TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR AND VENERABLE FRIEND, THE REV. ROBERT HALL, Who died in the 63d year of his age, on March 13, 1791. AND is my much-respected friend no more? Is all that stock of true substantial worth He lived down slander, and of foes made friends?- In which as life declined he ripen'd fast, And shone still more and more to perfect day? That tender sympathy, that often soothed The sorrowing heart, and wiped the mourner's tear?— That sweet humility, and self-abasement, With which we heard him oft invoke his God; Which ne'er assumed, though first in counsel skill'd, (If he were there, it seem'd that all were there; Destroy'd, and sunk at once to rise no more? Dear friend! (for still I fain would talk to thee) Nor sit, nor walk, as erst with pleasure wont, ... No... this is past . . . nor ought seems left for me, Dear friend! I saw thee burden'd, years ago, With heavy loads of complicated grief; And grief more complicate, though less intense, But tribulation patience in thee wrought, And such a stock of rich experience this, That few like thee could reach the mourner's case, We saw thee ripen in thy later years, As when rich-laden autumn droops her head: That theme on which thy thoughts of late were penn'd,* It seem'd thy element, the native air Thy holy soul had long been used to breathe. Such things we saw with sacred pleasure; yet "Twas pleasure tinged with painful fear, lest these O thou great Arbiter of life and death! Communion with God, the subject of the Circular Letter for 1789, which was Mr. Hall's last printed performance, And lived for years to come, and bless'd us still: Dear relatives and friends, his special charge! For patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and for those Nor memory alone, the faithful page Is charged with some remains, in which the man *It has been observed that Mr. Hall's last public sermon, in his own connexion, was preached at Olney Association, June 2, 1790, from Acts xx. 24. Neither count I my life dear,-that I may finish my course with joy, &c. VOL. VIII. 61 And his communications yet are seen; In these, though he be dead, he speaketh still.* In one more special wish, that wish should be, 66 Elijah's spirit on Elisha rests." SKETCH OF A SERMON TO YOUNG PEOPLE. Psalm xc. 14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. THE season is returned, my dear young people, in which you expect I should address you on your eternal interests. I hope what I have heretofore said to you, not only on these occasions, but in the ordinary course of my labours, has not been altogether in vain. Some of you, I hope, have already set your faces Zionward. Happy should I be to see many more follow their example! The words which I have read to you express the desire of Moses, the man of God, in behalf of Israel, and especially of the * Mr Hall wrote many of the Circular Letters to the churches of the Northamptonshire and Leicestershire Association, most of which have been noticed already, as well as his Help to Zion's Travellers. He also printed A Charge to Mr. Moreton, delivered at his ordination at Kettering, 1771; and a Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Evans, of Foxton, 1775. rising generation. That generation of men which came out of Egypt with Moses were most of them very wicked. Though God divided the sea to save them, and caused manna to fall from heaven to feed them, with many other wonderful works; yet they did little else than provoke him by their repeated transgressions. Ten times they tempted him in the wilderness; and, to complete their crimes, they despised the good land, and disbelieved His promises who had engaged to put them in possession of it. The .consequence was, Jehovah sware in his wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. So they were all, except Joshua and Caleb, doomed to die in the wilderness. On occasion of this melancholy sentence, (the account of which you will find in the fourteenth chapter of Numbers,) it is supposed that Moses, the man of God, wrote this plaintive psalm; in which he laments over the mortality of man, and supplicates divine mercy to mitigate the doom. And the doom, as it respected Israel, was mitigated, or at least mingled with much mercy. Though the fathers were sentenced to perish in the wilderness, yet the promise was accomplished in the rising generation. Your little ones, said the Lord, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. This younger generation, from that time, became the grand object of hope to Moses, and his companions. Their great business in the wilderness, for thirty-eight years, was to teach them the good knowledge of God, and to form their spirit and manners for his service. How earnestly did Moses pray for the Lord's blessing upon these their labours, towards the close of this psalm. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children; and let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. To the same purpose is the petition which I first read. O satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. These petitions, too, were graciously answered. God's work did appear to Moses and his associates, and his glory to their children, and that at an early period. His spirit was richly poured forth upon the Israelitish youth. The beauty of the Lord their God was upon them, and the work of their hands was established, |