to support his son at the University, he stood himself in need of assistance. However, it pleased God to raise him up friends who supplied his wants, and enabled him to pursue his studies without interruption. Among these benefactors was the celebrated Dr. Hammond, who had the satisfaction, in return for his kindness and bounty, to witness his young friend devoting himself to the cultivation of sound learning and genuine piety, those "best preparatives for the succeeding varieties of life." Isaac Barrow, like his father and his uncle, was a warm supporter of royalty, a circumstance which originally put an almost insuperable barrier against his election as fellow, and which, after his merits had prevailed upon the electors to overlook his political predilections, often brought the possession of his fellowship into jeopardy. The Master of his College, on one occasion, being strongly urged to deprive him of his fellowship, replied, "Let Barrow alone, he is a more valuable man than any of us." But England was at that time so torn asunder by internal wars and tumults, and the confusion and animosities prevailing every where proved so unhappy an impediment to the studies in which Barrow delighted, that he sold his books, and went abroad. At Paris he found his father in much poverty, but in faithful attendance on his king. Having shared with him the little sum which he had been able to collect, he proceeded in his travels. At Constantinople, the see of that great Father of the Church, Chrysostom, he read all the works of that eloquent and faithful Minister of God's word. By the statutes of the College the fellows were bound to take orders within a prescribed period; but many persons considered the confusion of those times a sufficient justification of their postponement of that duty. Barrow, however, who had both an enlightened and a tender conscience, felt himself, after his return to England, under an obligation to comply, as nearly as possible, with the wishes of the founders; and, therefore, sought and obtained holy orders at the hands of one of the ejected bishops. He had so successfully devoted himself to mathematical studies, and established so high a character for superior knowledge in that department, that he was successively advanced to the Professorship of Geometry in Gresham College, which he filled for a very short time, and to the Mathematical Chair in Cambridge. The latter he resigned to his good friend the great Sir Isaac Newton. His preferment was very small, till he was advanced, in 1672, to the Mastership of his College, an office the duties of which he discharged in the most exemplary manner. On this appointment, the king, who was his patron, said, “I have given the office to the best scholar in my kingdom." Perhaps he devoted too much time to his studies at this period of his life, robbing himself of many hours' sleep every morning, that he might add to his stock of sermons without entrenching upon the time necessary for the active and public duties of his station. His constitution was thus probably injured, and rendered less able to contend with a severe attack of fever, which seized him in the spring of 1677, and carried him off in the very midst of his career of self-improvement, and public usefulness. He died in one of the houses adjoining the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, and he was buried in that church. His epitaph, which ascribes to him a character eminently distinguished by the highest intellectual, moral, and spiritual excellences, seems to have been no less a representation of the truth, than the grateful testimony of devoted friendship. Those who knew him assure us that he was an example of contentment in all conditions of life, of candour in his judgment of others in all doubtful cases, of moderation among differing and contending parties, of knowledge unaccompanied by ostentation, of great charity to the utmost of his means, and sincere and cheerful piety towards God. His Sermons, and his other works, contain the best internal evidence of their author being a scholar, a philosopher, a divine, and a practical Christian. Archbishop Tillotson's testimony to the merits of Isaac Barrow's Discourses, is conveyed in these striking expressions. "As they want no other kind of excellency, so they are animated throughout with so genuine a spirit of true piety and goodness, that he must be either a perfectly good or a prodigiously bad man, that can read them over without being the better for them." The following selection of Sermons, now published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, are recommended to the careful perusal of all to whom Christian knowledge and truth are dear. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, April, 1849. |