Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1857-10-31


when he was able. He was not pre-eminent
a. pulpit orator, it seems, or, at oil events,
he would not suit the Spurgson-fed church
goers of our times. He had, to quote the
words Of another, "neither the material vol
ume and sonorous vehemence which consti-
tutes the modern Boauergss, not the excita-
BILE temperament which sometimes makes up
for physical defects"
He confined bimself in his studies, not
alone to religious subjects, but wrote upon,
in succession, Logic, Astronomy, Geography,
English Grammar, and Scripture, History,
aud to quote the language Of tho Reviewer,
as, in his Logic" he had given directions
for the right dse OF reason, so, in bis work on
the Passions, he gave instructions for the
right guidance Of mans moral and emotional
nature, besides publishing trsatses more
purely theological. on Prayer and Christian
Ethics, and on controvated questions in di-
vnity, and a volume entitled, "Reliquie Ju-
venies." perhaps the most characteristic OF
the whole, as containing in its miscellaneous
pages short papers Oh all kinds Of topics,
grave and gay, mental and material, terrestrial
aud celestial, in Latin verse and English
prose-"
The same writer does hot think DR.. Watts
was very happy as an abstruse theologian
"He was neither Joseph Butler, nor Jona-
than Edwards. nor William de Leibnitz, but
the Isaac Watts, whom the most OF good men
would have rather been and it is no repronch
to his general ability to Say that he falled to
ascend those dizzy attitudes, although it
might have been more to the credit oil his
prudence If he bad never tried"
The ideas OF some Of DR.. Watts most
beautiful hymns were conceived when he was
boy at school. To quote the language Of
the reviewer in the North Briish:
"The stars sang, and he tried to make his
brothers and sister understand the tune: it
thnndered. and he thought Of the day when
exhausted long-suiieriug
"shall rend the sky, and burn the sea-
And fling His wrath abroad"
He looked out on the surging rainswspt tide
on the spot where 1t had once put to fight
Canute and his courtiers, and exclaimed
"Let cares like a wild deiugc cone,
And storms of sorrow fall,
May but safely reach my home.
My God, my Heaven, my All.
"Thsre shall bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast"
Or, on some peaceful evening, he gazed across
Southampton Water, to trees aud meadows
stepped in the sunshine, and remembered:
"There is land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Iafnite day excludes the night,
And pleasures baEish pain.
"There everlasting Spring abides,
And nsver-withering flowers;
Death, like q narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours"
He took bis walk in the New Forest and
The gypsy outlaws made him thankful that he
did not
"WanJer like an outcast race,
Without Fathers love;
aud the mourDful notes and anxious gyrations
of the turtle suggested
"Jus. ss we see the lonesome dove
Bemoan her widowed state,
Wandering she flies through all the grove,
And mourns her loving mate;
"Just so our thoughts, from thing to thing,
In restless circles rove
Just so we droop and hang the wing,
When Jesus hides His love-"