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state, to see extinguished, so early, the bright lights of this world, since we are sure they would not have been kindled merely to be put out.

Mr. Hincks appears to have been one of those gentle and pure spirits, which have 'less of earth in them than heaven,' and whose removal, therefore, is regarded as almost a matter of course. He possessed a slender body, on whose every outline and movement frailty was written, and a modesty, delicacy, and shrinkingness of character which appeared suited to so helpless a frame. Yet there was an actual vigor within, strength of purpose and fervor of heart, which enabled him to surmount the obstacles thrown in his way by natural timidity and weakness, and to address himself with moral courage and consequent success to the public duties of his profession. In that, he was an interesting and promising man. He had much of the earnest solemnity and happy unction which come from a warm and sincere heart. We well recollect the impression of his appearance and manner, when, the day after accomplishing a tedious passage over the water, we went up to worship at his chapel in Renshaw Street, Liverpool. There was, undoubtedly, much in the season and its circumstances to excite the mind and prepare it to find more than ordinary delight in the house of God. Yet that same preparation of circumstances would have made a heartless and indifferent service, more than ever disgusting. The worship began with the singing of Old Hundred, — a tune which touched a thousand strings within us, and called up a thousand tender associations, and helped still further to prepare the mind to revolt from any but the most serious, simple, and earnest expressions of devotion and truth. That, at that time, Mr. Hincks, young as he was, fully engaged and satisfied us, always appeared to us an indication that he possessed the true spirit of his calling and the best gifts for its exercise. We heard him twice afterward. There was an absorption of mind in his subject, a reality and earnestness in his manner and tone, and a truly evangelical mode of thought and expression, which showed that he had at heart only the great purpose of his profession, and caused the hearer to forget the speaker in the subject. The death of such a young preacher is a more than ordinary loss.

At the time of his death he had not quite completed his twenty-seventh year. He was a native of Cork, Ireland, and

received his professional education partly at Dublin, and partly at Belfast. His life was studious and quiet, and has of course left no materials for history. The few facts which could be stated are interwoven in the Memoir prefixed to this volume, which is written in a glowing strain of affectionate eulogy. The view given of his character corresponds with our own impressions.

'His feelings and character, as is perhaps always the case with those who are endowed with superior minds, very early assumed the peculiar bent by which they were afterwards distinguished. His virtues seemed to be the native and unforced growth of his own pure and right spirit. There was in him a rectitude of feeling and of sympathy, or, if the expression may be permitted, a right-mindedness, which, as it were, determined his character. The gentleness, the purity, and the remarkable self-respect, which sat so becomingly on the man, and the minister of Christ, were the marked features of his earliest years. As long as I can remember him," writes one of his friends who knew him best and longest, "he was always the same. His temper was ever distinguished by gentleness and forbearance, and his mind by talents of no ordinary kind, which he wore with singular unambitiousness, although with meek dignity." This simple sentence is strikingly characteristic of his maturer years.' — p. xiii.

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The sermons bear the impress, as the writings of a sincere man always must do, of their author's character. We see in them the image of his heart. They are marked by a natural, but careful and well studied method, are affectionate and earnest rather than strong, sometimes enfeebled by qualifications dictated rather by modesty than timidity, sometimes rising into warmth but never to vehemence, too frequently, perhaps, touching on controverted topics, but always presenting serious, devout, Scriptural views of the subjects treated.

We should think it an excellent promise for the cause of religious truth, if our young preachers would govern themselves in the pulpit by principles of sermonizing as judicious, serious, evangelical, as those on which were framed the specimens before us.

* His father, the Rev. T. D. Hincks, is associated with the Rev. H. Montgomery in the charge of the Belfast Academical Institution. He has published a Greek and English manual Lexicon for the use of schools, which is much esteemed, and he is now engaged in an extensive, thorough work on a similar plan. A specimen of this, with the pros pectus, may be seen at our publishers'.

The following passage, from a sermon on 'Purity of Heart,' is selected as a fair example.

'To see God, my fellow Christians, since it cannot, except in the way of allusion, be understood literally, must be considered as implying the enjoyment of the closest and most intimate communion with him. Nothing can be more certain than that every shade of sin and impurity must contribute to obstruct this communion, and cloud our spiritual vision. What man so happy or so thoughtless as not to have frequently felt an unwillingness, resulting from a secret consciousness of guilt, to give himself up to the contemplation of the Deity, or even so much as to admit the thought of his existence ! Who has not frequently shrunk with shame, and even with horror, from the idea of the presence of the God of purity? Have there not been times with many, perhaps with all of us, when, oppressed beneath the recollection of recent sin, we dared not raise our hands or eyes to heaven in the attitude of prayer, and when, had we ventured to do so, the bending knee would have tottered beneath us, and the faltering accents of supplication would have died upon our lips? Have we not suddenly thought of the Psalmist's inquiry, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy palace?" And have not the first words of the answer, "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart," fallen heavily upon our ears and choked our utterance? And what, my fellow Christians, has been the reason of all this? Has it not been, that we had not long before experienced some moral defilement ? Has it not been, that sin had been lately passing over our souls, and had left this withering blight behind it? Has it not been, in a word, that we had been forfeiting the blessedness of the " 'pure in heart?"

'The more nearly, on the other hand, we can approach to the attainment of perfect mental purity, the more intimate and delightful will be our communion with the Deity, and the more numerous, as well as brighter and more glorious, the manifestations of his attributes which we shall be permitted to behold. The clouds of sin will no longer shut out from our view the great luminary of the creation. We shall behold him in all his majesty, and feel him in all his power. His genial warmth will foster in our minds an innumerable multitude of interesting and edifying thoughts and of pious and benevolent feelings, and the whole face of the moral, as well as of the natural world, will be gilded by his beams. We shall no longer "love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil." Instead of shrinking from the Divine presence, we shall be constantly endeavouring to discover new manifestations of it. We shall see God in the

glories and in the beauties of external nature; in its smiles and in its terrors. We shall see him in the conduct of his Providence; in his favors and in his chastisements. We shall see him in the pages of his revealed word, and behold him gloriously and graciously manifested in the face of Jesus Christ. Nor does the blissful vision of the Almighty, reserved for "the pure in heart," end in this world. In the society of the just made perfect, they shall experience a more complete, as well as a more lasting enjoyment of it. There, where the sun shall no more be required to give light by day, nor the moon by night, and where the divine glory may be manifested, in a way of which we can now form no conception, the “ pure in heart" shall experience a complete fulfilment of the Saviour's promise, and " see God" throughout eternity.'. · pp. 243–245.

In the sermon on 'Christian Humility' we were a good deal struck with the following illustration of the doctrine of original sin:

'Suppose, now, my brethren, that a husbandman, who hasl abored diligently to prepare his ground, and to sow good seed in his field, were disposed, as all should be, after an abundant harvest, to return thanks to God who gave it. What should we think of such a person, if, instead of blessing his bountiful Creator for having given him a good soil, and favored him with the means of improving it, and given him diligence to employ those means, and, finally, for having blessed his rising crop with rain to refresh and sun to ripen it; if, instead of thus piously ascribing all secondary causes to the agency of the great first cause, and looking through nature up to nature's God, he should fancy, on a sudden, that he had been favored with a miracle, should refer to the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, and finding there the words written, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," should strenuously maintain that the ground was, in itself and by nature, utterly incapable of producing any thing good, and fitted only for the nourishment of thorns, and thistles, and tares, and every thing mischievious, and acting upon this idea, should bless God for having miraculously, and with a view to his own particular harvest, prepared and renewed the soil, and altogether changed its nature and properties? What would you think, my brethren, of such a person? Would you not conclude that that man had lost his senses? Yet such, I must confess, or differing from it in no essential particular, appear to me to be the commonly received doctrines of original sin, regeneration, and sanctification, equally unphilosophical in themselves, and little better supported by Scripture.' - p. 155.

We have learned that a few copies of this volume are expected to be soon offered for sale in this city; and we take pleasure in recommending it to the notice of those who love to observe the works of youthful devotion, or who desire to circulate from our parish libraries books of wholesome instruction and fervent piety.

ART. IV. A Sermon, preached at the Annual Election, May 25, 1831, before his Excellency Levi Lincoln, Governor, his Honor Thomas L. Winthrop, Lieutenant Governor, the Honorable Council, and the Legislature of Massachusetts. By LEONARD WITHINGTON. Boston. Dut

ton & Wentworth.

1831. 8vo.

pp. 48.

It is some time since this Sermon was published; but we have intended, ever since its delivery, to say something on the subject to which it relates, and we will take leave to say it now. There were those, we believe, who, on the delivery of this discourse, thought that it was not called for; who considered a defence of the clergy, in this country and at this day, as quite unnecessary. There were others who complained of the freedom of the style. We did not ourselves belong to either class of objectors. We might have thought that a phrase or two could be mended; but, for ourselves, we are not disposed severely to criticize the peculiar manner and style of any man, because he discourses in the pulpit, more than we would if he discoursed any where else. We wish the pulpit to be free; to be a field of intellectual action, as unembarrassed and various as any other. We do not wish those who are about entering the pulpit, or who may be turning their thoughts to it, to feel that they must tie themselves up, ever after, to a certain staid, or solemn, or inten sive style of writing and speaking. Whitefield, though one of the most solemn and powerful preachers, was exceedingly various; sometimes causing his hearers to smile, and the more certain, afterward, to make them weep. We do not, of course, propose Whitefield's manner as a model; theatrical as it often was, and theatrical as were its effects, in too many instances. Still less do we wish to see any Sir Rowland

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