whatever clearness he discerned the imperfections of his justly admired friend, what reader can refuse to acknowledge the benevolent wisdom of the latter portion of the following passage?

"Doubtless he had his faults; for in many things we all offend.' I might be blind to some of them, although I thought I watched him more carefully than I did any other friend; as being more anxious that he should be right in all points, and more at liberty to speak my mind, if ever I thought him wrong: but whatever they were, he has done with them, and I have done with them. I will deny none that I ever knew; but, if I had known more than I ever did, I would not needlessly expose them. I am fully satisfied that he is now without fault before the throne. His just spirit is made perfect. I long to be as he is. I wish I now were as he was, in all things except those bonds.

'If I knew of his making a golden calf, or in any degree countenancing idolatry, I would acknowledge and reprobate his conduct; or, if I knew of his denying his Lord three times over, or even once only, I would own and lament it. But the sacred writers, while they recorded every material fact impartially, yet did not needlessly repeat and exaggerate the imperfections of upright men, nor aim to show their own acumen in nicely criticizing their characters; their impartiality was real, but not ostentatious. Luke entered into no discussion of the controversy between Paul and Barnabas, though he had full opportunity of knowing one side of the story, and that from far the greatest man of the two: and as I am not divinely inspired to distinguish accurately who was right and who was wrong, wherein Mr. Fuller was separated from some who once had a share in his friendship, and from whom he thought it his duty to withdraw it; I shall leave them to write of his faults, who refused to acknowledge any of their own. Though I may have strong grounds for an opinion on that subject, yet I am not eager to show them. I leave such things to an infallible Judge. The whole of this volume will be sufficient to show that I wished to write the actual life of my dearly beloved friend,and not his panegyric. By the grace of God he was what he was; and now the work of grace is perfected.'"-p. 364.

Dr. Ryland modestly calls himself "Editor," and "Compiler," of the work. In fact, it is the considerably smaller portion of it that proceeds from his pen. But the selection and arrangement, from so large an assemblage of miscellaneous materials, may not have cost much less time and exercise of judgment than an equal length of free composition would have done. The selections are made partly from diaries, kept by Mr. Fuller through a number of years, but discontinued when his time became so imperiously occupied with the augmenting and complicated labours relative to the Indian

Mission, and partly from his correspondence with our author, with his own family, and with other friends. But little use was deemed to be necessary to be made of his published writings, the series of which is briefly recounted, with a few pertinent explanatory and historical notices. It is to be observed, with respect to all the materials and periods of the memoir, that the biographer's having been, in the strictest sense, contemporary with Fuller, immediately acquainted with the circumstances affecting him through each stage of twothirds perhaps of his life, and with the course of those opinions and controversies in the agitation of which he most laboriously matured his judgment, and evinced his talents, has enabled him to give more of an illustrative connexion, and personal character, to the compilation, than any other hand could have done in working on the same written materials.

We can have no doubt that the selection is, as relative to the far larger portion of materials kept back, a judicious one. It was a task of great delicacy and discretion; as so many things, strikingly illustrative of the character, could not be published without involving, in an ungracious manner, and in some cases possibly a painful one to living persons, the character and circumstances of other men. There have doubtless passed under Dr. Ryland's review, many pieces in which the able discussion of subjects was, from the nature of the occasion that provoked it, so implicated with personal references, that it was better so much of Fuller's vigorous exercise of intellect should be lost to the reader, than that those occasions should be made the subjects of invidious, or at best unprofitable, observation. There must have been considerable difficulty in the process of selection from the diaries. From that source the Doctor has drawn much, of which he acknowledges that the severely self-observant writer would have deprecated the publication. He rests his justification on the conscientious conviction that the extracts may be useful, and the confidence that, therefore, if the appeal could now be made to that writer, he would not disapprove.

We are satisfied that, on the whole, our author has exercised his office with sound judgment, and certain that he has done it thoughout in the genuine spirit of an earnest promoter of religion. Considered simply and technically, if we may so express it, in the capacity of biographer, he has certainly succeeded in giving a real, vivid, expanded representation of the man, by means of bringing into conformation a multiplicity of smaller and larger fragments in which that man had, on a variety of occasions and subjects, in many different situations and states of feeling, so forcibly and characteristically displayed himself.

We believe that in no other way could so impressive a portraiture have been delineated. And we have dwelt the longer on the manner in which, and the resources from which, the work is composed, in consideration that, when a book is regarded as a "compilation," the reader is apt to be but little sensible of the labour that may have been required, or the knowledge and judgment that may be evinced.

As an introductory chapter, Dr. Ryland has given a brief view of the prevailing cast of opinion and preaching among the Baptists, in reference particularly to the Calvinistic doctrines, from an early part of the last century down to the period when Fuller entered on the public service of religion. And this is chiefly for the purpose of tracing the history of what has been sometimes named "The Modern Question."-If there be readers whose memories or understandings have no recognition of this denomination or its import they may be excused: "There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." After all that either" philosophy," or theology, or practice, had been so long inquiring, or showing, or trying, there remained yet a novelty for the business and gratification of "modern" genius. It was reserved to be brought into "Question"-" Whether it be the duty of all men to whom the Gospel is published, to repent and believe in Christ." (page 4). And this was stirred into active debate, it seems, in Northamptonshire, some years before

VOL. I.

H H

the middle of the last century. Our author deduces the history of the controversy through its successive stages and disputers, to the period when Fuller was destined to be harassed by it into the polemic service into which he entered with the greatest reluctance, and in which he was to act so distinguished a part.

The account of his early life, from childhood to his entrance on the ministry, is related by himself, in a number of letters, written at much more advanced periods. The narrative has the remarkable merit, that the observations dictated by his mature and time-worn mind, do not lessen and stiffen the lively simplicity of the representation of what he was in his early years. It is a very interesting story. It would have been evident to any moderately discerning observer of his childhood and youth, that his moral and intellectual nature was composed of strong elements, notwithstanding that their deepest workings appear to have been carried on under the seclusion of a reserved habit,-reserved, at least, in so far; for his social, active, and even gamesome propensities would, indeed, imply a certain measure of what must have had the effect of frankness with his sportive companions. To such companionship it is too evident that parental authority must have surrendered him with far too little limit or selection. A proportion of religious instruction, however, found its way to his mind, and prepared him to be a subject of powerful impressions and alarms. At a very juvenile age the vigorous conflict began between conscience and inclination, abetted and stimulated by example. Notwithstanding all his practical gaiety among his associates, it is evident that nature had given a gloomy temperament to his strong passions; there can, indeed, be no doubt that the spirited sociableness which had the appearance of gaiety, partook very much of the deeper quality of ambition, supported by the consciousness of an athletic frame, and of mental faculties which he could not but perceive to be more effective than those of his coevals. This strong and gloomy mental constitution being powerfully laid hold of by the thought of God as an all

seeing Judge, a thought under which he sometimes sunk in terror, and sometimes struggled with earnest but still despairing resistance, he passed through a long series of violent emotions, alternating with intervals of such oblivion as appear very wonderful and unaccountable. A season of some considerable duration, in which he was overwhelmed with distress, wept bitterly, repented, resolved, vowed, and ardently sought a glimmer of hope, was followed, apparently with very little of gradual transition of feeling, by a comparatively long period of utter carelessness and abandonment to folly. During one portion of time, he describes himself as uniformly beginning the day in keen remorse, and ending it in thoughtless levity. He mentions a variety of curious and interesting circumstances, incidents, and suggestions of thought, which occurred in the long course of these fluctuating feelings, the whole train of which, prolonged through a number of years, he appears to have kept profoundly secret. While he felt bitter vexation, and we may almost say a ferocity of resentment at the state of his own mind, he entertained, he says, a great respect and even affection for those whom he believed to be truly religious; but he appears not so much as to have thought of communicating to any of them the slightest hint of what he was thinking and suffering. He was, the while, though so prone to folly, preserved from the grosser vices incident to youth.

It was in his sixteenth year that the visitations of religious distress and terror came upon him with a continued intensity, no more to be suspended, or beguiled, or allayed, till he was enabled, toward the end of that year, to embrace with grateful joy the hope of Divine mercy through Jesus Christ. That depth of self-abhorrence which rendered him slow to believe, gave but the greater emphasis to his exultation when he could at length, with humble confidence, assume an interest in the Great Sacrifice of atonement. He was then drawn into communicativeness with some pious persons of his acquaintance; united himself to the society of Baptists at Soham, not far from which his father, a farmer, re