A newly published book was once under discussion in the presence of one of our living bishops, and several errors, evidently the result of carelessness, being pointed out, the bishop remarked, "Brother Emory would have worked his finger-nails off before such inaccuracies could appear in a publication of his." The remark was no exaggeration. No man could be more conscientious as an author than John Emory. So great was his anxiety that all his compositions should be finished, that we have known him, after correcting and recorrecting until his manuscript had become the plague of the compositors, to make free with the proofs to an alarming extent, and sometimes to throw down whole paragraphs and pages after they had been set up. Shall we call this a fault, and thus sanction that lazy confidence which enables some writers to utter their crude thoughts in careless language, to the disgrace of the Church and the injury of good letters? By no means. Rather let us praise the sternness of principle which governed the man even in such matters, and the prudence which caused him so anxiously to strive for correctness in all things. The lima labor is not so common that we can afford to stigmatize it as a weakness.

Such were some of the prominent traits of Bishop Emory's character. Less known, of course, were the strength and tenderness of his affections. How touchingly beautiful are the letters written to his mother, at the time of trial to which we have referred! How carefully he avoids any allusion to his father's course, and how tenderly he speaks of him afterward! The opinion seems to have gained ground, in some quarters, that he was cold and repulsive; and some, observing the stern severity of his manner in the performance of public duty, have judged

that his heart was formed in the mould of austerity. Those thought differently who knew him well. In the account, given in his own language, of his wife's death, every word is fraught with feeling; and never was there a nobler expression of human love than is found in the closing passage of a letter to his mother-in-law on that mournful occasion: "I think, sometimes, that I could brave death to see her only." The letters to his family and near friends, especially in times of sickness, trial, or death, literally breathe the spirit of love.

But there was some ground for the opinion that he was not remarkably affable; certainly he was not as accessible as he might have been without any detraction from his dignity. This remark, however, can only apply to his business intercourse with others. When he gave himself to the enjoyments of the social circle he was delightfully easy; there, and there only, did his heart find its full play. His friendships, too, were sincere and steadfast, and they could not be otherwise in a nature of so much depth and constancy as his. His biographer tells us that "his heart was too warm and generous not to seek some kindred spirits with whom to hold sweet converse; though even with these, his most unreserved intercourse never descended to anything unbecoming the Christian or the minister." We think it may be said, in addition to this, that he was not communicative even to his best friends. He was not accustomed to indulge the entire heart in the gushing flow of sympathy; his soul did not utter itself, as some men's do, in all its fulness; nor did he "delight in the detail of feeling, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within-to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love." His affections were always under the control of his judgment.

To attempt a regular analysis of Bishop Emory's mind, is a task to which we dare not address ourselves. No man can trace his history and read his writings without perceiving that accuracy was one of his highest aims. This resulted not only from the character of his mind, but from his mental habits, formed early in life. He could never be satisfied with partial views of any subject. "In boyhood," says his biographer, "whether the subject of inquiry was the pronunciation of a word, or a question of science or religion, he could not be content with conjecture, when certainty might be attained." And, in after life, he studied thoroughly whatever he undertook to examine at all, and in setting forth the result of his labours, he surrounded his subject with an atmosphere of light. He had the clearness of Guizot, though without his eloquence. Indeed, the most prominent feature of his mind, it seems to us, was its method. When he spoke, you saw that every sentence was thought out, and present to his mind as a whole, before he uttered a syllable. In writing, too, he always took care to see the end from the beginning. Good logic was natural to him; a sophism grated on his mind very much as discord annoys a musical ear. A difficult question fell to pieces before his power of analysis just as a compound substance is decomposed by chemical agents. Nor was his method mere arrangement, that empty counterfeit which cheats some men into the belief that they have well-ordered minds, as if to build up a science were the same thing as to make a dictionary. It consisted, first, in the natural clearness of his understanding, and, secondly, in his habitual reference of the species to the genus-the subordination of the parts to the whole-the contemplation of the relations of things as well as of the things themselves. His associa

tions were principally made under the law of cause and effect; the principle involved in any phenomenon, and not the mere attendant circumstances of time and place, took root in his mind, so that his memory was eminently philosophical. Add to this his methodical industry, and you have the secret of his extensive knowledge, his readiness in debate, his admirable self-possession as a presiding officer, and even the versatility which enabled him to excel in all that he undertook. He understood most thoroughly the value of the old maxim, everything in its place, a maxim for which genius itself can find no substitute. Coleridge says truly, that "where this charm is wanting, every other merit either loses its name, or becomes an additional ground of accusation and regret. The man of methodical industry organizes the hours and gives them a soul; and that, the very essence of which is to fleet away, and evermore to have been, he takes up into his own permanence, and communicates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed, that he lives in time, than that time lives in him." Bishop Emory was, to a remarkable degree, this good and faithful

servant.

We do not hesitate, therefore, to say that he was a man of great talent. But he was not a man of genius. Every subject had to be brought within the scope of his understanding, and when there, he was perfectly master of it; but in the outer region of the imagination he was comparatively a stranger. No poetry has been found among his remains, and for a very good reason; he did not possess "the vision and the faculty divine." It was not for him to clothe his thoughts in

"The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream;"

for the light that was in him, and which he poured forth in a flood of radiance upon every subject properly within his sphere, was the light of the understanding, and not of the imagination. That he would have been a greater man if more richly endowed with this highest of human gifts, we cannot doubt. His preaching would have been more attractive, his writings more fervent and glowing, and his whole character more ardent. The powers that he possessed qualified him admirably, however, to discharge the duties that devolved upon him, and he worked better, perhaps, with his diversified talents, than a man of genius could have done in the same circumstances. What we have said of him, thus far, amounts to this: that he was eminently a practical man. Without knowing the extent of his studies in modern philosophy, we can easily imagine the contempt in which he would have held transcendentalism. German metaphysics must have been all cloudland to him. He would have placed Kant and Schelling upon the same shelf with Jacob Behmen and Baron Swedenborg. Even Cousin could have found.no favour with him. To some this will seem high praise; to others, just the reverse; but, at all events, we believe it to be true.

Dr. Emory was a deeply pious man, in the highest sense of the word. Religion, with him, was not merely a matter of principle and habit, but had its root deep in his heart, and gave worth and dignity to his entire being. He was not much given to talk about his personal religion— the stream was too deep for that; but his communion with God was, we doubt not, uniform and abundant. Equally removed from formality and enthusiasm, his