to improve himself. After
the most serious deliberation, he determined to devote his life to the
ministry, of the importance of which office he had a deep and awful sense.
He labored very diligently to promote the instruction and happiness of the
people under his care, to whom, by his Christian conduct and amiable
disposition, he greatly endeared himself.

Soon after he had undertaken the pastoral office, his health sustained a
severe shock by a painful and dangerous illness, from which he recovered
very slowly. But, in the year 1712, he was afflicted with a violent fever,
that entirely broke his constitution, and left such weakness upon his
nerves, as continued with him, in some measure, to his dying day. For four
years he was wholly prevented from discharging the public offices of his
station. Though this long interval of sickness was, no doubt, very trying
to his active mind, yet it proved ultimately a blessing to him; for it
drew upon him the particular notice of Sir Thomas Abney, a very pious and
worthy man, who, from motives of friendship, invited him into his family,
in which he continued to the end of his life, and, for the long space of
thirty-six years, was treated with uniform kindness, attention, and
respect.

This excellent man was, by his natural temper, quick of resentment; but,
by his established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and
inoffensive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children and to
the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he
allowed the third part of his annual revenue; and for children, he
condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to
write little poems of devotion, and systems of instruction, adapted to
their wants and capacities, from the dawn of reason, through its
gradations of advance in the morning of life. Few men have left behind
them such purity of character, or such monuments of laborious piety. He
has provided instruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their
first lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke. His
"Improvement of the Mind" is a work in the highest degree useful and
pleasing. Whatever he took in hand was, by his incessant solicitude for
souls, converted to theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is
diffused over his works. Under his direction, it may be truly said that
philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction: it is difficult to
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