mere skeleton of their former size, and many more of them are annihilated, Dr. Langford's faithful preaching of the truth preserved the flock. At his death they chose an evangelical minister as his successor; and under Mr. Clayton, who followed him, the congregation retains the ancient faith of the nonconformists, and is one of the most flourishing in London both for numbers and piety.

PHILIP FURNEAUX, D. D.

He was born at Totness, in Devon, and after spending his early years in his native place, about the year 1742, he came to London, and entered on a course of theological studies under Dr. Jennings. When he had completed the usual course, he became assistant to Mr. Henry Read, at St. Thomas', Southwark; and afterwards was chosen successor to Mr. Lowman, at Clapham. In this congregation he officiated with great reputation, and for many years preached a Sunday evening's lecture at Salter's-hall, alternately with Dr. Prior. His services there were highly valued and well attended.

Dr. Furneaux's character among the presbyterians stood very high. From his sermons to the number of six, on particular occasions, which were published, he must be acknowledged by all to be a man of superior talents. His composition was truly elegant, but his delivery by poring on his notes and a whine which would have disgraced a Scotch seceder, was most disagreeable. Ardent in the cause of liberty, he was one of the most zealous patrons of the application to parliament for relief from subscription to the doctrinal

articles of the church; and he wrote an able pamphlet on the subject. His letters to judge Blackstone on his exposition of the act of toleration, and some positions relative to religious liberty in his celebrated commentaries on the laws of England, display the hand of a master. When the cause of the city of London against Evans, so interesting to dissenters, was tried, the amazing strength of Dr. Furneaux's memory was seen in committing to paper, after he returned home, lord Mansfield's speech on the occasion, with such accuracy, that when his lordship perused it, he found but two or three trifling errors to correct.

Like many of his brethren, he does not appear to have been fully sensible of the importance of evangelical doctrine, and did not bring it forward with the frequency and fulness which the Gospel demands. On his return from occasionally visiting his friends in Devonshire, some of his hearers thought that he used for a time to preach in a more orthodox manner than usual. Good company to a minister is a great blessing, while to associate with such as are erroneous and evil has proved to thousands a heavy curse.

After having for more than thirty years supported his public character with great respectability, Dr. Furneaux was laid aside from every service by a visitation of providence the most awful and humiliating which human nature can feel. Insanity seized him, and the man who had appeared with so much applause in the pulpit and from the press, was confined during the remainder of his life in a private madhouse, where the benevolence of friends procured him support. One of the biographers of Mr. Cowper the poet, can hardly allow that his disease should be thought insanity; as if so great and good a man ought

to be exempted from so distressing a malady. But poets need to be taught humility as much as any men on earth; and God made Cowper their instructor. Ministers of Christ too require to have a lesson given them that their powers are from God, and that the use and continuance of them, and of the exercise of reason which is the foundation of all, are his gifts. Dr. Furneaux did not suffer in vain, if every minister who reads his mournful history, is influenced to lift up his heart with lively gratitude to God for the exercise of reason, feels a deeper sense of his dependence for this and every blessing, and endeavours to improve it to the utmost through the whole of life for the honour of God, and the happiness of man.

JOB ORTON.

He was born at Shrewsbury, in 1717, deriving his descent from a line of pious ancestors, and on the mother's side from the family of the great Mr. Perkins, the puritan, of Cambridge. To his parents who were the patrons of piety and good men, he was indebted for early instruction in the Christian faith, and he imbibed from them the principles of pure religion. At the free grammar school in his native town, he acquired a considerable portion of classical

In a memorial of the family which Mr. Orton drew up for the benefit of his nephews, he thus expresses himself," you will find no lords, or knights, or persons of rank, wealth, or station among your progenitors; but as far as I am capable of judging from the best information, there is no one, either male or female, in the line of your ancestors for many generations, but has been serious, pious, and good, and filled up some useful station in society with honour."

learning. In his sixteenth year he was put under the tuition of Dr. Charles Owen, of Warrington, who had usually with him a few young men designed for the work of the ministry. The year following he was sent to Dr. Doddridge's academy at Northampton; and after going through the ordinary course of studies, he was, in 1739, appointed assistant to the doctor in his academical labours, and discharged the duties of his office with singular ability, prudence, and success. In 1741, he was drawn from this situation to his native town by the united voices of the presbyterian and independent congregations, which joined to receive him as their pastor. On Dr. Doddridge's decease, he was pressingly invited to succeed him in the academy and congregation; but this, as well as a call to succeed Dr. Hughes, in London, (a place which he never saw) he declined, and continued his labours at Shrewsbury. Ill health, under which he laboured for a time, led him to seek for help which, during the greatest part of his ministry, he had from Mr. Fownes, who was first his assistant, then copastor, and at last his successor with a part of the charge1. Few men were more diligent than Mr. Orton, or more conscientious in performing the various duties of his office. He spoke the language of his heart, when he directed the ministers who were to preach his funeral sermon, in the following words: "let them assure my hearers that serving them in all their interests, especially their best, was the delightful business of my life, and that all my time and studies were directed this way." Before old age arrived, the nervous complaints with which he was frequently

'Mr. Fownes published a volume on toleration which procured him a considerable name for acute and masterly reasoning.

troubled, made him conceive himself unable to con tinue longer in the pastoral office; and in 1765, while he was but in his forty-eighth year, he resigned his charge. In the following year, he went to reside at Kidderminster that he might be near a physician in whom he had great faith; and there he lived for eighteen long and solitary years. His infirmities gradually increased, and his sufferings becoming at last exceedingly acute, terminated in death, in July, 1783, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

In the life of Dr. Johnson it is mentioned, that he assented to the observation of a friend," that small certainties have been the bane of literary men."

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* His nervous complaints were heightened by his celibacy, and from these he became a man of hours and minutes like a clock. The children of the street he lived in, when they saw him returning home, ran in with eagerness, crying, "mother, is dinner ready, it is twelve o'clock, for here is the tall parson coming." From indulging in such peculiarities, his hours became inconvenient to those who associated with him. If a friend who had supped with him, made no sign of going away when the clock struck nine, he grew uneasy; and by way of hint would say, "wont you take another glass of wine, sir, before you go?" Regularity is good, but partieularity to a moment is bondage. No man ever ranked high among the benefactors of mankind, who was the slave of a minute. He that would do extensive good, must disregard hours for meals and sleep, and give up his time by day and night to accomplish business which requires immediate attention. There is also an injury as well as a littleness in a person accustoming himself to such hours, that he cannot enjoy social intercourse with his friends in their houses, but must mope at home as a solitary recluse. The mind is injured by such a system of life, and the person is deprived of opportunities of communicating and receiving both pleasure and benefit. If Job Orton had had a good cheerful wife, and two or three romping children around him, they would have rubbed off his rough corners, dispelled his low spirits, and made him a much more useful and a happier man,