being into sin and poverty and meanness and guilt, his recovery by grace to more than his original dignity in the love and service of his Creator, filled all his soul. He seemed often to labour with an imagination occupied with his noble theme. He felt, and he taught, that no other subject was worthy the consideration of man. In comparison with it, he led his auditors to condemn and trample on all the petty objects of this lower world. Its meanness, its uncertainty, its deceit, its vanity, its vexation, its nothingness, he set fully in their view. He even made them look down with a generous concern on those who were buried in its interests, and who forgot, amidst the toys of children, the real business of life."

Some of his printed sermons are perfect models of simplicity, vivacity, and effect. That, for instance, on the "Power of Faith."

His COUNTENANCE, though not modelled altogether after the artificial rules of beauty, beamed, in animated conversation and in the pulpit, with the beauty of a great and noble mind. Dignity and benevolence were strongly pourtrayed there. The variety of its expression was admirable: nor could any one feel the full force of the soul which he threw into his discourses, if this expression was concealed from him by distance or situation. His ACTION was graceful and forcible: latterly, owing perhaps to his increasing infirmities and almost uninterrupted pain, it discovered, I think, some constraint and want of ease.

There was a FAMILIARITY and an AUTHORITY in his manner, which to strangers sometimes appeared dogmatism, His manner was, in truth, like that of no other man. It was altogether original: and because it was original, it sometimes offended those who had no other idea of manner than of that to which they had been accustomed. Yet even the prejudiced could not hear him with indifference. There was a dignity and command, a decision and energy, a knowledge of the heart and the world, an uprightness of mind and a desire to do good, and all this united with a tenderness and affection, which few could witness without some favourable impressions.

His most striking sermons were generally those, which he preached from very short texts, such as---My soul hangeth on thee ---All my fresh, springs are in thee--O Lord! teach me thy way--As thy day is, so shall thy strength be. In these sermons, the whole subject had probably struck him at once: and, what comes In this way is generally found to be more natural and forcible, than what the mind is obliged to excogitate by its own laborious efforts. As the subject grows out of the state of the mind at the time, there is that degree of affinity between them which occasions the mind to seize it forcibly, and to clothe it with vivid colours. A train of the most natural associations presents itself, as one link draws with it its kindred links. The attention is engaged---the mind is concentrated---scripture and life present themselves without effort, in the most natural relations which they bear to the subject, that has full possession of the man, and composition becomes easy, and even interesting.

It was a frequent, and a very useful method with him, to open and explain his subject in a very brief manner, and then to draw inferences from it; which inferences formed the great body of the sermon, and were rather matters of ADDRESS to the consciences and hearts of his hearers, than of DISCUSSION; so that the whole subject was a kind of application. This seems to me to have been his most effective manner of preaching. Take an instance: Matt. xviii. 20. I. EXPLAIN the words. II. Raise from them two or three REMARKS: Contemplate 1. The Glory and Godhead of our Master: 2. The honour which He puts on his house and the assembly of His Saints: 3. The privilege of being one of Christ's servants whom He will meet: 4. The obligations lying on such servants-What manner of persons ought such to be!

He was remarkably observant of character. When I have asked his opinion of a person, he has frequently surprised me with such a full and accurate delineation of his character, as he could only have obtained by very patient and penetrating observation. The reason of this appeared, when I learnt that it was his custom in his sermon notes, when he wished to describe a particular character, not to put down its chief features as they occurred to his

mind from the general observations which he had made on men; but he would put down the initial of some person's name, with whom he was well acquainted, and who stood in his mind as the representative of that class of characters. He had nothing to do then, when he came to enlarge on that part of his subject, but strongly to realize to himself the character of the person in question, and he would draw a much more vivid picture of a real character than he could otherwise do."

Mr. Cecil was not himself led to the knowledge of God through great terrors of conscience: his ministry did not, therefore, so much abound in delineations of the working and malig uity of sin, as in those topics which grew out of his course of experience; nor did he enter frequently or largely into the details of the spiritual conflict. He was himself drawn to God, and subdued by a sense of divine mercy and friendship: he was led, therefore, to detail largely the transactions of the believing mind with God, in the exercise of dependence and submission.

He was more aware than most men of the DIFFICULTY OF ' BRINGING DOWN THE TRUTH TO THE COMPREHENSION OF THE MASS OF HEARERS.

A young Minister may leave College with the best theory in the world, and he make take with him into a country parish a determination to talk in the language of simplicity itself, but the actual capacity to make himself understood and felt is so far removed from his former habits, that it is only to be acquired by experience. Hear how wisely Mr. Cecil wrote to a young friend about to take orders;-" I advised him, since he was so near his entrance into the ministry, to lay aside all other studies for the present, but the one I should now recommend to him. I would have him select some very poor and uninformed persons, and pay them a visit. His object should be to explain to them and

Lavater somewhere mentions an admirable practice of his own, which carried our friend's principle into constant use in his ministry. He fixed on certain persons in his congregation, whom he considered as representatives of the respective classes into which his bearers might be properly divided--amounting, as I recollect, to seven. In composing his discourses, he kept each of these persons steadily in his eye; and laboured so to mould his subjects as to meet the case of every one.-by which incomparable rule he ren dered himself intelligible and interesting to all classes of his flock.

demonstrate to them the truth of the solar system. He should first of all set himself to make that system perfectly intelligible to them, and then he should demonstrate it to their full conviction against all that the followers of Tycho Brahe or any one else could' say against it. He would tell me it was impossible; they would not understand a single term. Impossible to make them astronomers! And shall it be thought an easy matter to make them understand redemption ?"

He gave the following account of his HABIT OF PREPARA

TION FOR THE PULPIT:

I generally look into the portions of Scripture appointed by the church to be read in the services of the day. I watch, too, for any new light which may be thrown on passages in the course of reading, conversation, or prayer. I seize the occasions furnished by my own experience-my state of mind-my family occurrences. Subjects taken up in this manner are always likely to meet the cases and wants of some persons in the congregation. Sometimes, however, I have no text prepared: and I have found this to arise generally from sloth: I go to work: this is the secret: make it a business: something will arise where least expected.

"It is important to begin preparation early. If it is driven off late, accidents may occur which may prevent due attention to the subject. If the latter days of the week are occupied, and the mind driven into a corner, the sermon will usually be raw and undigested. Take time to reject what ought to be rejected, and to supply what ought to be supplied.

"It is a favourite method with me to reduce the text to some point of doctrine. On that topic I enlarge, and then apply it. I like to ask myself—' What are you doing?-What is your aim?'

"I will not forestall my own views by first going to commentators. I talk over the subject to myself: I write down all that strikes me and then I arrange what is written. After my plan is settled, and my mind has exhausted its stores, then I would turn to some of my great Doctors to see if I am in no error: but I find it necessary to reject many good things which the Doctors

say they will tell to no good effect in a sermon. In truth, to be effective, we must draw more from nature and less from the writings of men we must study the Book of Providence, the Book of Nature, the Heart of Man, and the Book of God; we must read the History of the World: we must deal with Matters of Fact before our eyes."

In respect to mechanical preparation, Mr. Cecil was in the habit of using eight quarto pages, on which he put down his main and subordinate divisions, with such hints as he thought requisite. These notes, written in an open and legible manner, such as his eye could catch with ease, he put into one of the portable quarto Bibles, of which several editions were printed in the xyiith century, in a good type, but, in consequence of the closeness and excellence of the paper, such as bind up in a very compact size. Of these editions there are some * which are printed page for page with one another; and one of these editions Mr. Cecil was in the constant habit of using, both in public and in private, from the mechanical assistance afforded to him in turning to passages from the recollection of the part of the page in which they occurred.

It will be interesting to hear Mr. Cecil's OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS MANNER OF COMMENCING HIS MINISTRY; as it notices mistakes from which he was not only early but most effectually delivered, and his remarks on them may afford a serious caution to others.

"I set out," he said, "with levity in the pulpit. It was above two years before I could get the victory over it, though I strove under sharp piercings of conscience. My plan was wrong. I had bad counsellors. I thought preaching was only entering the pulpit and letting off a sermon. I really imagined this was trusting to God, and doing the thing cleverly. I talked with a wise and pious man on the subject. There is nothing,' said he, and named names. We

like appealing to facts.' We sat down, found men in my habit disreputable. This first set my mind right. I saw such a man might sometimes succeed: but I saw, at the same time, that whoever would succeed in his general in

• I have compared four of these Bibles, viz. Field's, London, 1648-.-Hayes's, Camb. 1670, and also that of 1677-and Buck's, Camb. without date.