my pastor, I shall take the liberty to be very frank in what I have to say respecting myself. Having been an invalid for eight years, and having passed through several courses of dangerous sickness, it seems to me a wonderful providence that a constitution is left which promises to be restored to perfect soundness and vigor. When I left home, ten weeks since, I was unable to walk steadily without aid, and had to be helped into the coach which carried me to the railroad station. Now I can walk for miles without weariness, jump, run, and climb mountains; and I enjoy a sensation of health to which I have been a stranger for years. I am not yet encouraged to believe that any permanent improve ment has been made, unless I follow up my present course of bathing and exercise for a few months longer; but I am already capable of acting with a bodily and mental vigor and pleasure, of which I have not been conscious till now for a long period. But this, I trust, is not the best half of my report. At the time I left New Haven, and for weeks after that, my mind was in a state bordering on despair. Not an object, past, present or future, could I discover on which my thoughts rested with satisfaction. No appointment or dispensation of Divine providence pleased me. I was unsubmissive to the trials and afflictions with which a just, wise and good God had seen best to reprove me. In short, I know not how better to describe my state of feeling than to say, rather indefinitely, that a 'horror of great darkness' rested on my mind. This distress has been succeeded by what I fear may be a delusion, but a most surprising change, for which I can not be sufficiently grateful to the Savior of men. I can not now say that I am unhappy, or unwilling that all Divine appointments should stand. My misfortunes are all merciful, and my blessings transcendently above my deserts. But I will not weary you with any details." After some ex

pression of thanks to his associates for what they had done during his illness, "to save the New Englander from destruction," and of his "hope that it may yet survive to be the instrument of great good," he closes his letter by saying, "I even begin to hope that I shall yet be able once more to preach the glorious gospel of the blessed God, a pleasure which I had quite despaired of ever again realizing."

The hope expressed in the closing sentence of the letter, was not entirely disappointed. After his return from Brattleboro, his health was such that he ventured to preach occasionally-though his efforts of that kind were for the most part in congregations to which he might preach without any great physical exhaustion. During the last summer, he spoke in public more freely and frequently than he had done for many years before. Some six weeks before his death, he ventured to sup. ply the place of the pastor, for a single Sabbath, in the Broadway Tabernacle in New York. The ef fort appears to have been too great for his strength. It was followed by a slight cough and hoarseness, with some perceptible diminution of his bodily vigor. Still there was no alarm, he seemed only to have ta ken cold; though some of his friends feared that he might be relapsing into his old complaints.

On Thursday, the 28th of September, in the morning, a physician was called, who had long been accustomed to prescribe for him; but a medical examination of his case discovered no occasion for special anxiety. In the afternoon of that day, at about half past three o'clock, he suddenly fell into a state of unconsciousness; and at half past six he had ceased to live. It is believed that his death was caused by an attack of gout, and that the same dis ease which in various disguised forms had followed him for many years, had finished its work at last by striking at the lungs. To him,

his death was as sudden as the announcement of it in the newspapers was to his friends.

Mr. Tyler's contributions to this work have made our readers acquainted with his qualities as a writer. In the first volume he was the author of the articles on Capital Pun ishment,' on Lying,' on 'Wesleyan Perfectionism,' on Governor Yale,' and on The Relations of Man to the Moral Law.' In the second volume, the article on Promises' was the only one of any length the state of his health permitted him to contribute. For the same reason, the first three numbers of the third volume contained nothing from him but some slight notices of books; but in the concluding number the articles on Unitarian and Episcopalian Affinities,' on 'The Right of Civil Government over Life,' and on The Comparative Character and Merits of the Congregational and Presbyterian Systems are an indication that just then he was less than ordinarily under the power of disease. In the fourth volume, the three articles on 'Stuart's Apocalypse,' on 'The Bible a Revelation,' and on 'The Theory of the Christian Church and Ministry,' were from his pen. To the fifth volume, he contributed the articles on 'The Cold Water Cure,' on 'The Good Time Coming,' on 'The Causes and Cure of Puseyism,' on 'Torrey's Translation of Neander,' on 'The Extension of the Elective Franchise to the Colored Citizens of the Free States,' on The Ex-parte Council at Reading, Massachusetts,' and on 'The Kingdom of Heaven.' To the volume which we are closing with this brief memorial of him, he has contributed the articles on 'The Proposed Abolition of Slavery in West Virginia,' on 'The Church-as it was, as it is, and as it ought to be,' and on The Ethics of Religious Controversy.'

The mere recital of the subjects of these articles, is a sort of index to the habits and tendencies of his mind and to the favorite direction of

his studies. With a large and liberal mind, and with a ready talent for investigation and discussion in various departments of inquiry, he delighted chiefly in ethical studiesin that broad sense of the word ethical, which includes the relations of human conduct not only to the wel. fare of society, but also to the will and government of God. We remember indeed, that several years ago, after his retirement from the pastoral office, he employed himself for a season in writing a system of Moral Philosophy, which was nearly ready to be printed, when he entered into other engagements. Some of the ablest among the articles above mentioned, may perhaps be recognized as chapters detached from that unfinished work.

Mr. Tyler's authorship was not limited to his connection with the periodical press. About a year after his settlement in the pastoral office at Middletown, he published a volume on the Christian doctrine of Future Punishment. Of that little volume, we hesitate not to say, that for simplicity and perspicuity of scriptural argument, and for the earnest force of common sense with which the conclusions are commended to the understanding and the sense of right, it is not surpassed by any popular work on the same subject within our knowledge. It deserves a new edition for extensive circulation. A few months later, he published a Sermon, maintaining the proposition that "God always prefers obedience to sin in its stead." To those who do not remember the position of our New England metaphysical theology twenty years ago, it would seem as if arguments on such a proposition before a Christian congregation must have been quite preposterous. Yet it is veritable history, that less than twenty years ago there were theologians in New England, of unquestionable piety and ability, whose reverence for God was so perverted by metaphysics, and their understanding of the

plainest Scripture representations so mystified, that they were ready not only to deny such a proposition, but to count a man almost a heretic for affirming it. Such a fact ought to be remembered as a testimony against the folly of attempting to construct a system of theology, out of the heartless inferences of metaphysical logic. Another of Mr. Tyler's publications was an elaborate sermon vindicating the doctrine of Election as held by modern Calvinists, against the objections of the Wesleyan Arminians. He published in 1836, a pamphlet on the moral character of slavery. His latest separate publication was the Congregational Cate chism. This work is well known to our readers generally. A brief outline of it is given in the New Englander, Vol. II, pp. 180-182. A more thorough exhibition of the argument for the primitive, Congregational church order, can not be found in so narrow a compass as in this little book.*

Mr. Tyler was twice married. His first wife, whom he married in May, 1828, was Anne, daughter of Rev. James Murdock, D.D., then of Andover. At the time of their mar riage she was in feeble health; and she continued in her father's family, suffering and declining till June, 1830, when she died at New Haven. Afterwards, in July, 1831, he married Sarah Ann, daughter of Deacon Joseph Boardman of Middletown. Of the six children of this marriage, five are living to share with their mother in the sorrow of the house which his death has darkened. May they find in God's care and faithful. ness an unfailing portion!

In closing this account of one with whom we have had a long acquaint

* We subjoin the titles of the works above enumerated, excepting the pamphlet on slavery, of which we have no copy. Lectures on Future Punishment. 12mo pp. 180. Middletown. 1829. Holiness Preferable to Sin: A Sermon. 8vo. pp. 27. New Haven. 1829. The Doctrine

ance, and whom we have known in circumstances well fitted to show what was in him, we may be allowed to express our personal sense of his worth. As to the natural endowments of his mind, and the extent to which they had been cultivated by the discipline of study, the readers of the New Englander need no testimony from us; for they themselves have had opportunity to know him, though they have had little knowledge of the disadvantages under which he has labored, and the physical depression under which most of his articles have been writ ten. But we have known him in more intimate relations. We have seen his uncomplaining patience, his uniform cheerfulness, his imperturbable kindness, his genial sympathy, his> generous impulses, his simple and childlike piety. We have seen him living year after year at death's door, struggling with care and embarrassment, working on manfully under depressing disappointments, while disease was drinking up his spirit. He was by nature, by culture, and by the grace of God, one of the best sort of men-not one of those who have no instinct that revolts from meanness-not one of those "whose hearts are dry as summer's dust," not one of those to whom friendship is a matter of cal. culation and convenience-but one of those in whom the elements of character, well attempered by nature, and refined by culture, are ennobled by faith and sanctified by devotion. When such men are removed by death from the circle of our friendships, we feel how much we loved them, and are ready to reproach ourselves that we have not loved them more.

of Election: A Sermon. 8vo. pp. 28. New Haven. 1831. The Congregational Cate chism, containing a General Survey of the Organization, Government and Discipline of Christian Churches. Ibino. pp. 137. New Haven. 1844.