CHAPTER XIV. RETURN OF MR. BENNETT - DEATH OF DANIEL TYREMAN — EDITORIAL DUTIES LETTER OF ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET LECTURES IN LONDON UPON POETRY-DR. MILNOR-VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF TYREMAN AND BENNETT — LETTER ΤΟ SAMUEL DUNN ANTI-SLAVERY REJOICINGS. On the 5th of June, 1829, Mr. Bennett landed at Deal, and the following morning proceeded to London, from whence he wrote to Montgomery: "This is my dear, my native land!' Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all his benefits! As we proceeded from Deal to Margate, surely never landscape appeared more beautiful to human being than all the country did to me; 'the eye was never satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing' the rural sights and rural sounds. which convinced my heart that I was at length got home. The grass, the flowers, the trees, in gardens, fields, and hedgerows, all English in color, and form, and fragrance, especially the golden clusters of the laburnum, and the prodigality of 'milk-white thorn,' reminded me of all that I had loved in youth, and was now again privileged to behold and enjoy after years of absence in strange climes." On the 11th Montgomery writes to Bennett: "Your last letter, and the most welcome of all that have been received from you, from every quarter of the world, RETURN OF MR. BENNETT. 271 because it is the last, and written on British ground, reached me at this place just when I was setting out on an expedition to the top of Skiddaw. I hastily read it, and with a heart overflowing with joy at the good tidings which it brought of your arrival, I proceeded on my way, leaving to our good friend, Mr. R. Hodgson, to occupy the first pages of a letter of congratulation, which we at once determined to send to you, on your long-wished-for and now happily-accomplished return to your native country. But though my limbs, with the occasional help of a pony, bore me to the height of the magnificent mountain above named, and though my eyes surveyed an immensity of horizon, comprehending land and sea, lakes, rivers, hills, and woods, in the richest diversity, all spread like a map beneath my feet, my mind, but especially my heart, has been engaged with you all the forenoon; and from the stupendous elevation on which I stood, I saw not only the adjacent portions of the British Isles, which every eye may see on any clear day from thence, but I traced you all round the world, and the isles of the South Seas, New Zealand, New Holland, China, the two Indies, Madagascar, South Africa, St. Helena, and all the oceans you have crossed, dividing and connecting the utmost regions of the earth, even to the very spot where you landed at length on our own dear shores- - all these were present to my spirit, and in each of these I could perceive that goodness and mercy had followed you all the days of your long absence on a circumnavigation of charity, the first that has been made by an individual since man fell, and the promise of a Saviour was given. I will not flatter you; I know it will humble you when I say that you are, in this respect, the most privileged of all that have lived, or do live, having alone done what never was before attempted, and what your late honored and lamented companion was not allowed to achieve the glory thus granted to you, you will lay at the Redeemer's feet, and say, it is the Lord's doing that I have been exalted to do this; and to his name be all the praise. On the summit of Skiddaw, under the blue infinity of heaven above, and in the presence of the widest compass of earth I ever saw, except once before, I laid my thank-offering on that altar not made with hands, to Him who has been the refuge of his people through all generations; to Him who, 'before the mountains were brought forth, was God. I laid my thank-offering to Him there, for all the deliverances which He has wrought for you, for all the mercies he has conferred upon you, for all the good which I believe has been done by you, during your long labors and many sufferings, and especially for this last evidence of his loving-kindness towards you, and towards us, too, in answering our prayers, and bringing you safe to our own land and yours; and my heart's desire and prayer for you was, that you may yet long be spared to tell of his goodness and his wonderful works. Mr. Hodgson has so fully expressed my feelings in expressing his own, that I need add nothing further than God bless you!' Yea, and you shall be blessed." Mr. Bennett returned alone, after an absence of eight years, his excellent colleague in the deputation, Rev. Daniel Tyreman, having died at Madagascar on his way home, July 30, 1828. The Independent chapel at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, where for seventeen years he was a faithful minister of the Gospel, reared a monument to his memory, with an inscription by Montgomery, expressing the fullness of trust with which the dying minister gave himself into the keeping of a faithful and unchanging God: NEW EDITORIAL DUTIES. "The covenant of grace' shall stand And clasped it to his heart. In a strange land, where sudden death This was the plea of his last breath- 273 The copious journals of the Deputation were now in the hands of the London Missionary Society, to be recast for publication. A suitable editor was needed, and Mr. Montgomery was selected for the task, a work which he undertook with alacrity, from the strong hold which both the Deputation and its object had upon his personal affections and Christian sympathies. Some idea of the amount of labor to be done may be gained by thinking of reducing fifty manuscript volumes to a moderate size for publication. "Most of my leisure time for three months," he tells us, when fairly on it, "has been employed, and it will take at least nine months more to complete it. I therefore must stay at home," he says to the solicitations of his out-of-town friends, "or, if I go, take my work with me." Christmas, with the close of the old year (1829), and the beginning of the new, was passed with Mr. Bennett at the house of his friend's nephew, Mr. M'Coy, at Hackney, a little village on the edge of the metropolis. A memorial of the visit, introducing us to the young host and his family is pleasantly jotted down by their poet guest: "FOR MRS. EDWARD M'COY. "Thus hath the man of wisdom spoken; 'A threefold cord is not soon broken.""— PROV. "Three lines of life entwined in one The poet's eye can see, From Time's swift wheel, by moments spun, "The first your own, my gentle friend, "Long may they thus together hold "But must they then be sundered? No, Where heaven's eternal splendors glow, "To form a threefold cord above, By Mercy interwound, And to the throne of sovereign love Indissolubly bound. "My wish, prayer, hope, these words betoken, That threefold cord be 'never' broken. "Hackney, January 13, 1830." This letter is to Mr. Bennett, at Tryon's Place, Hackney: "MY DEAR FRIEND, แ 'Sheffield, January 28, 1830. "At length I have an opportunity of sending a line to |