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their agency to the formation of the earth's surface, but to the former he ascribed the larger share. In his opinion he seemed decided, that the different strata of our globe were formed at very different periods; that the formation of the whole, from the first granite rocks down to the marl and granite beds, could not have taken up less than a million of years. and that none but the most alluvial soils could have been deposited by the Mosaic deluge.

With the writings of Hobbes, Collins, Hume, and Helvetius he was intimately acquainted, and their influence on his mind he could not always conceal, even when he made no formal acknowledgments of the fact. In his philosophical speculations he resolved every thing into primitive necessity, fortifying his theory with those arguments which are generally urged in the defence of fate. In his disputations he was subtle and wary, refusing, on many occasions, to admit, without evidence, even those propositions which have generally been considered as self-evident. The Socratic mode of arguing was that which he in general adopted, leading his antagonists, by a train of questions, into labyrinths from which they could not easily retreat. Over his temper he had a great command; it was rarely that his mind became confused; and in the severest conflict he was seldom known to substitute dogma for reason, or to appeal to authority when argument was required.

At an early period of his public life, Mr. Lowry was a warm admirer of that patriotism which resisted oppression, and promised to restore liberty to mankind; and when the blaze of revolution burst forth in France, he hailed it as the dawn of that era which should usher into existence the reign of universal freedom, and establish a political millennium throughout the world. The same enthusiasm of expectation distinguished his hopes when Darwin and Beddoes promised to the subjects of disease a specific that should counteract the maladies of life. The discourses of Sir Humphrey Davy again kindled up his ardour, and led his anticipations to wander over regions that cannot easily be defined. Time, however, taught him the necessity of moderating his hopes. He took the salutary

hint, and consigned to future days the realizing of those visions which charm at a distance, but elude our grasp.

Actuated by a public spirit, Mr. Lowry was ever ready to lend pecuniary aid to invention struggling in its birth, and to support institutions that had benevolent objects in view. On numerous occasions his liberality has exceeded his means, and exhausted his resources when they wanted to be replenished. For many of his works he was honourably remunerated, but in several others the case was unhappily reversed; and were an average to be taken of his numerous inventions, improvements, and laborious skill, it would be found that the rewards which he received fell much beneath the genius and talent which he displayed. In these respects he "fell on evil days," and, on this account, was unable to make for his widow and family, that provision which their station in life requires.

Mr. Lowry was twice married. His first wife was a native of Birmingham. Her name was Porter, and sister to a Mr. Porter, who is now much 'celebrated as an engraver of architectural subjects, which art he acquired under the tuition of Mr. Lowry. This lady was his companion during the more arduous periods of his mortal journey, and was admirably fitted for her station-the wife of a philosophical artist, meeting the vicissitudes of life with heroic fortitude. By this lady he has two surviving daughters, the elder of whom is married to Hugh Stuart Boyd, Esq., a gentleman of distinguished learning, who possesses an estate in the north of Ireland, and who is known as the author of Select Passages from St. Chrysostom, and several poetical compositions and translations of considerable merit, among the latter of which is a masterly translation of the Agamemnon of Eschylus, published in January, 1824. The younger daughter, who has evinced considerable talent in portrait and landscape painting, is the wife of Mr. Hemming, formerly of Magdalen College, Oxford, and author of several ingenious works on astronomy and other scientific subjects.

Being left a widower, in 1796, Mr. Lowry was married a second time, to a lady named Rebekah Delvalle.

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stone, and he was treated accordingly; but on being opened, after death, his affliction was found to have arisen from another cause. Confined about twenty months by positive illness, his friends, who saw his emaciated frame gradually sinking, rendered him every assistance in their power; but nothing could avert the stroke of death. His family saw him declining daily, but it was not until within about a fortnight of his departure that they abandoned all hope of his recovery. On Wednesday, the 23d of June, 1824, the solemn messenger arrived; and, about two o'clock in the morning, Wilson Lowry breathed his last, at his house in Great Titchfield-street, London, in the sixty-third year of his age.

The son, Joseph Wilson Lowry, deriving from his highly-gifted father the varied instructions which he was able to communicate, and having turned his attention to the same profession, has already distinguished himself as an able engraver, and bids fair to add new lustre to his father's fame. His As a man of science, and of original perspective projections of the North-genius as an artist, Mr. Lowry will ern and Southern Hemispheres have attracted much attention; and, independently of their intrinsic merit, they furnish evidence and indications of superior talents, which time and exercise can alone ripen to perfection.

The daughter, named Delvalle, and who is unmarried, possesses a cultivated mind, stored with useful knowledge, and enlightened by science. This young lady is the authoress of an elementary treatise on mineralogy, a work which, ranking highly in the estimation of those who have made this branch of science their study, is placed among the best publications that have appeared on this subject.

In stature Mr. Lowry was tall, and, though not slender, he was by no means athletic. His countenance bore indications of deep research and untired perseverance. The power of penetration beamed from his eye, and traits of benevolence were discoverable in his face. Easy of access, he was approached without diffidence, and frequently detained in conversation with persons to whom little could be communicated, and from whom nothing could be derived. With such children as were acquainted with him he was quite familiar, and by accommodating himself to their natural vivacity, was generally a favourite.

It has been supposed that the complaint of which Mr. Lowry died, had long sapped the foundation of a vigorous constitution, and secretly preyed upon the vitals of life for about thirty years. This was thought, both by himselfand his medical attendants, to be the

be long remembered. The improvements which he made in the art of engraving, together with the facilities for expediting work and bringing it to perfection, will cause the period of his life to be marked as an important epoch in the history of the imitative arts; while the plates executed by Lowry will be quoted as authorities from which it will be difficult to appeal. That his name will be transmitted to posterity encircled with scientific honours, no doubt can be entertained; and we cannot but indulge a hope, that the merits of the son will enable him to reap an ample harvest from that field which his father cultivated with unrivalled renown, but with so much unprofitable success.

ON THE DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT.

By the Rev. Robert Hall, of Leicester. To this subject the apostle refers, where he is contrasting the Christian with the Jewish institute: "Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious,-how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?" From this circumstance, he infers the superior dignity of the Christian ministry. The miraculous gifts intended for a sign to unbelievers, and to aid the gospel during its first struggle with the powers of pagan darkness, have long since ceased, with the exigency that called

them forth; but the renewing and | Almighty, in the concerns of salvasanctifying agency of the Spirit re- tion, to a stated method and a settled mains, and will continue to the end law. The communication of the Spiof time; the express declaration of rit, to render the gospel efficacious, our Saviour not admitting a doubt of becomes a standing ordinance of heaits perpetuity: "I will pray the Fa- ven, and a full security for its final ther, and he shall give you another triumph over every opposing force. comforter, that he may abide with you "My word," said the Lord by the for ever, the Spirit of truth, whom the prophet, "shall not return unto me world cannot receive, because it seeth void, but shall accomplish the thing him not, neither knoweth him; but ye whereunto I sent it." At the same know him, for he dwelleth with you, time, connected as it is, by the very and shall be in you." tenor of the promise, with the publication of an external revelation, and professing to set its seal only to the testimony of Jesus, it precludes, as far as possible, every enthusiastic pretension, by leaving the appeal to scripture as full and uncontrolled as if no such agency were supposed.

To the world, who, in their unrenewed state, are unsusceptible of his sanctifying impress, he is promised, in the preparatory form of a Spirit of conviction; to believers, he is promised as an indwelling principle, an ever-present Deity, who consecrates the hearts of the faithful to be his perpetual abode. Hence, the ministers of Christ are not dependent for success on the force of moral suasion; not merely the teachers of an external religion, including truths the most momentous, and duties of the highest obligation; they are also the instruments through whom a supernatural agency is exerted. And hence, in the conversion of souls, we are not to compare the difficulties to be surmounted with the feeble resources of human power, but with His, with whom nothing is impossible. To this the inspired historian directs our attention, as alone sufficient to account for the signal success which crowned the labours of the first preachers.

If a great multitude at Antioch turned to the Lord, it was because "the hand of the Lord was with them;" if Lydia believed, in consequence of giving attention to the things that were spoken, it was because the "Lord opened her heart;" if Paul planted, and Apollos watered, with success, it was "the Lord who gave the increase;" and highly as they were endowed, and though invested with such extensive authority, they did not presume to count upon any thing from themselves; their sufficiency was of God. As the possibility of such an influence can be doubted by none who believe in a Deity, so the peculiar consolation derived from the doctrine that asserts it, seems to be this, that it renders what was merely possible, certain; what was before vague and undetermined, fixed, by reducing the interposition of the

74.-VOL. VII.

It is strange that any should be found to deny a doctrine so consolatory, under the pretence of its derogating from the sufficiency of revelation, when it not only ascribes to it all the efficacy that can belong to an instrument, or external means, but confers the highest honour upon it, by marking it out as the only fountain of instruction to which the agency of the Deity is inseparably attached. The idea of his immediate interposition must necessarily increase our venera│tion for whatever is connected with it; and let it ever be remembered, that the internal illumination of the Spirit is merely intended to qualify the mind for distinctly perceiving, and cordially embracing, those objects, and no other, which are exhibited in the written word.

To dispel prejudice, to excite a disposition for inquiry, and to infuse that love of the truth, without which we can neither be transformed by its power, nor bow to its dictates, is the grand scope of spiritual agency; and how this should derogate from the dignity of the truth itself, is not easy to conceive. The inseparable alliance between the Spirit and the word secures the harmony of the divine dispensations; and since that Spirit of truth can never contradict himself, whatever impulse he may give, whatever disposition he may communicate, it involves no irreverence towards that divine agent to compare his operations with that standing revelation, which, equally claiming him for its author, he has expressly appointed for the trial of the spirits.

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BUT we may observe, that there is another class of individuals who object to this doctrine, not because they conceive human events too insignificant to claim the interposition of heaven, but that the idea of a superintending power destroys, in their estimation, the free agency of man. This conviction has operated so powerfully on the minds of some persons, that it has led them to deny the prescience of the Divinity; for it almost appears a necessary consequence, that he who believes in divine prescience, must likewise believe in divine influence. The reason why many men deny the foreknowledge of God probably arises, as a well-known author* has observed, from the fact, that that attribute forms no part of their mental constitution. Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, a man endowed with the faculty of prescience, but altogether destitute of the power of remembrance; would he not then conceive the difficulty to be as great for the divine Being to remember, as he now does for him to foreknow; and would not that event which now presents in retrospection a powerful and interesting argument in justification of Divine providence, furnish in perspective the same argument in vindication of the same sentiment? Besides, it is important to recollect, that God is an ever-present divinity, that the terms "past" and "future" cannot, literally speaking, be applicable to him, because, in fact, they are only employed when we discourse on the perfections and attributes of the divine character to render their comprehension more easy to finite intelligence. And if he be an omniscient and omnipotent Divinity, and past and future ages are ever present to his wide survey, he must of necessity be perfectly acquainted with the numberless engagements of his rational creation. Now, if God possess the attribute of foreknowledge, and do not superintend the transactions of his creatures, it must be either because he will not, or because he cannot. To affirm the latter, would be nothing less than to im

*Dr. Reid's Essays, Vol. I. Ess. iii. ch. ii.

peach his omnipotence; and to maintain the former, would involve an impeachment of his moral attributes: so that we cannot but infer, that the divine Being graciously controls the diversified operations of the human family. The question, then, which presents the difficulty is, whether this intervenient agency of God interferes with the moral liberty of man. discuss this particular in a manner proportionate to its importance, would extend this essay beyond the prescribed boundaries; a mere statement of that mode of argumentation, by which it may be shewn that it involves no moral inconsistence, is as much as can be expected.

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We may ask the proposers of this objection, whether it implies a real contradiction to suppose that the divine Being can create an individual whose every action shall be foreknown, and at the same time free? whether they are fully prepared to affirm, that it is really impossible for a creature to be so constituted by his Creator, as to be free and accountable, whilst the purposes he accomplishes, and the actions he performs, are overruled by a prescient God? If no real contradiction or impossibility be involved in these hypotheses, then we have every reason to suppose that this is the very constitution of man, for the inspired records reveal the accountableness and moral freedom of the creature, whilst they represent the movements and operations of man as under the invisible guidance of heaven.

The objectors to the sentiments we are now endeavouring to establish, should recollect, that the divine Being, who created man, may have a way of influencing his conduct, and of governing his determinations, in perfect consistence with moral liberty, of which the human mind, in its highest state of cultivation, cannot possibly form any conception. How frequently do the arrangements of a parent appear, in the judgment of his children, in diametrical variance to each other, when, in fact, they harmoniously cooperate to accomplish some ultimate design. And if the purposes of an earthly parent are too complicated to be fully comprehended by his infant children, why should it be deemed mysterious and unsatisfactory, that the purposes of the universal Parent

in maintaining the freedom of the creature, and, at the same time, the doctrine of divine superintendenceif revelation reveals the accountable

are too sublime and profound to be fully understood and accounted for by the children of men? We may also observe, when we maintain that the divine providence makes no infringe-ness of man, and, in conjunction with ment on the moral freedom of man, it, the control which he ever exerts that every individual has a firm and over the intelligent population-and, natural conviction, that he is left at if recorded and well-authenticated perfect liberty to accomplish what, testimony can be adduced in illustraand to act whenever, he pleases,- tion of these apparently clashing senthat he possesses a moral sense,-an timents, we may observe, that if the inward faculty, by which he becomes doctrine, for which we have now conacquainted with the essential distinc- tended, has not been satisfactorily tion between rectitude and injustice, vindicated; it claims, at least, from -and that he is also able, by previ- every man, a calm and elaborate disous contrivance and deliberation, to quisition, before he ventures to affirm form any system of operation which or to deny respecting its peculiar he is capable either of pursuing or of merit. CONDISCIPULUS. declining, agreeably to his own peculiar inclinations.

Was not Cyrus the subject of moral liberty, when he, unknowingly, accom

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Winds now this way, and now that; His devious course uncertain."

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plished those predictions which had No. XV.-The Penny: by an indigent been uttered concerning him a century previous to his birth? Was not the son of perdition a free agent, when he fulfilled, by his iniquitous dealing, the prophetic declarations which had reference to himself and the death of the Saviour? Were not the Roman general and his band of warriors the possessors of moral freedom, when they were actively engaged in effecting the fulfilment of that important prediction which respected the demolition of the Jewish capital? Let it not be again stated, that these incontrovertible indications of an invisible and a heavenly guidance furnish no proof to substantiate the doctrine of a particular providence. To this objection we have already replied by observing, that the whole is composed of parts; that the major always ineludes the minor; and that what influences the greater, must, to a certain extent, influence the less.

Does not every parliamentary | enactment which is made for the public benefit affect every inhabitant within the nation? Does not every law framed for the welfare of a community affect every individual member of that community? And why should not divine providence, which superintends the accomplishment of the final purpose God had in view, in the creation of the world, extend its influence over those minor operations of man, the combination of which forms the ultimate design? If, then, there is no real or moral contradiction

I HAD to write for my dinner. I was very hungry; and, what was worse than all, in my present circumstances, I knew not on what subject to write. The paper lay before me, but not a word appeared on it; and I knew that if that were the case long, I must suffer even worse than I had hitherto done. So I placed my forehead upon the palm of my right hand, whilst my elbow rested upon the table, and thrust my left into my breeches pocket, in order that I might collect my thoughts. Though the right was nearest the seat of the soul, it was the left hand by which these thoughts were helped with a subject; for there lay a solitary penny at the bottom of my pocket. I therefore resolved to write about this coin, and accordingly, drawing it from its concealment, and placing it before me, thus began:—

"A Penny! How many people there are who think nothing at all about it, who neither know nor observe the use or value a penny is to some of their fellow-creatures. There is a child, who thinks it his highest delight to gain a coin like this, that he may go and have the pleasure of spending it. Tops, gingerbread, and apples float before his fancy, when he gets it well clutched in his hand, and he runs off laughing with unaffected glee to pur

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