ART. IV. JAMES MILNOR.

A Memoir of the Life of James Milnor, D. D., late Rector of Saint George's Church, New-York. By Rev. JOHN S. STONE, D. D. 8vo., pp. 646. New-York: American Tract Society. 1848.

RATHER a heavy book; cumbered with unnecessary details, and both sides of an epistolary correspondence, most of which is of little general interest. About one-fourth of it is occupied with complimentary letters to and from the subject of the memoir, written and received during a visit of a few months to England, and minute details of the civilities paid him by the magnates of the father-land, invitations to dinner, breakfast, and tea parties. Interesting, doubtless, to the good man's family during his absence,-of very little consequence to the world. He dined too, occasionally, with persons of inferior rank; once or twice, if not oftener, with Methodists; as, for instance, at a Mr. Haslope's; of which entertainment he says, in a journal intended only for his family, but which Dr. Stone spreads out for the world: "The arrangements of the house and table, and the dress of the females of the family, are somewhat beyond the style common among the members of the Methodist Society in America." He adds, however, that "Mr. Haslope bears an excellent religious character;" and, whether to account for the excellence of that character, or for the style of the dress of his wife and daughters, he informs us that they "attend in part the Established Church, having accommodations in the parish church of Islington." Would the reader like to know why the Doctor did not accept an invitation to breakfast on Friday, April 30th, 1830, with Mr. Macaulay? He shall have the information. He was invited to breakfast elsewhere at the same hour. So says his biographer.

Notwithstanding the author's lack of discrimination, he has made a readable book. It is beautifully printed, on fine paper, and, estimated by its bulk, quite cheap withal. And why should it not be cheap? It is published by a Society which makes large drafts on the community,-a benevolent institution, known as the American Tract Society; American, par excellence, all other associations of a kindred character, although located within the same boundaries, and sustained by members of the same commonwealth, being, by implication, not American. And this is one of their publications; a tract of six hundred and forty-six large octavo pages: an illustration of "the progressive principle of language;" or rather, perhaps, a return to first principles;-tract being, literally, some

thing drawn out, or extended; and this is precisely that something. But it is an American tract; bearing a somewhat similar relation to Episcopal, Methodist, Unitarian, or other tracts, that the mighty Missouri does to the Tiber, or the Thames. It is not our business to justify or to condemn book-making, on this large scale, by a charitable institution; nor do we blame Dr. Stone for embracing so good an opportunity to circulate his opinions relative to the superiority of his own cherished forms of worship. We should have thought less of him, if his book had not leaned to the Church of which he is a minister. We may, however, express surprise that he was permitted to do so by a Society which, for fear of offending some of the denominations which contribute to its funds, had the hardihood, not long since, to suppress essential facts of history; and which claims to be, in the strongest sense of the word,-unsectarian. We will add, for (though not American tractarians) we have a little American pride, that it was rather small business to herald forth the work in the most approved style of the puffs of the trade. Individual booksellers may do what an American Society ought to be ashamed of. We endorse the sentiment of the editor of "the Independent," the organ of the Congregational churches in this city:"Long before the Memoir of Dr. Milnor appeared, it was heralded through the press as a work of uncommon interest, to be issued in elegant style, as an appropriate New-Year's gift, &c., &c. Now this systematic puffing of its own publications is beneath the dignity of an institution sustained by Christian benevolence for charitable purposes. It excites the ire of booksellers, and it leads sober men to inquire, whether an institution, which is so ready to resort to all the arts of the trade,' and to enter into competition with them in the style of its publications, should not be left to sustain itself. When we take up an article in a newspaper, with a flaming caption, 'CHOLERA,' or 'CALIFORNIA,' and, after reading a few lines, find that it is a mere puff of the Tract Society, we throw it aside with something of the disgust with which we turn from a similar advertisement of Townsend's Sarsaparilla,' or 'Mrs. Jervis's Cold Candy."" But let us turn to the Memoir before us. It is the biography of a good man; a Christian, in the highest sense of the word; a faithful and devoted servant of the Lord Jesus. He was of Quaker parentage; born in the city of Philadelphia, educated at the University of Pennsylvania, which he left, however, without completing his academic course; and at the early age of sixteen commenced the study of the law. He was admitted to the Bar, and became a practising attorney before reaching his majority, and soon acquired a respectable and lucrative practice. Owing to his marriage with a

lady not a member of the Society of Friends, he was publicly read out of meeting, became a man of fashion;-" fond of the theatre," says his biographer, "and a frequent attendant at the play."

In 1810 Mr. Milnor was elected to the Congress of the United States, as a member of the House of Representatives, from his native city. He was attentive to his duties, and occasionally addressed the House. His letters from Washington to his wife show him in an amiable light, as faithful to his party, but by no means a violent partisan. He does not appear to have acquired much eminence as a legislator; and the most important item in his political life was the reception of a challenge from the Hon. Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House, and Mr. Milnor's manly refusal to accept it. The Speaker, it seems, imagined that the member from Philadelphia had written a letter to a certain newspaper, with an account of some of the proceedings of the day, including a debate in which Mr. Milnor had taken a prominent part. Mr. Clay sent him a note, requesting, or rather requiring, an avowal or disavowal of its authorship. This Mr. Milnor declined giving; and, after the passage of several notes between the parties, the challenge came, couched in the following dainty phraseology:-"Your determination leaves to my choice a single mode of reparation for an injury of which I have cause to complain, and my friend, Mr. Bibb, is authorized by me to make the requisite arrangements." That is, in plain English, let us shoot at each other. The answer of Mr. Milnor, although at this time not even a professor of religion, does honour alike to his good sense and his courage. He tells his honourable opponent that he is unconscious of having offered or intended him any injury, and that a sense of public and private duty forbids compliance with his request.

We pass, however, to the second part of his biography, which our author calls the "History of Mr. Milnor's religious change." This was brought about mainly by the agency of one who had been his early associate and playmate, and who, having himself embraced the religion of Christ, was exceedingly anxious for the conversion of his friend. His letters are full of pungent exhortation and solemn entreaty. "O," says he, "O that I could communicate to you a full sense of what I have been taught in the school of Christ. Your eyes would then be opened indeed. You will remember, and I have not forgotten, the time when we used to laugh at serious people, affecting to know something, which we, in our vain imaginations, could not believe to be of any importance. You have now an opportunity to renew the laugh at my expense. But for your own sake, not mine, beware; deceive not yourself; be assured there is a God, to whom every knee shall bow, and whom every tongue shall

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confess; and no man can come unto the Father but by that Son whom I fear you have long ago disclaimed." And again:-" 0, could you know the gratitude which I feel towards that Redeemer whom I have so long and so flagrantly offended, for having opened my eyes to see my condition, when upon the very precipice of hell, you would feel very little concerned about the trash of this world. And this change, believe me, you must experience, or you will be lost to all eternity."

Strange language this to a gay man of the world, a politician, with high aspirations after fame and fortune. Yet how faithful, and how easily imitated by every redeemed sinner in similar circumstances, and how clearly evincing true friendship. The writer loved the soul of his youthful playmate; and, at the hazard of losing his esteem, persevered in his efforts for that friend's salvation. "Once," says he, "I supposed our friendship would end in death; now I cannot but hope that it will be eternal." Through the Divine blessing, these letters were not written in vain; and there is reason to believe that they were made the instrument of awakening, and of bringing to the cross of Christ, one who had already numbered more than half his days, and the remainder of whose life was devoted faithfully and successfully to his Master's work.

It seems that at this time Mr. Milnor was skeptical in his religious sentiments. Soon afterward, he made desperate efforts to believe Universalism, but was unsuccessful. He then, for a while, attended a Presbyterian church, but Calvinism was always distasteful to him; and he speaks of his pastor as "amiable in an eminent degree in private life, yet illiberal, austere, and sour in the pulpit." His dislike of Calvinistic doctrines, says his biographer, was “evidently intense;" and, driven away by its repulsive features, with a mind ill at ease, he hired a seat in the Episcopal Church, into which he was soon afterward admitted as a member, was made a vestryman, and elected a lay delegate successively to the annual and triennial Conventions. He had not yet, however, ventured to partake of the holy communion, but appears to have been, during all the remainder of his Congressional term, an earnest seeker of salvation. We quote an extract from a letter written a day or two previous to what he calls the last of his public life:

"At an early hour in the evening I retired to my chamber, and opened the sacred volume. It seemed to have no word of comfort for me, and I laid it aside, disposed to retire to my slumbers without this their usual prelude. Happily, however, I have not latterly dared to go to my rest without a previous prostration at the footstool of the throne of grace. I wept bitterly at the necessity of entering on this solemn exercise with icy feelings; nay, I fear, with almost a disposition to evade the duty. Our heavenly Father did not

suffer my apathy and torpor to continue long. The humble petition, that he would be pleased not to cast me away from his presence, nor take his Holy Spirit from me,' but that he would give me the comfort of his help again, and stablish me with his free Spirit, was not unanswered. My soul, before full of heaviness, and disquieted within me, ready to cry out to the God of my strength, Why hast thou forgotten me? received new life from the warming, animating beams of Divine love. My soul rose into rapture, and I left my requests with the God of all grace, with a renewed confidence in his unchangeable goodness and truth; exclaiming, with holy David, 'I will put my trust in God; I will yet thank him, who is the help of my countenance and my God.””—Pp. 157–8.

A few days afterward he writes:

"So fully do I feel a Saviour's love shed abroad in my heart, that methinks, that though a dreadful hell did not await my desertion of him, I could never leave or forsake him. In this view of the constraining love of Christ, the terrors of the law seem absorbed and lost, and the soul contemplates the great Jehovah only as 'the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.' Although I would not take from this sublime description of his character the remaining essential attribute of justice, exhibited in the concluding clause, that he will by no means clear the guilty, yet the idea which I wish to convey is, that the drawings of his love, rather than the threatenings of his law, have been the means of turning my heart to God."

On the third of April, 1813, near the close of the fortieth year of his life, Mr. Milnor made his bishop acquainted with his determination to abandon the profession of the law, to renounce his political prospects, and to enter upon the study of divinity, believing himself called of God to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

While pursuing these studies, and engaged in the duties of a layreader, propositions were made to him to accept the charge of two important parishes, the one at Baltimore, the other at Richmond, in Virginia, both of which he declined, from a view of his want of proper qualifications, and from a sense of delicacy towards the authorities of the Church, as he had not yet received their sanction, nor been ordained. In his letter, declining the overture from Richmond, he adverts to his strong and unalterable aversion to the system of slavery; assigning this as one, among other reasons, why he could not assent to a residence in a State where that unmitigated curse has the sanction of the civil law.

After his ordination as deacon, on the 14th of August, 1814, he preached his first sermon in the centre of that round of fashion and gayety in which he had so long moved; and with modest boldness offered a crucified Christ to an audience composed mainly of those who had known him for years as a zealous lawyer and politician. He at once became exceedingly popular, and flattering commendations poured in upon him from all quarters. He was elected a "minister of the United Churches of Philadelphia," a kind of circuit, as we