them; and to a certain extent he succeeded. These defects are mentioned, that none may despair of eminent usefulness, because of some want of recommendations of this sort, under which they may labour.

His talents were by no means brilliant. He never eminently excelled as a scholar in any thing, though respectable in every thing. His judgment was sound, and his memory retentive; nor was he ambitious of any talent or culture, that might not minister to usefulness. He made no pretension to pre-eminent abilities; although he appreciated them in others, and thanked God for them, when they were evidently controlled and guided by the love of Christ.

Mr. Trimble was a student. He was, as has been said, a respectable scholar: He prized useful knowledge of whatever sort, was regular and persevering in its acquisition, and arrived at no inconsiderable attainments, before he commenced the duties of the gospel ministry. He pursued a regular and thorough course of study; and though ardently desirous of the salvation of souls, he did not run till he was sent, and accounted qualified. He was not indeed so intensely studious as some; nor would this have comported with the spirit which he maintained, or with the active duties in which he engaged.

He was remarkable for honesty. It may be supposed that I do not use this term in its loose acceptation, as merely opposed to roguery. There are a thousand nameless occurrences, where a tender conscience will find scope for the exercise of honesty, which are usually overlooked or disregarded.-To give a sample: He was in indigent circumstances; and at the expiration of his courses, both at college and at the Theological Seminary, he was inevitably in volved in debt. But at no time

be liquidated, in case of his decease, by the sale of his furniture and books. In his subscriptions to formularies, he had no mental reservations. When he joined an institution, he needed something more than an "apology," to hinder him from the discharge of any of its duties. He scrupulously acted agreeably to his engagements, when, as a student at Princeton, he promised "conscientiously, vigilantly, and faithfully, to observe all the rules and regulations specified in the plan for its instruction and government, so far as the same related to the students."

He was evangelical,-a firm supporter of experimental and practical godliness. The system of doctrines to which he adhered was that of the Reformation, commonly denominated Calvinism. He was a sincere adherent to the Confession of Faith, and attached (though not in a bigoted manner) to the Presbyterian form of church government. He was sincerely grieved at the lax notions prevalent, in regard to original sin, and the fundamental doctrine of a vicarious atonement. And he had no fondness for that sort of doctrinal preaching, in which the life and power of godliness is not to be found.

He was noted for diligence. To his diligence in study I have already adverted: But he was covetous of knowledge, only so far as it might qualify him for usefulness. He wasted no precious time. His vacations, while at college, were usually spent in distributing the scriptures, on behalf of the Bible Society of Jefferson College. During his course at Princeton, he was under the necessity of teaching about two hours daily; and yet, in addition to his regular studies, which he never intermitted, he attended more religious meetings, and did more in the way of religious visitation, and was instru

HUMBLE MERIT REWARDED.

200 scholars.

He was a useful man ; burning and a shining light; and many rejoiced in his light. The Divine blessing, in a remarkable manner, accompanied his labours, both publick and private. Not a few were called into the kingdom through his instrumentality, even before he entered on the ministry. His preaching was "in demonstration of the spirit and with power." The matter of his preaching will speak for itself in the extracts we shall give from his manuscripts; the manner was such as to convince every hearer that he was a true man of God. Wherever the writer of this Memoir travelled in the state of Indiana, he found seals of his brother's ministry; and himself is one of those, in this respect, who must rise up and call him blessed. What ever the writer of this Memoir possesses of "hope towards God, through Jesus Christ our Lord," is attributable, under God, to the fidelity of Joseph Trimble; nor is be ashamed to thank the Father of all mercies, for those intercessory prayers of this humble, excellent inan, of which he knows he was the subject.

Reader! Such was this man of God. "He being dead, yet speaketh!" Though his body "has returned to the dust, and his spirit has ascended to God who gave it," he is about to address us, in what he has left behind him, from that eternal world, in view of which he spoke

and acted.

[The extracts alluded to, will be

For some time past a fund has been provided in Paris, connected with the National Institute, for the reward of exemplary conduct in the humbler walks of life. In a discourse before the Academy by M. Picard, he gave the following interesting narrative. We extract it from the National Gazette of Nov. 24th.

"Miss Henrietta Garden, born at Paris, and residing in the rue de la Verrerie, was but eight years of age when she lost her

mother. Her father confided her to the dame Garden, who were capable of giv care of three ladies, old friends of Maing her but a very common education; from them she learned to sow and take care of a household.

"At the age of fourteen she returned to her father, who gave her the direc tion of the domestick concerns. Happy in anticipating even his slightest wishes, she determined to pass her days with him; and so pleasing to her was this prospect, that she refused several offers clared to her his intention of forming a of marriage. On a sudden her father de second matrimonial engagement; upon which, although it surprised her, she suffered no remark to pass her lips; she with the idea of happiness. The mar even smiled at seeing him flatter himself riage was concluded, and Miss Garden had the grief of not being permitted to follow her father to his new wife's resi

dence.

"She was then aged twenty years, and was obliged to take lodgings in a small chamber. In order to obtain a subsistence, she was constrained to sew linen; but even then her utmost exertions could not procure more than twenty sous a day. Her only happiness consisted in visiting her father, but it was easy to see that her presence was not at all agreeable to his wife. The simplicity of her manners, the po verty of her dress, contrasted strongly with the air of elegance which pervaded the house. She supported without complaint the slights of her step mother, and never ceased to testify the liveliest ten derness for her father, and for a young child, his son, by this second marriage.

any more visits to her father, except at "Soon, she was prohibited from paying those periods of the year which are cou secrated to filial piety; and even then

she was permitted to appear only at the hours when the family were alone, entering by a private stair-way reserved for the servants. If her father was sick, she obtained with great difficulty the favour of placing herself beside his bed, but under the condition of not naming her. self before strangers, and of causing her self to appear even to the eyes of the physician but a simple hired nurse.

"Thirty years elapsed from the time of Mr. Garden's second nuptials. Nearly the whole of that period, he resided in the country, and his daughter, after he removed thither, was ignorant of even the place of his residence, when one day he presented himself before her, told her that his affairs obliged him to take up his residence for a short time in Paris, that he had resolved to remain during his stay in the city in her humble asylum. Mr. Garden had lost his fortune; discord had separated him from his family; he had but a single friend in the world; that was his daughter. She received him with transport, and eagerly yielded up to him her only bed. Mr. Garden, from that moment till his death, which happened two years afterwards, spoke no more of returning home. Never did his daughter ask him the slightest question concerning the motives which had estranged him from his wife and his son. She was suffering under a painful malady, but she exerted her strength so far as to serve and take care of him.

"The mornings she employed in mending the clothes of her father, in washing his linen, in preparing his repasts. The persons with whom she worked had consented to her beginning her labour at mid-day, but in order to regain the time lost, she remained at it until eleven o'clock in the evening. Her little salary could not suffice for the maintenance of two persons, and her pious delicacy caused her to conceal from her father a part of her necessities. She saw herself obliged to profit by the good will of some benevolent neighbours, and contract debts with them, which, augmented by the last sickness of her father, amounted, at his death, to the sum of five hundred francs. How enormous was this

sum for a poor girl who had to depend on her labour for subsistence! Her father expired in her arms.

"Filial piety is a duty; but are there not circumstances which give a character 'of eminent virtue to an action in itself obligatory? besides, Miss Garden has other titles.

"During the time she was living alone, before she had the happiness to receive her father, she had shared her home with Sophia Vailly, her friend, and like herself poor and without assistance. After a lapse of eight years, Miss Vailly was attacked by a malady of the breast which lasted for two years. Henrietta, although an invalid herself, passed her nights in watching by the bedside of her friend, and her days in labouring with ardour, in order to procure for the poor patient the necessities which her situation required, and even in some degree those delicacies which she fancied.

"An old man, a relation of Miss Vailly, succeeded her in the affections of Miss Garden; she received him in his turn, maintained him by her toil, and assisted him in his dying moments.

"Since the death of her father, she shares her scanty means with a poor septuagenarian widow, Madame Brossette. Nothing is more touching than the harmony which reigns between these two persons; nevertheless, at the time of receiving Madame Brossette, Henrietta was already harassed by the idea of her debt of five hundred francs; but how could she shut her door and her heart against the unfortunate Madame Brossette? Thus she drudges with all her strength; she imposes many privations upon herself, without inflicting them upon her companion, in order to pay her debt; and her most ardent wish is not to die before she has attained that object.

"She is entirely a stranger to the design formed by charitable persons, to make her a candidate for the prize of. virtue. If she had been consulted, she would never have permitted her good conduct towards her father to be published to the world. The Academy has decreed her a prize of three thousand francs."

The importance of the subject of the following review to the friends of vital piety, has determined us to insert it in our pages. It is extracted from the Albany Christian ReVOL. V.-Ch. Adr.

gister. Although a long review for a single sermon, we still hope it will receive a careful and candid perusal. The friends of genuine revivals of religion are justly filled with

4 A

apprehensions, that the displays of Divine grace and mercy which are witnessed in various parts of our country, will be marred, as they have heretofore been, by the subtilty of the great adversary of souls, and the passions, delusious, and errors, of those who profess to be their most ardent advocates.

We shall take the present opportunity to state shortly, but distinctly and frankly, our views of this whole subject-the rather because we know that our sentiments in regard to revivals of religion have been misrepresented.

It appears to us that there are three ways, not entirely distinct, and yet sufficiently so to render it proper to mention them separately, in which the Spirit of grace, the efficient agent in the conversion of every sinner, gives a saving efficacy to revealed truth. The first of these is, by mingling his holy influence, gently and yet powerfully, with the natural effects of a careful religious education. We call these effects natural, simply because the means used are in themselves well adapted or calculated to produce the effects in view; not because the means, if left to their separate influence, would ever be followed by such effects on the depraved human heart. But when the children of pious parents have been devoted to God in baptism, and from the first openings of their intellectual and moral powers have been carefully, tenderly, prudently, prayerfully and perseveringly brought under the influence of sacred truth and Christian discipline, the result is often seen to be a sound conversion-sometimes, and not unfrequently, at a very early age, and generally before these subjects of renewing grace are far advanced in life. These conversions usually take place without any great convulsion of the soul. Sometimes the change wrought is so silent and seemingly gradual, that its date cannot be accurately ascertained,

either by its subjects, or by their friends. Yet from conversions of this kind, some of the brightest examples of unquestionable Christian piety that have ever adorned the church, both as ministers of the gospel and private professors of religion, have indubitably been produced. We think there is good reason to believe, from what we find in one of Paul's epistles to Timothy, that the conversion of the latter was of the kind here described. And if Christian parents were more faithful to the vows they take on themselves in the baptism of their children; if they were not negligent, or remiss, or indiscreet, in the religious education of their offspring; if they were more like what Timothy's mother Lois and grandmother Eunice appear to have been, we have not a doubt that they would witness the early and eminent piety of their descendants, tenfold more frequently than they do. Baxter went so far as to say, that if Christian parents would perform their whole duty to their children, the preaching of the gospel would not, in his judgment, be the ordinary method of converting sinners-meaning that private parental instruction, admonition and example, would more frequently be savingly blest, than publick discourses. We are not prepared to adopt this opinion, and think that the preaching of the gospel which, even at an early age, is heard by the children of pious parents, is of ten among the means which are blest for their conversion. But in our last number we solicited the attention of our readers to part of a discourse, lately published by the excellent and eloquent Mr. Jay of England, because he shows that it was from youth who became pious under the parental fidelity now in view, that the ripest Christians, and the most eminent and useful ministers of the gospel, in the best age of the English dissenting church, were formed. We most cordially adopt

the sentiments of Mr. Jay, and say in his words, that "we reckon, and not without much observation, that the best members and the best ministers of our churches-they who in their conduct and in their preaching most adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, are those who are brought from pious families."

It is undeniable however, that from whatever cause, or from whatever combination of causes, it comes to pass, the fact is so, that a large proportion, too often a large majority, of the children of professing Christians, arrive at mature age without any indications of vital piety-any indications of having passed from death to life, by the renovating power of the Holy Ghost. Some of them may be even profligate, and although many of them may be amiable in temper and deportment, so that they resemble the young man who came kneeling to our Lord in the days of his flesh, yet they resemble him in this also, that some worldly object is supreme in their affections, and keeps the throne of their hearts from their God and Saviour. Of these, numbers are brought to solemn consideration, and become the hopeful subjects of sanctifying grace, under the administration of gospel ordinances, at different periods of younger life; not in clusters, but now one and then another; at some times and in some congregations in a greater number, and at other times in a less; so that in this way the places of communicating members made vacant by death, are perhaps supplied, and in some instances much more than supplied, by those who are added to the church in this gradual manner. But we believe that beside this, there are special seasons of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, on congregations where the gospel had been long and faithfully preached, with only the partial success to which we have adverted-seasons

which may with emphatic propriety be called "days of God's power, in which many are made his "willing people"-converts are multiplied like "drops of the morning dew," and a large and blessed ingathering of souls to the fold of the Redeemer is witnessed. Such seasons as those to which we here refer, were not unfrequently seen in former days of the Scottish church, some of which are mentioned in Gillies' collections; and, blessed be God, they have also been frequently seen in our own country. As the case before us supposes, these revivals take place in congregations or places where the people have been well indoctrinated; and hence they are generally free from all noise or extravagance. We witnessed, more than thirty years ago, the state of a well instructed congregation, in which there was a most happy and general revival of religion of this description-A neighbouring clergyman, only nine miles distant, informed us, that it had been so silently conducted, that he did not know of its existence, till he went to attend the funeral of the pastor of this favoured people, who died in the midst of this harvest of souls, which he had been the happy instrument of gathering for the gra nary of heaven.-This then we reckon the second way, in which the kingdom of Christ is enlarged or extended.

The third way is, by the success of missionaries, itinerant preachers, and the occasional services of zealous and devoted ministers of the gospel, in places beyond the bounds of their own charges. Of the extension of the gospel in heathen lands, by missionary operations, it is unnecessary to speak-It is the happiness of the age in which we live, that no well informed friend of religion can be ignorant, that at no time since the days of the apostles, the success of evangelical missions to the heathen has, to say the least, been greater than in our own. Nor