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his "Remains," he stated to us his views and feelings respecting his new charge. "Bisley is a rectory. It is completely out of the world. The farmers are all so perfectly untaught, that, when they met me to settle the business of their tythes, there was not one of them able to write. The farmers in these parts are mostly occupiers of their own land. They crowded round me when I first came, and were eager to make bargains with me for the tythe. I told them I was ignorant of such matters, but that I would propose a measure which none of them could object to. The farmers of Bisley should nominate three farmers of Chobham parish; amd whatever those three Chobham farmers should appoint me to receive, that they should pay. This was putting myself into their power indeed, but the one grand point with me was to conciliate their minds, and pave the way for the Gospel in these parishes. And so far it answered my purpose. I had desired the three farmers to throw the weight, in dubious cases, into the farmers' scale. After we had settled the business, one of the three, to convince the Bisley farmers that they had acted in the very spirit of my directions, proposed to find a person who would immediately give them 501. a year for their bargain with me. This has given them an idea that we act upon high and holy motives."

What a noble trait is this of his upright and disinterested mind! One might almost with confidence predict that such an introduction into his parishes was a presage of great usefulness. A minister has no right to wanton away the support of his family; but, having secured that, whatever sacrifices he may make with such holy motives as these, will be abundantly repaid; probably in the success of his ministry, certainly in his Master's approbation and the peace of his own bosom. Those sacrifices of what may be strictly his due, which a narrow and worldly man will refuse to make though he entail discord and feuds on his parish, will be trifles to the mind of a true Christian Minister. The reader will here recollect the conversation on this subject before recorded.

I hardly think it likely that a man could have been received

in a more friendly manner than I have been. About 500 people attend at Chobham, and 300 at Bisley. I find I can do any thing with them while I am serious. A baptist preacher had been some where in the neighbourhood before I came. He seems to have been wild and eccentric, and to have planted a prejudice in consequence of this in the people's minds, who appear to have had no other notion of methodism than that it was eccentricity.

"While I am grave and serious they will allow me to say or do any thing. For instance; a few Sundays since it rained so prodigiously hard when I had finished my sermon at B. that I saw it was impracticable for any body to leave the Church. I then told the people that as it was likely to continue for some time, we had better employ ourselves as well as we could, and so I would take up the subject again. I did so; and they listened to me readily for another half-hour, though I had preached to them three quarters of an hour before I had concluded. All this they bear, and think it nothing strange; but one wild brother with one eccentric sermon would do me more mischief than I should be able in many months to cure."

A very strong instance of personal attachment to him occurred soon after he took Chobham. A stranger was observed to attend church every Sunday, and to leave the village immediately after service was over. Every strange face there was a phenomenon, and of course the appearance of this man led to enquiry. He was found to be one of his own people at St. John's-a poor, working man, whom the advantages received under his ministry had so knit to his pastor, that he found himself repaid for a weekly journey of fifty miles. Mr. C. remonstrated with him on the inexpediency and impropriety of thus spending his Sabbath, when pure word of God might be heard so much nearer home. But we must approach the closing scene of this great man's life and labours.

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No touches need to be added to the affecting picture which Mrs. Cecil has drawn of his gradual descent to the grave. I will only subjoin here some remarks on his VIEWS and FEELINGS VOL. I.

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with respect to that Gospel of which he had been so long an eminent and successful Minister.

His VIEWS of Christianity were modified, as has been seen, by his constitution and the circumstances of his life. His dispensation was to meet a particular class of hearers. He was fitted, beyond most men, to assert the reality, dignity, and glory of religion---as contrasted with the vanity, meanness, and glare of the world. This subject he treated like a master. Men of the world felt that they were in the presence of their superior--of one who unmasked their real misery to themselves, and pursued them through all the false refuges of vain and carnal minds.

While this was the principal character of Mr. Cecil's ministry, for years, at that place for which he seems to have been specially prepared; yet he was elsewhere, with equal wisdom, leading experienced Christians forward in their way to heaven: and, latterly, the habit of his own mind and the whole system of his ministry were manifestly ripening in those views which are peculiar to the Gospel.

No man had a more just view of his own ministry than he had; nor could any one more highly value the excellence which he saw in others, though it was of a different class from his own. "I have been lately selecting," he said to me, " some of C's Letters for publication. With the utmost difficulty, I have given some little variety. He begins with Jesus Christ, carries Him through, and closes with Him. If a broken leg or arm turns him aside, he seems impatient to dismiss it as an intrusive subject, and to get back again to his topic. I feel, as I read his letters--- Why, you said this in the last sentence! What over and over again! What nothing else! No variety of view! No illustration! And yet, I confess, that, when I have walked out and my mind has been a good deal exercised on his letters, I have caught a sympathy-' It is one thing, without variety or relief; but this one thing is a TALISMAN!'-I have raised my head-I have trod firmly-my heart has expanded--I have felt wings! Men must not be viewed indiscriminately. To a

certain degree I produce effect in my way, and with my views. The utter ruin and bankruptcy of man is so wrought into my experience, that I handle this subject naturally. Other men may use God's more direct means as naturally as I can use His more indirect and collateral ones. Every man, however, must rather follow than lead his experience; though, to a certain degree, if he finds his habits diverting him from Jesus Christ as the grand, prominent, only feature, he must force himself to chuse such topics as shall lead his mind to Him. I am obliged to subject myself to this discipline. I frequently chuse subjects and enter into my plan, before I discover that the SAVIOUR occupies a part too subordinate: I throw them away, and take others which point more directly and naturally to Him."

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In his last illness, he spoke, with great feeling, on the same subject: "That Christianity may be very sincere, which is not sublime. Let a man read Maclaurin's Sermon on the Cross of Christ, and enter into the subject with taste and relish, what beggary is the world to him! The subject is so high and so glorious, that a man must go out of himself, as it were, to apprehend it. The Apostle had such a view when he said I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I remember the time, even after I became really serious in religion, when I could not understand what St. Paul meant-not by setting forth the glory of Christ, but by talking of it in such hyperbolical terms, and always dwelling on the subject: whatever topic he began on, I saw that he could not but glide into the same subject. But I Now understand why he did so, and wonder no more; for there is no other subject, comparatively, worthy our thoughts, and therefore it is that advanced Christians dwell on little else. I am fully persuaded, that the whole world becomes vain and empty to a man, in proportion as he enters into living views of Jesus Christ."

His FEELINGS on religion, as they respected his submission to the divine will, were admirably expressed by himself:---" We are servants, and we must not chuse our station. I am now called to go down very low, but I must not resist. God is

saying to me, 'You have not been doing my work in my way: you have been too hasty. Now sit down, and be content to be a quiet idler: and wait till I give you leave again to go on in your labours'."

In respect to his PERSONAL COMFORT, he had said--" I have attained satisfaction as to my state, by a consciousness of change in my own breast, mixed with a consciousness of integrity.

Two evidences are satisfactory to me :--

1. A consciousness of approving God's plan of government in the Gospel.

2. A consciousness, that, in trouble, I run to God as a child."

These evidences Mr. C. illustrated even in his diseased moments before his death. On that afflicting dispensation I shall not here dwell, as I think nothing can be added to what my friend, his successor, has so well said in the second of his Funeral Sermons, and which Mrs. Cecil has quoted toward the close of her Memoir.

Such was Mr. Cecil. I sincerely regret that some masterly observer did not both enjoy and improve opportunities of delineating a more perfect picture of his great mind. I have, however, faithfully detailed the impressions which his character made on me, during a long course of affectionate admiration of him nor have I shrunk from intermingling such remarks, as every faithful observer must find occasion to make while he is watching the unfoldings of the best and greatest of men.

CHRISTIAN PARENTS, and particularly CHRISTIAN MOTHERS, may gather from the history and character of our departed friend every possible encouragement to the unwearied care of their children. While St. Austin, Bishop Hall, Richard Hooker, John Newton, Richard Cecil, and many other great and ́eminent servants of Christ, have left on record their grateful acknowledgments to their pious mothers, as the instruments under the grace and blessing of God, of winning them to himself, let no woman of faith and prayer despair respecting even her

most untoward child.

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