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Mr. Carus inclines to the latter view, and is eager in vindicating his freedom from anything like profligacy or viciousness of life. The greatest crime which he relates of himself (he disclaims the idea of recording his own confessions and experiences) is a certain Sunday excursion, in company with an officer in the army, which terminated in intoxication, and inability to return home.

But whatever occasional sins the young Simeon may have been betrayed into, there is abundant evidence to show that he was from his youth up, of tender conscience, and susceptible of strong religious impressions: though he does not appear to have derived any assistance in this direction from either parent: indeed, it is singular that the name of his mother never once occurs in the Memoir; and that of his father chiefly in connexion with the dislike that he entertained of his son's opinions. At Eton, Simeon incurred the ridicule of his schoolfellows by the strictness with which he observed a national fast-day, that was appointed on occasion of the American war: and it is to the very year of his matriculation at Cambridge, that he assigns his "conversion" to a seriousness of life. The circumstances which led to this event are thus recorded by himself:

"On my coming to College, Jan. 29, 1772, the gracious designs of GOD towards me were soon manifest. It was but the third day after my arrival that I understood I should be expected in the space of about three weeks to attend the LORD's Supper. What! said I, must I attend? On being informed that I must, the thought rushed into my mind, that Satan himself was as fit to attend as I; and that if I must attend, I must prepare for my attendance there. Without a moment's loss of time, I bought the old Whole Duty of Man' (the only religious book that I ever heard of) and began to read it with great diligence; at the same time calling my ways to remembrance, and crying to God for mercy; and so earnest was I in these exercises, that within three weeks I made myself quite ill with reading, fasting, and prayer. From that day to this, blessed, for ever blessed, be my GoD, I have never ceased to regard the salvation of my soul as the one thing

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"The first book which I got to instruct me in reference to the LORD's Supper (for I knew that on Easter Sunday I must receive it again) was Kettlewell on the Sacrament;' but I remember that it required more of me than I could bear, and therefore I procured "Bishop Wilson on the LORD's Supper,' which seemed to be more moderate in its requirements. I continued with unabated earnestness to search out, and mourn over the numberless iniquities of my former life; and so greatly was my mind oppressed with the weight of them, that I frequently looked upon the dogs with envy; wishing, if it were possible, that I could be blessed with their mortality, and they be cursed with my immortality in my stead. I set myself immediately to undo all my former sins, as far as I could: and did it in some instances which required great self-denial, though I do not think it quite expedient to

record them; but the having done it has been a comfort to me even to this very hour, inasmuch as it gives me reason to hope that my repentance was genuine.

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My distress of mind continued for about three months, and well might it have continued for years, since my sins were more in number than the hairs of my head, or than the sands upon the sea-shore; but GoD, in infinite condescension, began at last to smile upon me, and to give me a hope of acceptance with Him. The circumstances attendant on this were very peculiar. My efforts to remedy my former misdeeds had been steadily pursued, and in a manner that leaves me no doubt to whose gracious assistance they were owing, and in comparison of approving myself to GOD in this matter, I made no account of shame, or loss, or anything in the world; and if I could have practised it to a far greater extent, with the hope of ultimate benefit to myself and others, I think I should have done it. In proportion as I proceeded in this work, I felt somewhat of hope springing up in my mind; but it was an indistinct kind of hope, founded on God's mercy to real penitents. But in Easter week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the LORD's Supper, I met with an expression to this effect: That the Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.' The thought rushed into my mind, What! may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has GOD provided an offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? then, GOD willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly, I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of JESUS and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning (Easter-Day, April 4) I awoke early, with those words upon my heart and lips, JESUS CHRIST is risen to-day: Hallelujah! Hallelujah!' From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul."

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At this time, he informs us, he did "not know any religious person;" but he continued to find great delight in the services of his College chapel, though very slovenly performed; and made some effort, both in College and in his father's house, to propagate his newly acquired views. At Reading he attended in his vacations the daily services of the Church.

In this narrative the reader will have observed that Mr. Simeon attributes his conversion to the use, exclusively, of books of what are called a high Church character. It is remarkable also that Law's "Serious Call" was the book that first impressed the mind of John Wesley, at Oxford.

The state of religion, at the time that Simeon entered the University, was as low as it is well possible to conceive. The following anecdotes may be cited in illustration. At his first Communion in King's College Chapel, after receiving a portion of the consecrated Elements that remained over, he "covered his face with his

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hand, and prayed. The Clergymen seeing it (he adds) smiled at me." Parish Services and University Sermons were alike ill attended in Cambridge; and in both the conduct of Gownsmen not unfrequently discreditable. The anecdote which follows will too well account for such a state of things. After the event in his life, last related, Mr. Simeon had looked out for some church in the town where he could find the style of the preaching to his mind. The ministry that he selected was that of Mr. Atkinson, at S. Edward's. Mr. Atkinson, however, regarded the youthful Undergraduate with some suspicion. He had noted him both at his own church and at S. Mary's, and had set it down "as a matter of course that he must be a stanch Pharisee." Mr. Simeon himself shall give the reason. It was his "solemn and reverent behaviour in God's House, so different from what was generally observed in the place, which caused him to conclude, as three of his pious friends had done, that I was actuated by a proud Pharisaical spirit." (p. 23.)

The fact was that Mr. Simeon's religion was of a much more healthy character than that which was fashionable among the Evangelicals of his day, or unhappily of ours. The College Prayers he speaks of as being "marrow and fatness" to him: the Sacrament of the Altar he deeply reverenced, accounting the attendance thereat always a sign of the effectiveness of a Parish Priest's Ministry; the Holy Week was always observed by him with great devotion; and fasting we find often joined by him to prayer as a means of engaging the Divine favour. For this characteristic feature of his views he was doubtless indebted to his acquaintance with those devotional works which have been before referred to. And had the spirit which animated their writers been still alive in the Church, the zeal of the Undergraduate would not have had recourse to the broken cisterns of S. Edward's and Yelling.

But for the sins of the Church it was otherwise. No sooner had the Catholic spirit of the Nonjurors and of the few likeminded, as Wilson, and Patrick, and Beveridge, who, as a choice of evils, yet consented to minister in the English Church, been expelled and disowned, than God raised up the "strong delusion" of Methodism. Some minds there are that will be religious; deny them the truth, and they at once take up the best substitute they can find. Had those Prelates who cast out Wesley had "a more excellent way" to show in practice as well as theory, the effects of that fatal heresy would not have been so lamentable. As things were, the religious instincts of the devout revolted at the measure dealt out to one who seemed so much in earnest; and Wesley had his re

* We much wish that the Clergy would attend more strictly to the Rubric which directs concerning any remnant of the Holy Sacrament, that the Priest and any other that he may call should, "immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same." The least which this can mean is, that the Priest, &c., should kneel, and that none should leave the church till all is consumed.

venge (if one may so speak) not only by founding a numerous sect external to the Church, but by impressing his own views on the most earnest men within her pale. Such were Newton, and Cecil, and Henry Venn. The biographer of the last of these three has taken great pains to prove that the revival of religion in England in the latter part of the last century was independent of the exertions of Wesley and Whitfield. But the most that he succeeds in establishing, we apprehend, is this, that the three just named and a few more were labouring contemporaneously within the Church; and it is a remarkable fact that all alike derived their inspiration from the same source, the writings of the Nonjuror Law (Dr. Johnson, if we remember right, makes a similar acknowledgment) at a time when, alas! he had adopted the strange and mystical fancies of Jacob Behmen. The unhappy fact which alone is of real importance is that among them all, when their zeal was once aroused, the really leading mind was that of John Wesley. He led they followed: only they had the good fortune to be allowed to remain in the Church, which Wesley had not.

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It does not appear to us that there is a single dogma of Methodism which an extreme Evangelical would stumble at. Wesley would have stayed in the Church, had the Bishops allowed it. He always considered the Church the best standing place; what did Mr. Henry Venn think more? On the occasion of Lady Huntingdon's death, and in the prospect of her chapels becoming more and more inimical to the Church, he thus wrote:-"This event confirms me still more in what I have always held, that the work in the Church and the regular is infinitely preferable to the way out of the Church." This was the extent of the churchmanship of the Evangelicals. They wished to be genteel: they dreaded extravagance church discipline too prevented them from becoming the mere slaves of their people, (and this was a rather pressing danger in those times); and therefore they preferred the Church.

The society of the Venns was opened to young Simeon by Mr. Atkinson, who introduced him to John Venn, at that time an Undergraduate, by whom he was taken over to the father's living of Yelling, a village distant about twelve miles from Cambridge. Here for the first time in his life he experienced religious sympathy. Through the same channel he became acquainted with Mr. Berridge of Everton; and fell at once into that set; save that his views were always characterized by a certain sobriety of judgment, to which many of that generation who had not the benefit of any restraint from an early acquaintance with the school of high Church Divines, were unhappily strangers.

The course of Mr. Simeon within the University, was one of gradual but steady progression. Neither ridicule nor persecution are any match for earnestness. A rival system cannot be said to have existed: Simeonism or indifferentism was the only alternative

offered to the religious cravings of the young in that day. No wonder therefore that he carried everything before him. In this he was much helped by the celebrity of two of his earliest converts, Henry Martyn and Mr. Thomason, who alone may be said to reflect anything like grace upon his triumph. The rest were a mere vulgar undistinguishable herd, who served nevertheless as well as better men, to establish a certain stereotyped standard of doctrine in the several towns and villages of their Ministry, which it will require another half century to eradicate.

In the sphere of his own parish Mr. Simeon was not equally fortunate. The opposition of foes, though sufficiently harassing, was as nothing compared with the licentious turbulence of his friends. "Conceited, contentious, rebellious" are the terms in which he speaks of them in 1812; i. e. in the 30th year of his ministrations among them. And certainly they well merited the castigation they received, though perhaps a severe critic might allege that there were circumstances connected with the procuring of the living which forbad the expectation of any decided blessing on his ministerial labours there. He comforted himself, however, with the reflection that still greater dissensions and heart-burnings had arisen in the flock of his friend, Mr. Robinson, at Leicester. The religious world, in short, never stood very high in his estimation. The fact must be admitted, and we state it merely as a fact, that he was not fortunate in his friends. His lawyer, and servants, and other religious disciples defrauded him and brought scandal on his name; and not a few are the rebukes to such offenders that the Memoirs contain. We will give an abridged account of one of the worst of these outbreaks in Mr. Simeon's own words :

"Mr. M―, one of the malcontents in my parish, knowing that the prayer-meeting among my people was still kept up, had declared publicly that he would inform against it. Now though I did not attend it, the obloquy would all fall on me: it would be in vain for me to say, that I had repeatedly testified my disapprobation of it, on account of the evil effects that I had seen arising from it, or that I had laboured very earnestly to prevail on my people to lay it aside: it would have been sufficient for my enemies to say that I had once countenanced it; nor would they have believed that my influence among my people was insufficient to put it down: the matter would have been brought before the public: all manner of odium would have been cast on me and my ministry and the Bishop would assuredly have put an end to my evening lectures, if not have removed me also from the Church, which I hold only during his pleasure. I therefore felt that there was now no alternative left me, but to put aside the room; that is, to change it for smaller parties; nor was there a moment to be lost.

This state of things I communicated in general terms to my people. I told them that there were some circumstances existing, which rendered it absolutely and indispensably necessary for them to meet in three or four smaller parties at each other's houses, instead of meeting in so

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