be learned from them. He examined the
observations of other men, but trusted only to his own.

Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by
elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature: he
knew that but a small part of mankind will sacrifice their pleasure to
their improvement, and those authors who would find many readers, must
endeavour to please while they instruct.

He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he
might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men
of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours
less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and
poetry. Thus was his learning, at once, various and exact, profound
and agreeable.

But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his character, but the
second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
He was an admirable example of temperance, fortitude, humility, and
devotion. His piety, and a religious sense of his dependance on God,
was the basis of all his virtues, and the principle of his whole
conduct. He was too sensible of his weakness to ascribe any thing to
himself, or to conceive that he could subdue passion, or withstand
temptation, by his own natural power; he attributed every good
thought, and every laudable action, to the father of goodness. Being
once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great
provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what
means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable
passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he
was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer
and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself.

As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his whole life,
his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and
meditation; this, he often told his friends, gave him spirit and
vigour in the business of the day, and this he, therefore, commended,
as the best rule of life; for nothing, he knew, could support the
soul, in all distresses, but a confidence in the supreme being; nor
can a steady and rational magnanimity flow from any other source than
a consciousness of the divine favour.

He asserted, on all occasions, the divine authority and sacred
efficacy of the holy scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught
the way of salvation