"Hail, holy light!" exclaim'd And, lo! the rose in crimson dress'd, And, blushing, murmur'd-" Light! Then was the sky-lark born, Flow'd o'er the sunny hills of noon; Lo, heaven's bright bow is glad! And shall the mortal sons of God No:-by the mind of man! By God, our sire! Our souls have holy light within, By earth, and hell, and heaven, Mind-mind alone Is light, and hope, and life, and power; The second Ark we bring- Oh, pallid want! oh, labour stark! The Press!-the Press!-the Press! wwwwwwwwww REVIEW. Memoirs of the late Rev. Thomas Belsham; including a brief Notice of his published Works, and copious extracts from his Diary, &c. By John Williams. BIOGRAPHY is, of all kinds of writings, the most universally interesting. Its thrilling interest arises out of the circumstance, that in such writings, the events, actions, and fortunes of a whole life, are placed before us in a living speaking picture, which enables us to see and hear all that was done and said by the individual from his death, in the short period of time required to read his memoirs. The secret of our great fondness for reading lives, travels, voyages, histories, and even novels, is our getting by these means through the scenes of years and ages in a few hours. They are steam-engine conveyances on a railway, by which we can start from the cradle and travel on to the grave, of any one of the oldest, the wisest, and the most celebrated of the human race, in the tenthousandth part of the time which it took him to perform the real journey of life; and in a moment be back again, ready to start from the cradle of another. This rapid motion through time and space, and all kinds of events, must of necessity be exquisitely delightful to beings constituted as we are. We have to act certain parts ourselves, and we cannot but feel anxious to know how others acted before us. We have a deep stake in the issues of plans and schemes and courses of conduct, and we are almost irresistibly impelled to seek in the records of the past, for examples, instructions, encouragements, or warnings, which may suit our own individual case. For this purpose we turn to biography. For this purpose we peruse the lives of patriarchs and prophets, of sages and senators, of the great and the good, and even of the mean and the vicious. And, as the demand is great, memoirs abound. It is well for him who makes a proper use of them, that they do abound. But who does make a proper use of the histories of men and their movements? Not he who reads for the mere sake of reading. Not he who reads without either discriminating or appropriating; but he who reads for the sake of improvement, and who for this purpose discriminates carefully between the useful and the useless, and appropriates sedulously whatever can expand his own mind, and warm and purify his heart. Such a reader will experience an infinite difference in the results of reading the lives of Bonaparte and Washington, of King Henry the Eighth and Franklin, of Calvin and Belsham. He will find, that while a certain amount of pleasure is derived from the reading of the life of any remarkable person, it is only from those whose goodness is equal to their greatness, whose virtues are as varied and soaring as their intellect, that the largest sum of both pleasure and improvement can be obtained. Of the latter class is the life of Belsham. He was a good as well as a great man, His mental powers were capacious and strong, his moral sentiments and religious feelings were high-toned, and his constitutional temperament was energetic. And as he was educated in the theological system of the vindictive Calvin, it becomes matter of no common interest to learn how the chilling dogmas of Geneva and the Westminster divines operated on his benevolent mind;-whether they improved or injured him-how he came to cast Calvinism from him as an unholy thing-and what was the difference between his dispositions and hopes as a disciple of Calvin, and his dispositions and hopes as a disciple of Christ. And on all these important topics, we are furnished with ample information in the volume by Mr. Williams. From a memorandum written in 1766, when Mr. Belsham was in the 17th year of his age, Mr. Williams makes an extract, to show that "his mind was deeply imbued with religious principles, though mixed with sentiments of that dark and melancholy kind, which gave a mournful character to his thoughts and expressions, and greatly embittered the period which is usually the most cheerful, the most animated, and the most active portion of human life." The following are young Belsham's words: "I am, indeed, all over corrupt. Alas! what will become of me? Oh that I could but serve God with diligence and fervency, with zeal and alacrity! but my convictions soon wear off, and I fear my conscience is seared with a red-hot iron."-"My state of mind through this week has been variable. Sometimes I am, at least I think myself to be, pretty deeply affected with divine things; but at other times I am quite hardened. Sometimes I have some hope that God will adopt me, notwithstanding my unworthiness-at other times, I am ready to sit down in hopeless despair. My convictions, I hope, are pretty frequent, but all very transient; and I much fear that Christ is not formed in my soul. Oh that I may be made a willing subject in the day of his power! Oh that he would receive me into the number of his elect." Again, at the same period, he thus expresses himself:— "I hope I have had some pretty deep convictions this month, but I fear I have too often resisted the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I have been ready to hope, yea, am almost confident that I have the favour of God, and that he is my friend. At other times, I am just ready to fall into despair. And I cannot tell how it is that I do not. My chief difficulties are concerning foreknowledge and election. I am ready to fear that God has not elected me, and that I am irrevocably doomed to everlasting misery. These thoughts sometimes make me so unhappy, that I can scarcely endure myself. My life is a burden to me, and I am almost ready to blaspheme the God of heaven. But Jesus knows the way I take, and I hope will pity me." In the succeeding thirty pages of the volume-every word of which we should most delightedly transfer to our own pages, did the limits of our periodical allow us so to indulge our own feelings, and so to indulge our readers— we have an unusually affecting picture of Belsham at Daventry Academy, in the 17th, 18th, and 19th years of his age, drawn by himself. Here we see him anxiously preparing himself for a solemn self-dedication to God; and then amidst hopes and fears, and a great conflict of feeling, performing that kind of awful ceremonial which had been prescribed and gone through by Dr. Doddridge. And here, too, we see him with still more intense anxiety, with feelings wrought up to absolute religious phrensy, going through the Calvinistic discipline for coming to the Lord's table. In looking at this part of the Memoirs, it is impossible to resist the impression, that the young and ardent mind will be either crushed under the weight of fears, or burst by the resistless expansion of joys, which the tremendous excitement occasions; and the ravings of insanity issuing from the ruins, proclaim in petrifying tones, the folly and iniquity of so unnatural and barbarous a process. But the mind of Belsham passed through this antichristian ordeal unbroken, and under the influence of a far more excellent way" of thinking, he wrote more than forty years afterwards, the following remarks upon his own juvenile account:— "In these papers, which I believe to be the faithful transcript of my feelings upon the occasions on which they were written, it is curious to observe the distraction of the mind, and the difficulty which the writer experienced in ascertaining the proper share of homage which was to be paid to the Father and to the Son. is plain, however, that if the Father received the tribute of It homage and fear, the Son possessed that of confidence and love.I believe those very long-protracted and often fatiguing devotional exercises, though they trenched grievously upon my studies, and prevented my reading books which would have communicated information or improved me in learning, were a very excellent preparative for that earnest anxious inquiry after truth, which eventually terminated in that consistent, delightful, and, I trust, correct system of opinions in theology and morals, which is the solace of my advanced years." As we pass through the next twenty pages of the Memoirs, and to the 21st year of Belsham's age, we notice the same religious feelings still actively at work, and observe them swelling to a tempest, as he solemnly dedicates himself to the Christian ministry, and prepares and delivers his first sermon. On the back of the document are the following observations, dated October 27, 1811, when, of course, he was in the 62d year of his age. "I remember it well. With what doubts and fears, with what anxiety and depression of spirits did I enter upon this sacred and honourable office! I thought myself unworthy and unqualified for the meanest station in the church; but with what wonder and gratitude do I review the conduct of Divine Providence, and the great goodness of God, after the experience of more than forty years! Through what scenes have I passed! what trials have I endured! what situations have I occupied! what acceptance have I experienced! what means of information have I enjoyed! through what difficulties and perplexities have I been carried! what rewards, and honours, and comforts have I been favoured with! and may I not add, of what usefulness have I been honoured as the instrument! In what an honourable, comfortable, and useful situation am I now placed! By the grace of God I am what I am.' And if I have in some views laboured more abundantly and more successfully than others, I most sincerely and gratefully acknowledge, it is not I, but the grace of God that was with me. In what straits and difficulties, in what anxieties and fears have I at times been involved! All has been darkness and gloom,deep has called unto deep, the waves and billows have gone over me,' but in the moment of danger God hath appeared.' He has dissipated my fears. He hath exceeded my hope. Surely no one has met with such wonderful, seasonable, merciful, unexpected interpositions of Providence as myself." (To be continued in our next.) THE CHRISTIAN PIONEER. GLASGOW, JULY 1, 1833. THE Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Christian Tract Society, was held in Worship-Street Chapel, London, May 9. S. Sharwood, Esq. in the Chair. The Secretary commenced the bu |