many of them very worthy people, and among the most regular attendants upon the church. With many of my flock I live upon affectionate terms. There is a fair proportion of religious men amongst them, with a due allowance of profigates. None of them rise so high as the class of gentlemen, but there is a good number of a very respectable description. I am particularly attentive to the school: there, in fact, I think most good can be done, and besides the obvious advantages, it is a means of conciliating all sects of Christians, by taking an interest in the welfare of their children.

"Our Sunday-school is very large, and is attended by the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians. The day is never a Sabbath to me; however, it is the kind of labour that is best repaid; for you always find that some progress is made -some fruit soon produced; whereas, your labours with the old and the adult often fail of producing any effect, and, at the best, it is in general latent and gradual. Yours, &c. C. W."

"Castle Caulfield, May 4th, 1819. "I am just come from the house of mourning! Last night I helped to lay poor Min his coffin, and followed him this morning to his grave. The visitation was truly awful. Last Tuesday (this day week) he was struck to the ground by a fit of apoplexy, and from that moment until the hour of his death, on Sunday evening, he never articulated. I did not hear of his danger until Sunday evening, and yesterday morning I ran ten miles, like a madman, and was only in time to see his dead body. It will be a cruel and bitter thought to me for many a day, that I had not one farewell from him while he was on the brink of this world.

Oh!

one of my heart-strings is broken. The only way I have of describing my attachment to that man is by telling you that next to you and D- he was the person in whose society I took the greatest delight. A visit to Ardtrea was often in prospect to sustain me in many of my cheerless labours. My gems are falling away; but, I do hope and trust, it is because God is making up his jewels.' Dr. M- was a man of a truly Christian temper of mind. We used naturally to fall upon religious subjects; and I now revert with peculiar gratification to the cordiality with which we took sweet counsel together' upon those topics, You know that he was possessed of the first and most distinguished characteristic of a Christian disposition-humility. He preached the Sunday before for and the sermon

was unusually solemn and impressive, and in the true spirit of the Gospel. Indeed, from several circumstances, he seems to have had some strange presentiments of what was to happen. His air and look some time before his dissolution had, as — told me, an expression of the most awful and profound devotion. Yours, &c. C. W."

We transcribe from Archdeacon Russell's memoir some account of the district in which Wolfe's life was cast, and the duties in which he was daily occupied :

"The sphere of duty in which Mr. Wolfe was engaged was extensive and laborious. A large portion of the parish was situated in a wild hilly country, abounding in bogs and trackless wastes; and the population was so scattered, that it was a work of no ordinary difficulty to keep up that intercourse with his flock, upon which the success of a Christian minister so much depends. When he entered upon his work he found the church rather thinly attended; but in a short time the effects of his constant zeal, his impressive style of preaching, and his daily and affectionate converse with his parishioners were visible in the crowded and attentive congregations which began to gather round him.

"The number of those who soon became regular attendants at the holy communion was so great as to exceed the whole ordinary congregation at the commencement of his ministry.

"Amongst his constant hearers were many of the Presbyterians, who seemed much attracted by the earnestness of his devotion in reading the liturgy, the energy of his appeals, and the general simplicity of his life; and such was the respect they began to feel towards him, that they frequently sent for him to administer spiritual comfort and support to them in the trying hour of sickness, and at the approach of death.

"A large portion of the Protestants in his parish were of that denomination, and no small number were of the class of Wesleyan Methodists. Though differing on many points from these two bodies of Christians, he, however, maintained with them the most friendly intercourse, and entered familiarly into discussion on the subjects upon which they were at issue with him.

"There was nothing in the course of his duties as a clergyman (as he himself declared) which he found more difficult and trying at first, than how to discover and pursue the best mode of dealing with the numerous conscientious dis

senters in his parish, and especially with the Wesleyan Methodists who claim connexion with the Church of England. While he lamented their errors, he revered their piety; and at length succeeded beyond his hopes in softening their prejudices and conciliating their good will. This he effected by taking care in his visits amongst them, to dwell particularly upon the grand and vital truths in which he mainly agreed with them, and, above all, by a patience of contradiction, yet without a surrender or compromise of opinion, on the points upon which they differed. It is a curious fact that some of the Methodists on a few occasions sought to put his Christian character to the test, by purposely using harsh and humiliating expressions towards him in their conversations upon the nature of religion. This strange mode of inqusition he was enabled to bear with the meekness of a child; and some of them afterwards assured him that they considered the temper with which such a trial is endured as a leading criterion of true conversion, and were happy to find in him so unequivocal proof of a regenerate spirit.

In

"The success of a Christian pastor depends almost as much on the manner as the matter of his instruction. this respect Mr. Wolfe was peculiarly happy, especially with the lower classes of the people who were much engaged by the affectionate cordiality and the simple earnestness of his deportment towards them. In his conversations with the plain farmer or humble labourer he usually laid his hands upon their shoulder or caught them by the arm; and while he was insinuating his arguments, or enforcing his appeals with all the variety of simple illustrations which a prolific fancy could supply, he fastened an anxious eye upon the countenance of the person he was addressing, as if eagerly awaiting some gleam of intelligence to show that he was understood and felt."

Wolfe's duties were increased by the visitation of typhus fever in his parish. He knew not what it was to spare himself when any office of humanity required his exertions-and here the demand on his time and thoughts was incessant. He was overworked, and symptoms of consumption began to manifest themselves. habitual cough, of which he himself seemed almost unconscious, alarmed his friends; and in the spring of 1821, it became too plain that the disease had made fatal progress. He was persuaded to visit Scotland, in order to

An

"On the Sunday after his arrival he accompanied Wolfe through the principal part of his parish to the church; and never can he forget the scene he witnessed as they drove together along the road and through the village. It must give a more lively idea of his character and conduct as a parish clergyman than any laboured delineation, or than a mere detail of particular facts. As he quickly passed by, all the poor people and children ran out to their cabin-doors to welcome him, with looks and and expressions of the most ardent affection, and with all that wild devotion of gratitude so characteristic of the Irish peasantry. Many fell upon their knees invoking blessings upon him; and long after they were out of hearing, they remained in the same attitude, showing by their gestures that they were still offering up prayers for him; and some even followed the carriage a long distance making the most anxious inquiries about his health. He was sensibly moved by this manifestation of feeling, and met it with all that heartiness of expression and that affectionate simplicity of manner, which made him as much an object of love, as his exalted virtues rendered him an object of respect. The intimate knowledge he seemed to have acquired of all their domestic histories, appeared from the short but significant inquiries he made of each individual as he was hurried along; while at the same time he gave a rapid sketch of the particular characters of several who presented themselves-pointing to one with a sigh, and to another with looks of fond congratulation. It was indeed impossible to behold a scene like this, which can scarcely be described, without the deepest, but most pleasing emotions. seemed to realize the often-imagined picture of a primitive minister of the Gospel of Christ, living in the hearts of his flock-willing to spend and to be spent upon them'-and enjoying the happy interchange of mutual affection. It clearly showed the kind of intercourse that habitually existed between him and his parishioners, and afforded a pleasing proof that a faithful and firm discharge of duty, when accompanied by kindly

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sympathies and gracious manners, can scarcely fail to gain the hearts of the humbler ranks of the people.

"It can scarcely be a matter of surprise that he should feel much reluctance in leaving a station where his ministry appeared to be so useful and acceptable; and accordingly, though peremptorily required by the physician he had just consulted, to retire for some time from all clerical duties, it was with dif. ficulty he could be dislodged from his post and forced away to Dublin, where most of his friends resided.

"It was hoped that timely relaxation from duty and a change in his mode of living to what he had been originally accustomed, and suitable to the present delicate state of his health, might avert the fatal disease with which he was threatened. The habits of his life while he resided on his cure, were in every respect calculated to confirm his constitutional tendency to consumption. He seldom thought of providing a regular meal, and his humble cottage exhibited every appearance of the neglect of the ordinary comforts of life. A few straggling rush-bottomed chairs, piled up with his books-a small rickety table before the fire-place, covered with parish memoranda-and two trunks cortaining all his papers, serving at the same time to cover the broken parts of the floor, constituted all the furniture of his sitting-room. The mouldy walls of the closet in which he slept were hanging with loose folds of damp paper; and between this wretched cell and his parlour was the kitchen, which was occupied by the disbanded soldier, his wife, and their numerous brood of chlidren, who had migrated with him from his first quarters, and seemed now in full possession of the whole concern, entertaining him merely as a lodger, and usurping the entire disposal of his small plot of ground, as the absolute lords of the soil.

He was induced for a while to leave his curacy in the hands of another, and went to Dublin and the neighbourhood for medical advice and change of air and scene. There were alternations of health and debility; he was even able, occasionally to preach in Dublin, but the disease continued to make its sure and insidious progress.

Towards the approach of winter, (1820) he was advised to go to the south of France. He sailed for Bordeaux, but was twice beaten back by violent gales, and then abandoned the plan; and settled near Exeter during the winter and ensuing spring. The summer months of 1822 he passed in Dublin and the vicinity. In August he sailed to Bordeaux and back, as some benefit was anticipated from the voyage. In November he removed to the Cove of Cork-a town sheltered by the surrounding mountains from the winds. Mr. Russell and a female relative of Wolfe's accompanied him. For a while he seemed to revive, then sank again. He died on the morning of the 21st of February, 1823, in the thirty-second year of his age. On the day before his death the physician who attended him, astonished at the solemn fervour with which he spoke, exclaimed, when he left the room of his dying patient, "There is something superhuman about that man. It is astonishing to see such a mind in a body so wasted—such mental vigour in a poor frame dropping into the grave!"

The plan of our work renders it, if not impossible, yet inconvenient that we should give any extracts from his sermons, or enter into any detailed examination of his theological opinions. This is done by Archdeacon Russell, and we have quoted sufficient from his book to render it unnecessary for us to express our opinion of the good sense and good feeling with which his task has been performed, with more distinctness. To those who have time and opportunity to study the character of Wolfe more in detail than we can give it, there is much interesting matter, communicated chiefly we believe by the late Mr. Taylor, to be found in the tenth volume of THE ANNUAL BIOGRAPHY AND OBITUARY; and his character and progress are sketched with great beauty in a volume to which we have before alluded, entitled, COLLEGE RECOLLECTIONS.

A.