a perusal of the whole letter would bring him to Mr. Scott's opinion. During the period embraced in this chapter, Mr. Scott was chiefly occupied in revising his Bible, with the view to a new edition; and in preparing a Concordance. Of the zeal with which, under all his infirmities, he still continued his labours, some notion may be formed from his own brief statements.

"December 10, 1818. Preparing copy, five sheets (forty quarto pages) a week, and correcting proofs, together with the desire of the partners to have the Concordance carried on, purposing ere very long to begin to print it, (as much approving the plan of a revised specimen which I sent,) makes me shrink unduly from letter-writing. I never studied each day more hours than I now do.""

"February 18, 1819. Never was a manufactory more full of constant employment, than our house: five proofs a week to correct, and as many sheets of copy to prepare : and, alas! Mr.seems to stand his part, as to health, worse than I do. The first volume is nearly finished, and I hope much im proved: yet I feel more and more dissatisfied, as discerning more and more the defects. What I have lately been

finishing off, as to the Concordance, is fully approved: but I can do so little now, that I fear it will never be

finished.......

"So I have lived to enter on my seventy-third year, which I never expected; and am still able to study and preach. May it be to good purpose! My feelings are often very uneasy: but I am free from great and sharp suffering. Pray for me, that I may be patient and ready.'"

"April 23, 1819. Nearly a week I was so far confined to my bed as to do nothing. Two Sundays I was disabled from preaching: and last Sunday, with great difficulty, I performed one service. I have also recovered hitherto, very slowly, and am continually harassed by sickness; so that I neither have appetite for food, nor take any without fear of very uneasy consequences. Yet, I have gradually been restored to my usual ability of studying, and fill up my hours nearly as before; but with increasing debility and weariness. This, indeed, must be expected in my seventy

third year, and I would not complain; for surely goodness and mercy have followed me all my days....But, be sides sickness, my employments are a than most have;-four or five proof more full excuse for not writing letters, sheets every week: on an average, each

costs one or other of ns six hours re

vising this besides preparing an equal quantity of copy, and other engage ments. One in Psalms, that arrived last night, has taken me np already almost four hours, and will take up others of us above three hours more. But it is a good and even pleasant employment, and I rejoice in it.'"-pp. 467, 468.

The Concordance he lived not to finish. After years of labour and considerable expense, he finally relinquished it, with the view of attending to matters which appeared to him, in the decline of life, of superior importance. A few months, it seems, might have completed the undertaking; but he deliberately determined, in this respect, to take his labour for his pains; and Cruden, with all his deficiencies-most valuable certainly notwithstanding them all-must, for the present, be the great work of appeal as to Scriptural references. We are happy. however, to learn, that the projected work, although left incomplete by Mr. Scott, is not likely to be abandoned his son informs us, that a topical index to his father's Commentary, upon a plan approved by himself, is in a course of preparation; and that his whole mass of papers (a very large one) pertaining to the Concordance, is in the hands of the person best qualified to turn them to account, if that should be judged practicable and expedient.

We have thus far seen this good man gradually advancing in his Christian course, and, as he increased in knowledge and experience, manifesting more abundantly the grace of God that was in him, and becoming more and more meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. The 16th chapter details to us the account of his last illness and death; and if in any case we may apply to

the dying Christian those familiar ines of Watts, which compare his departure to the setting of the sun, we think that an instance will seldom be found in which they are more appropriate than the present.

"As he comes nearer to finish his race, Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace,

And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days,

Of rising in brighter array."

The narrative of this chapter is derived partly from information communicated by those who were in constant habits of intercourse with Mr. Scott, and partly from the very excellent sermons preached on the occasion of his death by his old and valued friend, the Rev. Daniel Wilson.

We gather from these sources of intelligence, that the event which was to terminate his earthly course had long been anticipated; and that he viewed its approach with calmness and tranquillity. He preached more than once, with an evident reference to himself, from the words of St. Peter, Knowing that I must shortly put off this tabernacle; and expressed in private, his persuasion, that nature was giving way, and his wish, if such were God's will, to be at home. As his infirmities increased, he became the more earnest in prayer that God would support him in his sufferings; and that he might not, as life wore away, say or do any thing that should dishonour his holy profession.

The last sermon he preached was delivered on Sunday, March 4, 1821, from the text, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? In the evening he expounded a passage of Scripture as usual to several of his parishioners at the rectory. The subject of that night was the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican; and he applied to himself in a very affecting manner the prayer of the penitent Publican, God be merciful to me a sinner.

We cannot pass over this little incident without reminding both ourselves and our readers of the time and the place, in which this expression of humility occurred. It was not in a crowded and popular congregation, where some lurking worldly motive might tempt a man to use sentiments of self-abasement which he did not feel; it was not the language of contrition, however sincere, on the part of a young convert, who had hitherto done nothing in the church of Christ: it was the prayer of one who, for a period of nearly fifty years, had given himself, with all his powers, to the work of the ministry; of perhaps the first Biblical scholar of his time; of a man who, both by his preaching, his example, his writings, his encouragement of every great project for the conversion of the heathen world, and his unwearied and indefatigable labours in every department of the Christian ministry, had done more to adorn the Gospel which he taught, than almost any man of the age. It was in a retired nook of the kingdom, in the humble parsonage of a sequestered parish, which could number of all classes but seventy souls,-among a few simple people, who had met to receive from him the plainest instruction,-a little assembly, at which all that is great and aspiring in the land would have looked down with contempt; it was under circumstances like these, and we can conceive none more likely to call forth the genuine feelings of his heart, that this venerable minister, whose works were read with delight in distant regions of the earth, could apply to himself the exclamation of the penitent, God be merciful to me a sinner ! What a picture is this of Christian humility! What a beautiful exemplification of that lowly temper which should distinguish the minister of Christ, even in the season of his most successful exertions!

From this period he began to be so much indisposed as to excite

'In vain my fancy strives to paint

The moment after death,' &c. "Mr. Wilson's funeral sermon was preached on the Friday following. It was our intention, and very much our wish, that it should have been delivered from the same pulpit, whence the venerated servant of Christ who gave occasion to it had, for eighteen years, declared the whole counsel of God: but it was foreseen that the little church of Aston would be utterly inadequate to receive the numbers who would desire to be present. The neighbouring church of Haddenham therefore, which had been kindly offered, was thankfully, though, at the same time, somewhat reluctantly, accepted for the service. The event shewed the necessity of making the exchange, for even that large

building was not sufficient to accommo. date the crowds who assembled. The appearance of the congregation, in which a large proportion of all ranks had provided themselves with mourning, evinced how highly my dear father was esteemed in the neighbourhood, though his infirmities and engagements had conspired for a long time past to

confine him within the limits of his own village." pp. 531, 532.

The concise account which we have here given of the last hours of this excellent man, will appear, to those who are acquainted with the work under review, meagre and unsatisfactory. We must however be contented, in these pages, with a general statement: it is impossible without great injustice to the subject, and to the editor of these memoirs, to attempt any thing further. The particular and very interesting details which occupy the following forty pages, would lose a great part of their effect, if compressed within the limits which we could afford to them. We must therefore decline the task; and CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 251.

shall feel it as an additional motive, if we can hope in this way to prevail upon our readers to have rewill then see, not only that we have course to the work itself. They stood clear of exaggeration, but that it is impossible, by a brief and general view of the case, to afford an adequate impression of its most interesting realities.

In the two concluding chapters, we are furnished with a view of Mr. Scott's character, habits, &c., and an account of his various writings. These chapters are drawn up in a very able manner, aud add in no small degree to the value of the publication. The funeral sermons by Mr. Wilson are too well known to render it necessary for us to make any large extracts from them in this place. To those who are unacquainted with these discourses, we would strongly recommend the perusal of them. The reader will there find a very just description both of the public character of this good man, and of his private excellencies: his determination of mind in serving God, his extraordinary diligence, his exemplary behaviour in domestic life, his devotional spirit, his faith and patience under afflictions, and, finally, the test of his Christian sincerity, in the gradual but regular advances which he made in every branch of real godliness, and especially in overcoming his constitutional failings. These several points are elucidated with Mr. Wilson's usual ability, and we will not weaken the force of his statement by abridging them.·

It is natural that we should regard the observations upon this subject by the biographer himself with certain allowances for the feelings and partialities of a son to his father. But truth requires us to state, that we rise from the perusal with a complete conviction of the exemplary fairness with which he has executed this difficult task, Who that has read the narrative of Mr. Scott's life, can doubt either of the general powers of his uns

5 B

derstanding, or of the Christian temper of his heart? Who can doubt of his practical disregard of worldly emoluments; of the trust which, with reference to temporal as well as spiritual things, he reposed in the promises of God; of the jealousy with which he watched against the influence of a worldly disposition; of his liberality and largeness of heart; and of his catholic spirit towards men of real piety, wherever he found them? The illustrations which are here furnished, on these and other similar points, are highly pleasing, and they are amply borne out by the history with which we were previously acquainted.

we

The only question in our minds is, whether Mr. Scott did not seem to carry his notions on some of these matters to an extreme. We allow that, if he erred, he erred on the safe side but when we find him asserting, that although are to live at the altar, yet a living, a bare decent maintenance, without any avaricious or ambitious views of advancing ourselves or our families, or hankering after indulgences, should content us," we conceive the statement to be put in terms not sufficiently qualified. That no avaricious or ambitious views should ever influence the mind of a Christian minister, or any Christian at all, is a proposition which will not be contro. verted but it does not follow that a clergyman should be confined to a bare, decent maintenance. What is to be the amount of this bare maintenance? The late Mr. Fletcher, it has been said, carried the principle so far as to be perfectly astonished when some person hinted a doubt whether himself and his house-keeper could live upon two shillings a week: And we have heard it said, on respectable authority, that during the late distress in Ireland, one of the Southern Committees restricted the allowance to each individual of the crowds whom they supported, to

three farthings a day; lest, on the removal of the scarcity, they should have been too much pampered to return contentedly to their ancient fare. Mr. Scott argues however, it will be observed, for a bare decent maintenance; that is, probably, for such a maintenance as becomes a clergyman's situation in society, but nothing beyond it. For a person like "the old bachelor Swartz," this may be all very proper; but in a vast variety of cases, what is to become of the families of clergymen if this rule were strictly to be followed? By not providing reasonably and moderately for his own household, is not a minister rather tempting Providence than trusting it? His children are to have the benefit of a good education: is it only, that, in the event of his removal before they arrive at years of maturity, they may be plunged into helpless poverty? Would Mr. Scott have condemned the prudence which induces a clergyman to lay by a little for his widow and children, by some annual payment, if he can afford it, to an insurance office? We think not: it is the mode which Providence seems itself to point out for securing the comfort of his family: and to leave in distress those who are dependant upon him, on the principle, that whatever can be spared should be given in charity; to be, in fact, uncharitable towards those who have the strongest possible claim, under the pretext of being charitable to others, is surely not to be ranked among the obligations of a Christian*.

* The Bishop of Gloucester, in speaking concerning the lawful pursuits of business in a clerical life, observes

"Of such pursuits, personal attention to the sources of our pecuniary sup port, and especially the superintend ance of our assigned portion of land, stand obviously the first. That degree of regard to our temporal concerns, which will prevent waste, and enable maintain our families in decent comfort, us to owe no man any thing, which will educate our children, and provide, if