Bishop of Exeter to Lord Eldon-Pastoral Exhortation.

That you pardon the intrusion I have no doubt, and that you ascribe what may have been ill-timed or ill considered to the true cause-an anxious wish to lead a highly-gifted mind like yours to those thoughts which alone can satisfy it. Before I leave this place, instead of again trespassing on you in person, I have resolved to commit to paper a few considerations which your own powerful mind will know how to improve, and which I humbly pray the Holy Spirit of God to impress, so far as they accord with His truth, on the hearts of both of us. I contemplate in you, my dear Lord, an object of no ordinary interest. I see a man, full of years and honors, honors richly earned (ay, were they tenfold greater than they are) by a life which, protracted long beyond the ordinary age of man, has been employed during all the period of service in promoting, strengthening, and securing the best and most sacred interests of your country. I see in you the faithful, zealous, and most able advocate of the connection of true religion with the Constitution and Government of England. I see in you one who has largely benefited the generation of which you have been among the most distinguished ornaments. Seeing and feeling this, I am sure you will pardon me if I exhibit a little even of undue eagerness to perform to you the only service which I can hope to render-that of exciting such a mind to those reflections by which, after serving others, it can now do the best and surest service to itself. In truth, those reflections are few and brief, but most pregnant. In short, my dear Lord, I would seek most ning manners could supply, was obliged to retire without, in any degree, making the impression he desired. Next day Lord Eldon received the above beautiful letter, which, no doubt, brought him to a right frame of mind, and which may be perused with advantage by persons of all ages and conditions of life, whether in health or sickness.-Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors

Bishop of Exeter to Lord Eldon--Pastoral Exhortation.

earnestly to guard you against the danger which arises from the very qualities which we most admire in you, and from the actions for which we are most grateful to you. That danger is, lest you contemplate these matters with too much satisfaction— lest you rest upon them as the grounds of your hope of final acceptance with God. Oh! my dear Lord, the best of the sons of men must be content, or rather must be most anxious, to look out of themselves, and above themselves, for any sure hope, I will not say of justification, but of mercy. Consider the infinite holiness and purity of God, and then say whether any man was ever fit to appear at His tribunal. Consider the demands of His law, extending to the most secret thoughts, and wishes, and imaginations of the heart; and then say whether you, or any one, can stand before Him in your own strength, when He cometh to judgment. No: it is as sinners, as grievous sinners, we shall, we must appear; and the only plea which will be admitted for us is the righteousness and the mèrits of our crucified Redeemer. If we place any reliance on our own poor doings or fancied virtues, those very virtues will be our snares, our downfall.

Above all things, therefore, it is our duty, and preeminently the duty of the purest and best among us, to cast off all confidence in ourselves, and thankfully to embrace Christ's most precious offer on the terms on which He offers it. He will be our Saviour only if we know, and feel, and humbly acknowledge that we need His salvation. He will be more and more our Saviour in proportion as we more and more love and rely upon Him. But surely, the more we feel and deplore our own sinfulness, the more earnest will be our love, the firmer our reliance on Him who alone is mighty to save. Therefore it is that in preparing ourselves to appear before Him, the less we think of

Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Adam Steinmitz K--Advice to a God-child.

what we may fondly deem our good deeds and good qualities, and the more rigidly we scrutinize our hearts, and detect and deplore our manifold sinfulness, the fitter shall we be, because the more deeply sensible of the absolute necessity and of the incalculable value of His blessed undertaking and suffering for us. One word only more of ourselves, we cannot come to this due sense of our own worthlessness; and the devil is always ready to tempt our weak hearts with the bait which is most taking to many among us-confidence in ourselves. It is the Holy Spirit who alone can give us that only knowledge which will be useful to us at the last-the knowledge of our own hearts, of their weakness, their wickedness, and of the way of God's salvation, pardon of the faithful and confiding penitent for His dear Son's sake. Oh! my dear Lord, may you and I be found among the truly penitent, and then we shall have our perfect consummation and bliss among the truly blessed.

I am, my dear Lord, with true veneration and regard, your Lordship's most faithful servant, and affectionate brother in Christ, H. EXETER.

XVIII.-ADVICE TO A GOD-CHILD.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Adam Steinmitz K

MY DEAR GOD-CHILD: I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I did, kneeling before the altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as a living member of His spiritual body, the Church.

Years must pass before you will be able to read with an

Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Adam Steinmitz K--Advice to a God-child.

understanding heart what I now write; but I trust that the allgracious God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, who, by His only begotton Son (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!), has redeemed you from the evil ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but into light-out of death, but into life-out of sin, but into righteousness-even into the Lord our righteousness; I trust that He will graciously hear the prayers of your dear parents, and be with you as the spirit of health and growth in body and mind.

My dear God-child, you received from Christ's minister at the baptismal fount, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your father's, and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmitz, whose fervent aspiration and ever paramount aim, even from early youth, was to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed-in will, mind, and affections.

I too, your God-father, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience which more than threescore years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the conviction), that health is a great blessing-competence obtained by honorable industry is a great blessing-and a great blessing it is to have kind, faithful, honest relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, to be, indeed, a Christian. But I have been likewise, through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted with bodily pains, languors, and bodily infirmities, and for the last three or four years have, with few and brief intervals, been confined to a sick room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write from

Sir W. W. Pepys to Hannah More-Consolations of Religion. Bishop Horne.

a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery; and I thus, on the very brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to you that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His promises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He hath promised, and hath preserved, under all my pains and infirmities, the inward peace that passeth all understanding, with the supporting assurance of a reconciled God, who will not withdraw His Spirit from me in the conflict, and in His own time will deliver me from the evil one.

O, my dear God-child! eminently blessed are those who begin early to seek, fear, and love their God, trusting wholly in the righteousness and mediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus Christ!

O, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen God-father and friend, S. T. COLERIDGE.

July 13th, 1834.

XIX.-CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION-BISHOP HORNE.

Sir W. W. Pepys to Hannah More.

WIMPOLE STREET, May 12th, 1808.

MY DEAR FRIEND: To have written to me at all so kindly and so spontaneously as you did, excited my warmest gratitude; but to follow it up by another most friendly and delightful letter, convinces me that you will not be sorry, during the short space before " we go hence and are no more seen," to hear now and then from your old and sincere friend. I am aware, however, that such kindness demands some discretion on my part, and

* He died on the 25th day of the same month.