124. -TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. DESCRIBES HIS RETIREMENT CHARACTER OF THE REV. MR BULL-STANZAS June 8, 1783. MY DEAR WILLIAM,- Our severest winter, commonly called the spring, is now over, and I find myself seated in my favourite recess, the greenhouse. In such a situation, so silent, so shady, where no human foot is heard, and where only my myrtles presume to peep in at the window, you may suppose I have no interruption to complain of, and that my thoughts are perfectly at my command. But the beauties of the spot are themselves an interruption, my attention being called upon by those very myrtles, by a double row of grass pinks just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans already in bloom; and you are to consider it, if you please, as no small proof of my regard, that though you have so many powerful rivals, I disengage myself from them all, and devote this hour entirely to you. You are not acquainted with the Rev. Mr Bull, of Newport ; perhaps it is as well for you that you are not. You would regret still more than you do, that there are so many miles interposed between us. He spends part of the day with us to-morrow. A dissenter, but a liberal one; a man of letters and of genius; master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it—an imagination which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs away with him into such fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happiness to be of the party! At other times he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for companions in such a world as this, than men of such a temperament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection. Such a man is Mr Bull. But he smokes tobacco-nothing is perfect Nihil est ab omni On the other side I send you a something, a song if you please, composed last Thursday-the incident happened the day before. THE ROSE. The rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, The plentiful moisture encumber'd the flower, The cup was all fill'd, and the leaves were all wet, To weep for the buds it had left with regret, I hastily seized it, unfit as it was For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd, Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, Might have bloom'd with its owner a while, Yours, &c. W. C. 125. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. NEWTON'S UNFINISHED ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY — REFLECTIONS ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT REMARKABLE MISTS. June 13, 1783. MY DEAR FRIEND—I thank you for your Dutch communications. The suffrage of such respectable men must have given you much pleasure, a pleasure only to be exceeded by the consciousness you had before of having published truth, and of having served a good master by doing so. I have always regretted that your ecclesiastical history went no farther; I never saw a work that I thought more likely to serve the cause of truth, nor history applied to so good a purpose. The facts incontestable, the grand observations upon them all irrefragable, and the style, in my judgment, incomparably better than that of Robertson or Gibbon. I would give you my reasons for thinking so, if I had not a very urgent one for declining it. You have no ear for such music, whoever may be the performer. What you added, but never printed, is quite equal to what has appeared, which I think might have encouraged you to proceed, though you missed that freedom in writing which you found before. While you were at Olney this was at least possible: in a state of retirement you had leisure, without which I suppose Paul himself could not have written his Epistles. But those days are fled, and every hope of a continuation is fled with them. The day of judgment is spoken of not only as a surprise, but a snarea snare upon all the inhabitants of the earth. A difference indeed will obtain in favour of the godly, which is, that, though a snare—a sudden, in some sense an unexpected, and in every sense an awful event-yet it will find them prepared to meet it. But the day being thus characterized, a wide field is consequently open to conjecture; some will look for it at one period, and some at another; we shall most of us prove at last to have been mistaken, and if any should prove to have guessed aright, they will reap no advantage, the felicity of their conjecture being incapable of proof till the day itself shall prove it. My own sentiments upon the subject appear to me perfectly scriptural, though I have no doubt that they differ totally from those of all who have ever thought about it; being however so singular, and of no importance to the happiness of mankind, and being moreover difficult to swallow, just in proportion as they are peculiar, I keep them to myself. I am, and always have been, a great observer of natural appearances, but I think not a superstitious one. The fallibility of those speculations which lead men of fanciful minds to interpret Scripture by the contingencies of the day, is evident from this consideration, that what the God of the Scriptures has seen fit to conceal, he will not as the God of Nature publish. He is one and the same in both capacities, and consistent with himself; and his purpose, if he designs a secret, impenetrable, in whatever way we attempt to open it. It is impossible however for an observer of natural phenomena not to be struck with the singularity of the present season. The fogs I mentioned in my last still continue, though till yesterday the earth was as dry as intense heat could make it. The sun continues to rise and set without his rays, and hardly shines at noon, even in a cloudless sky. At eleven last night the moon was a dull red, she was nearly at her highest elevation, and had the colour of heated brick. She would naturally, I know, have such an appearance looking through a misty atmosphere; but that such an atmosphere should obtain for so long a time, and in a country where it has not happened in my remembrance even in the winter, is rather remarkable. We have had more thunder storms than have consisted well with the peace of the fearful maidens in Olney, though not so many as have happened in places at no great distance, nor so violent. Yesterday morning, however, at seven o'clock, two fireballs burst either in the steeple or close to it. William Andrews saw them meet at that point, and immediately after saw such a smoke issue from the apertures in the steeple as soon rendered it invisible: the noise of the explosion surpassed all the noises I ever heard-you would have thought that a thousand sledge-hammers were battering great stones to powder, all in the same instant. The weather is still as hot, and the air as full of vapour, as if there had been neither rain nor thunder all the summer. There was once a periodical paper published, called Mist's Journal: a name well adapted to the sheet before you. Misty however as I am, I do not mean to be mystical, but to be understood, like an almanack maker, according to the letter. As a poet, nevertheless, I claim, if any wonderful event should follow, a right to apply all and every such post-prognostic to the purposes of the tragic muse. - Yours, W. C * 126. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. GENTLENESS INDISPENSABLE TO EFFECTIVE SPIRITUAL ADMONITION. June 17, 1783. MY DEAR FRIEND,- Your letter reached Mr S- while Mr was with him; whether it wrought any change in his opinion of that gentleman, as a preacher, I know not, but for my own part I give you full credit for the soundness and rectitude of yours. No man was ever scolded out of his sins. The heart, corrupt as it is, and because it is so, grows angry if it be not treated with some management and good manners, and scolds again. A surly mastiff will bear perhaps to be stroked, though he will growl even under that operation, but if you touch him roughly, he will bite. There is no grace that the spirit of self can counterfeit with more success than a religious zeal. A man thinks he is fighting for Christ, and he is fighting for his own notions. He thinks that he is skilfully searching the hearts of others, when he is only gratifying the malignity of his own, and charitably supposes his hearers destitute of all grace, that he may shine the more in The extraordinary summer of 1783, attracted the attention of philosophers throughout Europe. his own eyes by comparison. When he has performed this notable task, he wonders that they are not converted: "he has given it them soundly, and if they do not tremble, and confess that God is in him of a truth, he gives them up as reprobate, incorrigible, and lost for ever." But a man that loves me, if he sees me in an error, will pity me, and endeavour calmly to convince me of it, and persuade me to forsake it. If he has great and good news to tell me, he will not do it. angrily, and in much heat and discomposure of spirit. It is not therefore easy to conceive on what ground a minister can justify a conduct which only proves that he does not understand his errand. The absurdity of it would certainly strike him, if he were not himself deluded. A people will always love a minister, if a minister seems to love his people. The old maxim, Simile agit in simile, is in no case more exactly verified: therefore you were beloved at Olney, and if you preached to the Chickesaws and Chactaws, would be equally beloved by them. W. C. 127. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. TRANSLATION OF OMICRON'S LETTERS INTO DUTCH-ART OF PRINTING, June 19, 1783. MY DEAR FRIEND, — The translation of your letters* into Dutch was news that pleased me much. I intended plain prose, but a rhyme obtruded itself, and I became poetical when I least expected it. When you wrote those letters, you did not dream that you were designed for an apostle to the Dutch. Yet so it proves, and such among many others are the advantages we derive from the art of printing: an art in which indisputably man was instructed by the same Great Teacher who taught him to embroider for the service of the sanctuary, and which amounts almost to as great a blessing as the gift of tongues. The summer is passing away, and hitherto has hardly been either seen or felt. Perpetual clouds intercept the influence of the sun, and for the most part there is an autumnal coldness in the weather, though we are almost upon the eve of the longest day. We are well, and always mindful of you; be mindful of us, and assured that we love you. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. * Omicron's Letters. |