a vacancy occurring in that department of tuition, he was appointed by the Trustees of the institution to occupy it, before his regular term of study was completed. In this arduous situation he gave so much satisfaction, that he was soon after chosen to the more responsible office of resident Tutor, which he continued to hold for 23 years, to the credit of the Academy and the great advantage of the Dissenting cause. On his resignation the Academy was dissolved, which he always lamented as an event most injurious to the interests of the Dissenters, especially in and about this metropolis.

"For some time Dr. Rees officiated only as an occasional preacher. At length, in July, 1768, he was unanimously elected to succeed the Rev. Mr. Read as pastor of the Presbyterian congregation, St. Thomas's, Southwark; a connexion of which he was always accustomed to speak with pleasure. He remained in this situation 15 years, and the congregation flourished under his ministry. At the end of that term, he was invited to become minister of this congregation, then assembling in the Old Jewry in a place consecrated by the labours of a succession of eminently pious men, nearly the last of whom in the series was the highly-gifted and learned Dr. Chandler. From various causes, the congregation had much declined, and it was judged (wisely as appeared by the event), that Dr. Rees would revive the interest; and with this hope, and without any calculation of an increase of emolument, he accepted the invitation, and from 1783 to the period of his death continued to labour amongst you with unquestionable and increasing success.

"During a period of some years, he was engaged with his friend, the late Rev. Hugh Worthington, whose eloquence still reverberates in our ears, in delivering winter evening lectures at Salters' Hall, by means of which his usefulness and reputation as a preacher were much extended.

"For a short time he was connected as a Tutor with the Academical Institution at Hackney, which was set on foot with great liberality and high expectations, but by the operation of many adverse causes soon declined and fell, to the mortification of its patrons and the lasting regret of the liberal Dissenters. "These public engagements our friend was fulfilling with a fidelity that will long be remembered with respect, at the same time that he was employed in literary undertakings of a magnitude sufficient to have absorbed the whole time and attention of a man of less vigour of mind, less constancy of purpose or less systematic perseverance. The works to which his name is affixed have earned for him great and richly-deserved celebrity at home and abroad. In acknowledgment of them he was honoured with academic titles by several learned bodies.

"From his station in the metropolis, his character and his talents, he was naturally connected with the various Dissenting Charities and Trusts established in London, and with some of them officially. His regularity, punctuality, sagacity and activity procured for him the confidence of his numerous associates in these establishments, and, what he valued still more, the gratitude of a great number of Dissenting Ministers, whom as well as their families by means of these connexions he was enabled to serve.

"To his native country, Wales, he was a great benefactor. The Dissenters of that part of the kingdom owe more to his unwearied attention to their interests than to any other individual that ever lived. His known zeal for his poorer brethren in the Welsh churches induced some generous persons, whose praise is not of men but of God, to place in his hands and at his discretion large pecuniary means for their relief. Heaven grant that these streams of Christian charity may not sink in his grave, but may still flow through some other channel for the refreshment of the laborious, but, in an earthly sense, ill-requited servants of the Most High God!

attention. The fact of Dr. Rees's having been present on a similar occasion sixty years previously, was made known to the King, and procured from him marked and repeated expressions of respect and kindness.

"I need not conceal that Dr. Rees was the principal distributor under His Majesty's Government of the Annual Parliamentary Bounty to indigent Dissenting Ministers; and if I were called upon to point out the most prominent excellence in his character, I should name his conscientious discharge of this delicate trust, in the administration of which he preserved on the one hand his independence, and on the other his affability and kindness.

"Our revered friend was a Protestant Dissenter from full and growing conviction. No man ever did more in the same space of time (and Heaven be praised that the term of his activity and influence was long!) for the promotion of our principles and of our credit in the eyes of the world. He guarded our institutions with jealousy; and he implored and conjured his associates, before many of whom I speak, to keep up the same watchfulness after his decease. In his occasional intercourse, as one of the representatives of the Body of Dissenting Ministers, with His Majesty's Court and Government, he was courteous, dignified, firm and upright. He was indeed a man qualified to speak with the enemy in the gate-though happily for the greater part of his time the prevailing sentiment of the successive administrations was friendly to the rights and privileges of the Dissenters.

"His character as a preacher it were needless to describe; it is engraven upon your hearts. He did not possess all the qualifications that the multitude most esteem in a preacher; his were sterling merits: sound and strong sense, a clearly-defined subject, well-digested thoughts, scriptural language, manly confidence in the affections of his auditory, and marked but sober earnestness. He practised no arts in the pulpit-on the contrary, he expressed his abhorrence of affectation, trick and meditated extravagance in a Christian Minister. His sound and practical and scriptural instructions were recommended and enforced by a person that commanded attention, and a deep sonorous voice that gave peculiar weight to his plain yet admirable style of composition.

"His theology he was wont to describe as the moderate scheme, lying between the extremes of opinion that prevail in the present day. Owning no human authority in religion, he yet avowed that he subscribed for the most part to the creed of the late Dr. Price, a truly good and great man, formed to be loved and admired, and to be had in everlasting remembrance. Our departed friend was equally anxious to secure in his religious system the supreme glory of God the Almighty Father, and to magnify the work, exalt the mediation, and honour the character, of the Saviour. With him, as with Dr. Price, religious worship was sacred to One Being, One Mind, One Person; and, as you learned yesterday, his views of the Divine government comprehended the final happiness of the whole intelligent creation.

"Though his own principles were fixed and steady, and in fact underwent little or no alteration for the last fifty years, he was of a catholic spirit towards all good men, to whom he gave with sincerity the right hand of fellowship.

"The character of Dr. Rees's mind was that of a sober thinker and logical reasoner. He possessed equal powers of comprehension and discrimination. His eye betokened his sagacity. He was quick in discerning men's foibles, and he sometimes laid them under tribute for the promotion of the objects of religious charity that lay near his heart.

"As a companion he was unrivalled. None that ever partook will forget his cheerful, cordial hospitality.

"I do not represent him, much as I revered him living, sincerely as I mourn him dead, and lasting as will be my remembrance of his talents and his virtues,-I do not represent him as a perfect man. He had doubtless his

infirmities, but they were mere infirmities-and they were as few as I ever saw (for here I must speak my own opinion) in a man of the same natural robustness of mind, the same resolution, the same zeal, and the same anxiety for the great purposes to which his life and heart and soul and strength were devoted.

"The bodily weaknesses that were the consequences of extreme age, were no part of himself, and cannot be brought into the estimate of his character. "His heart was always right. His Christian principles never forsook him. They had been the guide of his youth, and the distinction of his mature life, and they were the stay of his old age. His trust was fixed on the mercy of God through Christ, and he was not afraid to die. The expression of his eyes, and the posture of his hands, in his last moments, denoted that his mind was engaged in devotion after his tongue had ceased to perform its office. He sunk gradually into his last sleep, and the tenor of his life emboldens me to say, that he died in the Lord.

"Peace be to his ashes! Ever honoured be his name!"

Mr. Aspland completed at Midsummer 1825, the twentieth year of his ministry at Hackney. By the desire of the heads of the congregation, the occasion was celebrated by a social meeting, numerously attended, at which he and several of his personal friends, ministers and others, were the invited guests. Of this meeting no report was given; for, as Editor of the Monthly Repository, he was never forward to admit articles into that work markedly complimentary to himself. But a document, prepared at this time, remains which will be read with interest on account of its autobiographical character. On the Sunday which closed the second decade of his pastorship at the Gravel-Pit, after a discourse on "Our Lord's Discretion as a Religious Teacher," he addressed his flock in these words:

"Indulge me now in a word or two in relation to a subject to which it may be expected by some that I should refer, but on which it is difficult to speak with propriety and delicacy;-I mean my pastoral connexion with this congregation. The present sabbath will complete the twentieth year of my ministry amongst you; but I know not that I should have ventured to take public notice of the circumstance, interesting as it is to my own feelings, if many of you had not, in the partiality of friendship, thought it worthy of observation.

"Sincerely do I bless God for the formation and continuance of a relation in which I have enjoyed much happiness, and have, I would hope, been in some small degree useful in the cause of Christian truth.

"To that cause, as far as I may have understood it, my public life has been humbly devoted: but if I have been able to render the least service to it, it is mainly owing to your sympathy and kindness and cordial support.

"In reviewing the ministry to which you have called me, I am sensible of many defects, but conscious also of some little change of mind and feeling, which I flatter myself has not lessened my power of usefulness.

"Let me freely say, then, that whilst my estimate of the value of the Christian religion, of the importance of free inquiry, and of the sacredness of the fundamental principle on which we associate, the unity in mind and person and the fatherly character of Almighty God, has been gradually rising, there are other points on which I find myself somewhat removed from my earlier thoughts and conclusions, though of these perhaps it would be more correct to say that I have altered my rules of thinking rather than my opinions.

"Concerning the person of Christ, I am compelled by the testimony of Scripture to believe that the Christian world is labouring under a great and hurtful misapprehension; but I confess that I look with growing reverence upon the character and attach increasing importance to the office of our Saviour; and that I am disposed to treat less dogmatically certain questions relating to the date of his existence and the mode of his birth.

Without

"The view that I now take of man is higher than it once was. deciding upon the ever-disputed question, What is the mind of man? I frankly acknowledge that the tendencies of my thoughts are towards those that distinguish mind from matter, and that set up a spiritual as contradistinguished

from the natural world. And with this veneration of man individually, my reverence of society has proportionally increased. The doctrine that there is a spirit in man, of higher being and nobler powers than that portion of him which is obvious to the senses, is of great and various influence. It gives a peculiar character to devotion as consisting in the communion of the mind of man with the spirit of God; and it represents in a pleasing light the state of the human being after death and the prospect of the world to come. In this view particularly wonderful and fearful is our make. I am consequently more desirous of union, as far as union is practicable, with my fellow-christians and fellow-creatures, and would rather lessen than aggravate the differences that prevail between us, making conformity the rule of life and nonconformity the exception.

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In fact, I am disposed to believe that as there is more virtue than vice in the world, so there is more truth than error in every church; and to conclude for this reason that some of our divisions are merely in words, and that most of them are enlarged beyond the requirements of truth, and much more of charity.

"When the occasion seems to call for it, you will bear me witness that I do not hesitate to assert what I consider to be truth or to expose what I believe to be serious error; but with my present views and feelings, I cannot make every sermon controversial, nor assume in the pulpit the tone and language of challenge, debate and defiance.

"Pardon this egotism. I have been reluctantly drawn into it; and I know not that I could with justice to you or myself have said less. A minister's usefulness depends upon his being thoroughly understood, and his congregation are entitled to an explicit statement of the leading principles of his faith and the general tendencies of his mind.

"Let us together commit ourselves to a merciful Providence. Some great and painful changes have taken place in our circle since we were brought into religious connexion-greater changes are certainly decreed-God Almighty grant us faith, that we may look back upon the past without repining, and forward to the future without dismay! May He condescend to bless us as a Christian people, that our profiting may appear to all, and that our union in outward ordinances may cherish the spirit of Christianity in our bosoms. May He keep us sound in faith, in charity, in patience. May He make peace within these walls and prosperity within all your dwellings. May He forgive all our imperfections and deliver us from all hurtful errors: may He carry on his own work among us: and under His gracious guidance and heavenly blessing, may we finally meet in the temple not made with hands, and mingle our voices in the universal chorus of praise to Him, the Creator, the Preserver, the Friend and the Father of all.-Amen and Amen."

The modification of taste and feeling (rather than change of opinion) indicated in this address, has probably been experienced by other men and in more denominations than one. In Mr. Aspland it was the necessary consequence of the growth of the Christian character and increased reverence for evangelical truth. By his accustomed hearers, the statement of his feelings, though listened to with deep attention, excited no surprise, and was rightly understood. By one or two accidental and less intelligent hearers, his meaning was misunderstood, and their reports of some change of opinion in the pastor of the Hackney congregation, magnified by popular exaggeration, occasioned the prevalence in more distant places of a rumour that he had returned to the orthodox views of his early life.*

A similar rumour prevailed at the same time respecting Dr. Carpenter. At a prayer-meeting of an orthodox congregation in the West of England, thanksgiving was offered to God for having rescued these two ministers from soul

Rev. Robert Aspland to Rev. Benjamin Mardon.

“Hackney, August 2, 1825.* "My dear Sir,-The ridiculous report that has reached Maidstone, has been industriously circulated throughout the kingdom, and indeed—I know not why-some rumour of the kind has been afloat for many years. My orthodox brethren are determined to have me, but are rather injudicious in claiming me, as some of their own people may be induced by their silly representations to come over to me, since I will not go over to them.

"I suppose the present story has grown out of my preaching Dr. [Ab.] Rees's funeral sermon, and using in it (as is my custom) a little warmer language with regard to our Saviour than is common with some Unitarians : and, perhaps, too, out of my declaring in a sermon at home, on completing the 20th year of my ministry (which my congregation celebrated by a dinner), that in the course of that time my views had undergone some change—that I had left the material hypothesis which I once entertained-that I attached less importance to the question between the Arians and other Unitarians— and that I felt a rising persuasion of the importance of the work of our Lord, which I suppose is the case with most serious Christians as they advance in years. I know not, however, that on this subject I used on this occasion, or any other, stronger language than our venerable friend Belsham employs in the last No. of Repository.

"Your friendly interest in what concerns my name has led me to say thus much; more than I should say to some inquirers.

"The part of the rumour that relates to my leaving the Gravel-Pit is, I suppose, an inference from the other part. I know of nothing that could remotely give it being.

"Thanks for your paper. Did not you send a similar one from Glasgow ? You will be amused with a pamphlet on 1 John v. 7, by Dr. John Jonesjust published-to prove the genuineness of the verse, and that its exclusion from the Epistle was the work of the Athanasians or Gnostics, to get rid of the strongest text in the New Testament for the proper humanity of Christ! Wishing you health, happiness and usefulness, I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,

"ROBERT ASPLAND."

Of numerous public engagements which Mr. Aspland was about this time called upon to undertake, it is not thought necessary to make specific mention. But an exception must be made in favour of a pulpit duty which he undertook at Chester in the month of August, 1826, on the occasion of the ordination of his eldest son as the minister of the Presbyterian congregation in that ancient city. He was associated in this duty with Revds. J. G. Robberds and William Turner, Jun. (who conducted the devotional services), Dr. Shepherd, who delivered the sermon, and Mr. Joseph Swanwick, who delivered an address on behalf of the congregation to the minister-elect. On Mr. Aspland naturally devolved the duty of giving the Charge. The whole service was felt by all present to be singularly impressive, and at the request of the congregation was printed. A very friendly critic (understood to be Dr. Hutton), in reviewing it, observed, "It is difficult to conceive a Father

destroying errors. The willingness of the members of "orthodox" churches to credit such rumours respecting Unitarians of respectability and eminence, is in one point of view amiable. It shews the reluctance of their hearts to contemplate the doom of good men to the sufferings which are in their creed assigned as the inevitable penalty of errors retained to the close of life.

This letter is taken from the Appendix of the Funeral Sermon preached at Worship Street by Rev. Benjamin Mardon.