this labour of love to the rising generation, to posterity, to the interests of eternal truth, and to the temporal welfare of his own family. He was quite sensitive to this appeal, but got rid of it by abruptly saying, he begged that he might be "bored" no longer upon the subject. A still more liberal offer it seems was made for a volume of his sermons after he removed to Bristol, accompanied with the solicitations of his influential friends, but with nearly the same result, though it evidently pained him that he could not accede to their wishes.

The true sequel to this singular aversion to writing for the public, while every thing he sent to press was received with so much applause, is given in one of his letters to a highly respected friend, and is best stated in his own words. "It pains me," he says, "to be condemned and reproached upon a subject which is sometimes a source of more internal uneasiness than is generally supposed. I am far from being satisfied with my own conduct in this particular, but know not how to remedy it. It is not indolence, I can truly say, which prevents me, but a certain fastidiousness and difficulty of being pleased, which really rises to the magnitude of a mental disease. I feel myself in all my performances so short of that standard which I have formed in my own mind, that I can truly say I contemplate my little productions with a kind of horror. If I could dismiss this feeling, I should much oftener try the patience of the public."

Another opportunity presented itself, which he readily embraced, of testifying his reverence for his father's memory. Mrs. Hall, in advanced age, the relict of Mr. Hall of Arnsby, and motherin-law of our lately deceased friend, died in the spring of this year; and he delivered on this occasion a remarkably appropriate discourse from Deut. xxxiii. 5. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.' Towards the close he spoke to the following effect. "I shall say but little on the character of the deceased. My dear and honoured father when living, bore testimony to her piety and worth, and she uniformly walked as becomes a christian. She was a retired character, but whenever opportunity offered she made it her business to recommend to others that pillar of truth on which her own hope was inscribed. It was religion, and that alone, that stamped worth upon her life; and it was that alone which enabled her to hope for peace in death. The mercy promised to Israel was equally adapted to her and to all true believers: as is thy day, so shall thy strength be. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting

arms."

It had long been remarked by persons visiting Leicester, that the people at Harvey Lane had the best preacher and the worst clerk in all christendom; and the time was now come for correcting this glaring incongruity. To the coarse provincialism of the good man who read the hymns, was

added a most inharmonious voice, with a vehemence of utterance that thrilled and grated on every ear; and often were they compelled to hear him sing out, Tossed to and fro, his passions fly, from vanite to vanity.' Mr. Hall however was never disconcerted by the illiteracy of his precentor, whose piety and simplicity made amends for all; and when an attempt was made to displace him from his eminence, the sympathy of his beloved pastor prevented the indignity, and delayed the attempt at innovation. At length the act of toleration expired; and at the request of the influential members of the church, leave was given to put an end to vanite and vanity.'

Nothing could be more amiable, sometimes nothing more amusing, than the manner in which Mr. Hall exercised his forbearance, especially when sterling piety and moral worth could be pleaded as the redeeming quality of intellectual weakness or inadvertence. Anecdotes of this sort are innumerable; and trivial as they severally appear, they tend to illustrate the dignified simplicity of his character, far more than great achievements, which, though more splendid, possess fewer attractions for the heart. It was the constant accumulation of benevolent sympathies, the incessant overflow of mercy, tenderness and love, that formed the greatest character that ever appeared on earth, and invested incarnate deity itself with the most attractive forms of glory and beauty; and the distinguishing excellence required of his followers con

sists in the prominence given to those virtues in which human nature is most deficient, humility, meekness, patience, which form the truest test of moral discipline and christian attainment.

After recovering from one of those paroxysms of pain and sickness, in which his life seemed to be in jeopardy, Mr. Hall delivered a very interesting discourse from Rev. xxi. 4. "Neither shall there be any more pain.' Having considered our natural susceptibility of pain, and the various sources from whence it flows, he enlarged on the utility of this part of the divine economy; observing that it laid the foundation of parental discipline, before reason had established her empire, of juridical law for the protection of society, rendering magistracy a terror to evil doers; was stationed as a sentinel to give warning of approaching danger, directing to the selection of proper food for the nourishment and preservation of life, the monitor of mortality, teaching man his liability to death, the parent of sympathy and benevolence, cherishing a feeling of commiseration for the afflicted and distressed, contributing to the great ends of christian sanctification, by producing greater weanedness from the world, an incapacity for its unsatisfying pleasures and pursuits, and a deepened sense of dependence upon God. But in the life to come this mode of discipline will no longer be necessary; there will be no sin to subdue, no evil to correct, therefore no more pain, but sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Always mindful of casual events, Mr. Hall suffered none of them to pass away without some moral or religious improvement, and found in the commonest incidents some topic of conversation or discourse. Having been invited to dine with a friend, who had provided a plain but very substantial dish, which he relished with more than a common zest; for it was but seldom that he partook of food with any thing like an appetite; he repeatedly noticed to a friend afterwards, the exquisite flavour of the viand, which furnished a singular topic for the lecture on the following evening. His text was Psal. xxii. 26. The meek shall eat and be satisfied.' After several interesting remarks on the wisdom and goodness of God in opening to us so many sources of pleasure, in adapting food to the palate, and giving a capacity to enjoy it, he considered the immediate end and object of eating to be the gratification it afforded, the sustenance of human life being only remote and subordinate; and from hence deduced the leading theme of the discourse,-that true religion gives a relish for spiritual food, or that it consists in the love of the truth for its own intrinsic excellence, for the exquisite enjoyment and satisfaction it affords, independently of its ultimate results, and that this is one of the principal tests of a true and saving change of heart.

Mr. Hall had long complained of great inconvenience from the number of persons continually