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Amidst the absolute inundation of new Periodicals, some of useful, and others of doubtful tendency, we claim to occupy our wonted place, and to take the standing to which we believe we are fairly and honourably entitled. We might plead the charitable object to which the profits arising from our sale are invariably devoted; and surely Twelve Hundred and Fifty pounds per annum, granted to One Hundred and Fifty widows of our deceased brethren in the ministry, is no mean argument on behalf of the "Evangelical Magazine;" but we decline to appeal to the charitable feelings of the public, and call on the Pastors, Deacons, and Members of our Churches, to exert themselves in the circulation of a work which has done them good service in the past, and which will still be conscientiously devoted to their best interests in the future.

Do we ask too much, at the close of another year, if we respectfully entreat our brethren in the ministry to favour us with a pulpit reference on one or other of the first two Sabbaths in December? Such a notice, from a thousand pulpits, would greatly increase the circulation of the Magazine, and enable the Trustees to extend the benefits arising from its sale. This is not surely imposing a hard condition upon our brethren, whom, for more than half a century, we have endeavoured to serve in the spirit of fraternal love.

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THE

EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE,

AND

MISSIONARY CHRONICLE.

FOR JANUARY, 1849.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE REV. JOHN HILL, HUNTLY.

BY THE REV. N. M'NEIL, OF ELGIN.

"He was a faithful man, and feared God above many."-Nehemiah.
"Epaphras, . . . who is for you a faithful minister of Christ.”—Paul.

THE lives of devoted men, who die "in the Lord," may be compared to a moral mirror, in which are seen reflected for a season the Christian graces which adorned their characters. Such men are the common property of the Church. Their principles, their conduct, their struggles are replete with lessons of "instruction, correction, and reproof," to survivors. A biographical sketch of departed excellence is like a family portrait; it preserves for a time a few of the lineaments of the living original; but "the tooth of time," the rapidity of change, and the ravages of death, sweep away the images of the most lovely forms to oblivion. "All flesh is as grass." "The fashion of the world passeth away." Human life is as a vapour. It appears only for a little, and then vanisheth away.

The priesthood of old were "not suffered to continue, by reason of death." "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" But "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Their ashes are set under the seal and safeguard of the grave; for, in soul, body, and spirit, they are purchased property. The immortal spirit

VOL. XXVII.

has joined the "general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven," and mingles among "the spirits of the just made perfect." The vacated pulpit, and the closed grave still speak in tones loud as thunder to survivors, "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"

Mr. JOHN HILL was a native of the parish of Kirkliston, born at Niddry Castle, in July, 1787, where still the ruins of an ancient fortification stand, some ten miles west from Edinburgh, in the interest of the Earl of Hopeton. The farm is situated near the line of the railroad between Edinburgh and Glasgow, in the vicinity of the Winchburgh tunnel. Here the deceased's parents reared a pretty numerous and highly respectable family. Mr. Hill, if not the youngest, was amongst the younger branches of it. Though we cannot lay our hands at present upon family dates and family documents, to describe his earlier years; yet the writer of this sketch knew the subject of it early, knew him intimately, knew him long,

knew him since they were schoolfellows sitting on the same benches, and conning over the same lessons together

B

-knew him when they both became Dis-myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother." These are some of the best seeds of promise in our "rising ministry." They are perfectly compatible with active, indomitable habits of hard study, and high degrees of sound scholarship.

senters, from principle and choice, together with her who subsequently became his partner in life, and the mother of the lovely family which they reared. It was much about the same time, that we all became members of the same small Congregational church. Those were the days of "the soul's espousals,"-days long to be remembered, or rather, never to be forgotten; days when "the first love" melted and cemented the hearts of "the little flock" together "unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and the Father, and of Christ." The reminiscences of those days, though now remote, are fresh and fragrant as May flowers. Often were those early associations called up with renewed zest, and made the subject of sweet social intercourse for the last thirty-one years, both at Huntly and in Elgin. During that long period of Christian and pastoral intercourse, I have had opportunities of knowing my lately deceased friend thoroughly to the heart's core ;—and without partiality or exaggeration, though not a perfect man, I cannot help thinking, that he was, "A man who feared God above many."

While Mr. Hill was a member of the small Congregational church in Kirkliston, under the pastoral care of the late Rev. William Richie, he was a most pious, prudent, devoted, young man. Like Obadiah, he feared the Lord from his youth. From a child he had known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make wise to salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus. As a young man, he was modest and unassuming in a very high degree. Associated as it was in this case with vital, correct, consistent piety, it is one of the most lovely features of character, that can appear among the young men who are born of God and nursed in our churches. It might truly be said of him, as the son of Jesse said of himself when he appealed to the God of Israel, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise

Mr. Hill was one of the first class of students in the Glasgow Theological Academy, under the late Greville Ewing and Dr. Wardlaw. An interval of some three or four years elapsed from the time that the late Mr. Robert Haldane's classes, for educating young men for the ministry, were entirely dissolved, before the Glasgow Theological Academy was organized and opened. During part of that interval, Mr. Hill had attended his classical studies at St. Andrews in 1810. On joining the Glasgow Theological Academy in 1811, he resumed his classical and philosophical curriculum at the College of Glasgow for three sessions, where all the students of the Academy attended in their courses. He had an early and warmly cherished passion for the work of the ministry, and possessed a high sense of the requisite qualifications and deep responsibilities of such a work. His attainments as a student were accurate and solid, rather than brilliant and attractive. He was more a man of facts and fixed principles, than of poetic feeling and lively imagination. He was an ardent, patient, persevering student, and was well versed in the structure and idiom of the three languages inscribed upon the Saviour's cross. The Greek New Testament, and especially the Hebrew Scriptures, engaged much of his attention. In both, particularly the latter, he was a daily student to the last hours of his life; and his attainments in these, were highly respectable. He sensitively shrunk from the parade of learning, or public criticism. His object was to grasp the meaning and catch the spirit of the inspired records, that he might be able distinctly to convey "to the people the sense," and leave the appropriate impressions upon the minds of his auditors.

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