mother's devoted care and attention that he was reared. His weakness of body and the symptoms of pulmonary disease which were very early discovered in him, unfitted him for the discipline of a public school; and his education was carried on under several teachers of eminence, as opportunity served, and as his strength permitted. As a child he was remarkable for his quickness of perception and for his reflective habits. And in his eleventh year he made his first attempt in literature.

"He had a brother about three years younger, Edward, of whom he was very fond, and who was taken away from school, in consequence of a cold caught after the measles. The two elder brothers went home from time to time. On one of these occasions, John had been pondering what he could do to give any pleasure to his darling brother, when he bethought himself that Edward was fond of stories, and that he might write out one which he had read, and thus make a little book for him. So he made a book by folding up a sheet of paper to the size of half a card; and on these tiny pages he began to write out the story of Valentine and Orson after a version of his own: to render it still more like a book, he wrote it in Roman letters. He had not finished it, but brought home what he had done, in the hope of pleasing Edward. The little boy, however, was sinking fast, and was unable to take any notice of his brother's book. An infant sister was also fading from the world. They both died in the same week. The loss of Edward was an agonizing and lasting grief to John. For years Edward's image haunted him. He used to say to himself, Edward is near me now. Edward is watching me. He knows what I am doing and thinking,-is sad for my faults. I must, I will strive to do what he would approve of. These feelings, he thought in after life, had taught him better than any thing else, how deeply rooted in human nature is the tendency to the worship of saints, to the beatification and deification of those whom death has hidden from our outward eyes."

In his eighteenth year, Sterling went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where Archdeacon Hare was then one of the Classical lecturers. He soon observed the genial intellect, fine taste, and excellent disposition of his pupil, and an acquaintance commenced that subsequently ripened into a warm and abiding friendship, which no differences of opinion or change of circumstances interrupted, and which is destined, doubtless, to be renewed in heaven. The following instance of Sterling's "selfforgetting energy," and generous spirit, relates to this period of his life:

"One day, while we were at lecture, we were alarmed by a cry that the King's Court, the building of which was not quite completed, was on fire. Of course all the members of the College rushed to the spot, to render such help as they could. The undergraduates formed in lines from the gateway to the river, passing buckets to and from the fire-engine, and behaved with admirable alacrity and order. Having to go down the line for the purpose of giving some directions, I saw that the last person in it was Sterling, standing up to his waist in the river. I reproved him for thus endangering a life which seemed to hang by so slight a thread, and for occupying the most laborious, and to him very hurtful post, when his weakness required that he should have taken one of the easier. But he only said, laughing, Somebody must stand in the river; therefore why not I? To be the foremost in the hour of risk, to shrink from no difficulty, from no labour up to his utmost strength, and even beyond it, by which a friend could be served or good done, was ever his principle and his practice."

Sterling was not much interested in the regular course of the studies at Cambridge. He felt that it did not supply him with the discipline

and the teaching which he needed. And his biographer candidly admits that the prescribed system is not one which is approved by many "of the genial young men" who go to the University. The fact is, that it does next to nothing intellectually for them, and they have consequently no grateful recollections or reverential associations in connection with it. It is lamentable that institutions with the vast resources of Oxford and Cambridge, which, if properly employed, might be made of such extensive benefit to the mind of the country, should be so unfavourable in their operation to depth or largeness of thought, and that they have not been brought more into harmony with the spirit and wants of the age. The eminent men who come forth from them and act a prominent part in public life, emancipate themselves from "the cramped and cramping" influences to which their academic career exposes them. But it would seem that they feel little affection for the Universities, or respect for the education which they furnish. How long is this state of things, so discreditable and so injurious to our national character, to be permitted to continue?

Having left College, Sterling went to London. Coleridge's Aids to Reflection had been recently published, and to its study he gave himself with all the ardour of his nature. To this work Sterling always acknowledged himself greatly indebted, and he was one of its author's most enthusiastic admirers and reverent disciples. He availed himself of the first opportunity of seeking out "the old man in his oracular shrine at Highgate," and has preserved for us a sketch of his appearance which can hardly fail to be acceptable to our readers.

"Mr. Coleridge is not tall, and rather stout: his features, though not regular, are by no means disagreeable; the hair quite grey; the eye and forehead very fine. His appearance is rather old-fashioned; and he looks as if he belonged not so much to this, or to any age, as to history. His manner and address struck me as being rather formally courteous. He always speaks in the tone and in the gesture of common conversation, and laughs a good deal, but gently. His emphasis, though not declamatory, is placed with remarkable propriety. He speaks perhaps rather slowly, but never stops, and seldom even hesitates. There is the strongest appearance of conviction, without any violence in his manner. His language is sometimes harsh, sometimes careless, often quaint, almost always, I think, drawn from the fresh, delicious fountains of our elder eloquence."

Archdeacon Hare regrets that Sterling did not preserve an account of Coleridge's conversations with him. And certainly, judging from the brief notes which he took of his first interview with this celebrated man, and which are printed in the volume before us, we share in this feeling. At a later period he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Words

"Mr. Coleridge happened to lay his hand upon a little old engraving of Luther with four German verses above it. He said, 'How much better this is than many of the butcher-like portraits of Luther which we commonly sec! He is of all men the one whom I especially love and admire.' Pointing to the first words of the German verses, he explained them, Luther the dear hero. 'It is singular (he said) how all men have agreed in assigning to Luther the heroic character; and indeed it is certainly most just. Luther, however wrong in some of his opinions, was always right in design and spirit. In translating his ideas into conceptions, he always understood something higher and more universal than he had the means of expressing. He did not bestow too much attention on one part of man's nature to the exclusion of the others; but gave its due place VOL. IV. 2 N

worth, and very powerful was the impression which the poet of Rydal produced on his mind. His manner and conversation, he remarks in a letter to a friend, are full of the pleasant, playful sincerity and kindness which are observable in his works; but his talk is as different from Coleridge's as can be, and, if considered separately from what we know of the man, is certainly far less interesting.

Sterling spent several years in London, contributing to the Athenæum and engaged in other literary pursuits. But his conviction was strongly expressed, that the practice of writing in journals is very hurtful to young, half-formed minds." From what he wrote at this period of his life, Archdeacon Hare has inserted several specimens in these volumes. And no one can peruse them, we think, without concurring with him in opinion, that they shew powers of imagination and reflection very remarkable in one so young. In the autumn of 1828, he visited Paris, and thus describes, in a letter, the impressions which he received from what he saw of the French character. It is to be feared that they are but too applicable to the present time.

"I have very imperfect means of forming any judgment as to what a man is in France. I am inclined to believe that such a thing exists there, and will hereafter become more common. But what Coleridge calls the manly character' is certainly very rare, and in the best specimens very imperfect. This you will readily believe, when I tell you that among the men a little older than ourselves, but not yet admissible to the Chamber, who of course are the strength of the country, the prevailing tone is that of ridicule and incredulity; not, I mean, merely as regards religion, but as to ideas in general. No people are abler in applying means to ends; but religion, the arts and philosophy, are in a miserable condition, not because they are in embryo, but because they have arrived at a stunted maturity. By the statement both of Roman Catholics and Protestants, the men who care for adhering to Christianity are not a tenth of the whole nation. But it is much more striking to hear the way in which religion is commonly talked about; and the most melancholy circumstance of all is, that the best school of French teachers are not at all inclined to do more than treat Christianity as a highly respectable form of 'the religious idea,' without having, in general, a notion that it should be made a matter of personal concern to every man. The continental philosophy of the eighteenth century undervalued Christianity, because it looked upon all religions with equal contempt. The continental philosophy of the nineteenth undervalues it because it looks at all with equal respect; and is as far, in the one case as in the other, from comprehending rightly the wants of the individual mind. Cousin makes it the peculiar glory of our epoch, that it endeavours to comprehend the mind of all other ages. But I fear it must be the tendency of his philosophy, whilst it examines what all other philosophies were, to prevent us from being any thing ourselves. We must do more than clearly understand in what way the various religions have resolved such great problems as those of free-will and necessity (for instance); we must also do it for ourselves. We must live, not only for the past, but also for the present. Herein is the great merit of Coleridge: and I confess for myself, I would rather be a believing Jew or Pagan, than a man who sees through all religions, but looks not with the eyes of any."

Towards the close of the year 1830, Sterling married, and a few

to each the intellectual, the practical, and so forth. He is great, even where he is wrong.'....Some one mentioned Calvin. He said, Calvin was undoubtedly a man of talent; I have a great respect for him; he had a very logical intellect; but he wanted Luther's powers."

months afterwards, in consequence of pulmonary symptoms which threatened him, he was advised to go to the West Indies. He was residing in the island of St. Vincent when it was visited with the terrible hurricane which took place in 1831. "His house was blown down over his head; and he took refuge with his wife, whose confinement was approaching, in a cellar, where they had to remain some days until the violence of the hurricane was spent. Almost every thing he had in the house was destroyed by it; and he was scarcely able to preserve more than half-a-dozen rumpled books." During his stay in the West Indies, he became greatly concerned for the instruction and improvement of the negroes, and was led to form the resolution of devoting himself to the ministry of the Church of England. His speculations on religious questions, which had before been rather of a philosophical cast, became more directly theological, and his principles were more established "in the line of practical Christianity." Aided by several causes, among which he particularly mentions his marriage and the birth of his child, and disciplined by many grave events, "I have begun of late," he says in one of his letters, "to read the Bible with diligence and unfailing interest, and have in some degree learnt by experience the power and advantage of prayer, and enjoy, what I never knew before, what even now is checkered with many fears, a lively and increasing hope that I may be able to overcome the world. You must, I think, know the hesitation and reluctance with which one writes in this way, even to one's nearest and dearest friends. But it is the subject that now perpetually fills my mind; and I think you will not wish that I should have gone out of the way to seek for other more amusing and impersonal topics." It was in this mental frame that Archdeacon Hare found him at Bonn, whither he had gone on his return to Europe, for the purpose of acquiring the language and studying the literature of Germany. They conferred together respecting his views with regard to the Christian ministry, which the Archdeacon encouraged, and in the following year he was ordained at Chichester, and became Hare's curate at Herstmonceux, in Sussex. Beautiful and blessed to himself and to others was the brief period of his ministerial labours! He devoted himself to his pulpit and pastoral duties with earnestness and fidelity, was ever devising new plans of usefulness, was truly desirous of promoting the moral and spiritual welfare of the people of his charge, visited the sick and the poor in all weathers and to the injury of his own health, and won the respect and affection of all around him. He thought that ministers of the gospel, in the present day, should strive to catch the spirit of the great apostles, Paul, Peter and John, and mourned that they are not now more generally regarded as models for us, except in their abstinence from acts of sin. He well observes,

"A little knowledge and reflection will prove the erroneousness of this view; and every mind which feels any earnest sympathy with them, has a witness in itself that it is called to a like kind, however inferior an extent, of action. Now let us bear this in mind, and consider how any one of them, say St. Paul, would be likely to act, if placed in another age than his own, and confined to one small division of country-in short, if he were in the situation of a modern parish priest. Is it not plain that he would substitute, for his former wide excursions, the greatest possible intensity of influence in detail?

It would be no longer from Jerusalem to Damascus, to Arabia, to Derbe, Lystra, Ephesus, Arabia, Philippi, Athens, Corinth, Rome, that he would travel; but each house would be to him what each of these great cities was,a place where he would bend his whole being, and spend his heart, for the conversion, purification, elevation of those under his influence. The whole man would be for ever at work for this purpose, head, heart, knowledge, time, body, possessions,-all would be directed to this end; and except so far as other duties, viz., those to a family, interfered, to this end alone. And if Paul would have done this, each of us ought to try to do so. Of course none of us is a Paul; but we may be perfectly like him in will, however meaner and weaker in faculties. The iris in the dew-drop is just as true and perfect an iris, as the bow that measures the heavens and betokens the safety of a world from deluge. I conceive that a Paul would have been for ever moving from house to house to do his Master's work: but there are doubtless two particular departments, which peculiarly require an apostolic faithfulness,--I mean worship and education, in each of which there ought to be much of the other. But with the adults in the weekly service, devotion should be the chief, and teaching the inferior element; while with the young in schools, the opposite proportion must be established. In each case the two should be inseparable; and the Church and the School itself should be considered to be so intimately related, that each implies the design of establishing the other; a design so deeply and gravely held, that its execution should be retarded by nothing but the absolute and hard necessities of outward life."

We most cordially concur in the views which are thus forcibly expressed, though of course we feel how difficult a thing it is to attain to such a standard of ministerial devotedness. We believe that pastoral habits are essential to true and abiding congregational prosperity. Eloquence in the pulpit may for a time attract numbers round it, but something more is required to keep them there, and to awaken a permanent concern in religion. The minister must go among his people in their homes, must make himself acquainted with their characters and wants, must take a kind and tender interest in the young, and labour for their improvement, or the great ends of the Christian ministry cannot be secured. It was a saying of Dr. Chalmers, that a house-visiting clergyman makes a church-going people. And for ourselves we are persuaded that a pastor's intercourse with his flock in their own homes, has more power than any thing else to make his public services acceptable and useful. Sterling was indefatigable in the performance of this part of his work, and it caused the poor especially to love and bless him. We can well suppose how valuable such a colleague must have been, how delightful it was to co-operate with such a fellow-labourer, and to live in the most friendly and unreserved communion with him. And to us one of the most beautiful passages in these volumes, is that in which Archdeacon Hare dwells on his professional connection with Sterling.

"He came to me at a time of heavy affliction, just after I had heard that the brother, who had been the sharer of all my thoughts and feelings from my childhood, had bid farewell to his earthly life at Rome; and thus he seemed given to me to make up in some sort for him whom I had lost. Almost daily did I look out at his usual hour for coming to me, and watch his tall, slender form walking rapidly across the hill in front of my window, with the assurance that he was coming to cheer and brighten, to rouse and stir me, to call me up to some height of feeling, or down into some depth of thought. His lively spirit responding instantaneously to every impulse of Nature or of Art, his