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"For what was the city of Boston for five nights under arms; her military on the alert, her citizens enrolled, and a body of five hundred men patrolling the streets? Why were the accustomed lectures for public worship, and other public secular meetings suspended? Why were the citizens, at sound of bell, convened at mid-day in Faneuil Hall to hear Catholicism eulogized, and thanksgiving of fered to his reverence the bishop for his merciful protection of the children of the pilgrims? And why, by the cradle of liberty, and under the shadow of Bunker Hill, did men turn pale and whisper, and look over their shoulders and around to ascertain whether it were safe to speak aloud, or meet to worship God? Has it come to this, that the capital of New England has been thrown into consternation by the threats of a Catholic mob, and that her temples and mansions stand only through the forbearance of a Catholic bishop? There can be no liberty in the presence of such masses of dark mind, and of such despotic power over it in a single man. Safety on such terms is not the protection of law, but of single-handed despotism. Will our great cities consent to receive protection from the Catholic priesthood, dependent on the Catholic powers of Europe?"

He succeeded well in his financial undertaking, and contributed to the welfare of the institution as well in preaching to rich men in private, as to poor students in public.

We have an account of a delightful family meeting, when eleven children were present, and on the Sabbath three of them preached for him. It was literally a family circle as they joined hands and sung "Old Hundred,” and the Doctor in the middle made them a speech, and then embraced each child, and then all took of each other a farewell kiss, and sung a hymn.

In reply to reports against Dr. Beecher's soundness at this time, we have his letter to Dr. Plummer, in which he says:—

"Dwight was my theological instructor and father; there is no difference in our theology. Edwards, Bellamy, Fuller, and Witherspoon have constituted the bone, sinew,

heart, and life of my theology. I have been steeped in Edwards for more than forty years. When the theology of these men goes down, I expect the Bible and Christianity will go down."

As his numerous children, when at home, were scattered over five States of the Union, he adopted the novel method of sending a circular letter, of large size sheet, in which each might write a few lines, and send it forward by mail to another, until the full sheet came back to him with something from each of his sons and daughters.

Owing to the failure of Mr. Arthur Tappan, in 1837, one half of Dr. B.'s salary failed him; but, by the generosity of his friends and his parish, the sum was made up, and he was enabled to give his time and personal influence to the Seminary, until the Western College Society was formed, and its own funds became large enough for its support.

In 1838, he took an active part in the formation of the New School body of the Presbyterian Church, and felt that the cause of Christ and the welfare of a large portion of that great branch of the church would best be promoted by a separation, when, in spirit, on so many questions, they were already divided.

After this, he returned to his ordinary work of teaching and preaching, and revivals followed his earnest efforts, both among the students and members of his parish. He thus speaks of systematic theology:

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Why should a topic in theology be exceedingly distrusted the more it becomes systematic? Are not all the works of God in the natural world systematic;- the orrery of the universe, the anatomy of bodies, plants, and trees, and the chemical laws of matter? And is matter methodized, the mere footstool of immortal mind, while law, and motive, and moral government, and the remedial influence of the atonement, and redemption are thrown heap upon heap in immethodical

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"An ambassador of Jesus Christ to negotiate a peace between God and man-it is the mightiest power God delegates to mor tals. Be strong in the determined purpose. Give thyself wholly to the work; half a man is almost worse than none; the devoted half is never but little more than a quarter.

Preach not human philosophy, but the gospel. Take heed to thy body; to thy mind; to thy heart; to thy doctrine. The power of the heart set on fire by love is the greatest created power in the universe."

On the relative merits of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, he

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professorship at Lane, and returned to Boston in 1851. He there resided, preaching occasionally, and superintending the publishing of some of his works. In 1856, he removed to Brooklyn, N. Y., and attended upon the preaching and at the social meetings of his son Henry Ward. His mind gradually faded away, until but little intellect was left; but his calm, spiritual, benignant countenance remained, and he passed peacefully away at last into the land of cloudless minds and undecaying powers.

Dr. Brainard furnishes a very interesting letter of reminiscences, and analyses of his character, talents, and work. Says one who knew him well :—

"The thing of all others in him that affected me most was, not his intellect, or his imagination, or his emotion; but the absoluteness and simplicity of his faith. The intensity and constancy of his faith made eternal things real to me, and impressed me from childhood with the visionary nature of worldly things, so that I never felt any desire to lay plans for this world."

It was a sublime sight to see this venerable man, with such a life of labor and care behind him, stand up in a crowded lecture-room in Brooklyn, just trembling, as he was, on the verge of heaven, and say, that if the opportunity was given him to choose between going to heaven, and living his life over again in the service of Christ, he "would enlist again in a minute.”

This reminds us of another aged servant of Christ, who, just ready to depart, said, "If it was the will of God, I should like to renew my commission to preach the gospel up to the day of judgment.”

This is the spirit awakened in the Christian heart by a study of a life like that of Lyman Beecher, and we are glad that it has been portrayed to us by loving hands, and would recommend its perusal to all laborers in the vineyard of Jesus Christ.

THE REV. JAMES WILSON.

A CHAPTER IN THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF PROVIDENCE, R. I.

BY REV. S. W. COGGESHALL, D. D., DUXBURY, MASS.

IN 1689, in the wars between Louis XIV., of France, and the German allies, the Palatinate on the Rhine was inhumanly devastated by Marshal Duras, under orders from Louis, and of which the eloquent Macaulay gives a graphic account, vol. 3, pp. 97-8, "Fifteen years earlier, Turenne had ravaged part of that fine country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they have left a deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of this second devastation." A half a million of human beings, by this act of wanton cruelty, were rendered homeless, with snow on the ground, in the depth of winter, and were scattered through the cities of Protestant Germany, in a state of destitution and beggary.

Twenty years after this event, in 1709, in the reign of Queen Anne, seven or eight thousand Palatines left their impoverished and unhappy country, possessing the fatal gift of beauty, and situated as it was upon the border of the Fader-land, and ever open to the incursions of the French, passed down the Rhine, through Holland, where they were assisted by their Protestant brethren, and crossed over into England, and encamped upon Blackheath, in the neighborhood of London.

Being in a state of great destitution, the following winter, the Parliament granted them a relief of £80,000, and which was an occasion of much murmuring by the Popish and Tory opponents of the government. In the spring, three thousand of them were removed to the colonies, and whose descendants are now among us.' Anoth

1 Somerville's Life of Queen Anne, p. 365.

er portion of them were removed to the rich lands of the county of Limerick, in the west of Ireland, made vacant by the desolating wars of the preceding reign of William and Mary. Here they settled in four small contiguous towns, Pallas, Court Maltress, Killiheen, and Balligarane. แ Having no pastors who could speak their own language, they were without religious instruction, for a whole generation, and had sunk into incredible degradation. Drunkenness, profanity, and Sabbathbreaking had become almost universal among them."

Mr. Wesley, in his almost incredible evangelical labors, crossed the Irish channel forty-two times, and spent no less than six years of his useful and laborious life in the Emerald Isle; and the unfoldings of a subsequent century have unequivocally shown that never was time better or more usefully spent. In one of his visits, he was amazed to find these Teutonic settlements in the midst of their Celtic neighbors, and still speaking the language of their father-land, as well as the English.

The labors of himself and his lay helpers were soon attended with a great blessing among these exiled children of the Palatinate, so that he subsequently declared that "three such towns as Court Maltress, Killiheen, and Balligarane could hardly be found elsewhere in Ireland or England. There was no profanity, no Sabbath-breaking, no drunkenness, no ale-house in any of them; and their diligence had turned all their land into a garden."

It was from this people, with such a

2 Stevens' Life and Times of Dr. Bangs, pp. 69, 70,

singular character and history, that God selected the seed with which to plant a great and powerful church in the then wilderness of the Western hemisphere. Philip Embury and his associates, who formed the first Methodist church in the city of New York, were of these Palatine Irish. And when the first appeared in New York, in 1760, bringing their German as well as English Bibles with them, it excited no small surprise among the Knickerbockers, to see native Irish speaking both German and English, and at the same time professing the doctrines and practices of Wesley.

Among the emigrants from the Palatinate, in 1709, was a little boy, then but four years of age, whose name was Philip Guier, and who subsequently became a schoolmaster among his countrymen and their children ; and among his humble village pupils was Philip Embury, the founder of our American Methodism.

When Mr. Wesley and his zealous and successful itinerants found their way into this colony of Palatines, Philip Guier was among those to receive the word with all gladness, and became the first local preacher in the infant society. His was a fire that burned, and a light that shone. His humble and zealous labors, as was often the case in these days, were attended with a divine power; and when his ignorant Popish neighbors, seeing the effects of his labors, - the ignorant enlightened, the vicious reformed, drunkards made sober, the profane prayerful, and Sabbath-breakers church-attendants, they designated him as

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Philip Guier, that houly man,

Who drove the devil out of Ballygran."

A daughter of Philip Guier married a young man of that famous race of Scotch Irish, who have since made themselves known and felt in all parts of the world, by the name of Wilson.

These were the parents of the Rev. James Wilson, late pastor of the Beneficent Congregational Church in Providence. Such was Mr. Wilson's ancestry. Humble, indeed, but not without public usefulness and historic celebrity. Mr. W. was born in the city of Limerick, in 1760.

He was awakened, when eighteen years of age, under the labors of that distinguished Methodist preacher and orator, the Rev. Samuel Bradburn, and soon after became a member of a Wesleyan society. In 1783, when twentythree years of age, Mr. Wesley, pleased with his "gifts, grace, and usefulness," sent him to the Limerick circuit, and soon after he became a probationer in the Irish Conference, of which Dr. Coke was then, ex-officio, the president. But, marrying before the expiration of his period of probation, he, of course, became obnoxious to that rule of British Methodism which then, as now, forbids a preacher to marry before the close of his term of trial. At this time a passage-at-arms occurred between him and Mr. Rogers, the husband of Hester Ann, who was then stationed in Dublin. Mrs. Rogers was present at this interview, which occurred at the Dublin parsonage. The circuit to which he was appointed offered to receive him, and to support his family, although not according to rule. But some uneasiness arising among parties concerned, Mr. W. declined to go to his circuit. As his offense, in this case, was not a moral, but merely an ecclesiastical one, he had only to step back into the local ranks, and was still in good moral and religious standing among his brethren.

He soon entered into business with his wife's relatives, which was that of a cabinet-maker. But, as is usually the case, in these instances, he was not successful. God had another work for him to do in a distant and important field. He soon resolved, as did many,

at the close of our Revolutionary war, to emigrate to America. He arrived in Providence in a ship commanded by a Capt. Warner, May 27, 1791. Capt. W., upon his arrival, informing his friends that he had a Methodist preacher on board, whom he recommended to their notice, Mr. Wilson was invited to preach on shore, in a private house, in the evening. This was his first introduction to the citizens of Providence.

Such was his debut in the city of Roger Williams, which was to be the scene of his public labors, and his home for nearly half a century subsequent. After this, Mr. Wilson went South to visit some relatives of his wife, who resided in Baltimore; and, at one time, was preaching in the Methodist churches in that city, in connection with Mr. William Hammett, an eloquent and zealous countryman of his, formerly a missionary in the West Indies, and whom Dr. Coke had lately brought with him from that sultry field of labor, where he had just escaped martyrdom at the hands of the slave-mongers of the Antilles. Mr. Hammett subsequently returned to Charleston, S. C., where he at first landed, and where he afterwards created a secession in the Methodist society, in that city of secession, and which, though it made much noise in its day, has long since come to naught, as will also be the case with another and more important secession, which has since taken place on the same spot. Why Mr. Wilson did not, at this time, enter the American connection, I am unable to say; but he afterwards returned North, and in October, 1793, was ordained as a colleague pastor, with the Rev. Joseph Snow, of the Broad Street Congregational Church, and his relation to which was never dissolved.

This was one of the "Separate" churches, so called, and which was formed from the First Congregational

Church on Benefit Street, at the time of the great awakening in 1747, and Mr. Joseph Snow, who was one of its members, and who, like Philip Embury, was a house-carpenter by occupation, became its first pastor. The Rev. Dr. Hall, the pastor of the First Church, in a Historical Discourse, a few years ago, gives an account of their separation, with the circumstances and events which led to it, and to which I must refer the readers for further information on this point.

Mr. Snow had now been the only pastor of this church for forty-six years; and had thus long maintained a living testimony in the town of Providence, in favor of the twin doctrines of justification by faith and a spiritual regeneration; and, as he had thus fought a good fight, and had kept the faith, and in the ordinary course of nature he must be about "to finish his course," it was thought by some that it was best to associate a young man with him in the labors of the pastorate. But not so thought Mr. Snow and some of his friends, who privately withdrew and formed the Richmond Street Church, and built a house of worship in 1795. The present spacious meeting-house of that now large and flourishing church is the third of its erection. This spectacle of a new church formed, and a new house of worship built for a man who had already been the pastor of the same people for forty-eight years, is in most striking contrast with the taste of this fast age, which thinks that when a man is forty or fifty only, and has just become a real presbuteros, in the New Testament sense of the term, it is high time for him "to subside," and to give place to the juniors whom he "has brought up."

But not so thought the men who, with their prayers and tears and valor and blood, laid the foundation of both the church and the State in this land.

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