member that I am not to compose an harangue to acquire to myself the reputation of an eloquent orator, but that I am preparing food for precious and immortal souls, and dispensing the sacred gospel which my Redeemer brought from heaven, and sealed with his blood."* * Mrs. Doddridge, writing to Mr. Clark, in 1754, thus refers to her husband's ministrations: "Nor does it give me less joy to hear you speak so highly of experimental preaching. It was often said by the ever dear deceased, that one sermon preached to the heart was worth ten to the understanding. I think you will with pleasure read those sermons of my dear Mr. D., which I am now getting transcribed. He formed his first plan of preaching, as I have often heard him with delight express, on this principle; and I cannot but think, considering the variety of subjects on which they treat, as well as exhibiting a specimen of his general manner of preaching, many of them would be very acceptable to the public, and possibly would be more useful than those which have been so long published. I was glad I had the power of putting the transcript of one sermon into your hands. It was the first sermon my ever dear Mr. D. preached after his recovery from that violent fever in '45, in which no person expected his life-the title, 'Paul given back to the Church in answer to the prayers of his Christian friends.' A second Paul was given back, and I must esteem it a great mercy, as I know not how his place could have been supplied. You see almost in every page the heart of the dear author; and mine can accompany him, and add many others from the recollection of many things which my eyes saw and ears heard, who was so often a witness to his lively faith and zeal for the glory of his God and the salvation of souls, particularly those in a more immediate manner committed to his charge, taking every opportunity in season and out of season, making use of every G Doddridge's gift in prayer was eminent; his administration of the Lord's Supper exemplary. A season of memorable enjoyment must the service often have been, judging from the sacramental meditations, which we sincerely thank the spiritually-minded administrator of the ordinance, for recording in his diary. On the Sunday evening did the good people of Castle Hill, in those times, show forth their Lord's death, availing themselves of moonlight nights, for the convenience of such as lived in the adjacent villages. One can picture them, their minds filled with the holy things their much loved doctor had been saying, wending their way in rustic conveyance, or trudging on foot through Northampton's silent streets, and the still more silent roads, looking up to the pale blue ocean-sky, and the moon floating there with her silver sails, and her train of starry barks; musing, perhaps, on the beauti occurrence, whether of a public or private nature, to lead on their meditation from one Sabbath to another, and endeavouring to lead on and fine down their minds to the grand concerns of their own salvation; and to this you will here find the kindness of his heart and the overflowing benevolence, which did not stop here, but ran more or less through all his conduct towards them, enforcing his sermons by a suitable life and conversation." *MS: letters in possession of Charles Reed, Esq. ful hymn in which their pastor has embalmed. the spirit of his discourse on "God the everlasting Light of the Saints above." "Ye golden lamps of Heaven, farewell, Pale empress of the night. "Ye stars are but the shining dust The pavement of those lovely courts, "The Father of eternal light Shall there his beams display: Nor shall one moment's darkness mix "There all the millions of his saints And each the bliss of all shall view, The preacher and the pastor are sides of ministerial character, which sometimes, unhappily, do not accord. They look opposite ways, like the double face of Janus. Heavenly and earnest in his Sunday work, the man presents a total reverse in his week-day walk. No suspicion of that sort can rest on Doddridge. He kept a list of all his members, with some memorabilia of their religious standing, a sort of spiritual domesday book, exhibiting how much of the holy inheritance in Immanuel's land each one might actually possess. The people were scattered, but once or twice a-year he contrived to visit them all. He was not more the messenger of God in the pulpit than he was in the rich man's parlour, or in the poor man's kitchen. When festivals and wakes gathered a rustic concourse, there was he to preach a suitable discourse; and when some member in neighbouring village died, away he went to improve, for the benefit of survivors, the memory of the departed. He catechized the children with special care, and formed religious associations for the young people. Finding himself overspent with labour, he called in the aid of suitable persons in the Church, under the name of elders, to help him in his pastoral visits of inspection and loving care. He was as Moses, and they were as the helpers suggested by Jethro. With all his gentleness of spirit, he aimed at maintaining purity of discipline; and among other edifying entries in his church books, is one well worthy of universal adoption as a law,—namely, that a man failing in business must be cut off from the body, unless, within two months, he can prove that his fall was not owing to his sinful folly. Congregational fasts accompanied acts of discipline, and relics of a more olden time appeared in his days of godly prayer and humiliation, when the divine work seemed at a stand-still. And then, besides all this, how he laboured outside the church, to found the charity-school and county hospital, on the basis of public voluntary contributions, the novelties of that age, preparing for what have happily become the common-places in the benevolence of this. Yet, this good man did not reap all the success which might have been expected. His richest harvests were gathered in during the earlier years of his spiritual husbandry in Northampton. Not long before his death he writes with a heavy heart: "In looking over the account for five years, 1749, I find that twenty-two have been admitted, and twentytwo removed by death or otherwise, so that we are just as at the beginning of the five years, -in all 239." Under the year 1747, he says in his diary :— |