characteristic of the individual who expressed it; but they consider it as an act of justice both to the dead and the living, not to send these volumes into the world without some account, however brief, of the departed friend who composed them:-and of such a man, how is it possible to speak in language which shall not serve to record their sense of his extraordinary worth?

The Rev. JOHN VENN was born at Clapham, on the 9th of March, 1759. He was descended from a long line of clerical ancestors; some of whom were remarkable for independence of character, and some for patience and suffering. So far as any knowledge of them is preserved, they appear to have lived in the fear of God, and to have been elevated far above the fear of man. Their profession was sacred; their lives reflected credit upon their profession; and their respected descendant has added new lustre to their fair and honourable name.

His father was the Rev. Henry Venn, well known as a most zealous and indefatigable Minister of the Church of England, and as the author of that very useful and popular work the Complete Duty of Man. At the time of his son's birth he was curate of Clapham: he removed afterwards to Huddersfield in Yorkshire, where his labours were abundantly blessed, and he died vicar of Yelling, in Huntingdonshire, on the 24th of June, 1797.

The subject of this memoir received the early part of his education under Mr. Shute, at Leeds.

He was then removed to Hipperholme School, where he was well grounded in classics by the care of Mr. Sutcliffe. He had afterwards the benefit of the Rev. Joseph Milner's instruction at the Grammar School at Hull; and of the Rev. Thomas Robinson's and the Rev. William Ludham's, the last an eminent mathematician at Leicester. He was admitted a member of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of A. B. in 1781, In September, 1782, he was ordained deacon, as curate to his father: he entered into priest's orders in March 1783, and two days afterwards was instituted to the living of Little Dunham in Norfolk. On the 22d of October, 1789, he married Miss Catharine King, of Hull, who died April 15, 1803, leaving a family of seven children. In June, 1792, on the death of Sir J. Stonehouse, the former rector, he was instituted to the living of Clapham. In August. 1812, he married Miss Turton, daughter of John Turton, Esq. of Clapham. At this place he resided, with little intermission, from the beginning of the year 1793, to the day of his death.

:

It would be a pleasing task to enter, at large, into the history of Mr. Venn's labours, and to develop the full character of his elevated, discriminating, and pious mind: but, for the reason already assigned, the Editors will do little more than cite the testimony of two clergymen; of whom the one was the companion of his early life, and the other was intimately connected with him at a time when his mental powers were in their full action and energy, and when, to the zeal and piety which characterized his youth,

was superadded the wisdom of maturer years.—“Mr. Venn," says the first of these gentlemen, "I consider to have been the oldest friend I had among my equals. Long before either of us went to college we were intimate, being children of parents betwixt whom there existed the most cordial and Christian friendship. After a separation of some years, he came into residence at college, a few months before I took my degree. But as I continued to reside in Cambridge, our intimacy was renewed and increased; and he then discovered that warmth of affection, and that soundness of judgment and principle, which gained him the esteem and love of all who knew him. Through his influence were first formed those little societies of religious young men, which proved I believe a help and comfort to many. At various times, after Mr. Venn's institution to the living of Little Dunham, I visited him, and witnessed his able, affectionate, and zealous manner of addressing his people. In 1792, he established the Dunham Meeting of Clergy, which has continued to this time: it has proved a blessing to that district, and has led, I believe to the establishment of another, on similar principles, in another part of Norfolk* At the period of his removal from Dunham, his modesty and disinterestedness were eminently conspicuous; and his friendship to me at that time I shall ever have cause to remember with lively gratitude.

*It ought not to be forgotten that Mr. Venn was also the projector and principal founder of the Church Missionary Society to Africa and the East,- -a society which by its subsequent progress reflects no small cred. it on the wisdom and piety which led to its formation.

"As a father of a family I have always admired Mr. Venn; and I hardly ever visited Clapham without being impressed with a conviction that the blessing of Heaven was upon him and his. No where did religion appear in a more engaging form; and the impression which both his life and death must have made upon his children and all his friends, could not fail to convince them that 'the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths

Our second extract is from a sermon by the Rev. Hugh Pearson, M. A. of St. John's College, Oxford, preached in the Parish Church of Clapham, on the occasion of Mr. Venn's death.

"We are met,” says Mr. Pearson, "this day to deplore the loss of one of the best and greatest men, of one of the most eminent and useful ministers, whom we have ever known. The all-wise and gracious, though as in many other instances, mysterious, providence of God has been pleased to remove him from us; and painful and difficult as it may in some respects prove, it is our duty, and I trust it will be our endeavour, humbly to submit to the dispensation, and diligently to profit by the various lessons of instruction which it so loudly speaks to us. Known as your late excellent Pastor must be to most of you by the intercourse and experience of more than twenty years, you will still doubtless, expect from me, on this mournful occasion, some notice of his character, some mention of his virtues. Yet if, in the performance of this grateful service, I should

appear, in any measure, to violate that unaffected modesty, that deep humility, which distinguished and adorned his character, and which expressly and earnestly sought to prevent any adequate tribute to his merits, let it not be ascribed to any forgetfulness of this excellence, or to any opposition to his known wishes; but to the influence of emotions which 'cannot and ought not to be repressed, of claims which cannot be resisted, of obligations alike owing to the great and glorious Being who made him what he was, and to the grateful and affectionate people who esteemed and valued him as he deserved. In truth,

"It were profane

To quench a glory lighted at the skies,

And cast in shadows his illustrious close.

"In delineating the character of our revered friend, it is far from my intention to attempt any thing elaborate or complete; the pressure, no less of time than of feeling, forbids the one; my own real inability, and my regard to what would have been the wishes of him whom we lament, would prevent the other. My only aim will be, to offer such a brief sketch of a few of the most prominent and valuable features of his character, as may tend to excite our admiration of the graces which were vouchsafed to him, and our sense of responsibility for the long-continued exercise of them for our own benefit.

"The Christian Minister, whose premature removal (if the expression may be allowed as to any dispensation of Divine Providence) we are this day met to deplore, was adorned by nature with a sound and powerful understanding, with a rich and fertile imag