After this period, Mr. Jay, to the astonishment of all, rallied and partially recovered. He was able to leave his house, and even to deliver two or three short addresses to his former charge; but an organic and painful disorder had developed itself, which occasioned acute suffering, undermined his fine constitution, until, at the close of the year 1853, this eminent minister of Christ was relieved from all solicitude and suffering, and translated to the world of ineffable glory and unbounded joy. We were not residing near him for some time prior to his decease, but all the touching circumstances connected with his departure and his funeral have been amply detailed in his biography;—and on that province it was not our intention to enter. Delicacy and propriety forbade it. Our object has been to furnish a few personal recollectionsto detail some interesting and instructive incidents, and to sketch concisely and with discrimination the prominent characteristics, mental, religious, and ministerial of a most honoured servant of God, who has been admitted to the celestial kingdom, to partake of the rest of immortality.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE INTELLECTUAL FEATURES OF MR. JAY.

WE would enter on this department of our subject with much diffidence and modesty, and be solicitous to express our sentiments with discrimination and wisdom. We would studiously avoid all exaggeration; we would guard against a partial and inaccurate statement; we would simply and unaffectedly represent Mr. Jay, in his intellectual character and peculiarities, as he appeared to us, in our intercourse with him, and after long and careful observation.

It was evident to any accurate observer, that the mind of Mr. Jay had been early and assiduously cultivated.

He had paid close attention to its discipline and culture from the period when he commenced his early education and training for the ministry under the sainted Cornelius Winter; and during the whole of his protracted and laborious career,

the process of mental cultivation had been vigorously going forward. This was the case until the close of his existence below. He had been through life a diligent and exemplary student, particularly one of a theological character. He was always reading—always investigating some great subject always exercising his reflective faculties. He had accustomed himself early to accurate, solid, forcible composition, and hence his powers had been, when a very young man, brought out and invigorated, and, in the course of years, they were admirably balanced, enriched, and matured.

The mind of Mr. Jay was marked by its originality. This, unquestionably, was one of its prominent and most characteristic features. It at once struck every intelligent observer. He was accustomed to think for himself on every subject, and to express his conceptions and conclusions in his own racy and peculiar manner. He was an omnivorous reader-reading on almost every topic-he gained something from every quarter; still he was no mere copyist or borrower. He did not derive his strength from others, or depend on them for support. His vigour was native. His observations, his sketches, his thoughts, his illustrations were his own. There was a fine individuality in his mental character, which

always struck us, and deeply interested us. We acquired always something from Mr. Jay which we gained from no other person. There was a freshness in his remarks, and, sometimes, an impressive originality in his observations on men and books, and human life and religion generally, which communicated to us peculiar gratification. No person of reflection, of any intellectual tastes, could be in Mr. Jay's company ten minutes, and listen to his converse, without being instructed and benefited by the original thoughts and remarks which the mind of this distinguished man poured forth. He would have something that was fresh-that was new.

The mind of Mr. Jay was characterised by its fulness. There was great breadth about it, and it was well stored. There was nothing little in its features-nothing narrow in its range. Its comprehensiveness ever impressed us, as being one of its most striking peculiarities. The field was large, and it was full of treasures. As we have already observed, Mr. Jay had been throughout life a close and discriminating reader. His theological reading, especially, had been continuous and most enlarged. The whole range of theology had been regarded by him he had gone through, again and again, the works of our

great writers on doctrinal, practical, experimental theology. He had examined the productions of our most superior Biblical critics and expositors, and that with the utmost care.

He had perused extensively the best productions in the department of elegant literature; he was conversant with philosophy and history; he was acquainted intimately with poetry-had a fine taste in it—and was passionately fond of Cowper, Montgomery, and many distinguished poets to whom we might refer; he was versed in our periodical literature-from the Edinburgh Review downwards—which had been regularly, and from year to year, examined by him. The best books in divinity, biography, and general literature, as they came from the press, were perused by him; and, indeed, there was scarcely any work of interest and importance we could mention, which Mr. Jay at some period or other had not examined, either wholly or partially: and he was always augmenting his intellectual stores his theological acquisitions-even until the last. He could not live without reading: almost the final conversation we had with our revered friend, he brought in two rare books of a literary kind, and inquired if we had ever seen them, and stated that he had just perused them