tolical dignity, which every one instantly perceived, and which nothing but the most hardened and brutal profligacy was able to withstand.

XIII. Finally; let it not be thought beneath the dignity of biography to state, that Doctor Rodgers was always ATTENTIVE TO HIS DRESS. Like his manners and his morals, it was invariably neat, elegant, and spotless. He appeared to have an innate abhorrence of every thing like slovenliness or disorder about his person. And while there was nothing that indicated an excessive or finical attention to the materials or the adjustment of his clothing; it was ever such as manifested the taste of a gentleman. In this respect he resembled his friend and spiritual father, Mr. Whitefield, whose sayings and example on the subject he not unfrequently quoted.

The dress of our persons, like that of our thoughts, is undoubtedly important. No man ever neglected either, without impairing both his respectability and his usefulness. A clerical fop is, indeed, contemptible; but a clerical sloven, deserves no slight reprehension. It has been said, and probably with truth, that the person who has a remarkably pure and well-ordered

mind, will seldom fail to be neat and tasteful in his dress. It is certain that such a dress has a tendency to inspire respect, even among the most enlightened and reflecting classes of society; that it gives additional dignity to the presence, and additional force to the instructions, of him who wears it; and that almost all persons instinctively connect with it something of a corresponding character in his intellectual and moral endowments. If this be, in any degree, the case, it seems to follow, of course, that a well-regulated and moderate, but habitual attention to this object, is incumbent on every christian, but especially on every christian who fills a public station.

As an AUTHOR Doctor Rodgers never held an eminent place. His forte was in action, not in writing, which he undertook with reluctance, and as seldom as possible. His publications were few. The following, it is believed, is a complete list.

1. Holiness the Nature and Design of the Gospel of Christ: A sermon preached at Stockbridge, June 24, 1779, before the Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, of Berkshire county,

State of Massachusetts: and published at their request.

II. The Divine Goodness displayed in the American Revolution: a Sermon preached in New-York, December 11th, 1783; appointed by Congress, as a day of public Thanksgiving throughout the United States.

III. Three Sermons in the American Preacher.

IV. The Faithful Servant Rewarded: a Sermon, delivered at Princeton, before the Trustees of the College of New-Jersey, May 6th, 1795, occasioned by the death of the Reverend John Witherspoon, President of said College.

V. A Charge delivered to the Reverend Joseph Bullen, at his designation to the office of Missionary to the Chickasaw Indians.

VI. The Presence of Christ the Glory of a Church a Sermon delivered November 6th, 1808, at the opening of the Presbyterian church in Cedar-street, New-York.

These publications are all respectable in their

kind. They furnish internal evidence that their author was a pious, enlightened, and judicious Divine. But they all discover, what has been more than once hinted in the foregoing pages, that he had been too busy in the great and practical departments of his professional duty, to indulge himself in the luxuries of polite literature, or to attain the elegancies of fine writing; and that he had the pious magnanimity to prefer the former to the latter.

Such was Doctor JOHN RODGERS! He was not without his infirmities; but they were spots in a luminary of full-orbed excellence; and no one was more ready than himself to acknowledge, that he was a miserable sinner, and that his proper place was at the footstool of Divine mercy. "Take him for all in all," the American church has not often seen his like; and will not, it is probable, speedily or often "look upon his like again." In vigorous and original powers of mind, a number have exceeded him. In profound and various learning, he had many superiors. In those brilliant qualities, which excite the admiration of men, and which are much better fitted to adorn than to enrich, pre-eminence is not claimed for him. But in

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that happy assemblage of practical qualities, both of the head and the heart, which go to form the respectable man; the correct and polished gentleman; the firm friend; the benevolent citizen; the spotless and exemplary christian; the pious, dignified, and venerable ambassador of Christ; the faithful pastor; the active, zealous, persevering, unwearied labourer in the vineyard of his Lord; it is no disparagement to eminent worth to say, that he was scarcely equalled, and certainly never exceeded, by any of his contemporaries.

The history of this excellent Man is an instructive one. Among a number of important lessons, it teaches us

That personal character has an immediate and essential influence on official standing :

That ardent piety, exemplary deportment, habitual prudence, and unwearied diligence, are those qualities in a Gospel Minister, on which, under God, the greatest reliance is to be placed:

That the impression made by the exhibition