and his known benevolence, converted the adversary himself into a friend; so admirably was fulfilled to him the statement of Solomon, When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.' Viewing him in the latter period of his life, when his praise was in all the churches,' when he was respected, and honoured, and beloved, in a degree rarely equalled; recollecting also the respect shewn to him by the highest authorities in the University, in appointing him, notwithstanding his great age, to testify to them from their own pulpit, as on many former occasions so during this very month, and on this very day, the Gospel of the grace of God;'-how little, even at the commencement of the present century, could we have anticipated such tokens of regard! Whence then this astonishing change, as compared with the history of his early days? He honoured God, and therefore God honoured him; honoured him before men-honoured him in the very scene of his arduous labours-honoured him by the public testimony of those, whose testimony is above all impeach

ment.

“In adverting finally to that event, which especially brings to the test the strength and purity of Christian principle, when the flesh and the heart are failing, here also was he eminently honoured, being able to shew that God was now the strength of his heart, and to look forward in the certain hope that He would be his portion for ever. The narrative of his last illness exhibits the same deep humility, the same strong faith, the same gentleness and patience and entire devotedness to the will of God, the same simplicity of religious character, and the same love for others, which were all so conspicuous iu his previous life. We observe here not only the death-bed of a Christian, but of this individual Christian; the setting of that great light with whose beams we have been so long and so well acquainted."

We must now bring our narrative to a close. For many years previous to this period*, Mr. Simeon

* See page 327.

had been desirous of leaving to his parishioners some token of his regard, which might benefit them after his death.' A Memorandum to the following effect was found in his Will:

"It is my desire that an edition of the Sermon which I preached before the University, on that text, 1 Cor. ii. 2, be printed; and that a copy of it be presented to every family in Trinity Parish, as a memorial of my pastoral regards, and as the means of impressing their minds with the importance of the doctrine which I preached to them during the whole course of my Ministry."

His monument, which is placed in the chancel of Trinity Church, directly opposite to the tablets of his beloved Martyn and Thomason, was erected by the congregation; and bears this short but expressive inscription, suggested by himself:

IN MEMORY OF

THE REV. CHARLES SIMEON, M.A.,
SENIOR FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE,

AND FIFTY-FOUR YEARS VICAR OF THIS PARISH;

WHO,

WHETHER AS THE GROUND OF HIS OWN HOPES,
OR AS THE SUBJECT OF ALL HIS MINISTRATIONS,

DETERMINED

TO KNOW NOTHING BUT

'JESUS CHRIST, AND HIM CRUCIFIED.'

1 COR. II. 2.

BORN SEPT. 24, 1759.

DIED NOV. 13, 1836.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE

REV. CHARLES SIMEON,

BY THE RIGHT REV. DANIEL WILSON, D.D.,

LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.

"Calcutta, 1837.

"THERE is no name that will continue more deeply infixed on the memory and heart of the writer of the following lines till the last moment of life, than that of CHARLES SIMEON.

Amongst the many holy and distinguished Ministers of the Gospel of Christ whom he has known, and for whose advice and example he will have to give account at the last great day, Mr. Simeon was in many respects the most remarkable. A more entirely devoted servant of Christ has not often appeared in the Church, nor one whose course of service was more extended in point of time, more important, more consistent, more energetic, more opportune for the circumstances of the Church, and by the Divine blessing more useful."

After a rapid sketch of his Life and Works, the Bishop proceeds :

66

Surely this outline of his history gives at once the impression of a most devoted and disinterested Minister. Here is a man who labours for nothing-for absolutely no emolument whatever, for more than half a century. Here is a man who passes by and refuses all the Livings in his College which in succession were offered to his choice, and some one of which every other person almost that could be named would have accepted as a matter of course. Here is a man who, in order to retain his Fellowship and his moneyless station at Trinity Church, persuades his elder brother not to leave him the property which would compel him to vacate it. The

L. S.

3 II

same man remains unmarried during life. Nor does he employ the large profit arising from the sale of his writings to any other purpose. It must be admitted, even by the enemies of his principles, that he was a person of exalted disinterestedness*.

What those principles were is the next thing to be carefully noticed. They were no other than the broad, tangible, undoubted doctrines of the New Testament, as held by the Church of England, and exhibited in the writings of her Reformers, and the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy which they authoritatively composed. The difference between his sentiments and those of others, whether

* Dr.Dealtry in his Funeral Sermon records the following remarkable instance of his disinterestedness :

"In speaking particularly of the dedication of his property to the glory of God, we are abundantly borne out by facts, with which you are all acquainted. But it is not so generally known that this was a principle all-powerful in his mind from an early period, probably from the time when he first cordially gave himself to the work of an Evangelist. In proof of this assertion, I would mention a circumstance which occurred between forty and fifty years ago. At that time a Living of great importance became vacant, which by the appointment of the Patron, as expressed in his Will, was to be offered to two particular Clergymen in succession, both of them personal friends of your late Minister. Conceiving that the Clergyman who was to have the second offer was pre-eminently qualified for the situation, whilst the other was better fitted for a different sphere, he wrote to the latter, stating his opinion, and solemnly putting it to his conscience, whether the cause of Christ would not be best promoted by his declining the Living; adding at the same time, that since the sacrifice would be great in regard to temporal prospects, he would himself engage to compensate him from his own private fortune. It is right to add, that the individual thus addressed responded nobly to the letter by stating his intention to refuse the Living, but absolutely declining at the same time all compensation: neither ought it to be omitted, that the Clergyman, for whom the Living was thus obtained, although he survived his appointment for twenty years, was never apprized of the circumstance, nor was it divulged till sometime after his death."

ministers or people, in the same communion, lay in the strength with which he held them, the prominence he gave to them, and the holy spiritual use to which they were applied. A Clergyman may, and in fact does, and must hold the same doctrines of the Fall and Recovery of Man of the Atonement of Christ, and the operations of the Spirit—of justification by faith, and regeneration and progressive sanctification by grace-of holy love to God and man, and of all good works as the fruit of faith, and following after justification. The difference between one Minister and another, lies in the manner in which he holds these truths-whether they reach and change the heart; whether they sink into the habits and inmost soul; whether they are accompanied with internal penitence, contrition, prayer, devotion; whether they express themselves and prove their genuineness by those affections and that conduct with which they are ever attended when spiritual life is really implanted; and without which they constitute only a name to live,' only a form of godliness,' a creed, a notion, a scheme theoretic and inoperative.

The case is the same as to the prominence given to these doctrines in our Ministry. If they are only occasionally referred to if they are indistinctly stated-feebly developed —insufficiently applied to the conscience, they lose all their virtue, and all the Divine blessing which would otherwise rest upon them. We must know' and make known, 'nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.'

Nor is it different if we advert to the holy, spiritual use to which these divine truths are to be applied to the awakening the souls of men-to the convincing them of sin-to the bringing them to a divine and heavenly life— to the mortifying in them, by the grace of God's blessed Spirit, the love of the world and all its vanities; to the leading them, in short, to 'put off concerning their former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.'

These then were Mr. Simeon's principles-not narrowly and minutely cramped by too systematic an arrangement— not harshly and stiffly inculcated as parts of a mere body of