delighted to expatiate and enlarge, were experimentally tasted, felt, and enjoyed, as "the power of "God unto salvation:" that, amidst pain and languor, in the tremors of nervous weakness, and the partial obscurations of the mind's comfort by bodily disease, he was enabled uninterruptedly to hold fast the spiritual hope, which, on Christian principles, he had embraced; and to maintain, in the confidence of a present divine aid, that interior " peace of God “which passeth all understanding." It was his lot, (it may be, for the humiliation, and greater ultimate security, of an extraordinarily gifted spirit,) to walk often in the shaded valley, and to pass through the thick cloud. But he never walked alone, and never unfriended. His course, even when not in sunshine, was onwards, and in the direction of the light. Nor was there any sentiment which he more invariably maintained, (the truth of which, to his great comfort, God permitted him habitually to experience,) than that "the path of the just is as the shining light, "which shineth more and more, unto the perfect day."

How far he realized this, may, in some degree, be judged from a few extracts, with which the editor will close this very brief and imperfect notice. They are taken from amidst a multitude of others of like character and expression, in letters to a confidential

* It is almost needless to say that there is no disagreement between this statement and Mr. Knox's subsequent declaration that he had "an unclouded apprehension of the great and good GOD." The spiritually-minded and reflective reader well knows how to reconcile the apparent contradiction: he looks to the distinction between the views of the carnal and the spiritual mind. The low grounds of nature may be often obscured by vapours, while the elevated mountain of faith, ascending into a region that is above the clouds, has the sun upon its summit and sides; -the heavens clear, and the earth enlightened.

friend, to whom the very secrets of his heart were unreservedly disclosed. Written, as they are, at various dates from 1823 to 1831, they indicate correctly his habitual feelings during the closing years of his career, including that which was the last of his mortal existence.

The whole tenour of Mr. Knox's writings is evidence, that, for the ground of man's hope and trust, he looked to Christ as "all in all;"-that he confided in him as the "one Mediator between God and “ man,” — “ the way, the truth, and the life;”—as the incarnate God, -the living, suffering, crucified, dying,—but, above all, the risen, ascended, glorified, and omnipotent Saviour. It is thus that, in the following extracts, he expresses the mode of his dependence on that redeeming and sanctifying Saviour; and the evidences within himself, which certified that "full assurance of faith," on which he rested with real and solid comfort.

“I am now,” he writes, " declining into the vale "of life; indeed, I am fairly in it. What, then, "should I do for support to my sinking nature, for "establishment of my spirit against the growing "weakness of my body, if, in the greatest of all "concerns, I had a doubt of the line I had taken, "or the ground on which I stand? Satisfaction in "this great business can only arise radically from "conscious rectitude of heart, produced in us through "the influences of divine grace. But this is not "enough for a mind in full operation; I mean, one "that reasons, as well as feels. There must be satis

"faction to the understanding, as well as to the con"science, in order to make even the path through life "safe and comfortable; and, still more, to cheer our "hearts in the dark and cloudy day' which is approaching."

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Again: "What I would particularly hope, is, "that I have been led in a peculiarly unembarassing path; my whole solicitude being centred in the religion of the heart. I cannot but think that the

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pursuing of this object alone, may be helpful to "the steadiness, no less than to the cheerfulness of "the course. I humbly trust, also, that it is an "invaluable blessing to have an unclouded apprehen"sion of the great and good God."

At a later period, and in an illness of a peculiarly distressing nature, he writes thus: "A night "without sleep is, certainly, not a pleasant thing: "but even the transient slumbers which I had to"wards morning (though, probably, the longest did "not last fifteen minutes), made a mighty difference. And, also, I could not but compare my state with "that of those whom racking pain kept awake: and "I felt how thankful I should be that it was no 866 worse. I was too unwell to think with continued "connexion: but it is happy for the weak, that that "is not necessary to our thinking comfortably. That "is the most comfortable thought, which has, in it, "most of the Sursum corda!' God, in the book “of Job, is said to give songs in the night: he "does so, in proportion as he attracts the winged "heart to himself; for, then, like the lark, it sings as it rises."

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Once more: Notwithstanding all I feel, I am "sensible that nervous distress is a, comparatively, 'light affliction. I have no doubt that divine "wisdom saw some kind of corporeal discipline to be indispensable for me: and I cannot conceive how any thing of this kind could have been more easy "to endure, or more mingled with mercy, than that to which I am subjected.”

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And finally :-"Whatever be the amount of my trial, if God be pleased to make it the means of good to me, I shall have cause to be inexpressibly "thankful. Hitherto, I have been trained, I think,

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by successive instances of discipline, without "which I might never have known true happiness. "And I have not doubted, that some fresh exercises "of the same kind of mercy might be necessary, as

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tending to still deeper radication; of which I could "not but feel the want, while I hoped I desired it "with sincerity. Perhaps what I am now suffering

(it does not, however, deserve the name; for, "hitherto, God has dealt gently and graciously with "me), may serve to promote that infinitely valuable

object: for, I see enough, and have felt enough, to "teach me what an unutterable blessing it must be, to "attain that which is described in Ephes. iii. 16, 17.

"The human heart is, naturally, sluggish: and, " even in outward things, it is by necessity that man "is forced to activity. It is much more the case in "what concerns the immortal spirit; the cor"ruptible body presseth down the incorruptible "soul;' and there is too great a disposition to yield

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"to the pressure, until some felt necessity compels "the resistance. But this is the least part of the hinderance the tendency we have to be engaged by the present life, to cleave too dependently to persons and things (which it is right to value and "love; but subordinately, and soberly); this disposition, I say, is a still worse thing; and, yet, may "be quite beyond our own correction. What, therefore, we cannot do for ourselves, God himself may "be pleased to do for us; and our wisdom, as well as duty, is, to commit ourselves to his management; "and duly to appreciate the anodynes which he kindly mingles with the more painful parts of the process. "I trust I have had repeated reason for gratitude of "the deepest kind, on this very account, during the present indisposition: and I certainly receive new "lessons from it of the importance of living in the spirit of prayer in ordinary circumstances. When,

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through divine grace, we are thus kept in daily "and hourly intercourse of the heart with God, this "blessed habit grows, as it were of itself, more in"tense and deep in the time of trial: and the sup"port, which, I trust, is thus brought, through "divine mercy, from above, is a rock which cannot "be shaken."

On this rock, assuredly, Mr. Knox built "the "house" of his support: and he built it safe; "when "the floods came, it fell not."

The editor has, now, only to dismiss these volumes with the expression of his sense of obligation to those friends, whose assistance has supplied that por