miration of the wandering and unsettled. It possessed much of the solid,-the experimental, and judicious; and this secured him the attention and esteem of those, whose approbation any man would esteem it an honour to possess. But this only tended to heighten his danger. God, however, gave him grace equal to his day. His letters during his popularity in London breathe the same spirit of humility as that which marked his earlier correspondence; and a piety seldom surpassed in fervour and sincerity tended to preserve him steady in the midst of that tempestuous sea, upon whose billows, though young and inexperienced, it was his lot to ride.

Numerous and pressing however as were the invitations from different parts of the metropolis and its neighbourhood, yet Mr. Spencer did not preach again in London (except in the work-houses, which the students regularly supplied, and also once in a small chapel in Hackney Road) until September. In the meanwhile his talent for preaching had ample exercise in various parts of the country, which during this period he was allowed to visit. So that, from January 7th to September 8th he preached no less than sixty times. The following are the princi pal places which were then favoured with his labours:Roydon, Godmanchester, Ripton, Bunting

and gladly refer to illustrations of the same subject by more experienced and far abler hands.-See Fuller's Life of Pearce; and Jay's Life of Cornelius Winter. Books in which examples, the one of more public, the other of more retired, but not less transcendant excellence, seem to live before us for our instruction. To every student for the Christian ministry they must prove an invaluable treasure.

ford, Hertford, Dorking, Rumford, Harlow, Royston, Hadham, Hays, Chigwell, and Mill-Hill. At all these places the attention he excited was considerable, and the impression he left remains with the people to this day.*

Mr. Spencer's second sermon at Hoxton chapel was delivered on the evening of Thursday, September 8th. It confirmed the opinion of his excellence produced by the first. His text was, Acts x. 36, He is Lord of all.'

The general sentiment of approbation and delight at first excited by his youthful appearance and his extraordinary pulpit talents, was now deepened and established, and he began to preach pretty extensively in the pulpits of the metropolis and its neighbourhood. On Sunday, September 18th, we find him in the pulpit at Holywell Mount chapel, and on the Sunday following in that at Kennington chapel; and on the afternoon of Sunday, December 13th, he supplied the chapel in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping.† During the autumn of this year he also visited several parts of the country immediately surrounding London; and he preached, among other places, at Upminster, Upsom, Guildford, Roydon, and High Wycombe.

With respect to the wisdom and propriety of permitting such extensive public labours, in one

SO

*For specimens of his early pulpit compositions, see Appendix, No. II.

The church assembling in Old Gravel Lane formerly sat under the ministry of the late Rev. Noah Hill, but now enjoy the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Hooper, one of the tutors in the college at Hoxton.

young, and at so early a stage of his academical course, there will be perhaps a diversity of opinion. On the general question, in which this is but an individual case, there can be but one sentiment. Nothing tends more to dissipate the mind, than much travelling and much society; and particularly injurious to the fixed and laborious habits of a student's life is that kind of intercourse with society, which the young minister, in his occasional visits, usually obtains. The esteem in which, for the most part the name of a minister is held, in the circles which he enters, secures him an attention and an ease by far too flattering not to be injurious; whilst the refined and fascinating manners of some societies but ill prepare the mind for the imperatively severe characters of academic life. But perhaps a far more serious object of regard is the time which is thus necessarily and irretrievably lost to the great and avowed object of his pursuit.—It is impossible to take a review of the past year of Mr. Spencer's life, and number up the several places at which he has preached at some of them two or three times, whilst others he visited more than once, calculating their respective distances from Hoxton, and the time necessarily occupied in travelling, together with the many hours, perhaps days, which must have been consumed in preparing the discourses there delivered-without being struck with a conviction, of the immense loss which in a literary point of view he must have sustained; and the pursuit of literature is, after all, the professed object of our dissenting colleges. Considering too, that this was but Mr. Spencer's second year of stu

dy, and connecting this with the shortness of the term he had to stay, and his exceeding youth, the impression is yet deepened. But Mr. Spencer's was an extraordinary case. His fort was the composition and delivery of sermons. He was at home and happy only in this sacred work. He seemed but to live for this object. Other objects he might contemplate, with respect and even esteem, excited by an impression of their utility and excellenceon this his heart perpetually dwelt with a fervent and impassioned love. It was evidently for this. God had especially designed him; and for the work he had to accomplish, and the early account he had to render, all perhaps are now convinced that he was not suffered to begin too soon. For one whose day of usefulness has proved so short, and over whom the night of death so early and so suddenly has shed its gloom, we cannot but rejoice that the first dawn was devoted to his honourable labour, and not even a solitary hour neglected, from the commencement to the termination of his career.*

Mr. Spencer preached again at Hoxton chapel on Christmas day, morning and evening; and also. delivered an address, on the following evening, at

* A contemplation of the facts connected with the interesting, but melancholy history of Spencer, may however tend to shew, that, whilst much preaching and much travelling are to be depricated as evils, especially in the earlier stages. of a student's course, yet that no specific rules can be established in this case for universal and invariable application. On the propriety of the thing, in every case of students under their care, the TUTORS are the best qualified to decide.

the prayer meeting. A day or two after he left London for Brighton, and preached his first sermon in that celebrated seat of gaiety and fashion on the evening of Thursday, December 29th, at the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel, from Zach. vi. 12, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.' On Sunday, 1st January, 1805, he preached in the afternoon at the Rev. Mr. Styles' chapel, and again in the evening at the Countess'.

I am the more particular in marking the date of his first visit to Brighton, as it commences a new year, and forms also a most important epoch in his history. The interesting and endeared connexions which he afterwards formed there, tend to throw a new and brilliant light upon his character; whilst they shed a softer air of melancholy around the circumstances of his early and lamented fate !*

Alas! of what moment to the Christian minister is the formation of connexions such as these. Delicate as the subject may be, and ill qualified as I feel I am to enter fully into its discussion, I yet cannot suffer it to pass without some observations on its vast importance. By imprudence here, how many have destroyed, if not their character, yet to an alarming extent their usefulness and comfort. Upon the partner which a minister selects much of his happiness depends. He must be indeed a child of

* Those who knew Spencer, will enter fully into the meaning of this paragraph. I owe it however to those who knew him not to say, that tenderness to feelings I should dread to wound, compels me to draw a veil over one of the most in teresting scenes of his life.