as it is, for the heartless intercourse of the world. I know that if a man says he loves God, and hates his brother, he is a liar ;' but I do not hate my brethren of the human family. I fear, however, that I cannot love them as I ought. But God, I hope and trust, will in his good time put better dispositions into my heart. There are few of them, I am persuaded, more undeserving of love than I am.

Every day brings with it new evidences of my weakness and utter inability, of myself, to do any good thing, or even to conceive a single good thought. With the unhappy father in the Gospel, I cry out, 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief! When I think of the goodness, and wisdom, and power of God, I seem, in my own eyes, a devil in all but strength. I say this to you, who will not ascribe it to affected humility. Sometimes I have better views, but again I am weighed down to the very earth, or lost in a labyrinth of doubts and perplexities. The hardness of my own heart grieves and astonishes me. Then, again, I settle down in a state of coldness and indifference, which is worse than all. But the quivering of our frail flesh, often the effect of physical causes, cannot detract from the mercy of our Creator, and to him I commit myself. Thy will be done! "—Vol. ii, p. 95.

Of course, by those who knew no better, these, and similar outpourings of the agony of a wounded spirit, were regarded as the ravings of delirium. His biographer evidently thought so; and his explanations of the causes of his hero's madness are put forth with a shallow profundity, which evinces that he knew nothing of the matter. He says:—

"When we come to consider the solitude in which he lived, the emaciated condition of his delicate frame, worn down by long and torturing disease, the irritable state of his nervous system--' he was almost like a man without a skin -the constant and sleepless excitement of his mental faculties and of his brilliant imagination induced by this morbid irritability; when we throw ourselves into his condition, and conceive of the crowd of burning thoughts that pressed upon his mind-pass in melancholy review the many friends that had been torn from him by the hand of death, the many who had forgotten him and forsaken him as a fallen man, no longer serviceable to them-call to remembrance that his own father's house was desolate, St. George in the madhouse, himself, like Logan, alone in his cabin, without a drop of his father's blood save that which coursed in his own well-nigh exhausted veins—and, above all, when we call to remembrance his first, his youthful, and his only love, which is said to have greatly revived in his mind at this time with the painful yet hallowed associations that clustered around its cherished memory, who can wonder that a man with the temperament of John Randolph, under these circumstances should fling away all restraint, and should cry aloud in the anguish of his soul, and should so act and speak as to excite the astonishment of those around, and induce them to believe that he was a madman! In a similar situation David was a madman; Byron was a madman; Rousseau —all high-souled, deep-feeling men of genius, in the eye of the world, were madmen."-Vol. ii, pp. 97, 98.

Truly a strange collocation! David, he means the sweet singer of Israel,-Byron, Rousseau, madmen all! And how satisfactory the reasons, philosophical and psychological, which he gives for his hero's grief at the newly-discovered hardness of his heart, and for his cry to the Holy One, "Help thou my unbelief!"

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In this state of mind, Randolph appears to have continued for several months. He pored over the sacred volume, attended the public worship of God, fasted, and wept, and agonized in prayer. The result is told by himself, in a letter dated Roanoke, September 7, 1818:

Congratulate me, dear Frank-wish me joy you need not; give it you cannot I am at last reconciled to my God, and have assurance of his pardon, through faith in Christ, against which the very gates of hell cannot prevail. Fear hath been driven out by perfect love. I now know that you know how I feel; and within a month, for the first time, I understand your feelings and character, and that of every real Christian. Love to Mrs. Key and your brood. "I am not now afraid of being 'righteous overmuch,' or of 'Methodistical notions.' Thine, in truth, J. R. of R."

-Vol. ii, pp. 99, 100.

The reader will be pleased with a few more extracts from his correspondence at this period. To Dr. Brockenbrough, who had attributed the change in his religious sentiments to a heated imagination, he says:

"I cannot express sorrow-for I do not feel it—at the impression which you tell me my last letter made upon you. May it lead to the same happy consequences that I have experienced-which I now feel-in that sunshine of the heart, which the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, alone can bestow! "Your imputing such sentiments to a heated imagination does not surprise me, who have been bred in the school of Hobbes and Bayle, and Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, and Hume and Voltaire and Gibbon; who have cultivated the sceptical philosophy from my vain-glorious boyhood-I might almost say childhood—and who have felt all that unutterable disgust which hypocrisy and cant and fanaticism never fail to excite in men of education and refinement, superadded to our natural repugnance to Christianity. I am not, even now, insensible to this impression; but as the excesses of her friends (real or pretended) can never alienate the votary of liberty from a free form of government, and enlist him under the banners of despotism, so neither can the cant of fanaticism, or hypocrisy, or of both (for so far from being incompatible, they are generally found united in the same character-may God in his mercy preserve and defend us from both!) disgust the pious with true religion."-Vol. ii, p. 100.

The doctor, it seems, had indulged in a fling at what he called Methodism, in commenting upon his friend's rapturous expressions of assurance of the divine favour. Randolph says, in reply:

By the way, this term Methodist in religion is of vast compass and effectlike tory in politics, or aristocrate in Paris, with the lamp-post for its second,' some five or six-and-twenty years ago.

"Dr. Hoge? a Methodist parson.' Frank Key? 'a fanatic,' (I heard him called so not ten days ago,) 'a Methodistical, whining, &c., &c.' Wilberforce? 'a Methodist.' Mrs. Hannah More? ditto.' It ought never to be forgotten, that real converts to Christianity on opposite sides of the globe, agree at the same moment to the same facts. Thus Dr. Hoge and Mr. Key, although strangers, understand perfectly what each other feels and believes.

"If I were to show a MS. in some unknown tongue to half a dozen persons, strangers to each other and natives of different countries, and they should all

give me the same translation, could I doubt their acquaintance with the strange language ? On the contrary, can I, who am but a smatterer in Greek, believe an interpreter who pretends to a knowledge of that tongue, and yet cannot tell the meaning of тúñт?"—Vol. ii, p. 102.

Among Mr. Randolph's friends, there was one of a very different spirit from the generality of those who corresponded with him. It was Frank Key, as he calls him in the preceding extract—a man who was not ashamed of being styled a fanatic, and upon whom the dreaded epithet, Methodistic, had no influence. Here is his letter to Randolph, on receiving the news of his friend's conversion :

"I do, indeed, my dear friend, rejoice with you—I have long wished, and often believed with confidence, that you would experience what God has now blessed you with. I need not tell you (if I could) of its value, for I trust you feel it to be unspeakable.' May the grace that has brought you from 'darkness to light,' from 'death to life,' keep you forever!

"Nor do I rejoice merely on your own account or mine. The wonders that God is everywhere doing show us that these are no ordinary times, and justify us in hoping and expecting for greater manifestations of his power and goodness. You stand on an eminence-'let your light shine' brightly, that all may see it steadily, that they may know whence it comes, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.'

"Write to me often and particularly; 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;' and may I always hear that you are following the guidance of that blessed Spirit that will 'lead you into all truth,' leaning on that almighty arm that has been extended to deliver you, trusting only in the only Saviour, and 'going on' in your way to him 'rejoicing." "—Vol. ii, pp. 103, 104.

From the same pen there are, in the volumes before us, several other letters breathing the same spirit,-full of Christian sympathy, earnest exhortation, and practical advice. We can afford room only for the following, on the subject of his friend's return to public duties as a member of Congress :

"You know my opinion about public life-that a man has no more right to decline it than to seek it. I do not know, perhaps, all its dangers, but I have no doubt they are great. But whatever they be, the grace of God is sufficient for them; and he who enters upon them with a sole view to his glory, and depends entirely on his grace, will find crooked things made straight,' and the mountains made plains before him. Certainly in such a state, a man who lives 'by faith and not by sight' can evidently serve the cause of religion; and I trust and pray that thus your light may shine.

"You will indeed be set on a hill.' Innumerable eyes will be fastened on you. The men of the world will look for something with which they may reproach you, and your faith; while the blessed company of all faithful people' will look to see if they may take knowledge of you, that you have been with Christ'—may they have to 'thank God always for you !

"You have no idea what an interest is excited in your behalf among religious persons. I believe that many a fervent prayer is offered up for you by people who never saw your face.”—Vol. ii, pp. 106, 107.

In a few months after his conversion, Mr. Randolph was led to see the sinfulness of holding his fellow-men in bondage. In the

month of May, 1819, he made that "will," by which he emancipated his slaves, and which caused so much discussion and contention at his death. The following is the language of that document, written, as we have said, some eight months after the letter in which he calls upon his friend to rejoice with him in having attained assurance of the divine forgiveness:

"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to me, that the circumstances under which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in my life-time, which it is my full intention to do, in case I can accomplish it."

Two years afterward he made another will, confirming the former, and appropriating a sum not exceeding eight thousand dollars for their benefit. Again in 1826, 1828, and 1831, by codicils, he reiterates his will upon this subject, and makes special provision for several of his favourites by name. There is something exceedingly touching and highly characteristic in the codicil of 1831. In it he says:

"In addition to the provision which I have made for my faithful servant John, sometimes called John White, I charge my whole estate with an annuity to him during his life, of fifty dollars; and as the only favour I ever asked of any government, I do entreat the assembly of Virginia to permit the said John and his family to remain in Virginia."

The Old Dominion's favourite son entreats the legislature of his native state--the only favour he ever asked at their hands-to permit John and his family to remain in the land of their birth!

To the whole scheme of African colonization Mr. Randolph was bitterly opposed. He refused even to present a petition to the Senate from that society, although urged so to do by one of his warmest friends. He declared, as his deliberate judgment, that its tendency" was bad and mischievous; that a spirit of morbid sensibility, religious fanaticism, vanity, and the love of display, were the chief moving causes of that society."-(Letter to Brockenbrough, 20th February, 1826.)

On the subject of discussing, publicly, the slavery question, Mr. Randolph held views very different from those prevalent among his associates. In a debate in the national legislature, he said:

"I know there are gentlemen, not only from the Northern, but from the Southern States, who think that this unhappy question-for such it is-of negro slavery, which the Constitution has vainly attempted to blink, by not using the term, should never be brought into public notice, more especially into that of Congress, and most especially here. Sir, with every due respect for the gentlemen who think so, I differ from them, toto cœlo. Sir, it is a thing

which cannot be hid-it is not a dry-rot that you can cover with the carpet, until the house tumbles about your ears-you might as well try to hide a volcano in full operation—it cannot be hid; it is a cancer in your face, and must be treated secundum artem; it must not be tampered with by quacks, who never saw the disease or the patient-it must be, if you will, let alone; but on this very principle of letting it alone, I have brought in my resolution. I am willing to play what is called child's play-let me alone, and I will let you alone; let my resolution alone, and I will say nothing in support of it; for there is a want of sense in saying anything in support of a resolution that nobody opposes. Sir, will the Senate pardon my repeating the words of a great man, which cannot be too often repeated? A small danger, menacing an inestimable object, is of more importance, in the eyes of a wise man, than the greatest danger which can possibly threaten an object of minor consequence.' I do not put the question to you, sir. I know what your answer will be. I know what will be the answer of every husband, father, son, and brother, throughout the Southern States; I know that on this depends the honour of every matron and maiden-of every matron (wife or widow) between the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico. I know that upon it depends the life's blood of the little ones which are lying in their cradles, in happy ignorance of what is passing around them; and not the white ones only, for shall not we, too, kill ?—shall we not react the scenes which were acted in Guatamala, and elsewhere, except, I hope, with far different success? for if, with a superiority in point of numbers, as well as of intelligence and courage, we should suffer ourselves to be, as them, vanquished, we should deserve to have negroes for our task-masters, and for the husbands of our wives. This, then, is the inestimable object, which the gentleman from Carolina views in the same light that I do, and that you do too, sir, and to which every Southern bosom responds;-a chord which, when touched, even by the most delicate hand, vibrates to the heart of every man in our country. I wish I could maintain, with truth, that it came within the other predicament-that it was a small danger, but it is a great danger; it is a danger that has increased, is increasing, and must be diminished, or it must come to its regular catastrophe.”—Vol. ii, pp. 262, 263.

Returning from this digression, let us follow Mr. Randolph, from the time of his first professing faith in Christ, through a few of the more important events of his public life. As we have seen, he regretted his re-election to Congress. In his retirement at Roanoke, he continued in the enjoyment of great peace of mind; but very soon after entering upon his public duties at Washington, he rushed upon the arena of political strife, allowed his feelings to become exasperated towards his opponents, and thenceforward appears to have been a stranger to the consolations of divine grace. In the whole compass of modern biography, we know not a more striking illustration of the Saviour's words, "The last state of that man is worse than the first." He might have been, even in Washington, as a city set upon a hill,-happy in the love of God, and shedding light upon all within the circle of his influence. He threw away the pearl of great price, which he had found, after so long and painful a search; forgot Him who had spoken peace to his soul; derived no happiness from spiritual things, and found none in his worldly avocations or associates. Speaking of the friend, to whose deep interest in his