11 Memoir of the Rev. William Roby. 12 required, he turned his thoughts to the connexion of the late Countess of Huntingdon, and here commenced his ministerial labours. For some time he had no stated appointment, but preached in such places as stood most in need of his services. This demi-itinerant mode of life brought him more immediately into the vicinity of Wigan, the place of his early days and education, and here he became a stated This was the case with Mr. Roby. When about nineteen, his mind became seriously affected with the realities of an eternal world; and so concerned was he for the salvation of his soul, that nothing could induce him to take upon himself the awful responsibility attached to the clerical character. This led him to abandon all thoughts of the university, and also to give up every idea of the Christian ministry altogether. Nor was this a mere momen-resident, and continued to preach for the tary impulse. His feelings on this occasion gave birth to resolutions, which, followed by correspondent actions, gave new arrangements to his calculations for life, and finally conducted him to a path, in which he has continued to travel, while pursuing his mortal journey. About this time, a vacancy occurring in the classical department of a liberally endowed school at Bretherton, Mr. Roby was invited to accept it; which, under existing circumstances, appearing providential, he readily embraced. On reaching his new situation, his views were directed to the moral condition of the inhabitants, which he soon perceived to be deplorable and wretched in the highest degree. With them, vice and ignorance walked hand in hand; and, from the anguish which he had endured in his own mind respecting the salvation of his soul, these were subjects on which he could not look with indifference. On examining the trust-deeds of the school, Mr. Roby soon found that the master was required, by one of the clauses, to dedicate a portion of every week to the spiritual instruction of his pupils. This duty being imperative, he determined to assemble the children, for this purpose, in the school-room every Sunday evening. On these occasions, he confined his observations chiefly to familiar and expository remarks on the catechism and articles of the church of England. These endeavours to serve the children becoming public, many of their parents, and other inhabitants, on soliciting, were permitted to attend; when, finding that God was daily owning and blessing his labours, his former scruples in a great measure subsided, and he now became seriously disposed to consecrate himself entirely to the service of the sanctuary. Being from principle attached to the church of England, which his education had matured almost to superstitious veneration, he now once more turned his attention to her articles, ritual, and constitution. But finding, on impartial deliberation, that he could not conscientiously adopt her baptismal and burial forms, as the canons period of seven years, with reputation to himself, and benefit to the congregation that attended on his ministry. During his continuance at Wigan, the nature, constitution, and discipline of a Christian church, as delineated in the New Testament, engrossed much of his attention, which, in the result, so essentially altered his views in favour of the Independent, or Congregational system, that he resigned his charge, and accepted an invitation to the pastoral office in a church at Manchester, where the modes of discipline and government were congenial with his altered view, and of which he still continues the very useful and highly respected minister. Arriving at Manchester, Mr. Roby soon had the pleasure to witness a considerable revival of religion both in his own congregation, to which he was rendered greatly instrumental, and also in many other parts of this vast and populous town. Here the sacred flame has continued to emit its steady lustre, through a succession of years; and through the simultaneous exertion of its ministers, though of various denominations, Manchester has been remarkably distinguished for the zeal and vigour of its missionary spirit. Among these, the praise of that congregation of which Mr. Roby is the minister, is in all the churches. Many of his members are blessed with affluence; and what is still more worthy of being recorded, with a noble spirit of liberality, that is every way commensurate to their wealth. In the cause of missions their ardour furnishes an example worthy of universal imitation, and their contributions towards the spread of the gospel stand unrivalled among all the dissenting churches throughout the British empire. Some time after Mr. Roby had settled in Manchester, Robert Spear, Esq. an eminently liberal individual, whose soul glowed with affection to the Saviour, became the patron and supporter of an academy, in which both single and married men were trained for the work of the Christian ministry. Over this institution the subject of this memoir was appointed to preside; and Mosely-street chapel vestry was imme diately selected for the library and the lecture room. The design being made known to the churches, two married and two single individuals were soon found willing to place themselves under Mr. Roby's care; and these were afterwards joined by several others. The term for continuance in the Institution being only two years, the line of study which their tutor selected, was, perhaps, the wisest which could have been chosen. They were made intimately acquainted with the grammatical construction of their own language, and particularly instructed in the formation and arrangement of its sentences. Every week they received a lecture on the composition of sermons, and were expected to produce specimens of their own abilities. Logic formed an eminent part in their studies, and they were required, not only to read and understand Watts, but to form an abstract of the whole work for themselves. Ecclesiastical History, Geography, the use of the Globes, and the first principles of natural and moral Philosophy, also claimed a due portion of their time and attention. A knowledge likewise of the Greek and the Hebrew, made a peculiar part of every day's acquirement. Such was the general course of studies which the pupils under Mr. Roby's care, were directed to prosecute. But, perhaps, their greatest advantages were derived from a course of theological lectures; in which, both the leading features and the minor points of divinity were clearly and distinctly arranged. These lectures, each student was allowed to copy for himself. This Institution continued under the care of the Rev. Mr. Roby for the space of five years; when it was removed to Leaf-square; and subsequently to Blackburn, where it has flourished under the tuition of the Rev. J. Fletcher, and is now prospering under that of the Rev. George Paine. As an author, Mr. Roby is more distinguished by the number, than by the magnitude, of his publications. The frequency of his preaching, and other concerns immediately connected with his pastoral office, having left but a small portion of time for the employment of his pen, he has hesitated to engage in any voluminous work. The following list will, however, prove that his leisure hours have not been permitted to pass away in unproductive indolence. 1. A Short Treatise on the Necessity of the Satisfaction of Christ; or, the Dangerous Tendency of Socinianism. 1791. 2. The First Principles of Christianity; or, a Catechism for Children. 1798. 3. Civil Magistracy Defended; and the Comparative Consequences of Sins against God, and against Society, considered; in a sermon occasioned by the execution of George Russell, who suffered for croftbreaking, near Manchester, on September 15th, 1798. 4. An Apology for Christian Missions to the Heathen; a sermon preached before the Missionary Society, in London, May 13th, 1801. 5. The Ministerial Example of Christ, the Christian Preacher's Model; a Charge delivered at the ordination of the Rev. Joseph Johnson, Warrington. 1803. 6. A Sermon preached to the congrega. tion in St. George's church, Manchester, on the Death of their much respected minister, the Rev. John Johnson; including a brief Memoir of his Life. 1804. 7. The Thoughtful Christian, exemplified in extracts from the manuscripts ef Mrs. J. Crichton; including a Narrative of her first serious impressions, her subsequent religious experience, and the general heads of several sermons, with reflections; to which is added, a brief account of her happy death. 1809. 8. Scripture Instructions; or, the Sunday School Catechism; containing questions relating to the principal doctrines and duties of revealed religion, adapted to the capacities of children, and answered in the pure words of scripture. 1809. 9. A Defence of Calvinism; or, Strictures on a recent publication, entitled "St. Paul against Calvin." 1810. 10. A Funeral Discourse, occasioned by the death of the Rev. Thomas Spencer; and preached to his afflicted congregation, in Newington chapel, Liverpool, on Sunday, Aug. 18th, 1811. 11. The Orphan's Friend; a discourse delivered in the chapel belonging to the Orphan Working School, City Road, London, at the anniversary meeting, held May 7th, 1813. To which is annexed, the Design and Plan of the Charity. 12. The Glory of the Latter Days; being one of the associated monthly lectures, delivered in Manchester; with an Appendix containing illustrative notes, extracted from various authors. 1814. 13. A Selection of Hymns, for the use of young persons, and especially of Sunday Schools. 1815. 14. The Christian Duty of assembling together; a sermon delivered at the ordination of the Rev. Edward Parsons, jun. Halifax. 1818. 15 Future Life of Brutes. 16 15. Lectures on the principal Evidences, On a late occasion, when a divinity tutor and the several Dispensations, of Revealed was wanted in the academy at Rotherham, Religion; familiarly addressef to young an offer of the responsible station was persons; with select references to some of made to him. He, however, considered it the most valuable treatises on each subject. to be of too momentous a nature to justify 1818. his acceptance, and therefore modestly de 16. Anti-Swedenborgianism; or, a Let-clined it, content with his long-tried situater to the Rev. J. Clowes, M. A. rector of St. John's church, Manchester, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, containing a Reply to his Strictures on those passages in the author's lectures, which refer to the honourable Emanuel Swedenborg, and his disciples. 17. The Converted Atheist. 18. Academical Institutions; or, the Importance of Preparatory Instruction for the Christian Ministry, illustrated in a sermon preached at the anniversary of the Blackburn Independent Academy. 19. The Happy Christian; or, the Advantages of a Sunday School Instruction, exemplified in the life and death of Herbert Taylor. 20. Protestantism; or, an Address, particularly to the labouring classes, in defence of the Protestant principle, "That the Scriptures, not Tradition, are the Rules of Faith;" occasioned by the late controversial attacks of the Rev. J. Carr. 21. The Blessedness of the Dead who die in the Lord; a sermon occasioned by the lamented death of Mrs. Rachel Harbottle; with a Memoir of the deceased. 22. Missionary Portraits; or, brief Memoirs of the late Rev. Robert Hampson, and Rev. John Ince, who laboured under the patronage of the London Missionary Society: the former at Calcutta, and the latter at Porto Pinang. 23. Pastoral Bereavement Improved; a funeral sermon, occasioned by the sudden death of the late Rev. P. S. Charrier, and preached to his afflicted church and congregation, in Bethesda chapel, Liverpool. Among the above articles, it will be perceived, from their respective titles, that they partake of different characters. The ser mons were called into existence by particular occasions; and only four tracts, namely, Nos. 1, 9, 16, and 20, assume a polemical aspect. His largest work is No. 15, consisting of lectures on the Evidences of Revealed Religion. This is an octavo volume, containing 373 pages, which regularly ranges through the various topics of evidence adduced in favour of the sacred writings, and by which are established their genuineness and authenticity. That Mr. Roby sustains an exalted rank in the estimation of his brother ministers, may be gathered from the following fact: tion as minister of Grosvenor-street chapel, in Manchester, where his pulpit talents are highly respected by an intelligent and affectionate people, on whose minds his ministry has made a deep impression, and in whose lives are embodied the practical doctrines which he inculcates both by precept and example. In the third volume of a work, entitled, "The Pulpit," published in 1816, we have some brief characteristic sketches of various eminent ministers, both in the establishment and among the dissenters, in which Mr. Roby is thus introduced to our notice : "Mr. Roby evinces very considerable information on scriptural subjects, which are elucidated by him with much felicity of taste, and applied with a discriminating mind. His judgment is solid, his reasoning close, and his style generally correct. His countenance indeed indicates the thoughtful Christian; so that the impression of his sentiments is not unfreqently assisted by the intelligence of his glance. His delivery also, is easy and winning, while he has the personal advantage of being staturable in point of height." Of the effects produced by Mr. Roby's preaching, it would be easy to adduce many remarkable instances; but these, though gratifying to the indifferent reader, might not be pleasing to the parties concerned. On the zeal, the talents, and the usefulness of the preacher, they would confer no contemptible honour; but with him they are all absorbed in this more exalted consideration-"Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." 66 AN EXTRACT FROM AN ESSAY ON THE FUTURE LIFE OF BRUTES," BY RICHARD DEANE; WITH ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS FROM DR. ADAM CLARKE. EVIL is a term of large extension; for, taken in its utmost latitude, it includes all the wants, imperfections, and miseries of beings, through ignorance, imbecility, pain, poverty, grief, discontent, sickness, &c., and extends itself also to all the slips, deviations, and errors of moral beings. Natural evil signifies pain, sickness, infirmity, want, disease, and death. It is called natural, because man and the inferior creation are subject to these calamities The old and the young, the rich and the poor, the vigorous and the feeble, indiscriminately suffer. The innocent are attacked with the guilty, and evils are the portion of him that feareth God, as well as of him that feareth him not. The world is full of hospitals, wherein wretchedness exhibits itself in all forms, and in all images. Our doors are every day crowded with objects fainting under the pangs of hunger and thirst, naked and shivering, deprived of the use of their limbs, and the sight of the sun, and telling the sad tales of their present miseries and past misfortunes, to excite compassion and obtain charity. And, lastly, death presents himself incessantly in all the hideous varieties of agony and convulsive horror. Human comfort lies at the mercy of many accidents and many chances. We may suffer from the fall of a stone, from the stench of a vapour, from the bursting of a cloud: a blast of wind has the power to annoy, and a puff of smoke to disturb An insignificant fly is able to give us torment, and a hair or grape-stone to put an end to our lives. In short, if we reflect upon the many ways in which we are open to pain and death, we shall be astonished how we come to live a day to its end, and enjoy a single moment of ease. us. The mind is extremely dexterous at imagining its own miseries. Whatever we suffer is fancied to be more and greater than what others, in the like cases and circumstances, endure. We count every tardy moment of pain; make every moment of it a day, and every day a year. Brutes are liable to momentary sufferings and transient evils. They have their dark hours of pain and sickness, and die under the sad appearance of agony, like the beings that are above them. They feel alike, and die alike; and yet for all this we say, the brutes have no share in futurity. It is easy to assert this, but not so easy to answer what follows thereon. They suffer much at present, and, if this is all, we must then conclude, that they were produced in an evil hour, and a fatal moment. I know not whether we should not be obliged to go farther, and impeach the divine goodness. ment of present good. Sin and suffering are closely connected. If we would live with any tolerable degree of comfort and satisfaction, virtue is the only rule we have to follow. The ills of this world are unequally divided. The human heart is impenetrable to us. They whom we esteem righteous, may not be so. The temporary escapes of wicked men may be ascribed to the forbearance of God, who does not instantly punish; or they may discover some signs of reformation hidden from us, but evident to him who is the searcher of hearts. Or there may be a considerable difference in men as to their sense of afflictions, and one may not feel half so much as another, whilst they appear to us to suffer alike. We see many good persons suffer the hardships of poverty and want; and, for all the honest pains they take, are but just able to get necessary conveniences, (sometimes not these,) and can never awake into plenty and affluence. Others we see who have all things in abundance. Some are born to them, and some arrive at them in a course of business, by a train of lucky incidents, many of whom are, perhaps, wicked and undeserving. Here things appear to be wrong, unequal, unfit: but another state scatters those apparent improprieties. The good man sees he shall be dealt with there in a way that he shall deserve. This is a great support to him at present. What is the reason brutes are subject to suffering? Brutes, as well as man, are subject to the same sort of pains and diseases, so far as their cases coincide. They suffered with man the anguish of the fall. They have perished with him in deluges and conflagrations, in famines, pestilences, and destructions of the sword. As brute animals have attended man in all great and capital calamities, they will also attend him in his final deliverance, be restored when he is restored, and have a place in those happy regions where nature shall assume the splendour and elegance of her pristine form, the eternal God appear as he is, and every thing be representative of him. A gentleman had a pointer, which whenever he went a shooting he was seen to take Pain and death are manifestly foreign out with him. The gentleman's custom accidents,―neither decreed, inevitable, nor was, on his return from his diversions, to necessary from the nature of the subjects discharge his piece at magpies or carrionin which they are found, but existing ca- crows, which he would take some pains to sually, or after the manner of contingencies. look for in the trees as he passed along. The fall of man is the true point from The dog on these occasions always kept which the natural evils of this life proceed. behind, I suppose that he might not frighten Physical evil, considered as an effect of those birds away, but that his master might sin, teaches us to keep a strict eye to virtue have a fair chance at them. It happened in all the ways we pursue for the attain-one day as he was upon this business, that 19 Future Life of Brutes. 20 a magpie, perched on the top of a large oak, | a state of suffering, and partake of the comescaped the gentleman's notice. The dog, mon infirmities and privations of life, as ever attentive to his master's pleasures, peeps well as mankind: they suffer, but who can into the tree himself, and espies the party- say that they suffer justly? coloured animal, whereupon he runs up to III. " As they appear to be necessarily his master, who was got some yards from involved in the sufferings of sinful man, and the place, lays hold of the lap of his coat yet neither through their fault nor their folly; behind, and gives it a smart pull with his it is natural to suppose that the Judge of all teeth. The gentleman, surprised, turns about the earth, who ever does right, will find to see what was the matter, when the dog some means by which these innocent creaimmediately starts back to the tree, and tures shall be compensated for their sufshews him the bird, which the gentleman ferings. very soon brought to the ground. I wonder, after such an instance of sagacity, any person can have the effrontery to maintain that brutes are only intelligent machines. Rea-sation, they must have it in another state. son declares in favour of the future existence of brutes, by determining that brutes have souls. The notion of a soul includes immortality and endless duration of existence. It reflects upon the goodness of God to suppose that he subjects to pains and sorrows such a number of beings which he never designs to beatify :-upon his wisdom, that he forms them for the miserable duration of a moment, without having himself a power to extend their duration, and better their condition:-upon his love, that he exposes them to the horrible evils of nature, and the cruel torments of superior beings, which a tender disposition would be concerned to remedy or prevent. And it reflects upon his justice, to suppose that he destroys, without a recompense, creatures that he has brought into such a state of infelicity, and in some measure capacitated for everlasting happiness. The notion that brute animals were created only for the occasions of man, to minister to his pleasures, conveniences, and the like, is a weak and unwarrantable conceit. Every species of animal has a language peculiar to itself, by means of which all the individuals that compose it are able to converse with each other; to impart their pains and pleasures, their fears and dangers, their desires and intentions; and what can all this arise from, but an intelligent principle residing within them? Dr. Adam Clarke's Observations on the Restoration of the Brute Creation to a State of Happiness. He says, "There are several reasons which render the supposition very probable. I. "The brute creation never sinned against God; nor are they capable of it; and, consequently, cannot be justly liable to punishment. II. "But the whole brute creation is in IV. "That they have no compensation here, their afflictions, labours, and death prove; and if they are to have any compen V. "God, the fountain of all goodness, must have originally designed them for that measure of happiness which is suited to the powers with which he had endowed them. But, since the fall of man, they never had that happiness; and in their present circumstances, never can. VI. "In reference to intelligent beings, God has formed his purposes, in reference to their happiness, on the ground of their rational natures. He has decreed that they shall be happy if they will, all the means of it being placed within their power; and, if they be ultimately miserable, it is the effect of their own unconstrained choice. Wherefore his purpose is fulfilled either in their happiness or misery; because he has purposed that they shall be happy if they please; and that misery shall be the result of their refusal. VII. "But it does not appear that the brute creation are capable of this choice; and it is evident that they are not placed in their present misery, through either their choice or their sin; and, if no purpose of God can be ultimately frustrated, these creatures must be restored to that state of happiness for which they have been made, and of which they have been deprived through the transgression of man. VIII. "To say that the enjoyments which they have in this life are a sufficient compensation, is most evidently false; for had not sin entered into the world, they would have had much greater enjoyments, without pain, excessive labour, and toil, and without death,--and all those sufferings which arise from its predisposing causes. Nor does it appear that they have much happiness from eating, drinking, and rest, as they have these only in the proportion that they are necessary to their existence as the slaves of men. Therefore, allowing that they have any gratification and enjoyment in life, they have much less than they would have had, had not sin entered into the world; and, |