ment might suit its character; this must now be reserved for a state from which moral evil shall be for ever excluded. "But why, my friend, should you be surprised at any of the events of this life, when you look around on the world in which we live? When the enemies of Daniel sought occasion against him, they turned his piety into an offence, and procured for him a den of lions! "But my paper admonishes me that I have only just room to desire my kind remembrance to Mr. Rowley, and to assure his wife, that a letter from her will always be highly acceptable to her sincere friend, and old acquaintance, "Mrs. Rowley, Worcester." "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, "SAMUEL DREW. "15 Owen's Row, Goswell-street, "January 8th, 1833. "It has very generally been thought, and perhaps with much reason, that the primary spring of action in Deity is benevolence; and, as a natural consequence, those among his intelligent creatures bear the strongest resemblance to Him who are actuated by the same exalted principle. The benevolence of Deity shines in creation, and may be traced in the order and economy of Divine Providence. It was conspicuous in the primeval state of man, is more fully developed in the principles of the gospel, but shines with still brighter lustre in the effects produced by renovating grace on the human heart. "When benevolence was effaced by sin, war, inhumanity, oppression, and murder occupied its place: and to this source we may trace the various miseries of human life. Earth, renewed in righteousness, will behold the dominion of benevolence re-established. In heaven, its empire knows no limits, no interruption, and fears no termination. It binds all the celestial inhabitants in amity and love; this being the sacred atmosphere which they inhale from the throne of the eternal God. "The progress of genuine religion may be fairly estimated by the extension and prevalence of this godlike attribute. It includes love to God, and love to man; and must, therefore, have its seat in the heart, while its blessed effects stand developed in the Christian's life. Considering the moral relation in which we stand to the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and the ground we occupy, both duty and interest urge us to promote its influence. "Be it, then, my dear friend, both your aim and mine to seek and enjoy the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, that, having this treasure in our earthen vessels, we may contemplate with ecstasy, for ever, that sublime but incomprehensible expression- God is love.' "Wishing, my dear friend, you and yours every blessing for time and eternity, "I remain, with sincere affection, "Your old acquaintance and correspondent, “Mrs. Richard Smith, Stoke-Newington." SECTION XXXII. Character of Mr. Drew's Writings. THOUGH presenting few attractions for superficial readers, Mr. Drew's original treatises are too well known to the thinking part of the community to require, in this place, minute examination. They have been long before the public, and from the wisest and the best have received the meed of approbation. Little, therefore, will be required of the biographer, but to offer a few general remarks, and quote the opinions of more practised and competent judges than himself. Among those sincere believers in Scripture who dare not trust, even in matters of ordinary duty, to the inferences of their own judgment, there is a prejudice against all attempts to establish or confirm by reason any of the doctrines of revelation. There are individuals also who, though accustomed to the exercise of thought, seem to dread the application of reason to matters of faith, lest its deductions should be substituted for the declarations of Scripture. Mr. Drew was obviously not of this number. All his publications tend to prove, that reason, while it authenticates the canon, and directs us in the interpretation of Scripture, leads to the conviction, that in our relation to each other here, and to our Creator here and hereafter, we need some other rule of conduct than is discoverable by nature's feeble and uncertain ray. Frequently does Mr. Drew remind his readers, and often did he reiterate in the pulpit, that at the precise point where unassisted reason fails, and vague conjecture meets us on every hand, the light of revelation, beaming upon our understandings, dispels the gloomy uncertainty, and, "shining brighter and brighter unto the perfect day," leads on to "glory, immortality, and eternal life." In the preface to his Essay on the Soul, he says, “The great repository of sacred knowledge is the Bible; and, therefore, moral philosophy can be no longer right than while it acts in concert with revelation. I consider moral truth as an elevated mountain, the summit of which revelation unveils to the eye of faith, without involving us in the tedious drudgery of painful speculations. To some of its sublimities philosophy will direct us, through a labyrinth of intricacies; but, after the human understanding has put forth all her efforts, it is by toil and art the steep ascent we gain.' If, however, in any given momentous instance, the tardy movements of philosophy will lead us to the same conclusions that the Bible has already formed, it affords us no contemptible evidence of its authenticity: and hence, revelation challenges our belief in those instances where we can trace no connection." 66 . Scriptural principles," it is remarked, by a student of Mr. D.'s works," are interwoven through the whole of his multifarious labours; and, in addition to his well-earned reputation of sound philosophy, must be added the delightful thought, that the sum and substance of his argumentation, elaborate and cogent as it is, accords with the dictates of eternal truth. In the perusal of Mr. Drew's works, this is felt by every reader capable of thinking; and none but such need be at the trouble of examination; for without thought, properly pursued, they can be neither relished nor comprehended." The opinion of Mr. Whitaker, in his critique on Mr. Drew's earliest publication, cannot be attributed to the partiality of friendship, or the condescension of patronage. No intimacy subsisted prior to the appearance of the pamphlet; and the critic informs the author, that the favourable article in the AntiJacobin was written "in the fulness of his heart," on the perusal of the "Remarks :"-it therefore expresses his unbiased opinion. "We here behold," he observes, "a shoemaker of St. Austell encountering a staymaker of Deal, with the same weapons of unlettered reason, tempered, indeed, from the armory of God, yet deriving their principal power from the na tive vigour of the arm that wields them. Samuel Drew, how. ever, is greatly superior to Thomas Paine in the justness of his remarks, in the forcibleness of his arguments, and in the pointedness of his refutations." It is equally pleasing to know that this little work was not without its use. A distinguished Wesleyan minister says, "When I was stationed at Blackburn, there were in that town many professed disciples of Paine. Several of them acknowledged, that Mr. Drew's answer to the first part of the 'Age of Reason' had made more impression on their minds, and occasioned them more difficulty in attempting to reply to its arguments, than any other work that had fallen into their hands." - The origin, progress, and success of the "Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Human Soul," the work which established Mr. Drew's fame as a metaphysical writer and powerful reasoner, has been traced in an earlier page: his motives for giving it to the world we gather from his own preface. "The ground on which I have assumed the present question is simply this-Have we, or have we not, any rational evidence of the soul's immortality, admitting that no revelation had ever been given us from God? If we have, this branch of infidelity loses one of its strongest fortresses; if not, all rational proof of the immortality of the soul is at once done away. "A subject so abstruse in its nature, and whose consequences extend to a future state of being, must necessarily impress some obscurities on the manner of its investigation; I have avoided all in my power, and yet many, perhaps, remain. It must, however, be remembered, that our inability to comprehend the reasoning by which a fact may be established, is no more an argument against its legitimacy than it is against the fact itself. The ploughshare of reason may be driven among the rocks of error, although every reader may not be able to discern the furrow which it makes. "Whether the present work, like those bubbles on the passing stream which float along and then expire, will engross the attention of mankind only for a moment, and then disappearor pass onward to ages which its author can never reach-are points which events can alone decide. I have not vanity enough to presume, that infallibility has impressed her footsteps upon the paragraphs which I have written; the arguments, however, are such as have produced conviction in my mind, from a persuasion that they arise from the nature of the soul, and the fixed relation of things. I have attempted to erect this fabric on such facts and propositions as are incontrovertible, and have endeavoured to trace the intermediate ideas which appeared to stand in accordance with one another, to that conclusion which I had in view. "Should what I have written be made instrumental in reclaiming but one from the fangs of infidelity, or in preventing another from becoming its victim, it will afford me a consolation which will accompany me through life, and, I hope, be remembered with gratitude through all eternity." The first critical notice of the Essay on the Soul appeared in the Anti-Jacobin Review, for February, 1803. In this there is no attempt at analysis, but a general admission of the intrinsic merit of the work. "This Essay," says the Reviewer, "is introduced to the world under the auspices of the Rev. John Whitaker, the great and good rector of Ruan-Lanyhorne; to whom it is dedicated in a very handsome manner. The address, indeed, is well conceived, and well expressed. The preface is elegant and appropriate. "We cannot pretend to decide absolutely on the degree of merit which it possesses; or the rank which it will hereafter hold in the metaphysical world. We have discovered, we think, a few errors in the reasoning; but we have found much to applaud, much to admire. Of his subject, in general, the author is a master. While we are struck with a chain of argumentation strong and beautiful, we are assured that this is the production of no common writer. And, in thus connecting the author with his work, we cannot but recollect, with wonder, that he is the untutored child of nature; deriving no advantage from education; indebted only and immediately to Heaven for a reach of thought astonishingly great!--for a mind to which all the matter of the universe seems but an atom; and in himself exhibiting a splendid proof, that the soul of man is immortal!" In the Annual Review, for April, 1804, the Essay is criticised at great length, and its contents are thus analyzed. This Essay is divided into two parts. The first treats of the immateriality, and the second of the immortality, of the human soul. In reviewing the properties of matter, the author |