or command our admiration. We feel a sort of instinctive curiosity to know the source whence the instrument of our gratification has been derived; and expect to find our pleasure increase in proportion as we discover by what means it has been brought, from its simplest elements and its smallest dimensions, to its actual state of symmetry and grandeur."

A synoptical digest of whatever materials are necessary to the formation of a correct estimate of Methodism, in its general character and progressive operations, may be confidently anticipated from the forthcoming volume on the subject by the PRESIDENT of the British Conference, THE REVEREND THOMAS JACKSON,-a desideratum in the literature of Methodism which his previous productions evince him to be so admirably qualified to supply.

On the writer of the following Memoir an humbler task has devolved-that of tracing one of the tributary streams of this majestic river from its source, in connection with the history of him who

scooped its channel, and contributed so much to its purity and depth and expansion. He gives utterance to no feeling of voluntary humility in saying that, highly as he estimates the honour of being the biographer of the REVEREND WILLIAM BLACK, it has often been matter of unfeigned regret to him, while contemplating his character, that the delineation of it had not engaged the talents of some one more competent, from matured experience and a larger measure of heavenly wisdom, to do it justice. Were the first sheet of this volume now passing through the press instead of the last, he flatters himself he could in some respects materially improve it; but he must rest satisfied, for the present at least, with the sad consolation that " care will not always be successful; and recollection or information sometimes comes too late for use." Should a second edition of the work be called for, he will most gratefully receive and attentively regard any friendly suggestions with which he may be favoured, with a view to render it more acceptable and useful: and, in such an event, should

any light happen to issue from an opposite quarter, he trusts he possesses sufficient humility and wisdom not to disregard the prudential maxim, Fas est et ab hoste doceri. "It is wise to derive knowledge even from an enemy."

He now commends this Memoir, with all its imperfections, to the blessing of Heaven, praying that he who has compiled, and all who may peruse it, may be followers of them, who through faith and

patience inherit the promises."

Upper Canada Academy,
May, 1839.

M. RICHEY.

MEMOIRS, &c.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS-MR. BLACK'S BIRTH-REMARKABLE PRESERVATION FROM PREMATURE DEATH -HIS FIRST SERIOUS IMPRESSIONS-HIS MOTHER'S SOLICITUDE AND EFFORTS FOR HIS SPIRITUAL WELFARE THE FAMILY EMIGRATE TO NOVA SCOTIAHIS NEW ASSOCIATIONS EXERCISE AN UNHAPPY INFLUENCE OVER HIM-SEEKS REST IN VAIN AMUSEMENTS, BUT FINDS NONE.

MINISTERIAL biography, when its subject, having taken upon him the sacred office, in obedience to a heavenly call, and with a clear perception of the momentous trust and responsibility it involves, dedicates himself with corresponding zeal and fidelity to the discharge of its functions, cannot fail to be eminently instructive and useful. To the general delineations of religious character,―invariably the same in its essential elements, whether found in a condition of tranquil seclusion, or amidst the excitements of public life, it adds the interest of a new order of incidents; whilst the exercises of personal religion are often very materially modified by the trials and circumstances of office.

With the annals of a devoted minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, there are also interwoven numerous il

B

lustrations of God's dealings with his Church; all of which, however varied their aspects or inscrutable their reasons, are seen to terminate in the same radiant point, the glory of redeeming grace in the salvation of his people. And when the existing state of the cause of God is such, as to give unusual prominence to the operations of his grace in the conversion of souls, general attention is arrested, a spirit of serious enquiry pervades families and neighbourhoods, penitents weep in secret places,-the sons of God exult, the demon of persecution is roused, and often issues from lurking places where he was least of all suspected to exist, sceptics, like raging waves of the sea, foam out their own shame, or, mute with astonishment, start at the view of the unshrouded arm of Jehovah, while his Gospel goes forth, as at the first, attended with divine demonstrations of its celestial origin and virtue.

At no period in the history of the Christian Church, if we except the obscure and superstitious ages that preceded the glorious day of the Reformation, have the interests of vital godliness been at a lower ebb in England than when the Wesleys, Whitfield, and their coadjutors, like faithful watchmen on the walls of Zion, began to sound the note of alarm in the ears of a guilty and slumbering nation. Imbued with the spirit of the first heralds of the Lamb, untrammelled by the formalities of prescriptive usage, those holy men travelled beyond the precincts of particular churches; they went out into the highways and hedges; and inspiring the trumpet of the everlasting Gospel with no uncertain sound, they soon caused its undying echoes to be heard throughout the length and breadth of the land. A national revival of religion was the blessed