"While I live, I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of your father, whom I never saw. I can yet look back to St. Austell, the place where my first letter found him, with a feeling of regard; and with that tie of sympathy which cannot be broken, continue my affection for the memory of Samuel Drew. "Ever yours, "JAMES KIDD.

"Mr. J. H. Drew, St. Austell."

Upon Mr. Drew's style of writing, few remarks are necessary. Though exhibiting beauties that often excited admiration, it was not faultless. An over-scrupulousness in the choice of expression sometimes invested it with an air of stiffness and formality. It was, perhaps, too lofty for common topics, and too figurative for abstract discussion. From an evident partiality to poetical and periphrastic modes of speech, there was sometimes, notwithstanding the general perspicuity of his writings, a diffuseness and circumlocution in his expressions not consistent with good taste. Yet frequently his words were terse and pointed, and rarely could they be misunderstood. Probably it would be hazardous to assert that this style was natural. Like another individual of high intellectual powers, whose death has left a blank,* Mr. Drew, in the early period of his literary pursuits, was an admirer and imitator of Dr. Johnson. Uneducated and unassisted, yet resolved to abandon his former grovelling views and language, he chose the author of Rasselas as a model, and, without a consciousness of impropriety, followed him until his style was confirmed.

To his language in the pulpit little exception can be taken. There the rigid rules of argumentation are so far relaxed as to give scope to the imaginative powers-there the embellishments of poetic diction are not only allowable, but in perfect harmony with impassioned appeals to the hearers-and there the loftiest style is fully sustained by the dignity of the subject. Many who read these lines will remember, that often, when, as a preacher, Mr. D. has felt the engrossing interest which such an office communicates, and, leaving beneath him sublunary concerns, has soared into intellectual and spiritual regions, his expressions have risen in sublimity and grandeur, until they appeared almost to vie with the words of inspiration.

Although figurative language is less adapted for a metaphysical treatise than for a pulpit address, it must not be inferred

* Rev. Robert Hall, A.M.

that in Mr. Drew's writings it is always a defect. However unsuited to mere abstract discussion, there are occasions, even in such works, where this embellishment may be used with the happiest effect; and few writers have been more successful in exhibiting the needful precision of thought, while clothing an unimaginative subject with the attractions of language. Throughout his works there are numerous passages, the words of which have been felt by every reader to be exquisitely appropriate. The concluding paragraph of the preface to the fifth edition of his Essay on the Soul may suffice as an example. We select it, not merely as a specimen of Mr. Drew's style-of pathos and beauty not generally surpassed,-but, from the prophetic spirit which seems to have guided his pen, and led him to anticipate an early liberation from the shackles and infirmities of this mortal state, we adopt it as a fitting conclusion for these imperfect remarks.

66

Advancing in years, the author's probationary period is drawing to a close; and the crisis cannot be remote that will dismiss his spirit from its earthly abode to the regions of immortality. Associating then with the disembodied, detached from all material organization, there can be no doubt that he will see much reason to alter many of his views respecting the momentous subject on which he has written. He, however, concludes this preface under a full conviction, that, although unable to communicate any corrections of what he may then discover to be erroneous in his Essay, he shall have new evidence, bursting upon him like a tide of glory, to establish beyond the possibility of a doubt, THE IMMATERIALITY AND IMMORTALITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL.”

To this quotation, and to our attempted though defective sketch, we add, with full conviction of its truth, the observation of a literary friend, "It will ever be the wORKS, and not the BIOGRAPHER, that will show the genius and capacity of SAMUEL DREW

APPENDIX.

MISCELLANEOUS SAYINGS, OPINIONS, AND CONVERSATIONAL REMARKS OF MR. DREW.

In presenting the reader with the following gleanings, it may be necessary to premise, that the Conversational Remarks being chiefly related from memory, the biographer cannot vouch, in every instance, for the exact form of expression. The observations are, notwithstanding, substantially correct; and, in general, they are given in Mr. Drew's own words.

On the modes of argumentation which demonstrate the existence of a great First Cause, Mr. D. remarked to a metaphysical correspondent, "The various arguments which the visible creation affords are, without doubt, the most popular, and are better adapted to the comprehension of the general mass of readers. But such as are drawn from existence itself, independently of all effects, and works, and designs, must be more convincing to such as can comprehend them; because, being confined within a short compass, the demonstration will have fewer steps, and consequently be less liable to cavils."

2

In reference to the theological tenets of Dr. Samuel Clarke, Mr. Drew writes, "This is one of the dangerous rocks to which we are exposed, in the distant excursions we are tempted to make in pursuit of knowledge; and we rarely fail to split upon it, whenever we suffer the light of philosophy to allure us into regions which lie beyond her province. True philosophy will tell us where true philosophy ends; and the instant we obey her dictates, we admit on the ground of revelation those truths which Dr. C., by following the directions of a coasting pilot, was tempted to deny."

Talking of the various gradations of infidelity, Mr. Drew remarked, "It is the grand error of Deism to make reason the ultimate judge, not only of the facts contained in revelation, but of the nature of those facts, and the manner in which they exist. Socinianism is nothing more than Deism refined. It takes shelter under the letter of revelation, and is the more dangerous because it is the more specious."

On the doctrine of the Atonement, he observed, in corresponding with a friend, “It strikes me, that we sustain towards God the joint character of criminals and debtors. Our criminality requires an expiation to be made; but, if we be not considered in the light of debtors also, I cannot conceive how it can be reconciled with moral justice that God should accept the innocent for the guilty."

Writing to a relative on the subject of faith, he remarked, "Between our safety and our enjoyment there is an essential difference. Our safety depends upon the genuineness or quality of our faith; our enjoyment, upon its strength or quantity. Forgetting this distinction, many mourn when they have more reason to rejoice. Our safety is connected by faith with the efficacy of the atonement; and if faith be genuine, though, through its weakness, our enjoyment may be little, yet, as it unites us to the Saviour, our felicity in an eternal world will be secure, even while we pass the time of our sojourning here in fear."

A young lady lamenting to him the weakness of her faith, "Recollect," said Mr. D., "that among all Bunyan's pilgrims there was but one Great-heart."

"I am so tried and tempted,” said a very sincere person, in his hearing, "that I fear I shall never hold fast my profession.""Let this thought encourage you," he observed,-"The temptations of to-day, if resisted, will lose much of their force tomorrow. Neither let this be forgotten, as a warning,-Once yield to a temptation, and it will acquire double strength."

Some one observing to him, that many religious teachers are accustomed to tell the people that, when tempted, they should never reason,-"It is absurd," he replied, "the very climax of absurdity. For what was reason given us, if we are not to use it when we most need direction? Did not Christ reason with the

devil, and foil him with his own weapons? Reason would say, 'How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' It would suggest to us our own weakness, and direct us to seek help from above. No, sir, it is not reason we have to fear, but appetite, which reason should control. It is because men do not reason that they so often act unreasonably and unscripturally."

A gentleman one day remarking to Mr. D. that very reprehensible expressions were often used in the pulpit,-" Ay, sir," said he, "the pulpit is the strong-hold of the ignorant dogmatist., A man wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason,' gets up where he knows no one may contradict him, and utters nonsense and invective by wholesale."

6

In the course of conversation, a question was mooted relative to extravagant gesture and expression in the pulpit, and the propriety of attempting to move the passions of an audience, as a means of affecting their consciences.

“I see no impropriety," said a gentleman, "in the use of such means. Have they not been followed by the conversion of thousands of sinners?"

"This, sir," replied Mr. D., "does not prove them to be good, though they may have been overruled for good. I have known an individual apparently owe his subsequent religious conduct to an escape from the flames. Would you think it expedient to set your neighbour's house on fire, in order to alarm him, and save his soul? or would you introduce a pestilential disease into a neighbourhood, because the fear of being the victims of such a visitation has led to the reformation of many sinners? I grant, sir, that there may be exempt cases; but I fear that, in general, such methods of saving souls are included in the definition of fanaticism-of maintaining that the end sanctifies the means, and of doing evil that good may come. It may be difficult to trace the exact boundary of right and wrong in these matters; but it must lie between man's animal and rational nature."

To a correspondent, who inquired his opinion of religious revivals, Mr. Drew replied thus:-"If the phrase, revival of religion, be taken in its proper sense, as denoting the extension and increase of vital godliness, I should be no Christian were I to view it with indifference or aversion. If you couple it with noise and excited feeling (and without these many people would think the term inapplicable), I pause before I either approve or condemn. In point of reason, speculation, propriety, and decorum, my voice is decidedly against the manner; and if I thought that it was the effect of human artifice operating upon weak intellects and strong passions, I would condemn it altogether. But when, without any ground for this suspicion, I see the profligate reclaimed, the abandoned reformed, and the vicious undergoing a moral renovation, I abandon all my fine-spun objections, and remain silent at a spectacle so salutary in its effects, and so mysterious in its process.

"I fear, however, there is an artifice with some preachers and people to light up this contagious fire. I have been behind the curtain, and have seen a little of it; and am filled with disgust in proportion to the discovery. If the work be of God, he does not