good appearance to all men. I once judged it my duty to refuse à considerable sum of money, which I might lawfully and fairly have received, because I considered that My account of the matter could not be stated to some, to whom a different representation would be made. A man who intends to stand immaculate, and, like Samuel, to come forward and say---Whose Ox or whose Ass have I taken? must count the cost. I knew that my character was worth more to me than this sum of money. By probity, a man honours himself. It is the part of a wise man, to wave the present good for the future increase. A merchant suffers a large quantity of goods to go out of the kingdom to a foreign land, but he has his object in doing so: he knows, by calculation, that he shall make so much more advantage by them. A Christian is made a wise man by counting the cost. The best picture I know of the exercise of this virtue, drawn by the hand of man, is that by John Bunyan in the characters of Passion and Patience."* Associated with this disinterestedness of spirit, was a singular ⚫ I cannot but add here a conversation reported to me by a friend, which he had with Mr. Cecil on the subject of his tythes at Chobham, and which most strikingly illustrates his disinterested character :-- "My tythes produce only so much"-. "Why do you not increase them ?”-- "We fixed on a sum, and, as it appeared something like satisfactory to the landholders, I determined not to raise them, though they were at their own price." "Sir, you are not doing even conscientious justice to your family. I am persuaded, from my experience in tythes, that your parish, from its extent, would yield much more per year in tythe only-exclusively of your glebe, &c." "So I have understood. But, my dear friend, tythes are an obnoxious property; and every increase creates bitterness of spirit. Why, sir, though my parishioners had them on their own terms, one of them the first year came to me and said he could not pay, pleading some loss with which my tythes were not in the least degree connected." "But, Sir, why not appoint your friend, Mr. —, to receive for you ?”--"That would be doing by deputy a thing disagreeable to myself." "Admitting all the motives clearly implied by your answers, yet, sir, how do you divest yourself of the force of the argument derived from that law, which declares a man censurable, who does not to the utmost of his power take care of those of his own household ?” "I was permitted to go to Chobham to preach the Gospel. Whatever as their Minister I could receive, without heart-burnings, was all well; but, to raise an income by compulsion (whatever I might do with one already raised) I could not. I therefore told them, that, if they would attend to the knowledge of the truth, I would never quarrel about their tythes. If I thought I should make one man step back one pace in his way to the attainment of the truth, through a suspicion that I sought my interest more than their eternal happiness, I would not receive one guinea of them. My dear friend, I have again and again considered this subject, and I am to be content with what is sent me. It will not do for a Minister of the Gospel of Peace to be raising the revenue of the Church and driving the people from it. We have too much of this at this day. If, in the spirit of peace, more was designed for me I should have it. My people seem content, and things must remain as they are with regard to what they pay me. If they will now but hear and receive the truth, it is all I shall ever ask of them." PRACTICAL RELIANCE ON PROVIDENCE, in all the most minute and seemingly indifferent affairs of his life. He was emphatically, to use his own expression, "a pupil of signs"--waiting for and following the leadings and openings of Divine Providence in his affairs. I once consulted him throughout a very delicate and perplexing affair. In one stage of it, he said to me---“ You have not done this thing exactly as I should have felt my mind led to do it. I feel myself in such cases like a child in the middle of an intricate and perplexed wood. Two considerations weigh with me, First---If I could see all the involutions, and relations, and bearings, and consequences of the affair, then I might feel myself able to move forward: but, Secondly---I know not one of them, not even the shadow of one, nay, hardly the probability of such and such issues. Then I am driven to simple reliance. I have never found God fail me in such cases. When I am utterly lost and confounded, I look for openings, clear and evident to my own conviction. I have a warrant for all this. Our grand danger with reference to Providence is that we should walk as men:---Are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" On another occasion he said---"We make too little of the subject of Providence. My mind is by nature so intrepid and sanguine, and it has so often led me to anticipate God in his guidings to my severe loss, that perhaps I am now too suspicious and dilatory in following him. However, this is a maxim with me---that, when I am waiting with a simple, child-like spirit for openings and guidings, and imagine I perceive them, God would either prevent the semblance of them from rising up before me if these were not his leadings in reality, or he would preserve me from deeming them such; and therefore I always follow what appears to be my duty without hesitation." But the spring of all these Christian Virtues, and the mastergrace of his mind was FAITH. His whole spirit and character were a living illustration of that definition of the Apostle---Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! He appeared to me never to be exercised with doubts and fears. His magnanimity entered most strikingly into his religious character. He was convinced and satisfied by all the divine declarations and promises---and he left himself, with unsuspecting confidence, in God's hands.* I quote Mr. Wilson's testimony to the PATIENCE of our friend UNDER AFFLICTIONS. "He was not only, in opposition to all the tendencies of his natural dispositions, resigned, but chearful under his trials. I have seen him repeatedly, at his Living in the country, return from his ride racked with pain; pale, emaciated, speechless. I have seen him throw himself all along upon his sofa, on his face, and cover his forehead with his hands; and there, without an expression of complaint, endure the paroxysm of his disorder: and I have been astonished to observe him rise up in an instant, with his wonted dignity, and enter upon conversation with cheerfulness and vigour. He has often acknowledged to me, that the anguish he felt was like a dagger plunged into his side, and that through a whole summer he has not had two nights free from tormenting pain. Such were his sufferings for ten or twelve years previous to his last illness. And yet this was the man, or rather this was the Christian, from whose lips I never heard a murmuring word." It is almost needless to add, that Mr. Cecil possessed REWhen he went to Oxford he had made a resolution of restricting himself to a quarter of an hour daily, in playing on the violin; on which instrument he greatly excelled, and of which he was extravagantly fond: but he found it impracticable to adhere to his determination; and had so frequently to lament the loss of time in this fascinating amusement, that, with the noble spirit which characterized him through life, he cut his strings, and never afterward replaced them. He studied for a painter; and, after he had MARKABLE DECISION OF CHARACTER. • Mr. Wilson justly remarks of our friend, that "the determination and grandeur of his mind displayed his faith to peculiar advantage. This divine principle quite realized and substantiated to him the things which are not seen and eternal. It was absolutely like another sense. The things of time were as nothing. Every thing that came before him was referred to a spiritual standard. His one great object was fixed, and this object en. grossed his whole soul. Here his foot stood immoveable, as on a rock. His hold on the truths of the Scriptures was so firm, that he acted on them boldly and unreservedly. He went all lengths, and risked all consequences, on the word and promise of God." changed his object, retained a fondness and a taste for the art: he was once called to visit a sick lady, in whose room there was a painting which so strongly attracted his notice, that he found his attention diverted from the sick person, and absorbed by the painting: from that moment he formed the resolution of mortifying a taste, which he found so intrusive, and so obstructive to him in his nobler pursuits; and determined never afterward to frequent the Exhibition. Nor was his INTREPID AND INFLEXIBLE FIRMNESS less conspicuous, whenever the interests of truth, and the honour of Christ were concerned. The world in arms would not have appalled him, while the glory of Christ was in his view. Nor do I believe that he would have hesitated for a moment, after he had given to nature her just tribute of feeling and of tears, to go forth from his family, and join the "noble army of martyrs" who expired in the flames in Smithfield, had the honour of his Master called him to this sacrifice: nor would his knees have trembled, nor his look changed. Yet cannot I but add, that this firmness never degenerated into rudeness. He knew and observed all those decencies of life which render mutual intercourse agreeable; and he had that ease of manner, among all classes of society, which bespoke perfect self-possession and a thorough knowledge of the world. His address in meeting the manners and habits of thinking of persons of rank, either when they were enquiring into religion or under affliction, was perhaps scarcely to be equalled. The associations in our friend's mind were often of a very humorous kind. He had a strong natural turn for associations of this nature, which threw a great vivacity and charm over his familiar conversation---employed as it was, in the main, like every faculty of his mind, for useful ends. He was fully aware, however, of the danger of possessing such a faculty, and the temptations to which it exposed him; prompted and supported as it was by a buoyancy of spirits, which even great and lengthened pain could scarcely subdue. I have looked at him, and listened to him, with astonishment--when, meeting with a few other young men occasionally at his house, we have found him dejected and worne out with pain---stretched on his sofa, and declining to join in our conversation---till he caught an interest in what was passing--when the question of an enquiring or bur dened conscience has roused him to an exertion of his great mind---he has risen from his sofa---he has forgot his suffering--and has left us nothing to do but to admire and treasure up most profound and impressive remarks on the Scripture, on the heart, and on the world! The mention of his humour and his vivacity of spirits leads me to remark, that I am not writing a panegyric, but drawing a character. No character can be faithful, while the best original is such as he must be in the present state, if it carry no shades. I have no wish to conceal the shades of this extraordinary character. Sternness and Levity were the two constitutional evils which most severely exercised him. They seem to have been the necessary result, in an imperfect being, of the union of that masculine and original vigour with humour and an ardent fancy, which met in the structure of his mind. So far, indeed, had grace triumphed over these constitutional enemies, that the very opposite features were the most prominent in his character; and no one could approach him without feeling himself with a most TENDER and SERIOUS mind. I speak of those occasional ebullitions which tended to remind him, that, though he was invested with a new and triumphant nature, he was yet at home in the body, and subject to the recurrence of his constitutional infirmities. Yet, though Mr. Cecil felt occasionally temptations to levity, through the buoyancy and spring of his animal spirits, his prevailing temper was of a quite opposite description. A sensibility of spirit, with his view of human nature and of the world, threw a cast of MELANCHOLY over his mind. He was far more disposed to weep over the guilt and misery of man, than to smile at his follies. "I have," said he, "a salient principle in me. My spirits never sink. Yet I have a strong dash of melancholy. It is a high and exquisite feeling. When I first wake in the |