And yet the partition which separated him from the national church could scarcely have been slighter. With judicious treatment his objections might, perhaps, have disappeared. They rested chiefly on the baptismal service, and the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed. "In short," writes his amiable biographer, "he felt the impossibility of declaring his agreement with everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer. To the liturgy of the church he was much attached. From the general character of her doctrines and her articles he did not dissent; nor did he, at all events in later years, object to the episcopal form of government. Through life he honoured and loved the church of England as a chief instrument for spreading the gospel at home and abroad, and always declared that as a layman he could have made a good churchman." And with a degree of charity and modesty equally rare and enviable, he often regretted that he could not conscientiously regard some of her services in the same light as did so many of the most eminent Christians, for whose opinions he yet cherished the highest respect, and whose piety he venerated.

He passed through college with great credit-the warm friend of Archer Butler, Doctor Sadlier, and other distinguished men; and might have aspired to a fellowship, had his conscience allowed him to conform. But an integrity entitled to the highest respect impeded his preferment, and obliged him to cast in his lot with seceders from the church of England. The question of conformity was again and again revolved in his anxious mind. His warmest friends were episcopalians, and it appears clear to us that his affections were on the side of the church of England. All his secular interests lay undoubtedly in that direction. "I am now determined," he writes in his diary, "to throw in my lot with the dissenters; and after serious consideration, I think I must continue with that body of Christians with whom I have been mostly associated. I prefer their anxiety to win souls to the Saviour by acting on the principle which I feel persuaded the apostle Paul adopted, when he conformed to some circumstances of the Jewish ritual, though he felt convinced of the abrogation of the whole. I like the church liturgy after one or two excisions, and I have seen and felt the advantages of it."

With these feelings, he entered, in 1832, on his ministry at Brighton, as a pastor of the North Street chapel, where he remained through life. If we feel that the church of England lost much in losing such a man, let it be considered, on the other hand, that not a little was gained to the cause of Christian catholicity. Sortain among dissenting ministers, without bitterness, without prejudice, without sectarianism, firm in his dissent, and to some extent undoubtedly a sufferer in conse

quence (for to such a mind, keenly alive to the most delicate sentiments, even the difference of social position was not unfelt), presented an example which some who say much about self-sacrifice would do well to ponder. He entered upon his work with a due sense of its importance. The Rev. George Clayton, who was present at the Ordination service, says, "To the grand truths of the gospel, which he then professed before many witnesses, Mr. Sortain showed through the whole of his ministry an unswerving constancy of attachment, and failed not to enunciate them in all his public discourses, in his own peculiar yet felicitous manner. Of him it might be said that he held fast the beginning of his confidence steadfast unto the end, and with equal truth, though with characteristic humility, he might have said, 'I have kept the faith.'

We believe this testimony will be confirmed by that of all who attended Mr. Sortain's ministry, whether as stated hearers or occasional visitants; and the latter class formed no small part of his crowded congregation. Yet, at the period when his ministry began, his religion was yet unripe, and his sermons, no doubt, partook of his deficiencies. This, however, must be the character both of the piety and of the public discourses of most young ministers; and it will generally show itself to the greatest disadvantage in those who are afterwards to occupy the most exalted stations as able ministers of the New Testament. Such men will be, from the first, original. They will take with them into the pulpit their own thoughts, their own experience, their own views of divine truth, rather than those they have learned from books, or gathered from the lips of older men. And therefore it is that great wisdom and forbearance should be exercised by Christians of age and experience in hearing young ministers, and forming a judgment on their discourses. There is a sad propensity, in all congregations which have been blessed with a faithful and successful ministry, either to a blind and weak admiration of the young preacher, on the one hand, or to a blameable severity upon the other. Some admire the freshness of his eloquence; others despise him for the want of that which only years can give. The young are charmed with novelty; the elders are displeased because, in fact, they are further on in the Christian race than their teacher. Their kind words and gentle admonitions, hinted rather than expressed, in the spirit of Christian courtesy, a spirit which is never inconsistent with true Christian fidelity, might have had the happiest effects. Studied neglect, a pew habitually deserted when the curate preaches, and a contemptuous disparagement of his sermons, have depressed the heart of many a young, devoted minister; and disposed not a few, in our time, to retire from the society of evangelical families, and look for sympathy amongst Trac

tarians, or in the society of churchmen of the school of the Essayists and German theologians.

We have been led into these remarks upon the immature theology of young ministers in general, from observing that Mr. Sortain, about this time, drew up a series of rules, as recommended by Doddridge and others, for self-examination. One, for instance, entitled Religion, "to be read carefully and with prayer every Saturday morning," a second, on Conduct, "to be read with prayer every Wednesday morning;" and others follow on Study, and Preparation for the Pulpit. To these latter we see no objection where they facilitate intellectual progress; and they may always be laid aside when the habits they are intended to establish are formed, and their utility has ceased. Rules for spiritual conduct, except a few perhaps of the most obvious character, stand upon other grounds, and their utility is much more questionable. Systematic selfexamination is a difficult task; and, as understood by Doddridge, is not, as it seems to us, in strict accordance with the free and happy spirit of the gospel. Those who insist upon it in their public ministry most frequently, are not often those who fully set forth Christ as the end of the law for righteousness; and those who practise it most rigidly are in general those who have not yet come to a full age in Christ. Young Christians frequently set out with some rules or discipline of this kind; experienced ones seldom have recourse to them. They have learned that the tribunal does not exist within them. selves before which the cause can be fairly heard. Judge, witnesses, and jury, all are partial, all incompetent; sometimes sinfully lenient, sometimes sinfully severe; sometimes acquit ting where God condemns, sometimes making sad the heart which the Lord hath not made sad. So they carry the suit at once before the Mercy-seat, and leave it there with David's prayer: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

On the faintest suspicion of sin, a well-tried Christian learns to fly, and to fly at once, to the fountain always open for sin and uncleanness; and there he is both "washed and cleansed and sanctified in the name," that is, by the power, "of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Not that the voice of conscience is despised. Conscience is a useful monitor, but not a court of ultimate appeal. We wish to avoid all appearance of extravagance, where extreme statements on either side of the question may easily be sustained by isolated texts of Scripture. No doubt there are circumstances under which even real Christians may be challenged "to examine themselves whether they be in the faith, to prove their own selves." But, as was the case with the Corinthians, these, in

general, are instances in which the conduct of the professor is so at variance with his creed, that even conscience, imperfect as it is, will at once condemn him, if he listen to its voice. To the burdened penitent, as well as to the anxious believer, we say, Go to the mercy-seat; go at once to the Great Advocate on high. In such a state as your's, rules for self-examination will bring neither peace nor purity. It will be well if they do not leave you a Pharisee, or a formalist. It will be well, indeed, if they make you nothing worse than a religious hypochondriac.

Besides several offers of good preferment in the church of England, Mr. Sortain was solicited by dissenting congregations, and by Lady Huntingdon's College at Cheshunt. He was invited to accept the pastoral charge of Lady Huntingdon's original chapel in Spa Fields, and to unite with it a tutorship at Cheshunt College. But his affection for his flock was warm, and it seems to have met with a grateful return on their part. He refused to leave them, but thought that, in addition to his ministerial work at Brighton, he could devote one or two days in the week to the work of a tutor or professor at Cheshunt. He made the rash attempt, and his health of course broke down. Indeed, he undertook what no college tutor could perform with justice either to himself or his pupils. One of his pupils describes a day's work. It began with a lecture on metaphysics, which is described as being "characterized by great comprehensiveness and depth of analysis, together with great beauty of expression." This is followed up, however, with a eulogy which it is difficult to read without a smile: "There was so much of poetry in his language, and of sympathetic feeling in his beaming countenance and flashing eye, that it was out of the question to suppose metaphysics a heavy and barren field of investigation." A class on mathematics followed; another on natural philosophy, with sundry experiments; this, again, by a lecture on the growth and origin of language. Then a class on logic; "the same deep interest," the writer tells us, "being given to all." We should rather say this was the cramming system in a degree of perfection unknown either at Oxford or Cambridge. But wherever practised, it must soon be fatal, both to the brain and intellect of the pupil, and to the health of the college lecturer.

Mr. Sortain was a man of letters, and his attainments were respectable, though we cannot rate them higher. His friendship with Mr. Harvey, the rector of Hornsey, and Mr. Boone, at that time incumbent of one of the Paddington churches, introduced him to the British Critic, to which, as well as occasionally to the Edinburgh Review, he was a contributor. His subjects were rather scientific than directly religious; though a wholesome tone of religious thought pervades them. He

contemplated something of a higher cast. In a letter to his friend Mr. Harvey, so long ago as 1834, he says, "I have been reading Baden Powell's pamphlet, and I still think it will afford me scope for study and useful strictures." He gave lectures on the Papal aggression; and it is to be regretted that he did not write more upon this and other great theological questions of the day. For his easy and rather redundant style, always elegant, though perhaps a little too ornate, would have made him popular with the mass of readers on whom more deeplythinking men are lost. He wrote, also, a life of Lord Bacon for the Tract Society, and some lighter works; and he was prevailed on to publish a volume of sermons, which beyond the circle of his friends are not much known.

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But the efforts of his pen would not have distinguished Mr. Sortain in the ranks of literature. He would merely have taken his place with the large class of men of education, who up their spare time by contributing to our current literature; who say well what they prepare for the public eye, and detain attention long enough to accomplish their object, which is not only to convey their meaning, but to make their readers feel the importance of the views they advocate. It is as a preacher that Mr. Sortain may claim to be considered as a superior man. The admiration of his hearers seems to us, we must own, extravagant. Mr. Justice Talfourd heard him preach on the behalf of a society for supporting Irish Scripture-readers, and wrote to him the same day, "although personally a stranger, to offer the expression of my thanks for the noble and generous eloquence with which you have to-day thrilled me. The fortunate accident of remaining for a Sunday at Brighton has enabled me to renew the intellectual enjoyment which I received last autumn on a similar occasion in your chapel, and to feel the influence of an eloquence which, even to one who has heard Robert Hall, is wholly unsurpassed." Mr. Thackeray, in the same strain, compliments him on being "the_most accomplished orator he ever knew in his life." Sir James Stephen, with more discrimination, says :-" In the character of a preacher, Mr. Sortain is well known to me. His powers as a public speaker and expositor of abstruse or of popular truths, are exceedingly remarkable. He has in an eminent degree the rare talent of always exciting and keeping alive the interest of his auditors, not excepting those of them who can hardly be supposed to be qualified to follow the course of his argument, or entirely to understand his illustrations. This felicity of style is not attained by any vulgar arts, or by ministering to a corrupt taste for rhetorical ornaments. On the contrary, his discourse is uniformly chaste and simple. The power of it, considered as mere oratory, consists in the habit of descending sufficiently below the surface of things to awaken attention,