land, in the year 1588. His family was highly respectable. His father, Rev. Dr. William Wilson, was a well-beneficed clergyman, being a prebend of St. Paul's, of Rochester, and of Windsor, and rector of the parish of Cliff. The mother was a niece of Dr. Edmund Grindall, the pious archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, favored the Puritans to the extent of his power, and at the cost of the severe displeasure of the imperious Queen. Under the care of his parents, John Wilson, who was their third son, was trained to an abhorrence of every form of vice, and especially of every appearance of falsehood. At the age of ten, he was placed under what was then the rigorous discipline of Eton college. While here he was twice rescued with difficulty from drowning. Such was his proficiency in study, that, when yet the smallest boy in school, he was appointed prepositor, or overseer of the other scholars. When the French ambassador, the Duke de Biron, visited the Seminary, our hopeful youth made a Latin oration so much to the Duke's satisfaction, that he gave him for largesse three angels; a sort of gold coin so called, of ten shilling's value. After four years' stay at Eton, he was admitted to King's College, Cambridge, in 1602, being then in his fifteenth

year. In due time, he was elected to a fellowship in his college. This election, effected by the warm interposition of the provost in his behalf, he had like to have lost, in consequence of some slanders which had been maliciously circulated to prevent the choice. This affliction led his mind to serious reflections, and disposed him to be much in prayer.

The injurious reports were soon cleared up, and vanished into forgetfulness. It has been said by one who was himself most unreasonably calumniated ;-" A slander that has no truth to support it, is only a great fish upon dry land; it may flounce, and fling, and make a fretful pother, but it will not bite you; you need not knock it on the head, it will soon be still, and die quietly of itself." The weapons of the slanderer are never more completely foiled, than when met by silent contempt. From that impenetrable shield, how often have the envenomed darts rebounded upon the assailant! It was wisely sung by one of our older poets;—

"And I do count it a most rare revenge,

That I can thus, with such a sweet neglect,
Pluck from them all the pleasure of their malice;
For that's the mark of all their enginous drifts,

To wound my patience, howso'er they seem

To aim at other objects; which, if missed,

Their envy's like an arrow shot upright,

That, in the fall, endangers their own heads."

The trouble of mind which young Mr. Wilson suffered from the malice of his detractor, proved to be an advantageous affliction; it is so true, that "the eye which sin shuts, affliction opens." "Certain it is," says Jeremy Taylor, "unless we first be cut and hewn in the mountains, we shall not be fixed in the temple of God."

Mr. Wilson, through the divine blessing upon the restraints of a careful and virtuous education, had ever continued in a course of serious and irreproachable morality. Strange as it may seem to such as have not known it by experience, persons of this character often endure the most distressing and protracted convictions of sinfulness before God; and are often the most earnest in renouncing, even with horror, all thought of relying on their own righteousness, and in trusting for salvation to the merits of Christ alone. There is no hopeful sign of grace in these "moral sinners," till they begin to manifest a painful consciousness of the native corruption of their hearts and their guiltiness in the sight of a holy God. Though sin be the cause of all our misery, yet a sense of sin is the first step to all the happiness of the Christian life.

Under the preaching of several godly divines, who were then the lights of the University, Mr. Wilson became an anxious inquirer for that one thing he yet lacked. And now the grace of Christ, which no one ever sought sincerely, and sought in vain, taught him to make strenuous exertions, that others might know that grace, and rejoice in its power. He regularly visited the prisons; and, through his patient and laborious efforts, many of the hardened convicts were softened, and melted to repentance.

tans.

This young and ardent Christian was filled with educational prejudices against the PuriThough his devout and zealous life caused him to be regarded as one himself, his high-church notions led him to shun their acquaintance. His strong prepossessions against a class of men whom he had ever been accustomed to hear decried, without knowing what their sentiments really were, at last were removed. Making purchases in a bookseller's shop, to increase his well-stocked library, he fell upon a highly esteemed work of the Rev. Richard Rogers, styled "The Seven Treatises." The reading of this book so affected Mr. Wilson's mind, that he made a journey to Weathersfield, in Essex, in order to listen to the preaching of its author.

Mr. Rogers was then an old minister, and had often been suspended, and silenced, and otherwise troubled for his non-conformity. He was a most faithful and laborious minister; and it is said, that "the Lord honored none more in the conversion of souls." He was an admired preacher. He used to say;-"I should be sorry if every day were not employed as if it were my last." He was called the Enoch of his day; and Bishop Kennet said of him, "that England hardly ever brought forth a man who walked more closely with God." He was grave and serious in all company. A gentleman once said to him;" Mr. Rogers, I like you, and your company, very well, only you are too precise." To this he replied;" Oh Sir, I serve a precise God."

Enlightened by the instructions, public and private, of this divine, and by the study of able writers, Mr. Wilson clearly saw, that the Puritans were far preferable to the Impuritans as companions of one who was diligently seeking eternal life. Returning to the University, he sought the counsels of Dr. William Ames, who was about this time, in 1610, driven to Holland, where he spent the rest of his days in great fame for learning, piety and usefulness. He died just as he was upon the point of embarking

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