difficulty, he looked about for aid; and found in Mr. Drew such an assistant as he needed. Much material had been collected for the Commentary. The outlines were also sketched of the West Indian History, the History of the Bible, and other books which Dr. Coke had either announced or contemplated. These outlines and materials were put into Mr. Drew's hands; and it became his business to select, arrange, and perfect.

We again quote an explanatory paragraph from his life of Dr. Coke.

"From motives to which the author will not give a name, many questions have been asked, in consequence of the preceding compact, which, in the eye of ignorance, would seem to terminate to Dr. Coke's disadvantage. In a letter which is now before the writer, this sentiment is expressed in the following words: What effrontery must any person be possessed of, who imposes upon the public by publishing books or tracts in his own name, though written by another, and not ingenuously giving the honour to whom honour is due.' To this family of questions, propositions, and apostrophes, Dr. Coke, in a letter now in my possession, has furnished a satis factory reply. In the year 1811, when this letter was written, he proposed to incorporate my name with his own; but in the title-pages of works that had already appeared, this could not be done. In such, however, as were then designed to be published, it is probable that this incorporation would have taken place, if a change in the mode of his proceedings had not rendered it impracticable, by the disposal of his works to the Conference, and consequently by suspending the plans which he had in contemplation. Let such as charge him with 'effrontery' say what, under existing circumstances, they would have expected him to do more."

After these statements, the reader of this memoir will be enabled to judge how far the credit or discredit of those works which were given to the world in the name of Dr. Coke subsequently to May, 1805, is to be imputed to Mr. Drew.* Upon

*The following extract from a letter written by Dr. Coke, off Madeira, January 22, 1814, to Mr. Drew, will throw some further light on the nature of their connection:

"In respect to the History of the Bible, I verily believe, that if God bring me back from India, we shall be able to proceed with it, or you and some London bookseller. I have taken with me a set of the numbers which have been printed, that I may give them a most serious reading. I have not disposed of the translation of Saurin's Dissertations. They are in a small box in one of Mr. Blanshard's upper rooms.

the footing already indicated this engagement subsisted, until the transfer of Dr. Coke's literary property to the Wesleyan Conference in 1812. It then underwent some modifications, and was terminated by the, venerable doctor's sudden and lamented death, in May, 1814, when nearly in sight of the Indian Continent.

SECTION XVI.

Mr. Drew is invited to enter the church-His conversation with a DeistHe writes as a reviewer.

FROM the celebrity which his Essay on the Soul had obtained, Mr. Drew acquired considerable notoriety as a preacher. When appointed to the pulpit at home, although novelty could not be a source of attraction, the chapel was always filled with attentive hearers; and Methodism in St. Austell was not the less popular for his literary reputation. In Cornwall and Devonshire he was so far an object of esteem or curiosity, that the invitations from various quarters to deliver occasional sermons were more numerous than he could possibly accept.* "What need," observes a pious friend, in writing to Mr. Drew about this period, "have you to live to God, lest, amid unbounded applause, you should let go any of that religion which alone can satisfy the immortal mind!"

"The Missionary Sermon.—I read the introduction at Portsmouth, and viewed the skeleton. Every thing you write has its excellence. But a weak mind would be tempted to doubt the truth of prophecy from your remarks concerning the several circumstances which establish its truth. It is too refined for common readers. Between us, we shall, I trust, make an excellent sermon of it; and I can send it to the book-room, or the committee, from India.

"Yours faithfully,

"T. COKE."

* On his remarking to an over-zealous lady who blamed him for not attending to all the invitations to preach that he received, that "We are not required to kill ourselves by excessive labour in the services of religion," she very earnestly rejoined, "But, sir, you know that if you die, God will raise up another in your stead." We scarcely need add, that with him such an argument had no weight, however forcible it might have been thought by his fair adviser.

Happily he did not forget that intellect is the gift of God— that, as a gift, it left no place for self-gratulation-that for its proper exercise he must render a scrupulous account-and that, for its right employment and direction, it was indispensable that he should cultivate an habitual dependence upon Him, without whom "nothing is wise, nothing is strong." A weaker mind, in Mr. Drew's circumstances, might have suffered injury he, in every stage, retained his primitive simplicity, and, we believe, never permitted the praise of men to relax his duty to God.

The Very Reverend Archdeacon of Cornwall, after his introduction to Mr. Drew, in 1803, continued to call upon him at the time of his yearly visitations. Notwithstanding his knowledge of Mr. D.'s Methodism, he felt for him a growing regard. It subdued that repugnance with which a gentleman by birth, and a high churchman by education and office, might be expected to view an intimacy with a mechanic, and, according to popular acceptation, a dissenter; and it led, in 1805, to a proposal, which indicated a generous wish to show himself a patron and a friend. The proposal was, that Mr. Drew should become a candidate for holy orders. The archdeacon promised all his influence to obtain for him such preferment as his talents merited, and wished him to take the matter into serious consideration.

This proposition Mr. Drew declined. To the Church he felt no antipathy: on the contrary, he had been noted by his religious friends for his advocacy of the establishment; and having found among its ministers his first literary patrons, he was attached to it by the ties of gratitude. But there were some points in its articles to which he could not subscribe; he preferred the free constitution of Methodism to the restraints of episcopal government; and he believed that the intimate connection suggested, though in a temporal point of view advantageous, would ill accord with his previous associations and habits, and would diminish his general usefulness. For the same reasons, he declined a similar offer, made some years afterward, by a gentleman who also tendered him his services and patronage.

About the year 1800, as Mr. Drew was travelling through the eastern part of Cornwall, on a stage-coach, he entered into conversation with a fellow-traveller, who avowed himself a disbeliever in Revelation, and commenced an undisguised attack

on the Bible. In Mr. Drew he soon found a formidable antagonist. He wished to withdraw from the contest; but Mr. Drew became in turn the assailant, and pressed him so closely with argument as to compel him to ask quarter, and confess his ignorance of the writings of those deistical authors whose disciple he professed to be, and with the enumeration of whose names he thought to awe his companion into silence.

The substance of this conversation appeared in the Methodist Magazine, of 1807, under the title of "A Dialogue between a Deist and a Christian." It found its way into the pages of that periodical through one of the preachers to whom Mr. Drew related it soon after its occurrence. In 1819, at the recommendation of a friend who thought the Dialogue exceedingly well adapted to counteract the effect of those profane and deistical pamphlets which, by their lavish distribution, were unsettling the belief and demoralizing the conduct of the labouring population, Mr. Drew condensed it, and published it as a twopenny tract. By his permission, an edition of ten thousand was also printed the following year by the Manchester Tract Society.

The conversation, which is highly valuable and very amusing, would, we doubt not, gratify those of our readers who have never perused it; but since it has appeared in print, in various forms, we quote merely its conclusion.

MR. DREW. "What could induce you, sensible as you must have been of your own deficiency, to commence an attack upon me as soon as we mounted the coach ?"

TRAVELLER. "I thought you were a country farmer, and I wanted to have a little fun."

Mr. D. "Did you not suspect, when you began, that you were committing yourself?"

T. "I had my suspicions after a little while; but I had gone too far to retreat.

Mr. D. "It was a conviction of this fact which induced me to accept your challenge. But pray, how do you like the fun you have had ?"

T. "Just as you may expect. I would not have had any of my acquaintances in company for fifty guineas."

Mr. D. 66 'Well, sir, you have left me in possession of all my arguments; you have assented to the leading features of Christianity; and have not had one word to oppose to what I have delivered. I do not consider that all I have advanced is conclusive. I only spoke from the impulse of the occasion

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and the moment; but I am confident that the ground on which I have stood is perfectly tenable; and the event has proved, that what I have advanced has imposed silence on you. claim no merit in conquering you; for this even a child might have done my only merit consists in encountering you, when you held out such a terrific front."

T. "I beg you will drop the discourse: we are getting into town, and I fear the people will hear us."

Mr. D. "Sir, I will say no more. I thank you for preserving your temper, and recommend to your notice that Bible which you have been taught to despise."

We are

The vanquished Deist was a mercantile traveller. not prepared to say, that, like the gentleman with whom Mr. Drew discussed the arguments in the "Age of Reason," he abandoned his Deism, and embraced Christianity; but he so far respected his antagonist as to visit him, whenever, in the course of his journeys, he passed through St. Austell.

In 1806, through the steady friendship and kind offices of Mr. Clarke, Mr. Drew entered upon a department of literature which the following letters fully explain; while they illustrate a few points of editorial management.

"DEAR SIR,

"To Mr. Samuel Drew.

"London, City-road, July 8, 1806.

"Some literary gentlemen, who manage one of the Reviews, who have seen, and highly esteem, your Essay on the Immateriality of the Soul, have applied to me, to know whether I thought you would become a writer on that subject which you so well understand, and favour their Review with occasional contributions. They would wish to put the metaphysical department entirely into your hands, and upon terms the most honourable in this way. In plain English, if you will become a Reviewer in this department, or any other allied to it, I am authorized to say, that for every printed sheet of your critiques (which shall also include whatever extracts you think proper to make from the works you review) you shall receive guineas. They will also send you the works they wish you to consider, free of expense; and beside the above remuneration, you may keep each work you review at half-price. If

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