:

some circumstances transpired, which eventually issued in what Mr. Jennings had suggested, and Mr. Some had all along had in view; viz. the establishment of an Academy under Mr. Doddridge's care. It seems, that Mr. Saunders, Dr. Watts, and others, had seen and highly approved of a plan of Lectures, which Mr. Doddridge had drawn up for the use of a friend (who soon after died) they applied, therefore, to Mr. Some, to employ his influence to induce his friend and assistant to engage in this laudable design, for which, in their opinion, he was so well qualified. We need scarce say, that Mr. Some immediately embraced these first openings of Divine Providence for the accomplishing a purpose so near his heart. He therefore proposed to Mr. Doddridge his undertaking it, and pressed it in the strongest manner; and, that he might obviate every objection, he had, unknown to him, engaged the friends of some young men to place them under his care. It was at this juncture that the Leicestershire ministers had agreed to meet at Lutterworth, (April 10th, 1729,) to spend a day for humiliation and prayer for the revival of religion. Upon that occasion Mr. Some preached that admirable discourse, which was afterwards printed, concerning the proper methods to be taken for the revival of religion in their respective congregations, from Rev. iii. 2;-a sermon which greatly impressed the mind of Doddridge, as well as many other ministers. To this assembly, (we are told by Orton,) Mr. Some proposed the scheme he had concerted for the establishment of an Academy at Harborough, under the care of his young friend; in the propriety and usefulness of which the ministers present unanimously concurred, as well as in Mr. Doddridge's qualifications for conducting it, and promised all

the assistance and encouragement in their power. "The friendly conduct of Mr. Some, and of the ministers present on this occasion, had great weight in forming Mr. Doddridge's determination; and, after consulting other friends, he opened his Academy at the Midsummer following." But Mr. Some was not long to enjoy the assistance of his new colleague, who, towards the latter end of the year, was invited to Northampton. To a compliance with this Mr. Doddridge was at first averse, and Mr. Some strongly dissuaded him from it, as thinking that he would have more leisure at Harborough, than elsewhere, for the business of the Academy; and so determined, apparently, were both as to the path of duty, that (as we have seen) Mr. Doddridge's name was inserted in the Ashley trust-deed, so late as the November of this year, as the future minister of that place; yet both were soon afterwards convinced of the will of God in it, and Mr. Some was again left alone. Dr. Kippis remarks it as singular, that Mr. Some was not present at the ordination of his friend at Northampton; and that neither Mr. Doddridge, nor his biographer, takes any notice of the circumstance in the way of accounting for his absence. He conjectures, that Mr. Some might be detained by some severe illness; and there is reason to believe, that that excellent man found himself incompetent to undertake the whole of his work alone, as he soon after was provided with another assistant in Mr. John Halford, a native of Northampton, who, though he never enjoyed the advantages of an academical education, possessed good natural talents, and acquired a respectable share of learning. From Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, where he settled in 1730, he was invited to Harborough, to assist Mr. Some, and came there

March 31st, 1731. Here he remained till September 29th, 1734, when he accepted an invitation to succeed the Rev. Mr. Sladen, the first pastor of the church meeting in Back-street, Horsley-down. Among that people he laboured till his death, which happened May 22d, 1763.

After Mr. Halford's removal to London, we are not aware that Mr. Some had any other assistance to the day of his death; though most probably he resigned (if, indeed he had not done it before) his care over the congregation at Kibworth, and confined himself to his more immediate charge. In the month of August, 1736, we find him preaching a funeral sermon (before alluded to) for the Rev. Thomas Saunders, of Kettering, with whom he appears to have been on terms of the greatest intimacy, and of whose character and labours he gives an interesting delineation. On this occasion Mr. Some seems to have felt the probability of his own removal at no distant period-a presentiment but too well realized. There is something very affecting in the following language, when we reflect that the speaker within a few months afterwards himself

was no more:

"Several valuable ministers have been removed in the compass of a few years, and others are in the decline of life: their sun is going down, their evening shadows lengthen, and in a little time the veil of night will be drawn over them; and the eye that seeth them shall see them no more. Then the great concernments of the Redeemer's kingdom will devolve on those who are now the rising generation. May the great Lord of the harvest send them forth as able and faithful labourers into his harvest, to supply the places of those who are going, or are already gone, to a better world! As we decrease, may they increase; not

only in number, but in a divine sufficiency for their work, and in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. May a double portion of that Spirit which has rested on the most eminent in the

present day, be upon those that succeed, that they may do God more and better service in their day, than we have done in ours! May vital Christianity live when we are dead! and may pure religion and undefiled be propagated amongst our children, and our children's children, when we are sleeping in the dust! May that flourish from age to age, and from generation to generation, as long as sun and moon shall endure! To these wishes and to these prayers let all the people say, Amen."

In a

As we have just intimated, Mr. Some soon followed his excellent friend to his Saviour's presence, and his glorious reward. note appended to an ordination sermon, which Dr. Doddridge shortly after preached at Wisbeach, he alludes to the melancholy event, and speaks of him as "that great man of God, the truly reverend and excellent Mr. David Some, of Harborough, whom God was pleased to favour with a serene and cheerful exit, suited to the eminent piety and usefulness of his life. His dying command hath silenced the attempt which some of his surviving friends would gladly have made to embalm his memory, for the instruction of those that are yet to come; but I am well satisfied, that, considering how very generally he was known, he has left a most honourable testimony in the hearts of thousands, that he was one of the brightest ornaments of the Gospel, and the ministry, which the age hath produced; and that all, who had any intimacy with him, must have esteemed his friendship amongst the greatest blessings of life, and the loss of him amongst its greatest calamities. He died

May 29th, 1737, in his 57th year; and surely I have never seen greater reason to cry out, My father! my father! the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!"*

The dying words of such eminently holy men have ever been regarded with peculiar interest. Mr. Some's were, If any ask how David Some died, let it be answered, that He sought and found mercy.""-An excellent and aged Christian, in this neighbourhood, the son of one of Mr. Some's members, and but lately deceased, often repeated this saying to the writer, in a way that convinces him it made at the time no slight impression upon the church and congregation.

Dr. Doddridge preached his Funeral Sermon, which, however, was not published; but he embraced every opportunity of manifesting his affection for, and his high sense of the worth of, his departed friend. In a letter to Mr. Steffe he says of him, "Than whom I know none more wise to win souls;" and, in his Family Expositor, he has preserved a remark of Mr. Some's, as a specimen of his judgment and acuteness, and his insight into the characters of men, on the finished hypocrisy of Judas; viz. that this man is never found saying one word of Christ's temporal kingdom, though probably the hope of preferment and gain in it was the chief consideration which engaged him to follow our Lord.+ It appears, too, that the Doctor had drawn up a particular account of Mr. Some, which he sent to his friend and fellow-student, Mr. Hughes, of Staplehurst; but it is evident, that this was intended rather for private circulation among his friends, than for publication.

If this had been preserved, it would have proved a valuable present to the lovers of Christian biography; but we fear that it is now irrecoverably lost. In the Collection of Letters to and from Dr. Doddridge, published some years ago by the Rev. Mr. Stedman, of Shrewsbury, this Memoir is alluded to in the following manner, page 49: "I heartily thank you for the particular account you have given me of Mr. Some's illness and death; and can truly say, that if you have not blended the poet with the historian, I never heard of a christian death, and never read a more instructive narrative. I think it is a pity that what is so edifying should be concealed from the world, therefore could wish that the funeral sermon, with his character, were made public."

*

more

The Rev. Mr. Barker, of Hackney, who was well acquainted with Mr. Some, and was much affected at the news of his death, speaks of him, in a letter to Dr. Doddridge, in the following terms: "The mention you make of the excellent person you have lately lost affects and afflicts me greatly. There are few such ministers any where, and but few such men in any age. I knew his modesty was excessive, but am sorry it has deprived us of those memoirs, which, touched over by your hand, would have been very instructive and entertaining. But if we must not read his life and character, let us remember to imitate his exemplary prudence, piety, and diligence.'

دو

We need scarcely remind our readers, that this was the excellent person who wrote that inimitable letter to Dr.

Doddridge's Miscellaneous Works, Vol. iii. p. 189, note.

would have sunk under it.

Mr. Some was interred in the chancel of the parish church of Great Bowden, near Harborough. The knowledge of the spot is preserved by tradition only; for no stately

monument, nor storied

urn, nor even lettered stone, was ever there to mark the place where all that is mortal of this great and good man awaits the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies. We can attribute this to no other cause, than to "that fatal modesty which engaged him, with his dying breath, to consign to the flames those writings, which (unfinished as some of them might have appeared) would probably have been the means of spreading amongst thousands that spirit of wisdom, piety, and love, into which the whole soul of the author seems to be transformed."* But his best earthly memorial is in the affection and reverence with which his name has ever since been, and yet is, cherished in the neighbourhood in which he resided. 66 Truly the memory of the just is blessed."

Mr. Some was married early in life. His issue was a son and probably a daughter, as the name of Elizabeth Some occurs among the persons admitted into the church in the year 1721. Mr. Some's son has been already noticed as Dr. Doddridge's fellowstudent, and intimate associate at Mr. Jennings's Academy. He was settled with some congregation in the neighbourhood; but had not long entered upon his work, ere he was removed by death in April, 1727. Mr. Orton has preserved a letter of Dr. Doddridge to a lady of quality, in which he thus mentions the (to him very painful) event. "It hath pleased God to remove my dear friend, Mr. Some, after he had lain several days in a very serene,

*Family Expositor, ii. p. 309, note (d) 8vo. edit.

6

eomfortable frame of mind, and a few minutes before his death, expressed a very cheerful hope of approaching glory. He appointed me to preach at his funeral, from Psalm 1xxiii. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever,' which he often repeated with great pleasure in the nearest views of the eternal world." And after some other remarks, he adds, "I desire your prayers, that God would support me under this affliction, and do me good by it; and, that, now he hath removed a person of so promising a character, he would pour out more abundant influences of his Spirit on me, and other young ministers who remain, that we may be fitter to supply the want of his services on earth, and to meet him with honour and pleasure in heaven."

Besides the catechism, and sermons above mentioned, Mr. Some wrote a small and judicious tract, (which Dr. Doddridge published after his decease,) on the subject of Inoculation, for the purpose of removing the religious difficulties, with which many worthy minds had been embarrassed in respect to that practice; and the pamphlet was of very considerable utility at the time.*

We subjoin the titles of Mr. Some's publications.

1. The Assembly's Catechism explained, and the Principles of Religion therein contained, confirmed by the Holy Scriptures. 1 Thess. v. 21. which is good. dated 1727.

Hold fast that 8vo. 2d edition,

2. The Methods to be taken by Ministers, for the Revival of Religion, considered in a Discourse on Rev. iii. 2. Preached at a Meeting of Ministers at Lutterworth, April 10, 1729. 8vo. 1730.

3. A Sermon, occasioned by

Dr. Kippis's Biographia Britannica, vol. v. p. 271, 272, as quoted in Nichols's Leicestershire.