Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

NEW CHURCH IN THE PARISH OF ST. NICHOLAS, LINCOLN.

It is with real pleasure that we submit to our readers, a genuine specimen of the Gothic Church. We do not mean to undervalue the two examples we have already given, of both of which we could speak with entire approval; nor shall we offer to the notice of our readers any but such but in the present instance our satisfaction is more than usually complete.

The building of which an engraving is now given is properly a Gothic church. The too current error takes for granted that all that is required to entitle a building to this character, is, a certain sort of door and window and a few pinnacles on the roof. According to this notion, there would be no difficulty in turning the merest meeting-house in England into a Gothic church in the course of a week or ten days. All that would be necessary would be, to alter the heads of the windows and doors, from a square or circular into a lancet or pointed-arch form; and to stick a proper complement of pinnacles on the roof; and then the metamorphosis would be complete. A very fit appellation, which has been applied to this sort of architecture, is that of carpenter's gothic."

"

A gothic structure, properly so called, has its main plan of a totally different character from the Meeting-house, or four-square brick building of modern times. Its pinnacles are not a set of toys, put up, like so many nine-pins, on the top of a building, merely for ornament: they are the appropriate termination of buttresses. But these buttresses, in the really gothic building, have their object; whereas, in the "carpenter's gothic" of modern times, nothing is more common than to see a set of buttresses supporting nothing, but merely stuck on to the sides or front of a barn-like building, because the architect supposes that by these means he makes it a Gothic church!

A glance at the engraving which accompanies the present number will show its entire distinctness from this class of erection. The architect has studied gothic architecture. He understands, not the formation of a window or a pinnacle merely,-though, indeed, many who undertake to build gothic churches show that they know not even so much as this; -but the true character of gothic building. He has adjusted, also, his design to the style of the other ecclesiastical structures of the place for which it is designed. The spires of Lincolnshire are not the most graceful we possess; but as this church is to stand in Lincoln, he has very properly given it the character which belongs to the county.

It

It is also satisfactory to find that so good a church can be raised for so moderate a sum. The present specimen is built entirely of stone. seats 500 persons, without galleries. With that addition it would accommodate about 800. The contract was taken at less than £2200. The date of the style is that of about the beginning of the thirteenth century.

The first stone was laid by the Bishop of Lincoln, in April last, and it is expected that the church will be ready for consecration early next spring.

The architect is Mr. G. G. Scott, of Spring Gardens, the grandson of the Rev. Thomas Scott, of Aston Sandford. We are happy to hear that his designs have also been selected for the first of the ten new churches now proposed to be built in the town of Birmingham.

[blocks in formation]

Review of Books.

the life OF THE REV. ROWLAND HILL, A. M. By the Rev. EDWIN SIDNEY, A. M. 8vo. Pp. 446. Baldwin.

THE LIFE and MINISTRY OF THE REV. SAMUEL WALKER, B.A. Formerly of Truro, Cornwall. By the Rev. EDWIN SIDNEY, A. M. 8vo. Pp. xx. and 564. Seeleys.

THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD HILL, Bart. By the Rev. EDWIN SIDNEY, A. M. 8vo. Pp. xxiv. and 534. Seeleys.

THE LIFE and TIMES of the REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, M. A. By ROBERT PHILIP. 8vo. Pp. xii. and 588. Virtue.

author had got materials, but they are ill put together, and disgraced by bombast, egotism, and a high degree of sectarianism. The information communicated is indeed less original than Mr. P. supposes, though as the Journals, Letters, &c. of Whitefield and his cotemporaries are now somewhat scarce, the present volume may be well consulted by those who are desirous of a more intimate acquaintance with his life, and the religious circumstances of his times.

THE LIFE and TIMES of SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON. By a Member of the Noble houses of Huntingdon and Ferrers. Vol. I. 8vo. Pp. 488. Simpkin. BIOGRAPHY, though highly interesting and important, is yet somewhat of a perilous and unthankful undertaking. The friends of the deceased are seldom satisfied with the portraiture of a good man, while strangers and enemies continually represent the picture as overdrawn. It must however, we conceive, be generally allowed that Mr. Sidney has evinced considerable judgment in each of these memoirs; he has given a pleasing and instructive description of the Rev. Rowland Hill, and Samuel Walker, and of Sir Richard Hill, while he has avoided with considerable dexterity, the difficult and questionable points naturally arising from the eccentricities of the Rev. Rowland Hill, and in a less degree from the peculiarities of Sir Richard, and the somewhat austere precision of Mr. Walker. Three more pious and amiable men can scarcely be mentioned, and yet

may fairly be questioned whether any one of them is very strongly to be recommended as an example for imitation. They were all eminently useful in their day and generation. Being dead they now speak by their writings; and while their memorial is on high, they have obtained a good report among men by their works of faith and labors of love.

Mr. Philip's life of Whitefield must be regarded as a failure. The

The life of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, is better written, and may, as far as is yet published, be read with interest. The same sectarian spirit however, which pervades the Life of Whitefield, occasionally breaks forth in that of the Countess of Huntingdon, and excites some curiosity as to the terms in which the writer will dwell on the events of her later years. It is a grand object with the writers of these several lives, to claim for the communions to which they respectively belong, the honour of having produced that revival of religion in our own church which all unite in acknowledging has unquestionably taken place. Our consolation is, that true religion has thus revived, the source of that revival is of itself of minor consequence; indeed is no otherwise worth examining except as it may afford practical instruction for our own

[ocr errors]

conduct, and that of succeeding generations. That good may have resulted from evil, will not indeed justify disorderly or irregular proceedings; but if, as Mr. Sidney maintains, the revival in our church has been more especially produced by the strictly regular and orderly clergy, we may well watch over ourselves, and warn others against any deviations from that course which our established authorities enjoin.

It is somewhat to be regretted that Mr. Sidney had not conceived the idea of writing the lives of Mr. Walker and of Sir Richard Hill,

at the time when he commenced Mr. Rowland Hill's memoir. This might have prevented some anticipations and repetitions, and would have allowed of some abridgment which most readers will feel desirable in his last publication,-the life of Sir Richard Hill. Each however, of these memoirs will be read with interest, though the life of the Rev. Rowland Hill presents the most attraction.

The Rev. Rowland Hill was born at Hawkstone, Aug. 23, 1745, and when of suitable age, was sent to Eton; here, in consequence of the advice and correspondence of his elder brother Richard, he became truly serious. In October, 1764, he commenced residence at St. John's College, Cambridge, and in the latter end of that year became acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Berridge of Everton, to whose church he usually rode every Sunday from Cambridge, and returned in time to attend the College chapel. His whole soul was bent, says Mr. Sidney, on promoting the growth of piety in himself and others, and he was made instrumental in awakening an anxiety about eternal concerns in the minds of some few of his fellow students. But his efforts were not confined to the gownsmen he visited the goal, and the sick, and commenced

preaching in several places in Cambridge, and the adjacent villages. These proceedings brought him of course, under college censures, and he was in consequence induced to consult Mr. Whitefield, who advised him to go on; advice which, though inconsistent with his engagements as an under-graduate, was too much in unison with his own desires, to be neglected. He was now assailed on all sides. His father and mother were decidely opposed to his career, and his superiors in the university condemned in the strongest terms, his infringements of discipline. Yet notwithstanding, he persevered, though he so far attended to academical pursuits, that on taking his degree of B. A. in 1769, his name was found among the lower honours. He immediately exerted himself to obtain orders, but in consequence of his preaching-irregularities, was refused ordination by no less than six bishops; he still however continued his erratic course, nor was it until June 6, 1773, that he was ordained deacon by Dr. Wiles, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Mr. Hill was never admitted into priest's orders; his title to preach therefore in any church was somewhat doubtful. As he was ordained to the curacy of Kingston in the county of Somerset, he most probably was licensed to that curacy; and if so, that licence would entitle him to preach in any pulpit in the Diocese of Bath and Wells to which he might be admitted by the Incumbent; but it would not entitle him to preach in another diocese, and any churchwarden acting according to the directions of the canons, would at least have been justified in refusing him admission to the pulpit. On this ground the direction of a subsequent Bishop of London inhibiting Mr. Hill's preaching in any pulpit in his diocese was perfectly legal; though a similar inhibition. given we believe by the same

Bishop against a clergyman in full orders was we conceive decidedly illegal, and was in various instances disregarded.

Mr. Hill had indulged the hope that after his admission to deacon's orders he should be ordained priest by the Bishop of Carlisle, but on application to his Lordship he was informed that the Bishop of Carlisle had received an order from the Archbishop of the province not to admit Mr. H. to any further grade in the church on account of his perpetual irregularity, which order the Bishop felt himself bound to obey. That Mr. Hill's proceedings were such as might well justify a Bishop in declining to ordain him, or in requiring a change of conduct prior to ordination, &c. is obvious, but it may fairly be doubted whether the Archbishop's order was in itself legal, and consequently whether the Bishop was justified in disappointing the hopes which he had previously raised. The effect however was, that Mr. Hill made no more attempts at ordination, though he ever expressed his attachment to the church, repudiated all ideas of being a dissenter. 'I am not,' said he, a dissenter, the church turned me off and not I her.'

No: thing delighted him more than being asked to preach in a church, and a refusal to allow his officiating in an episcopal place of worship invariably produced in him an evident mortification.

One cannot but feel that by a little self-denial on Mr. Hill's part, and a very moderate degree of conciliation on the part of his ecclesiastical superiors, his services might have been secured to the church; but his plans and prospects being disappointed, Mr. H. resumed his employment as itinerant preacher, and accompanied by Mrs. Hill, to whom he had been married in 1769, proceeded to preach wherever he could find a congregation. Churches, meeting

houses, barns, or the open air resounded with his voice, and his labours were crowned with numerous instances of success. At length the plan was formed of erecting a chapel for Mr. Hill in St. George's Fields, then (alas that some spots in it are still,) among the most depraved and degraded in the metropolis; and here in June 1782 was laid the first stone of Surry Chapel, which was opened in the following year, and where Mr. Hill continued to preach or appoint persons to preach in his absence for above half a century. The temporal affairs temporal affairs were vested in trustees; the providing and directing of ministers was entrusted to Mr. Hill, so long as he should preach agreeably to the doctrinal Articles of the Church of England, and did not give the use of the pulpit to any who were known to preach otherwise, and the service was to be performed according to the ritual of the Church of England. Vast multitudes have in this place, and under Mr. Hill's ministrations, been turned from sin to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God.

We must not however proceed farther with the life of Rowland Hill. Whatever views may be entertained of his conduct in some respects, he was an eminently wise and holy man; and the records here given of him by Mr. Sidney deserve serious and careful perusal by all who labour in the word and doctrine; there is much to be learned, though some things are not to be imitated.

Sir Richard Hill was born in 1732, and was therefore thirteen years older than his brother Rowland. He was early subject to religious impressions, and at one period almost reduced to despair. Under his distress be was led to communicate his feelings to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, from whose directions he appears to have derived considerable advantage; and

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »