Missionary Register. VOL. II.] JULY, 1821. [No. 1. Biography. MEMOIR OF THE REV. THOMAS SCOTT, RECTOR OF ASTON SANFORD. THE following Memoir of the Rev. THOMAS SCOTT, notwithstanding it embraces but little more of his long and useful life than the period of his last sickness, will be interesting to all who have read and admired his Force of Truth, and his Commentary on the Bible. It is copied from the Christian Observer of April last; and, as limited as it is, we have thought proper to place it in our biographical department. MEMOIR, &c. THIS faithful and laborious servant of God, has at length been called to his eternal rest. His death took place on Monday evening the 16th inst. after an illness which confined him to his bed exactly five weeks. Leaving to others the commemoration of his long continued and very useful labours, or rather committing them all to Him who has, no doubt, bestowed upon them the best applause-" Well done, good and faithful servant!"-We confine ourselves to a few facts pertaining to the latter part of his life. Though Mr. Scott possessed, as he expressed on his death-bed, a sort of "iron strength" of constitution, yet he at no part of his life enjoyed good health. For many years, and perhaps never more than during the four years and a half (from Jan. 1788 to June 1792) employed upon the first edition of his Commentary, he suffered severely from bilious complaints and asthma. These distressing affections, however, had for a long time past subsided to a July, 1821. 1 surprising degree; but a liability to attacks of inflammatory fever, succeeded to them, which repeatedly endangered and at length terminated his life. For seven or eight years past, various infirmities had confined him to the immediate neighbourhood in which he resided, and most of the time to his very small parish, not containing seventy souls. His labours, however, as a student, and with his pen, were undiminished and it is not twelve months since he wrote to one of his family, "I believe I work more hours daily in my study than ever I did in my life." His only relaxation was cultivating his garden, when the weather would permit his thus employing an hour or two in the afternoon. Increasing deafness had of late nearly precluded him from conversation, in which he used to take great delight, and reduced him almost to a life of solitude, in the midst of a family who greatly loved and were tenderly beloved by him. A mind thus always at work, and unrelieved in its labours, must necessari |