BISHOP RYDER.

THE Honourable Henry Ryder was the youngest son of Nathaniel, Earl of Harrowby, by Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of the Right Rev. Dr. Terrick, Lord Bishop of London. He was born in 1777, and from childhood displayed the union of good talents with a singularly amiable disposition. At a proper age he entered at St. John's College, Cambridge; and from his earliest youth having been exemplary as a son and a brother, he passed through the University with a generally high character, as a young man of literary taste, studious habits, and of irreproachable conduct. Yet, as he himself afterwards confessed, he was leading at this time, like other young men of rank and fashion, a life of worldly pleasure; and he has been known to refer to this, and the immediately subsequent period of his history, in terms of the deepest self-abasement, as one in which he had vainly sought to find happiness in a career of earthly enjoyments, unmindful of the purpose of his being, and living "without God in the world."

He was ordained, in the year 1800, by the late Bishop Cornwallis, to the curacy of Sandon, the family seat in Staffordshire. In 1802 he was appointed rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, (the living once held by the illustrious Wycliffe,) and four years afterwards vicar of the almost contiguous parish of Claybrook. In his parochial charge he conducted himself in such a manner as to obtain general respect and esteem. Though he

mixed freely with worldly company, and entered into the amusements of fashionable society, he was never inattentive to the proprieties of the clerical character, nor suffered pleasure to interfere with the outward duties of his ministry. Indeed, such was his kindness to the poor, his attention to the sick, and his diligence in catechising the young, that he was looked upon by the world at large as a complete model of a young parish priest. His theological studies also were pursued with great interest: he read attentively the writings of the early fathers; studied critically, with the help of approved commentators, the sacred text; and took great pains with the preparation of his sermons. Yet there is the best authority for saying, that neither at the time of his taking orders, nor for some years after, had he by any means that deep sense of responsibility which a just view of the sacredness of the ministerial trust never fails to produce. From his being at that time not duly impressed with the worth of his own soul, nor animated by a grateful sense of individual obligation to the Redeemer, his religion was rather professional than personal. He had not been made to feel "the plague of his own heart," the insufficiency of his strongest efforts, and the sinfulness of his best performances, in the sight of a pure and holy God; and the consequent necessity of a simple, exclusive dependence on the atonement, righteousness, and intercession of the Son of God, and the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Hence his preaching was very defective, and in some important respects fundamentally erroneous. On the cardinal point of justification, his statements, in his early published sermons, are, to say the least, ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Their characteristic defect is a cold and feeble exhibition of the doctrines of Divine grace, which are stated obscurely and with reserve; nor do we meet with those powerful appeals to the conscience, that attractive exhibition of the love of Christ, and that anxiety

to hold him forth in his varied offices, which afterwards gave to his discourses so much impressive warmth and energy. Limited in his spiritual progress by the influence of such views, Mr. Ryder seems to have passed the first eight or nine years of his ministry at Lutterworth. The change, which appeared about the year 1811, was probably preceded by deep yet silent impressions, and promoted by domestic affliction arising from the loss of his revered and beloved father, and soon after, in 1807, of a sister to whom he was affectionately attached. At this time he received much comfort and instruction from Cecil's "Friendly Visit to the House of Mourning;" a little work which has been, in God's hand, the guide of many to the only true source of consolation.

In Mr. Ryder was strikingly illustrated the truth of our Saviour's declaration, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." Even while his views were defective, he acted faithfully and conscientiously up to the light he had received. He was diligent in study, assiduous in the active duties of his profession, and remarkably conscientious in the choice of his curates. They were men of spiritual views and humble piety, from whose conversation and example he derived many valuable hints, which,with characteristic simplicity and lowliness of mind, he carefully improved and acted upon. In conversing with them on the spiritual condition of the sick, whom they visited in common, there is reason to think that he acquired his first lessons in that spiritual anatomy in which he afterwards became so great a proficient. He likewise derived much advantage from intercourse with other decidedly pious persons, and from books of a more devotional character than he had formerly been in the habit of perusing; such as Newton's "Cardiphonia," and "Letters to a Nobleman.”