gs, he would have
lost the power as a religious teacher which he was so eager to exercise.

Literature _qua_ literature Law regarded with contempt, and he is said
to have looked upon the study even of Milton as waste of time. Yet his
biographer states what seems likely enough, considering the fine
qualities of Law's own writings, that 'no author was ever a favourite
with him, unless he was a man of literary merit.'

In 1727, and probably before that date, Law held the position of tutor
to Edward Gibbon, whose famous son, the historian, in his
_Autobiography_, gives to him the high praise of having left in the
family 'the reputation of a worthy and pious man, who believed all that
he professed, and practised all that he enjoined.'

Law accompanied his pupil to Cambridge, and it is conjectured that
during this residence at the university he wrote what Gibbon justly
called his 'master work,' _A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life_
(1729), the most impressive book of its class produced in the eighteenth
century. The historian's father was a man of feeble character. He left
Cambridge without a degree, and went on his travels, the tutor meanwhile
remaining in the family house at Putney, where he seems to have gathered
round him a number of disciples.

The _Serious Call_ had an immediate and strong influence on many
thoughtful men, and Law's book stimulated in no common measure the
religious life of the country. John Wesley spoke of it as a treatise
hardly to be excelled in the English tongue 'either for beauty of
expression, or for justness and depth of thought.' Whitefield, Venn, and
Thomas Scott, the commentator, acknowledged their indebtedness to the
work, and Dr. Johnson, speaking of his youthful days, said: 'I became a
sort of lax _talker_ against religion, for I did not much _think_
against it; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, when I took up Law's
_Serious Call to a Holy Life_, expecting to find it a dull book (as such
books generally are), but I found Law quite an over-match for me; and
this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest.' The first Lord
Lyttelton, the historian and friend of Thomson, is said to have taken up
the book one night at bed-time, and to have read it through before he
went to bed; but, perhaps, the most unimpeachable evidence in its favour
comes from the pen of Gibbon, who writes: 'Mr. Law's precepts are rigid,
but they are founded on the Gospel. His satire is sharp, but it is d