before his death, and about sun-set, 1 for all his descendants, his friends acquaintance, out of the desire he may e to impart his last thoughts to them, to admonish them with his parting ath. They meet, perhaps, under the cious shelter of a mushroom; and the ng sage addresses himself to them in following manner :-" Friends and fel1-citizens: I perceive the longest life st have an end; the period of mine is w at hand; neither do I repine at my 2, since my great age is now become a rden; and there is nothing new, to me, der the sun. The calamities and revoions I have seen in my country; the anifold private misfortunes to which we è all liable; and the fatal diseases incint to our race, have abundantly taught e this lesson-that no happiness can be cure or lasting, which is placed in things at are out of our power. Great is the certainty of life! A whole brood of fants has perished in a moment by a keen ast; shoals of our struggling youth have een swept into the waves by an unexected breeze: what wasteful delays have e suffered from a sudden shower! Our rongest holds are not proof against a orm of hail; and even a dark cloud makes the stoutest hearts to quake.

"I have lived in the first ages, and conersed with insects of a larger size and tronger make, and, I must add, of greater irtue, than any can boast of in the present eneration. I must conjure you to give vet further credit to my latest words, when assure you, that yonder sun, which now #ppears westward beyond the water, and eems not far distant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of the sky, and shot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much more enlightened in those ages, and the air much warmer. Think it not dotage in me, if I affirm,-that glorious being moves.

I saw

is first setting out in the east; and I began my race of life near the time when he Degan his immense career. He has for several ages advanced along the sky with vast heat, and unparalleled brightness; but now, by his declension, and a sensible decay (more especially of late) in his vigour, I foresee that all nature must fail in a little time, and that the creation will lie buried in darkness in less than a century of minutes.

"Alas! my friends! how did I once flatter myself with the hopes of abiding here for ever! How magnificent are the cells which I hollowed out for myself! What confidence did I repose in the firm2D. SERIES, NO. 44.-VOL. IV,

ness and spring of my joints, and in the strength of my pinions! But I have lived long enough to nature, and even to glory. Neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal satisfaction in life in the dark, declining age which I see is already begun."

On comparing the two allegorical pieces, it is obvious that Franklin not only caught the idea of his figurative representation from the Freethinker,' but the language, too, except where he has, in his moral, adapted the allegory to his own circumstances as a politician and philosopher.

W.

THE LATE MR. DREW AND THE EDITOR OF THE WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE.

[It will be generally admitted that this is the most proper place for any statements in which the Memory of the late Mr. DREW is concerned, He to whose talents and exertions the interest of this periodical was indebted for so many years, must possess a powerful claim, even now that he is no more, upon any efforts we can make in order to render justice to his memory. The following Letter, from the Christian Advocate, may, therefore, be introduced with propriety in this place, and its contents are too explicit as to their subjectmatter to need any further comment.]

GENT.,-Having heard that the family of the late excellent Samuel Drew, thinking the base calumnies on him in the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine too palpable and contradictory to injure him, consider it to be beneath the contempt they feel, to answer them, I have endeavoured to expose them, that those whose mouths are open to "the drenching - horn," may know the nature of its contents. I am not a partisan of yours, and I may add, nor of any one; but, as your paper is the only medium through which I can publicly address his calumniator. I throw myself on your generosity, and appeal to your love of common justice, in asking you to insert it.

Wishing to live in peace with all men, at the same time without the sacrifice of principle, and as it would answer no good end to reveal it, I conceal my name.

To the Editor of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.

who may not applaud the injured, to make his a common cause- --and that not more from justice than prudence. An article which appears in your Magazine for August, 1834, professing to be a review of the Life of Samuel Drew, A. M., I think I can show to be a tissue of undeserved vituperation ⚫ and ill-nature.

My remarks are intended to apply only to your editorial character. Your character as a minister I hold sacred, and will not touch; and for the sake of your reputation I would rather it were lost sight of at present. For were I to remain a minister of his wilful misrepresentations, and his deficiency in truth and the meek spirit of Christian charity, it would appear too much like a charge of hypocrisy.

In your introduction to the review, you say that an author should examine every thought, and weigh every expression, that his book may be made as little injurious and as extensively useful as possible. This, I presume, is intended for authors of books only: it would have been well had the adviser acted upon it; but perhaps critics are exempt from so tedious an operation.

The propriety or impropriety of a son's becoming his father's biographer is quite irrelevant. The question is, rather, has the task been faithfully executed? and, if so, you have no right to inquire by whom. This much is certain-all who knew Mr. Drew, and have read his Life, pronounce it to be a faithful portraiture, and can find in it that impartial fidelity which you cannot. One great objection to the book you seem to have, is, that it is designed to be all eulogy, Surely Mr. Jacob Drew has wofully failed of his intention, when you discover faults sufficient to require twenty columns for their consideration, and amiable qualities for about twenty lines. If biography must not be committed to the hands of one who is partial, how happens it that you wrote the life of your friend? Perhaps we might have seen you partial, had you not completely buried the man beneath a dense mass of his own productions.

The first quotation you make from Mr. Drew's Life, contains enumerations of the several ends of biography. It is one sentence among several paragraphs describing its nature and effects; yet, on a single member of that sentence, which says, "Biography, in short, leads to the practical application of that pithy exhortation, Go, and do thou likewise," you ground all your animadversions; for you therefrom draw the conclusion, which "both justice and candour require," that "this volume is an unreserved recommendation of the example and opin

ions of Mr. Drew on all points enumerated by his biographer." Justice and candour! Surely this must be a slip of the pen." "On some of these points," you say, shall feel it our duty to animadvert;" and then commence, by bringing forward the head and front of his son's offending, which is this" Mr. Drew is placed connection with Dr. Clarke and Mr. Wat son." Even prejudice would not permit you to say, that his son placed him there, although he might have done so with justice you allow, that it was in a passage quoted from a public paper. But why should you refuse Mr. Drew the place assigned him, when other journals, possessing some claims to literature, have willingly conceded it! nay, when one leading magazine has decid edly and unequivocally given Mr. Drew the preference over Mr. Watson, when naming the three together. When such publications as the Annual Biography, the Cabinet Register, and Time's Telescope, have given long and laudatory memoirs of him, while Mr. W. is honoured in one only with meagre notice, is it the candour and justice of which you boast, or is it a narrow-minded jealousy, which induces you to pull him down from his height, and to cast obloquy upon his memory? I thoroughly condemn the practice of pitting great men against each other; but, as you, Sir, have not thought it beneath the dignity of a critic, you must take the consequences. The obnoxi ious passage was, "In the decease of Adam Clarke, Richard Watson, and Samuel Drew, the Methodist Connexion has lost three of its brightest luminaries." They are not pitted against each other; but each shines in his own sphere:-Clarke, as a Biblical critic; Watson, as a theologian; and Drew, as a metaphysician. Look among your preachers, and find one to fill the place of either of these, if you can. Is that high Methodistic rank refused him, because he has been styled by the philosophical and the learned, THE ENGLISH PLATO," or because he was a LOCAL PREACHER?

66

How did it happen, withal, that the Superintendents, for the space of forty years, suffered a man to preach, who was not orthodox; nay, who was "unsound on the divine nature of Christ," and whom you represent as verging towards Socinianism. Of course, the trifling circumstances of his having held a controversy with Socinians, and of his having published a sermon, to prove our Lord's divinity, for which a ready sale is found at the Book Room, are as nothing in the balance. When hearing discourses from some of your pulpits, it might occasionally glance through the mind, that

ou say, that "many facts and opinions been stated, not so much for the purof illustrating his father's character, as perpetuating his hostile feelings and adices in regard to others." My underding may be obtuse, and my perception acute than a critic's; but, although I read the volume more than once, I not made the discovery of such a design: was it in the power of the biographer, this plain reason-his father never exssed, even if he entertained, hostile ings, or prejudices, against any man. ppeal to those who knew him most mately.

Of Mr. Drew's selection of metaphysics his study, the narrative of his early life iciently testifies the motives. To attrie it to "the natural recklessness and dihood of his disposition," is as just as affirm, that he made it because he had g legs, or mended shoes. Those who d the book, learn, that religion influenced n in his choice. "We are not sure," u say, “but that, like many others, he stook his own intellectual character." It by a mistake of this sort that some men -n critics. "Strictly speaking," you say, his was a mathematical, rather than a etaphysical mind." Who told you so? sertions are not arguments. It would not to the injury of your fame, if, in your Lure criticisms, you would condescend to k about subjects you understand.

To what branch of knowledge Mr. Drew =ght have turned his attention, had he been aced in more propitious circumstances, it impossible to say. As to his qualifications the department of philosophy which he ose, suffice it to mention, that his metaysical works received the meed of approtion from the highest philosophical aracters of the day; and the essay which ntested the prize with the united efforts the empire, was not successful, only cause, as a learned professor tells us, it s too deep for his judges.

Speaking of Mr. Drew's being deprived his class-paper, you use these wordsas the case is represented;" as though u doubted the veracity of the author. I in with you in saying, "It is easy to sinuate; but is it manly?"

It is evident that you were not personally quainted with Mr. Drew, or you would ot so grossly have misrepresented his cha

racter as you have. The "modesty, and unwillingness to give offence," to which you make him appear a stranger, were, except. when vice obtruded, characteristic even to a fault; a fault of which his amiable critic may justly be acquitted. You take. one solitary incident in his life, in which he -and that but as one among many-overstepped the bounds of prudence, to prove that he was of an arbitrary disposition; although that error, if error it were, was immediately repented of. To find the disposition of a man, an unprejudiced person would look at the conduct of his life, not to one single action. How arbitrary soever the action might have been, if you inquire of the old Leaders in St. Austell, you will learn that the "wealthy member,' though summoned to the meeting of investigation, distained to attend, and that the condemnatory resolutions were signed also by the Superintendent who had been chairman of the meeting. If you press the charge of arbitrary conduct, it must be against him, therefore, and not Mr. Drew.

You affirm that Mr. Drew "denied the divine and eternal sonship of Christ; not because it was unscriptural, but because it did not accord with his philosophy;" but you have conveniently forgotten to show where or how he denied the divine sonship. Christ was divine in his nature, and divine in his sonship. The former was eternal, the latter derived; but would you say a derived eternal? The word divine has two meanings," partaking of the nature of God," and proceeding from God;" and you have invidiously confounded them, to make Mr. Drew appear to deny the Divinity, call it the divine essence, if you please, of Christ. The eternal sonship he denied, because it was not to be found in the word of God (see his letter on it in the Life); and not merely because contrary to his philosophy. Discover the expression Eternal Son in the Scriptures, and we acknowledge Mr. Drew to be in error. He believed as the Bible taught, not as the Methodist Conference. He believed that Eternal applied to the divine nature, and Son to the human nature, of our Saviour: the latter not only in its fact, but in prophecy also.

You ridicule Mr. Drew's opinion that revelation should submit to the test of reason; you profess not to know what reason is; and then ask questions to puzzle yourself! Had you read Mr. Drew's works, you would have found that his reason was of that exalted character which leads to the unequivocal acknowledgment of revelation and its doctrines. It is "astonishing," or, perhaps, "amusing," you intimate, that

Mr. Drew never defined this reason. It is amusing rather that he has; for he says, "Reason is an encumbrance to those who can do best without it." To be serious: what man of thinking could give credence to a religion in which reason was to be no guide? Is the noblest attribute of man to be exercised in every thing but the chief end of existence? But you have committed your self: you admit that "the authenticating evidences of revelation should be examined, and their sufficiency made out" by reason. Mr. Drew says nothing more :-" Both the authority and interpretation of revelation must submit to this test, and be received or rejected according to its decisions." What is the authority, to man, but the authenticating evidences? and the interpretation, but the making out of their sufficiency? What is it to, examine them, but to submit them to the test of reason? Mr. Drew nowhere asserts that nothing ought to be admitted as an article of faith, which is "unintelligible to human understanding." This is part of the title of a book; and you unfairly use it as Mr. Drew's own opinion, commenting upon it accordingly. He merely acknowledges that, "On these (the authority and interpretation of revelation) and other similar subjects, the reasonings of the author are strong and conclusive." His expressing a wish to see it reprinted, cannot bear the conviction to a candid mind that he entirely coincided with all the opinions of the author. Although Mr. Drew has not defined his reason, you have supplied the deficiency by defining yours-vide ipsissima verba - ." reason, that is, our previously formed opinions?" "In what conclave," to use your own words, "is this infallible Pope to be elected ?" In the Conference? I can scarcely bring myself to believe that you intended this, although from the obscurity of your language it would be difficult to draw any other conclusion. Yes, as none but a man of unsound mind would call that reason, and as I wish to be candid, I will not press the matter. Now, the only other construction which can be put on your words is, you meant to inform your readers, those at least whose knowledge is derived from your pages, that such was Mr. Drew's reason; and if so, your manly probity must undoubtedly be applauded-when discovered. You are at liberty, therefore, to choose between the misfortune of insanity and the crime of dishonest maliciousness.

Your remarks on the title of "Reverend' are certainly important, and demand attention for their acuteness. On this point Mr. Drew would not quarrel with you, when

claiming it to yourself; for frequently, when introduced on a platform as "the Rev. he has said, "Cast that title to the moles and the bats." You maintain that it be longs by custom to the sacred office. True And you, moreover, show that it is so independently of character; for you tell us, contrary to the plain truth, "in one place he seems to think the title belongs to the Local Preachers." His being only a Local Preacher seems sadly in the way; but shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp tians. I forgot that I had put out of sight your ministerial office.

Mr. Drew does not assert that Mr. Wesley set out with an organised system of church government; his words are, "Few systems of church government were so well organised at the outset as his." If Mr.! Wesley ever formed such a system, then there must have been an outset, or com mencement, of the system-it is this of which Mr. Drew speaks. You first violate the obvious meaning of his words,—then? upbraid him with the ignorance which you have imputed to him.

Allow me, my dear sir, to congratulate you on having so felicitously handled the drenching-horn anecdote. Your reasoning is so remarkably strong and beautiful, that I must beg to bring it before you, at the risk of wounding your feelings by the compliment.

"The Wesleyan minister, whoever he is, is described as a strenuous defender of ecclesiastical domination.** Not only have Mr. Jacob Drew and his friends taken care to fill up the blanks both as to person and place; but, when the whole was publicly and by name referred to an individual, they entered no protest against the appropriation. They have made them selves responsible, therefore, [mark!] for the slander which the anecdote contains." I would modestly suggest that it might have been as well if you had pointed out where and how the blanks were filled up, as you gratuitously, I mean charitably, affirm, by Mr. J. D.— and his friends. I will show the beauty, and prove the strength, of your argument. You must allow that the appellation of "mob of Methodism" to Cornishmen, has passed under your notice uncontradicted and unreprehended by yourself and your friends. You have, therefore, approved of it. You have entered no protest against it; and, therefore, you are re sponsible for the consequences. Now, you are not sure that Mr. J. Drew is, like your self, a reader of the paper you refer to; yet, if he be, is it not preposterous to require a