customed to original thought. He would not avoid a subject, because it was new or difficult; nor, if it seemed important, could he be easily persuaded to abandon it, until, in his own view at least, he had mastered it. In a word, he was a scholar and a divine. No person can read his "Views of the last Century," as published in the former volumes of the Spectator, without a conviction, that the author was possessed of no common stores of knowledge, and capacity for comprehensive, well-arranged and closely connected thought. Yet he made no high pretensions. With sufficient confidence in his own powers and acquirements, turn them to their proper use, he had no fondness for display. Among strangers, and where there was no evident occasion for him to come forward, he was rather reserved. Many who had only a passing acquaintance with him, considered him, we doubt not, as no more than an ordinary man. It was in his proper sphere, that his worth was best known. There was nothing which he more despised, than an ostentatious, self-complacent affectation of talent and learning. To a friend, lately asking him his opinion of a certain public man, rather addicted to this, he replied, with his accustomed significancy of look and tone, "I don't know how to answer for, were I to say, he's among the weakest men I ever knew, I might not speak the truth, even though I spoke my own convictions."

Together with rich and various learning, and habits strictly intellectual, he had an uncommon measure of native sagacity,-a kind of intuitive discernment of character,-and quick sense of propriety. He had also a lovely temper, and a warm, tender, and generous heart. He called himself impetuous, he was really ardent, yet his self-government, for aught that appeared, was uniform and complete. The quality, however, which, more than almost any other, was prominent in him, and will most readily suggest itself to his acquaintances with the mention of his name, was his sprightliness of fancy, his aptness for pleasant and humorous associations, and delicately keen and pithy satire. At the same time, he was not often found, in this respect, either transgressing the law of kindness, or sinking the dignity of the christian or the ministerial character. One would be often struck with the rapid and easy manner in which he would glide away from the happiest sallies of pleasantry, into the most serious and tender strain of religious remark. There was often, too, a meaning in his tones and modulations of voice, in the cast of his eye, and the entire expression of his countenance, which words could not convey. In gene ral it may be said of him, that his good sense, his pleasant wit his fund of knowledge, his openness and benignity of heart, and his unaffected and consistent piety, made him a most engaging friend and companion, and his house an ever-loved, as it was an

ever-welcome resort. One who was his companion in youth, and more intimately conversant with him in professional life than almost any other, has said of him," I always found it impossible to be long with him, without feeling myself to be in the presence of a great and good man; and yet with his friends, as is well known, he often manifested the playfulness and simplicity of a child." With such qualifications, he could not have been a merely ordinary preacher. For a plain people, like that to which he labored to adapt himself, few preachers have ever been better. His sermons were thoroughly studied; but in later years, the outlines only were written. They had the same originality of thought, comprehensiveness of views, and compactness and clearness of argument, as appeared in his published writings; and they had, also, a simplicity of method and language, and a variety and force of illustration and application, which carried them home to the understanding and the heart of the very child who heard him. Their style was strikingly different from that of his more finished writings. It was intentionally abrupt, sententious and colloquial, rather than copious and flowing; and his illustrations were of the most familiar and vivid character, and often varied and accumulated. For this, he was always furnished. Together with the most striking occurrences and expressions of scripture, the remarkable scenes and incidents of common life were at his command, and pressed into his service; and even those which had not appeared peculiarly striking, were often presented in such connections as made them so. Sometimes, indeed, his colloquial phrases and familiar allusions might have been thought below his subject; and sometimes their singularity and aptness might provoke his hearers to an unwilling smile; but it would soon appear, that he himself was serious, and that it became them to be so too. Truth came from him as a keen-edged sword; while it was often also as a very lovely song. He warned, he reproved, he exhorted, without reserve. He told his people all that they did, and often seemed better acquainted with them than they were with themselves. A female residing in his family, was once actually accused of having reported to him, what she had seen and heard in another family, where she had also resided; so exact was his delineation of the sin which he found occasion to reprove, although he had no knowledge of the incidents to which reference was supposed to be made. To those who have ever listened to bis preaching, the following anecdote will bring the man before them. In a time of revival, and in a district of his parish. where a number of opposers to the revival were present, with others, at an appointed lecture, he rose and read for his text, "These men which have turned the world upside down, are come hither also;" adding, "Yes! we have come to turn the VOL. VI.

61

world upside down, for it is wrong side up :" and then proceeded, in a solemn strain of argument and appeal, to show in what respect the world is "wrong side up,"-in its affections, in its pursuits, etc. His prayers partook of the same character with his sermons, simple, varied, fervent, full of meaning, as poured out from a full heart.

It is a common remark among our older ministers, and some younger ones, that we have but little doctrinal preaching. That there is, in this particular, no defect, and that much of the popular preaching of the day has no tendency to increase it, we would not be understood to affirm. But in the view of some men, no preaching is doctrinal, which is not a discussion, in set form, of some one or more of "the five points" of Calvinistic theology. By such men, Mr. Hart would not be considered a doctrinal preacher. We ourselves, in looking over a considerable number of his sermons, have been surprised to find how few of them approach to this character. His people were not used to hear him reading to them, for the hundredth time, a theological lecture on the doctrine of decrees, the doctrine of election, the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, or even the doctrine of regeneration, of the atonement,-or of justification; with its arguments in defense, first, second, and third, and its answers to objections, on to fourthly, fifthly, and sixthly. It was not according to his turn of mind to do this; nor did he think this the best method for him to adopt, to answer the end of preaching. Yet we greatly mistake, if his preaching was not altogether doctrinal. The doctrines of the gospel were the basis of all his sermons. They were explained and enforced by a direct, natural, and familiar illustration and application of such texts as these: "I the Lord change not;" "without God in the world;""the men of the world which have their portion in this life;" "Ye have sold yourselves for naught;" "The Son of man came to save that which was lost;" "In whom we have redemption through his blood;" "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found." So Christ preached. So the bible preaches. And by taking the bible as he found it, and unfolding it in its abundant variety and comprehensiveness of doctrine and duty, and bringing to his theme his rich treasures of knowledge, and liveliness of conception and imagination, he at least secured the attention of his audience. He had always a full house, when the weather would permit; and for twenty-four years, held the attention of his people better than almost any other preacher could do who addressed them, though only for a single day. We do not object to doctrinal discussion. We wish there were far more of a clear and discriminating exhibition of the doctrines of grace, in our pulpits, than we find. When these shall cease to be the ground-work in our teinple, the glory

will have departed. Nor would we bind preachers of different endowments to one method. "Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given us, whether prophesying, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation." Yet, obviously, that preaching, whether called doctrinal, or practical, or experimental, which the people will not come to hear, or under the sound of which they sit inattentive and listless, is not the preaching which answers the end that every minister of Christ is bound ever to keep in view. He must be heard, or he labors in vain and that he may be heard, he must bring to his people those exhibitions of the truth, which are worthy of being heard, and which they shall feel to have a bearing upon their own peace and happiness, personal and social, temporal and eternal, too direct and solemn to be disregarded. In his pastoral intercourse, Mr. Hart bound his people closely to himself. He was easy and familiar, and made them feel so likewise. He had a word in season for every one; and what he said, was recognized as the voice of a friend. In popular strifes, he so conducted himself, as to be a common object of confidence; not by time-serving, but by an integrity above suspicion. He spoke freely, and spoke as he thought: and though he knew how and when to refrain, he was never backward to appear, when requisite, on the side of any good cause. Reproof, too, he could give, and with a keenness to be felt; and yet with an ingenuousness and evident kindness, that made it impossible to be offended. It was his rule to visit all the families and schools in his parish,-though scattered over a township six or seven miles square,-once in a year. He also attended, ordinarily, two meetings in the course of the week, besides those on the sabbath, at one of which he preached in some remote district of the parish; and for many years supported a bible-class, which was attended by a large number of youths, and in which they took the liveliest interest, and with the happiest results. The sick and the bereaved he visited especially and often. A few days before his death, he said to his brother, who was then at his house, that his conscience testified to his having visited the sick as often as would have been useful to them." And does your conscience also testify," his brother rejoined, "that you have been faithful in conversing with the sick?" To this he answered in the affirmative. For directing the minds of the bereaved, more particularly, he had been prepared in his latter years, by painful discipline. Sixteen years and a half after his marriage, God blessed him with a son, his only child. He welcomed the precious gift. He hoped, and yet he often said, he scarcely dared to hope,—that he might guide and bear the tender charge along to years of usefulness. But God designed it for usefulness in another way. At

the end of a year and five months, the child died; and now, the joint names of himself and his wife, Luther Potter, stand engraven on the head-stone marking the spot where the precious relicts lie, close by the side of his own grave. Then he knew the heart of a mourner; and to mourners ever after, he, more than most other men, was a welcome and profitable visitor.

One of the secrets by which Mr. Hart was able to do so much, was his never doing any thing in a hurry. His sermons were all written neatly and legibly; and his letters, whatever occasion be might have for dispatch, were uniformly written in the same fair hand. By aiming to do every thing well, he kept his mind always disciplined, and so accomplished his work easily and seasonably. To a young clergyman who called on him many years ago, and spoke of his being sometimes, in consequence of ill-health, unduly driven in his preparation for the sabbath, he said, "Take my course, and you will save yourself a world of anxiety. There," said he, pointing to an upper shelf of his book-case," are two sermons, which are never touched except in case of extreme necessity, from ill-health, or unavoidable interruption at the close of the week. They sometimes lie there unused for six or eight months; but I have always the satisfaction of feeling, in every sudden emergency, that I am ready for the sabbath. The monent it is past, my first use of the pen is, to replace those sermons; and I never consider them my own, on any other occasion than such as I have mentioned." How many ministers would have saved their lives even, if they had entered on their labors in the same way!

The labors of Mr. Hart were successful as they were abundant. Under his ministry, there were four general revivals of religion, besides the commencement of one, from which death mysteriously called him away. The first began in the fall of 1812, about two years after his settlement. The second was that in which most of the churches in the vicinity shared, in the memorable year 1821. The third began in 1827; and the fourth, and one of the most powerful, in the year 1831. In the intervals, also, of these more favored seasons, numbers were turned to the Lord; and the church during his whole ministry, enjoyed a very desirable state of harmony, stability, and general prosperity. In all, there were added to it about four hundred and twenty members; and most of these, so far as their lives have given evidence, were "such as shall be saved." Four of them only have been excommunicated, though the discipline of the gospel has been maintained there, it is believed, with more than common fidelity. With the churches of the vici nity, also, his name is precious; his presence on all occasions was welcome; and by many individuals, as the more immediate instruments of their conversion, he will "be held in everlasting brance." Particularly in revivals of religion, and more especially

remem