merry host we are! Laughing, shouting, singing, drumming, We are coming, Grandpapa!" was the merry salutation and greeting, followed by other cheerful lines, provided on the occasion by Mrs. E. B. Hall, the sister of Mr. Ware, while the following simple but sweet couplets were composed by himself to be sung after dinner: "Children's children are the crown of old men, "For all the faithful, loved, and dear, Whom thou so kindly, Lord, hast given; "For every past and present joy; For honour, competence, and health; "For all, accept our humble praise; Still bless us, Father, by thy love; We hope that we may yet see portions of a poem 66 on the Dream of Life," which he dictated to his wife, or wrote with a pencil in bed with his eyes closed. In his latest hours he was engaged in collecting materials for, and made some considerable progress in, the preparation of Essays on English Lyric Poetry, having sought out works on its history and criticism. He has brought to our recollection the sentiment of Hallam towards the close of a beautiful critique on Milton. They who, though not enduring the calamity of Milton, have known 66 what it is, when afar from books, in solitude, or in travelling, or in the intervals of worldly care, to feed on poetical recollections, to murmur over the beautiful lines whose cadence has long delighted their ear, to recall the sentiments and images which retain by association the charm that early years once gave them-they will feel the inestimable value of committing to the memory, in the prime of its power, what it will easily receive and indelibly retain. I know not, indeed, whether an education that deals much with poetry, such as is still usual in England, has any more solid argument among many in its favour, than that it lays the foundation of intellectual pleasures at the other extreme of life." But Mr. Ware was not in the "extreme of life," as it is usually termed, when he was thus occupied. He sunk at an age when the strong man is in the maturity of his powers and the meridian of his career. He never became a strong man after his first serious attack; and though his exertions were very great after his return to the States, though his mind and hands were incessantly occupied, yet the taper of life trembled with every gust, and threatened at every instant to become extinct. Besides the works already mentioned, he edited a Life of Oberlin; a Memoir of Dr. Priestley, with selections from his works; published an address explaining and justifying the combination against Intemperance, of which 20,000 copies were speedily published and distributed; set on foot a "Sunday Library;" printed a valuable tract, entitled, "An Outline of the Scripture Testimony against the Trinity;" and took such a part in the Anti-Slavery movement as exposed him to much obloquy and danger among many friends, and must endear him to the hearts of all parties in this country. Such was Henry Ware. He died the 21st of September, 1843,-not reaching his fiftieth year,—with a mind "intensely active to the last— full of thoughts-bright, pure thoughts-precious thoughts of time, of death, of immortality"-in the first rank among the faithful of Christian ministers among the most disinterested and virtuous of beings. His intellectual powers would have appeared more brilliant, would have been more highly thought of, if they had not been balanced and directed so nicely by the moral principles and the gentler affections. He saw into the merits of every subject which he touched, and exhibited in clear light the full practical sense which properly belonged to it. He was not anxious to do more than to exhibit and impress the right and the true, and to bring uppermost what was important and useful for the occasion; and in this his art was perfect. His intellectual vision was clear to see and distinguish, and his practical skill and talent remarkable and incomparable. If called upon for proof of this, we should point to his correspondence with Mr. Emerson, now a writer of some note, the passages referring to whom in this Memoir are not among the least interesting and impressive to our minds. In reply to a letter and sermon of Mr. Ware's, Mr. Emerson says, "I have always been,-from my very incapacity of methodical writing,—' a chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail,-lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated fully the advantages of my position; for I well know that there is no scholar less willing or less able to be a polemic. I could not give account of myself, if challenged. I could not possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you cruelly hint at, on which any doctrine of mine stands. For I do not know what arguments mean, in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but, if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men." To all this Mr. Ware replies, it appears, with silence; and it is the only reply possible. If Mr. Emerson has no tests of truth or error in common with other men,-if he have neither the disposition nor power to institute comparisons between the merits of opposite statements and conflicting views, there is no possibility of reasoning with him; and when a man of intelligence and education, who ventures to address his fellow-creatures on topics of interest and importance, proclaims that he does not know "what arguments mean, in reference to any expression of a thought," we must infer that thought with him cannot be expected to be coherent, nor expressions to have their proper and conventional significance. But we must conclude this notice of a sweet departed friend without a hint or thought of other character than that which is accordant with his own pure, gentle and loving nature. Heaven rest his soul! His only error was that he overtasked his strength; he did not husband his resources; he did not look onwards into time, and consider that the Christian, the servant of God, like God, has an eternity before him; that it is a duty ofttimes merely to "wait on the Lord, and thus renew our strength;" that "they also serve who only stand and wait." But it was an error on the right and rare side. The great lesson of his life and memory seems to be that which he expressed in the following words, addressed, immediately before his death, to a young friend preparing for the ministry: "You have gone hither and thither, following the vagaries of human wisdom; and I suppose you can find no rest to your soul, till you fling yourself with perfect simplicity and confiding, childlike docility on the word of divine revelation. Lord, to whom shall I go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.' I feel sure that, if you would escape out of the gulf in which you describe yourself as being, and arrive at substantial peace and self-satisfaction, there is no way but this; the peace and joy of believing.' I cannot but hope that you have already found it so. Cut yourself off from those secondary masters, who are fumbling about in the chaos of human opinions and uncertain conjectures, and take no master but Christ; you will find that, weary and heavy laden as you may be, he will give rest to your soul. "The greatest misfortune of this time, the greatest drawback to individual growth and social spiritual progress, I fear, is the substitution of Philosophy for Christianity, of Speculation for Faith; and I really have no wish for you, as a man and a minister, except that you may be heartily persuaded of this, and do accordingly.”—Pp. 436, 437. Bayswater. E. T. P.S. It is due to the Rev. A. B. Muzzey, who visited us in 1843, to take this opportunity of stating that his feelings towards the English brethren have been much misunderstood in consequence of the improper publication of a letter, intended to be strictly private, written at an early stage of his visit to this country. His subsequent impressions were wholly different from those which were first hastily expressed, and afterwards printed, to his deep regret. He saw much in private and in public among his Unitarian friends-a devotion and enthusiasm -which we know excited his warmest regard, and called forth sentiments of esteem as delightful as unexpected. |