Nevertheless is it desirable that prelates should occasionally appear as preachers. Both the example and the effect of prelatical preaching are good. While the example stimulates the exertions of subordinate ecclesiastics, the public effect is beneficial to the interests of episcopal establishments. Christians, who are still men, do not contemplate with indifference their constitutional dignitaries; but if these are what they ought to be, characters equally distinguished for their ability as eminence, and for their piety as dignity, they must be considered really superior to the rest of mankind, and are entitled to our sincere homage. Never is the pulpit so filled as when it contains its prelate. When the prelate becomes the pulpit, it is then seen how much the pulpit becomes the prelate.

More than twenty years have elapsed since BISHOP PORTEUS was promoted to the see which he now fills. It has been his lot to occupy this elevated station, important under any circumstances, during trying times.

Assailed by philosophical infidelity, menaced by religious sectarism, and divided by internal schism, the Church of England needed the most effectual exertions of her best sons; and, happily for her prosperity, there has been found, among her children, ability equal to her actual exigency. Some of her principal dignitaries, her illustrious lights, are seen to be those who, in the language of one capable of estimating their worth,

"In trembling hope, walk humbly with their God!"

It is not for me, however, to produce a mere panegyric on the eminent prelate of whom I now speak. I desire seriously to appreciate his clerical character, connected with the state of religion at this time; and to draw some interesting inferences, particularly as to his pulpit powers and the influence of his episcopal example.

Beilby Porteus, of respectable birth, having enjoyed the right advantages of preparatory education, distinguished himself among his university contemporaries, at Christ's College,

Cambridge, where he took the degree of B, A, in 1752. He soon gained one of the Duke of Newcastle's medals, instituted by that nobleman as Chancellor of the University, for the best Classical Essay;' and he afterwards acquired, in 1759, the Seatonian Prize' for his Poem on Death. In 1755 he had proceeded M. A.

Auspiciously for Mr. Porteus, and, we may add, for the church, his preaching shortly after attracted the attention of Secker, then Archbishop of Canterbury, who, about 1761, became his efficient and permanent friend. Secker che rished ability, and loved integrity. Singularly yet meritoriously advanced himself to the highest clerical dignity, he seems to have lived only. for the clerical vocation. His was the pleasure and the power to do good. Providence first acknowledged, to his "kindness," says Bishop Porteus, speaking of Archbishop Secker, "I owe my first establishment, and much of my subsequent success, in life; to whose instructions, virtues, and example, I am indebted for still

more important benefits; with whose venerable name it is my highest worldly ambition to have my own united here, and with whom (among the spirits of just men made perfect') may a gracious God render me worthy to be more closely and permanently united hereafter." I will not weaken the effect of these inspiring sentiments by any comment of mine.

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Promotion was the natural consequence of such patronage, and, what is not always the case, was as eminently deserved as it was honorably conferred. The public experience of nearly half a century has now ratified this exertion of private munificence. Happy were both parties. It was happy, that a Secker met with a Porteus; and it was also happy, that a Porteus found a Secker.

While rector of Lambeth, in 1776, the subject of this memoir thought it expedient to solicit the attention of his parishioners towards the religious observance of Good-Friday, which he did by his public Letter to the inhabitants of Lambeth Parish.' It may be useful to notice

this short tract. Unostentatious as were its pretensions, and unquestionable as were its positions, this production excited considerable observation and some animadversion. With quite as much perversity as ingenuity, the author of the History and Mystery of Good-Friday' exerted himself to ridicule the import of Dr. Porteus's Earnest Exhortation to the Religious Observance of Good-Friday. Better effects ultimately resulted from the letter. Those who valued the pamphlet, and they were not few, began to esteem its author; whose clerical reputation it rapidly extended, and whose clerical advancement it eventually promoted. Twelve years before the breaking out of the late tremendous revolution, Dr. Porteus, it seems, conceived it necessary for him to caution others against imbibing the modern axioms of philosophical infidelity. "It is not to infidels," he says, in his Letter to the Inhabitants of Lambeth Parish, "I am now addressing myself, but to Christians; under which denomination I am willing to believe that the whole of this pa