FRANK. Better the twilight and the cherry chatting, - LAWRENCE. All worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her FRANK. None worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her, LAWRENCE. Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly, FRANK. Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, now you know her name. LAWRENCE. "Jack's sister Florence"! Never, Francis, never. Jack, do you hear? She like the country! Why, it was she I meant. FRANK. There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent. LAWRENCE. You'll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare. Sorry to differ. Jack, the word's with you. FRANK. How is it, Umpire? Though the motto 's threadbare, "Cœlum, non animum" is, I take it, true. JACK. "Souvent femme varie," as a rule, is truer ; Flattered, I'm sure, but both of you romance. Happy to further suit of either wooer, Merely observing-you have n't got a chance. Well, in this case, I scarcely need explain, Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore,Peace to you both. The Pipe I shall retain. He shall rest for, at least, to-night!" But at dawn, when the birds were waking, 'T was a string of his violoncello, And they heard him stir in the bed: "Make room for a tired little fellow, Kind God!" was the last that he said. PHILIP DODDRIDGE. DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, an English clergyman; born in London, June 26, 1702; died at Lisbon, Portugal, October 26, 1751. In 1719 he entered the Dissenting Academy at Kibworth. In 1729 he was placed in charge of the academy, which he removed from Kibworth to Northampton, where he had been invited to become pastor. He filled these positions with great success for twenty years, when, his health failing, he sailed for Lisbon, hoping to derive benefit from a milder climate, but died only five days after his arrival. The Works of Doddridge are very numerous. They consist of Sermons, Treatises, and Lectures on theological and religious topics, Miscellanies, Hymns, "The Family Expositor," "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" (the most popular of all his books), and several volumes of Correspondence, published eighty years after his death. A complete edition of his Works was published in 1802-1805. VINDICATION OF HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. (From Letter to the Rev. Mr. Bourne, 1742.) HAD the letter which I received from you so many months ago been merely an address of common friendship, I hope no hurry of business would have led me to delay so long the answer which civility and gratitude would in that case have required; or had it been to request any service in my power to you, sir, or to any of your family or friends, I would not willingly have neglected it so many days or hours; but when it contained nothing material, except an unkind insinuation that you esteemed me a dishonest man, who, out of a design to please a party, had written what he did not believe, or, as you thought fit to express yourself, had "trimmed it a little with the gospel of Christ," I thought all that was necessary-after having fully satisfied my own conscience on that head, which, I bless God, I very easily did-was to forgive and pray for the mistaken brother who had done me the injury, and to endeavor to forget it, by turning my thoughts to some more pleasant, important, and useful subject. . . . But I have been certainly informed that you, interpreting my silence as an acknowledgment of the justice of your charge, have sent copies of your letter to several of your friends, who have been industrious to propagate them far and near. Though it was unkind readily to entertain the suspicions you express, I do not so much complain of your acquainting me with them; but on what imaginable humane or Christian principle could you communicate such a letter, and grant copies of it? With what purpose could it be done, but with a design of aspersing my character? and to what purpose could you desire my character to be reproached? Are you sure, sir, that I am not intending the honor of God, and the good of souls, by my various labors of one kind and another. so sure of it, that you will venture to maintain at the bar of Christ, before the throne of God, that I was a person whom it was your duty to endeavor to discredit? for, considering me as a Christian, a minister, and a tutor, it could not be merely an indifferent action; nay, considering me as a man, if it was not a duty, it was a crime. I will do you the justice, sir, to suppose you have really an ill opinion of me, and believe I mean otherwise than I write; but let me ask, what reason have you for that opinion? Is it because you cannot think me a downright fool, and conclude that every one who is not, must be of your opinion, and is a knave if he does not declare that he is so? or is it from anything particular which you apprehend you know of my sentiments contrary to what my writings declare? He that searches my heart, is witness that what I wrote on the very passage you except against, I wrote as what appeared to me most agreeable to truth, and most subservient to the purposes of His glory and the edification of my readers; and I see no reason to alter it in a second edition, if I should reprint my Exposition, though I had infinitely rather the book should perish than advance anything contrary to the tenor of the gospel, and subversive to the souls of men. I guard against apprehending Christ to be a mere creature, or another God, inferior to the Father, or co-ordinate with him. And you will maintain that I believe him to be so; from whence, sir, does your evidence of that arise? If from my writings, I apprehend it must be in consequence of some inference you draw from them, of laying any just foundation for which I am not at present aware; nor did I ever intend, I am sure, to say or intimate anything of the kind. If from report, I must caution you against rashly believing such reports. I have heard some stories of me, echoed back from your neighborhood, which God knows to be as false as if I had been reported to have asserted the divine authority of the Alcoran! or to have written Hobbes's "Leviathan ;" and I can account for them in no other way than by supposing, either that coming through several hands, every one mistook a little, or else that some people have such vivid dreams, that they cannot distinguish them from realities, and so report them as facts; though how to account for their propagating such reports so zealously, on any principles of Christianity or common humanity, especially considering how far I am from having offered them any personal injury, would amaze me, if I did not know how far party zeal debases the understandings of those who in other matters are wise and good. All I shall add with regard to such persons is, that I pray God this evil may not be laid to their charge. I have seriously reflected with myself whence it should come that such suspicions should arise of my being in what is generally called the Arian scheme, and the chief causes I can discover are these two: my not seeing the arguments which some of my brethren have seen against it in some disputed texts, and my tenderness and regard to those who, I have reason to believe, do espouse it, and whom I dare not in conscience raise a popular cry against! Nor am I at all fond of urging the controversy, lest it should divide churches, and drive some who are wavering, as indeed I myself once was, to an extremity to which I should be sorry to see such worthy persons, as some of them are, reduced. HARK, THE GLAD SOUND. HARK, the glad sound! the Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long; Let every heart prepare a throne, And every voice a song! . . He comes, the prisoners to release, The gates of brass before him burst, He comes, from thickest films of vice And on the eyelids of the blind To pour celestial day. |