"Retirement," he said, "is my grand ordinance. Considerations govern me. Death is a mighty consideration with me. The utter vanity of every thing under the sun is another. If a man wishes to influence my mind, he must assign considerations; and, if he assigns one or two which will weigh well, i I seem impatient to stop him if he is proceeding to assign more. He has given me a consideration, and THAT suffices. The Night Thoughts' is a great book with me, notwithstanding its glaring imperfections it realizes death and vanity. And, because this is the frame and habit of my own mind, my ministry partakes of it; and must partake of it, if I would preach naturally and from my heart." In surveying the personal character of Mr. Cecil, it remains to speak somewhat more fully of his intellectual powers.

His IMAGINATION was not so much of the playful and elegant, as bold, inventive, striking, and instinctively judicious and discriminating.

His TASTE in the sister arts of Painting, Poetry, and Music was refined, and his judgment learned. In his younger days he had studied and excelled in painting and music; and, though he laid them aside that he might devote all his powers to his work, yet the savor of them so far remained, that I have been witness innumerable times, both in public and private, to the felicity of his illustrations drawn from these subjects, and to the superiority that his intimate knowledge of them gave him over most persons with whom they happened to be brought forward. His taste, when young, was for Italian music; but, in his latter years, he was fond of the German style, or rather the softer Moravian. Anthems, or any pieces where the words were reiterated, he disliked, for all public worship especially, as they sacrificed the real spirit of devotion too much to the music. His feelings on this subject were exquisite. "Pure, spiritual, sublime

devotion," he would say, "should be the soul of public music." He often lamented the introduction of any other style of architecture in places of worship, beside that which was so peculiarly appropriate, and which, because it was so, called up associations best suited to the purposes of meeting. He said most strikingly "I never enter a Gothic church, without feeling myself impressed with something of this idea-Within these walls has been resounded for centuries, by successive generations, "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!' The very damp that trickles down the walls, and the unsightly green that moulders upon the pillars, are far more pleasing to me from their associations, than the trim, finished, classic, heathen piles of the present fashion.

His powers of comparison, analogy, and JUDGMENT have been rarely equalled. These had been exercised so long and with so much energy on all the conditions and relations around him-on the word of God-on his own mind-on the history, opinions, passions, prejudices, and motives of men in every age, and of every character and stationon moral causes and effects-on every subject that can come within the grasp of a philosophic mind— that the result was a WISDOM so prominent and commanding, that every man felt himself with a mind of the very first order both in capability and acquirement. In some cases, wherein my wishes, perhaps, formed my opinions; and, trying to hide the truth from myself, I have asked his opinion as a confirmation of my own-he has unmasked my heart to itself, by his wise and searching replies. His decisions were more according to circumstances than in most men; and, when he gave them, it would generally be with a declaration that other circumstances might wholly change the aspect of the thing; and he did this in such a manner-if I may judge by my own case-as often to make a man look

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about him, and bethink himself what a treachero and blind party he had to transact with in his bosom. To those who did not know him intimately, he might sometimes appear to want a quickness of perception. The appearance of this faculty is often assumed, where God has not given it. Where the mind does decide rapidly, its conclusions are generally partial and defective, in proportion to their rapidity. Intuition is not a faculty of the present condition of being, whatever it may be of that toward which we are advancing. He affected no such quality, yet he possessed more of it than most men. When he did not fully understand what was addressed to him, he said so; and his mind was so familiar with the difficulty of discovering truth through the veils and shades thrown over her by prejudice and self-love, that he did not hastily bring himself to think that he possessed your full meaning. His good sense and wisdom led him to AVOID ALL

PECULIARITY AND ECCENTRICITY.

He was

decidedly adverse to every thing of this nature. "When any thing peculiar appears," he would say, “in a religious man's manners, or dress, or furniture, this is supposed by the world to constitute his religion. A clergyman indeed is allowed by com→ mon consent, and indeed it is but decent in him, to have every thing about him plain and substantial rather than ornamental and fashionable."

THE PERSONAL CHARACTER of Mr. Cecil had a manifest influence on his MINISTERIAL. We find him frequently accounting for those views and feelings which prevailed in his ministry, by a reference to his constitution and his early history.

His SENTIMENTS ON THE MINISTERIAL OF FICE are scattered through his writings, as this was ever present to his mind. Wherever he was, and whatever was his employment, he was always the Christian minister. He was ever on the watch

to do the work of an Evangelist, and to make full proof of his ministry.

I have collected together his thoughts on this subject in some sections of his "Remains:" and I think it impossible that any young minister should read these thoughts, without imbibing a higher estimation of his sacred office. More will be found on these points in the following views of his ministerial Character gathered from his own lips.

These views were most striking and sublime. "A minister is a Levite. In general, he has, and he is to have, no inheritance among his brethren. Other men are notLevites. They must recur to means, from which a minister has no right to expect any thing. Their affairs are all the little transactions of this world. But a minister is called and set apart for a high and sublime business. His transactions are to be between the living and the dead-between heaven and earth; and he must stand as with wings on his shoulders. He must look, therefore, for every thing in his affairs to be done for him and before his eyes. I am at a loss to conceive how a minister, with right feelings, can plot and contrive for a living. If he is told that there is such a thing for him if he will make such an application, and that it is to be so obtained and so only, all is wellbut not a step farther. It is in vain, however, to put any man on acting in this manner, if he be not a Levite in principle and in character. These must be the expressions of a nature communicated to him from God-a high principle of faith begetting simplicity. He must be an eagle towering toward heaven on strong pinions. The barn-door hen must continue to scratch her grains out of the dunghill."

He thought that the life of a minister, with respect to worldly affairs, ought to be, peculiarly above that of other men, a life of faith. It was his maxim, to lay out no money unnecessarily-and, with

this principle, he regarded his purse as in God's hand, and found it like the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil. He confessed that he could advise this conduct in no case but in that of a Christian minister, who was a wise and prudent, as well as a right-hearted manager of his affairs. His habit was, to be the child of simplicity and faith-acting as a servant of God, on those principles which he judged most suitable to his character and station. He had exalted ideas of ministerial authoritynot the authority which results merely from office, but from office united with personal character-not the claims of priestly arrogance, but the claims of priestly dignity. "I never choose to forget that I am a PRIEST, because I would not deprive myself of the right to dictate in my ministerial capacity. I cannot allow a man, therefore, to come to me merely as a friend, on his spiritual affairs, because I should have no authority to say to him 'Sir, you must do so and so.' I cannot suffer my best friends to dictate to me in any thing which concerns my ministerial duties. I have often had to encounter this spirit; and there would be no end of it, if I did not check and resist it. I plainly tell them that they know nothing of the matter. I ask them if it is decent, that a man immersed in other concerns should pretend to know my affairs and duties, better than myself, who, as they ought to believe, make them the study of my life. I have been disgusted-deeply disgusted-at the manner in which some men of flaming religious profession talk of certain preachers. They estimate them just as Garrick would have estimated the worth of players, or as Handel would have ranged an orchestra. 'Such an one is clever-he is a master'-Clever!-a master!-Worth and character and dignity are of no weight in the scale."

These views are just and noble; and they are suited to his own great mind, and the entire hold