tions were manifest. In his diligent study of the Scriptures we may discover an early pledge of the future theological professor and Biblical critic; and in his painstaking visits to the poor, for their religious benefit, we discern an early prophecy of the future model pastor of Northampton. No doubt being entertained of his piety, he was admitted to the church in his nineteenth year, when his hallowed ambition to become one of the shepherds of Christ's earthly fold began to manifest itself with unmistakable distinctness. An offer from the Duchess of Bedford, whose husband's steward was Philip's uncle, presented an opening into the Church of England, with flattering prospects; but such an offer, though the young man received it with gratitude, he felt compelled to decline with respect, as he could not satisfy his conscience to comply with the terms of ministerial conformity. To preach the gospel in connection with those who were despised by the proud and worldly, but whom he honored for their conscientiousness, was his fervent desire. But the way in that direction was for awhile closed up; and the writer of this memorial can well remember, how, some two-and-twenty years ago, he read this portion of Doddridge's instructive history, with a sympathetic and trembling heart, and was not a little strengthened in faith and hope, as probably many others in like manner have been, by the successful issue of this good man's early trial. The youth went to town with a palpitating heart, to call on the influential

and dignified Dr. Calamy for advice and assistance, but found no encouragement in that quarter. He carried the richest buddings of promise, but returned with a cruel blight upon his hopes. There seemed no alternative but to accept a lucrative proposal, made to him by a friend, to enter on the study of the law, but he was unwilling to take a decisive step without fervent prayer; and while on his knees, the postman's thundering knock announced the arrival of a letter. It bore the handwriting of Mr. Clark, and contained an offer from him to receive Doddridge under his roof, and to afford him aid in preparatory studies for that holy office which had kindled in him such pure and strong desire. We fancy we see the tall and delicate youth, with ardent countenance and moistened eyes, folding up the precious epistle, and sitting down to write in his diary, "This I looked upon almost as an answer from heaven, and while I live shall always adore so seasonable an interposition of Divine Providence. I have sought God's direction in this matter, and I hope I have had it. My only view in my choice hath been that of more extensive service, and I beg God would make me an instrument of doing much good in the world."

Next to the honor of a successful ministry itself, is the distinction of being instrumental in the introduction of another to such a course; and the story of Doddridge should be regarded as a caution to the masters of our Israel, not hastily to repress in the bosom of a gifted

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and ingenuous young man aspirations after the holiest of all employments. What a loss would the church have sustained at that critical period, had Calamy's repulse not been neutralized by Clark's encouragement!

CHAPTER II.

PREPARATORY SCENES AND STUDIES.

As the subject of this memorial was intended, by the providence of God, to become pre-eminently distinguished as a divinity professor, it seems proper, in connection with the commencement of his student-life, to advert to the history and character of those institutions in one of which he received his ministerial education. Seminaries for Dissenting students had not then attained the title of colleges, but were known by the humbler appellation of academies, and were, in fact, establishments of a different order from those which now adorn our denomination. Several of the ministers ejected from the Church of England on the black day of Bartholomew, were as distinguished by their erudition as by their piety. With attainments which would have fitted them for conspicuous posts in the republic of learning, some of them were glad, for the sake of a subsistence, to descend to the drudgery of initiating boys into their Greek and Latin accidence. Ralph Button, Canon of Christ Church, and Orator of the University of Oxford, a man

of illustrious scholarship, was obliged, in order to buy his daily bread, to open a little school, and that stealthily, for the sons of his friends, first at the town of Brentford, and then at the village of Islington; and the great Dr. Gale, the author of the "Court of the Gentiles," in like manner sought his livelihood by performing scholastic toils in a sequestered nook of the then rustic Newington Green.* Other men of classic taste and literary skill, less known to fame, such as Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Warren, Mr. Morton, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Shuttlewood, and Mr. Veal, had their private establishments in different parts of the country, and thus blended their instructions in the learned languages with the higher teaching of Christian theology, shedding over the whole the soft and winning light of a holy life. They educated youths for secular employments; and at first-just after the Restoration, in those troublous times when the walls of our free ecclesiastical city began to be built,

* The following was an interesting occurrence in the life of this learned worthy :-The Restoration having stripped him of his preferments, he travelled with two sons of Lord Wharton. On his return to England, as he approached London, he was alarmed with the sight of the city in flames. Amidst sympathy for the sufferings of others, the fear of personal loss rushed into his mind. He had left his papers in the possession of a friend, whose house he soon found to be involved in the general calamity. But he was delighted with the grateful tidings, that his desk, containing the labors of many years, had been thrown into a cart as an article just sufficient to make up the load."-Bogue and Bennett's History of Dissenters, vol. i. p. 325.—There was the MS. of the "Court of the Gentiles,"-so near was that monument of learning to the ignoble fate which consumed so many other treasures.