ieties for a family, to which he was fondly devoted, proved too much for his delicate and sensitive frame. He was consequently compelled to decline any present engagements in his profession, and to seek the recovery of his health by a prolonged journey. In the summer of this year he was invited by the first Congregational society in Beverly, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the removal of Dr. M'Kean to the presidency of Bowdoin College, where, after preaching four Sabbaths, he was unanimously invited by the church and parish to be their pastor. At this period, he was solicited to preach as a candidate to the society in Brattle Street, Boston, which he was compelled to decline from an unwillingness to incur additional obligations, and from the feeble state of his health. Earnest proposals were also made to him from the society in Providence, now under the care of the Rev. Dr. Edes, inviting his settlement with them. He accepted the call at Beverly, and was installed in the following winter, on December 13, 1803. At this time his health was extremely feeble. He was just able to ascend the pulpit, and preached under the disadvantages of evident debility and frequent interruptions. The writer of this imperfect account of his valuable life and labours, has heard him say, that he preached his introductory sermon under the consciousness that it might be his last. Many of his beloved congregation have not forgotten the impressive manner, with which he preached on that occasion from the words, "We all do fade as a leaf." He was soon after confined with severe illness.

Through the prescriptions of an amiable and eminent physician, by whom, under Providence, his useful life was at succeeding times saved and prolonged, he was restored to comparative health, and enabled to enter upon the active and successful discharge of the arduous duties of his large and extended parish.

With a debilitated frame, but a mind ardent and bent on high degrees of usefulness, he entered on this enlarged sphere of labour. His first efforts were followed with an increased seriousness in his society. In August, 1804, he writes "My labours have been apparently blest more than in any former period. The serious of the society have expressed to me their joy and gratulation; the whole assembly appears more solemn and attentive and full than formerly." In February, 1805, he writes-"The additions to the church in less than a year have been nearly fifty, and they seem to adorn their profession." The mode of preaching, which was instrumental in these results, was eminently practical. Religion was with him a deep personal feeling, founded on a delicate and tender sense of the divine mercies. It was this feeling, that he laboured to inspire in others. Hence his preaching was characterized by the closeness of its application to the heart and conduct, and its topics often suggested by passing events in his parish. An intimate acquaintance with the situation and wants of his hearers was the source of his successful appeals from the pulpit. It was because his addresses were founded on known circumstances in the experience of those whom he ad

dressed, that he felt sure of touching a responsive string. In his pulpit exercises, as well as in private, he preserved a happy medium between an inactive state of religious feeling, and excited enthusiasm. For this reason, he was enabled to exert peculiar influence in seasons of excitement. His pure piety gave him

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influence over the most unenlightened fervour. reasonable and evangelical delineations of duty exerted a persuasive power over the most enlightened. It was his constant aim to keep alive in his parish a temperate tone of serious piety, equally removed from indifference and fanaticism. In a letter at this period, he writes, "I doubt not but you have remarked, that those persons who are most awakened about religion, are most apt to censure warmly. Indeed, all their feelings are warm; they can say and do nothing very moderately; they may at such a moment be transported to almost anything. I often suggest this remark, the justice of which is always felt, that religion has more to do with the heart than the head; that it consists more in sweetness of affections, than in the knowledge of mysteries and dark questions; that therefore they need not angrily censure others for their opinions, nor be ruffled by the hard judgment, which others may pass upon their religious state, merely on account of their opinions. Such mild suggestions have much effect, and I have often the pleasure to hear my sentiments of this kind repeated from one to another as their own."

At this period, he felt himself under the necessity of often speaking without much writing, and came to the

conclusion, that a minister, in order to be in the highest degree useful to his people, must form the habit of preaching both with written and unwritten discourses. With this conviction he determined to give a course of expository lectures in the Town Hall, and began in March, 1806. The plan of these lectures is thus stated by himself—" designed to show the history and doctrines of Christ in connexion, and to enforce them upon my hearers, in a practical and pathetical, rather than in a learned and theoretical manner." In a note he adds," Some have professed to be much enlightened and quickened by them, which encouraged me to go on with them, till the Town Hall could not contain the assembly, and we came to this place," the church. In a letter written many years afterwards, he speaks of these lectures having been to himself a delightful and profitable exercise, and to his people one of the most popular and useful services he had ever rendered.

In February, 1807, he lost his excellent mother. His filial grief was expressed on this occasion in a sermon to his congregation from the words,-"I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." The following extracts from a private letter, while they constitute a just tribute to her worth, may illustrate the tender sensibility and christian submission, with which he bowed to the most painful visitations.

"Our consolations rise out of the review of as pure a life as is ever witnessed. She had prepared for death by a whole life of constant and lively devotion. If ever children in the world had occasion, we have, to rise up and call our mother blessed. Let us strive after

her high attainments in faith, in temper, in devotion, in heavenly-mindedness, in liberality to the poor.-But what virtue, or what grace can I name, in which she had not attained excellence. I have been to spend alone a few minutes in surveying her pale but beautiful countenance; and while contemplating it, endeavoured to impress on my mind her recollected counsels, and resolved never to forget the mercy of God to me in such a mother. Let us so live, that our death may be calm and peaceful; and that we may ascend at last to the happy world, where we trust she is renewing her devotions with purer joy and brighter fervor; and where we may be the crown of her rejoicing forever.”

In 1809, he preached the annual discourse at Plymouth in commemoration of the landing of the Pilgrims. This discourse was published, and received with favorable marks of public estimation. The pledges of his success on this occasion were the warmth of his heart on a subject peculiarly congenial to his habitual sentiments, and an accurate acquaintance with the causes, whieh led to the establishment of our civil and religious freedom.

The summer of 1810 was distinguished by a second season of religious excitement in his society. His acknowledged ardour in the cause of practical religion, procured him, at this time, the professed affection and tenders of ministerial exchanges from those, from whom he differed materially in many speculative points of religion. The belief of the agency of the Divine Spirit in the work of human renovation was the ground, in some instances, on which an exchange of services was solicit