reserved for conversation with the students. They gathered round him with the utmost freedom-and he sat in their centre, as much a friend as a teacher. With the utmost patience he listened to their statements of difficulties-heard their questions, and solved their doubts. The intellectual crumbs which in those golden hours fell from Neander's table would make many a scholar rich.

"Nor was his interest in the students confined to their intellectual and religious improvement; he sympathized also in their personal wants, their sicknesses, their poverty, their distresses of whatsoever kind. A student in want or suffering was sure of succour from his own purse, though his resources were very limited; and when this would not suffice, he was untiring in his efforts to interest others in their behalf. One or two incidents may be given out of many. A poor student, in ill health, was ordered to visit a watering-place. Neander was not able, at the time, to give him the necessary money; but he selected one of his most valuable books, -a splendid edition of Griesbach's New Testament,-fixed a price on it, and sold a number of tickets to the students, who drew lots for the book. The avails enabled the poor student to proceed upon his journey. I was myself witness of another case, in which he entreated a young man with affectionate urgency-I may even say imploringly—to accept from him a gift of money in an hour of need. Seeing that the young man's sense of independence was so strong as to humiliate him in view of receiving such relief, he reminded him, with touching delicacy, that it was "more blessed to give than to receive,” and entreated him to accept the gift for love's sake. With no family of his own, Neander considered himself the father of young theologians; and never, since the time of Melancthon, his great spiritual forerunner, has a teacher in the universities of Germany so faithfully filled this relation. With all his simplicity of mind and feeling, he had a quick and intuitive perception of talent and of moral character; and his prognostications were generally realized in the subsequent history of his pupils. Humble in his estimate of himself, and regarding any peculiar talent which the lowliest mind might have as worthy of all respect as a "gift of God," he gladly afforded to every student the fullest opportunities of culture, and was cautious of setting arbitrary limits to the development of individual minds. And even when the religious life of any one was obscured by great faults, he remained true to him, and would not despond, so long as any germ of better things could be discerned. How many has he, by his long-enduring patience, finally led to the Saviour! When, again, he recognised, in a young man of decided talents, a special aptitude for successful labour in the

work of God, he summoned all his energies to cultivate and improve the gift. And his greatest joy was to see springing up among his scholars promising rivals of himself. To meet the exigencies of younger and less advanced minds, it was his habit frequently to vary his lectures.

"Considering how much of his time Neander devoted to his students and friends, how much of it was occupied in public duties, and how carefully he prepared himself for his lectures, of which he gave two or three daily, one cannot but marvel at the multitude and compass of his writings, and wonder how he could find time to do so much. The secret lay partly in his personal habits and partly in the remarkable quickness of his mental activity. The common distractions of life, which others deem it indispensable to yield to, he sedulously kept aloof from. His domestic affairs were faithfully managed by his sister; and with them-indeed with what passes among so many for the ordinary business of life-he never troubled himself. His hours were allotted to his work, and the distribution was faithfully adhered to. He read and wrote with marvellous celerity: indeed, it may be said of him, as of Melancthon, that he read with his fingers' ends; for often, after apparently only turning over the leaves of a book, he showed an adequate knowledge of its contents. And his memory was so retentive that what he readeven to the names of persons, things, and places-remained fixed in his possession; so, too, he remembered the faces of persons with whom he had had but little intercourse. I remember a preacheran honest, but not otherwise remarkable man-who visited Neander when a student, and was subsequently long separated from him. Twenty years after, on a visit to Berlin, he called on his early friend, and opened the conversation by expressing a doubt whether Neander remembered him. "I remember you very well," replied Neander, "and I can tell you the subject of our conversation the first time you ever visited me." It was this ever-ready memory, always holding its treasures at the service of a calm and collected mind, that made easy to him the remote and sagacious investigations with which his historical works abound."

It must be remembered, that amid all his Herculean labours, Neander was, as we have before said, not only a man of feeble frame, but actually suffering most of his time from disease. For many years he was almost a total stranger to the feeling of health. But his afflictions served only the more fully to show forth his Christian patience, and to illustrate the power of a controlling will over corporeal disabilities. None of the traces which a suffering body too often inflicts upon the mind-no morbidness of tone or feeling-could ever

be detected in his lectures; his hearers, on the contrary, always received the impression of a mind free from all distractions and restraints, devoting itself, full of healthful activity, to the cause of Christianity and science. So, too, instead of sickliness, his writings everywhere exhibit a free and genial susceptibility, a keen faculty of observation and reflection, and an ever fresh spirit of inquiry. It was perhaps from the relations between his own bodily condition and mental activity that Neander took special delight, and was specially successful, in delineating the characters and labours of those who, like St. Paul and Bernard of Clairvaux, united feebleness of body with commanding powers of intellect and activity.

We cannot conclude these memorabilia without some allusion to Neander's remarkable and even eccentric peculiarities as a lecturer: and no description of ours can be better than the following sketch from the London Christian Reformer, to the general accuracy of which we can bear testimony from personal observation: "His lecture-room was a curious sight to a by-stander. He always used the largest hall in the building, that would hold about 450 students; and, before the late political disturbances had emptied the Universities, it was frequently full. The seats are arranged so as to slope from every direction down towards a moveable desk on a small platform, which stands against the longest wall of the room. The clock has struck; but the 'auditorium' is still filled with a wild hubbub of students, with their caps on, laughing and talking. All at once the door noiselessly opens, and a figure clad in a long cylindrical surtout, with a rag of white neckcloth carelessly twisted round a swarthy neck, glides to the desk with a somewhat fearful and helpless air. This is partly occasioned by the fact that his sight is far from good, partly that his shaggy black eyebrows prevent his seeing anything before him, except by an upward inclination of the head. He certainly does not look as if 400 eager faces were upturned to catch his first word; but in a moment caps have been doffed, and all is order and attention. He lays his arm on the desk and his head on his arm; sways his body and the desk backwards and forwards, till the unaccustomed spectator momentarily expects him to crush the unfortunate youth who sits quietly writing beneath; seizes some stump of a quill which a provident student has placed for his accommodation, and, in the violence of the inspiration, tears and twists it to pieces, and pours out, in a harsh and loud voice, without a pause for three-quarters of an hour, a clear and connected history of the period under view. At first, the hearer is pained for him. He is subject to a disease of the stomach, which compels him to relieve himself while speaking by expectoration almost at the end of every FOURTH SERIES, VOL. III.-10.

sentence. He has no books to refer to, and his contortions are violent and odd, as those of the Pythian priestess on the tripod. Yet names, dates, facts, and even long quotations from the Fathers, come ever trippingly from his tongue; and after one lecture in such sort, the wonder is how either professor or student can go on for two mortal hours in immediate succession; yet such was his practice even to the last."

The personal piety of Neander shines forth in all his writings, as it did in the daily tenor of his simple and blameless life. In his own religious convictions the fundamental doctrines of the sinfulness and corruption of human nature, and of justification by faith in Christ, were ever held fast; and through his faith in Christ, he enjoyed an humble, yet radiant and rejoicing spirit of godliness. He even considered the religion of the heart to be as essential to theological insight as to Christian life. Pectus est, quod theologum facit, was his motto. "The theologian needs," says he, "a spiritual mind, a deep acquaintance with divine things; and he must study the Scriptures with his heart as well as with his head, unless he wishes his theology to be robbed of its salt by his criticism." A beautiful illustration of the feeling that was ever uppermost with him was afforded by his spontaneous expression, when, on his birth day, a few years ago, the students got up a sort of celebration in his honour. They met in procession, and marched through the city by torchlight. The procession pausing opposite the windows of his house, he was addressed in a figurative, complimentary allusion to the greatness of the occasion. This incident affected him in a manner illustrative of the simplicity of his character. Stepping forward, he declared himself to be only a 'poor sinner,' exclaiming, in a voice trembling with emotion, and the tears trickling down his cheeks-as one of the fathers had done before him-' O, Divine Love, I have not loved thee strongly, deeply, warmly enough!"

For some years before his death, Neander was almost blind. His historical studies, however, were pursued by the aid of students who read and wrote for him: and his fifteen lectures a-week were still, amid his increasing infirmities, delivered at the University. A beautiful fruit of his labours in this period is to be found in the Practical Exposition of the Philippians, and of the Epistle of James, dictated in 1849, and soon to be translated and printed in this country. When we visited him at Berlin, in June, he was attending to all his University duties as usual; and he even spoke with confidence of the state of his health. But his frail and wasted frame gave sure indications of decay; and early in July the signs of approaching and serious illness were manifest. Licentiate Rauh, of

the University of Berlin, has written an account* of his last illness, from which we obtain the following facts. The weather was trying and uncertain, and Neander had upon him the premonitory symptoms of approaching disease, but, hoping to overcome it, as he had often before, by the influence of his energetic will, he could not be persuaded to interrupt his lectures. On Monday, the 8th of July, however, his voice failed him at times, a thing which had never happened before. "He, however, forced himself to persevere to the end of the lecture; but could scarcely manage, even with the help of some of his students, to come down the steps of his chair, and went home completely worn out. A listener to his last lecture was so terror-struck with these sad signs, that he whispered to the person sitting next him, 'That is our Neander's last lecture.""

In the afternoon, spite of increasing weakness, he dictated his Church History for three consecutive hours. At last, with reluctance, he yielded, and allowed his amanuensis to withdraw. The days following were full of weariness and pain; yet his only complaint was that he "could not work." His mind now began to wanOn the Saturday he imperatively commanded his servant to bring his clothes that he might rise. A student tried in vain to dissuade him, but his purpose was only altered by his sister saying to him, in an imploring tone, "Dear Augustus, remember what you said to me should I oppose the doctor's orders, 'It comes from God, and so we must cheerfully bow to it."""That is true," he said, his voice suddenly calmed, "it does come from God-all-and we are bound to thank him for it." A few hours after, a bath of wine enabled him to rise, and he was carried from the bedroom into his study. Here his dying hours were spent. Amid the fantasies which now veiled his clear and strong mind, he was busy with passages of Scripture expressing the goodness of God; and, imagining the amanuensis at his side, he dictated a few clear and connected passages in continuation of his Church History. Once he murmured, dreamingly, "I am weary-let us make ready to go home." After another dictation, he said, "I am weary; I will sleep now:" and as his friends laid him carefully on the bed, he said, in more than his usual tone of gentleness, "Good night." He slept for four hours, and then slept in Jesus.

When the news of his death was announced in the University, many of the students were affected to tears. A conference of clergyman, sitting in the neighbourhood, at once took steps to found a house of refuge for neglected children, to be called after his name. Many a preacher has already contributed what for him has the worth of the widow's mite, to this truly apt memorial of Neander.

* Neander's Heimgang.