given confined to professional topics. The stores of his richly endowed mind were opened to their use on subjects of general literature, biblical criticism, the rules of translation, the principles of geology, botany, .zoology, nay, every department of knowledge calculated to fit them thoroughly for their noble and arduous undertaking. Nor, again, were these kind and valuable offices confined to individuals of the Church Missionary Society alone. His soul was too liberal and capacious, and his conviction of the paucity of the labourers too deep, to induce him for a moment to wish or to imagine that the glorious object could be accomplished entirely by missionaries of any one persuasion. On different occasions I have introduced to him missionaries and others connected with various religious societies, who were anxious to profit by his advice, on topics respecting which they scarcely knew where else to apply; and, uniformly, the individuals who thus availed themselves of the privilege, have testified in the most lively terms their grateful sense of the affectionate kindness of his demeanour, and the value of his suggestions. During four or five years preceding the close of Dr. Good's life, he never (as I have mentioned towards the end of the first section of these Memoirs) seems to have lost sight of the practical conviction of the shortness of human existence, and the uncertainty of its termination. This conviction, while it quickened his activity with regard to the professional works upon which he was engaged, and which, from the best motives, he was solicitous to finish, served also to quicken his vigilance in the christian course, to give relish to his hours of retirement, and to sweeten his converse with God. Nor did he restrain himself to contemplation and devotion alone, greatly as he enjoyed them. In various intervals of leisure, which they who knew the most of the multiplicity of his occupations and pursuits most wonder how he found, he gave vent to his trains of meditation and feeling, in the composition of essays of greater or less extent, (as the subject drew him out, or the opportunity permitted,) of which the manuscript copies were found after his death, under the title of "OCCASIONAL THOUGHTS." These, indeed, give evidence that The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light, through chinks that time hath made :" and that, as he approached the close of his earthly career, he was advancing in meetness for the celestial regions. They are also calculated to make a salutary impression upon reflecting minds. I shall, therefore, select with freedom from these instructive compositions; simply adding, that, in order that the state of mind of their writer may be duly appreciated, they should be perused with the recollection that they are not the productions of an ascetic, secluded from the world, and yielding himself solely to exercises of devotion, but of a man engaged conscientiously in the duties of a laborious profession, as well as in the composition of elaborate works of science and practice; from which he withdrew, as moments of retirement could be found, thus to solace himself. OCCASIONAL THOUGHTS. AND ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. "This is the only walk in which we can never go astray; and happy he who, amidst the innumerable paths by which he is surrounded, is led to the proper walk. To walk with God, we must take heed to every step of his providence and his grace-we must have a holy fear of not keeping close to him; though he will never leave us, if we do not leave him. We must maintain a sacred communion with him, and have our conversation in heaven rather than on earth; we must be perpetually receding from the world, and withdrawing from its attachments. We must feel our hearts glow with a greater degree of love to him, and, by the influence of his holy Spirit upon our affections, become gradually more assimilated to the divine nature. We must take his word for our directory, his promises for our food, and his blessed Son for our sole reliance, making the foot of the cross our only resting place. "If we thus walk with God through the wilderness of life, he will walk with us when we reach the dark ' valley of the shadow of death;' and though we cannot hope for the same translation as Enoch, still, like him, 'we shall not be, because God hath taken us." MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. "The world cannot exist without moral order, the first principles of which are written in the heart, and become a law of themselves unto those who are without the knowledge of a revealed law.* And, hence, it has been a great aim of every revealed dispensation to coincide with and give all possible support to this natural and most wholesome impression. Now, the ordinary effect of this law of moral order is to render a man respected and happy, whatever may be his station in life; and so far the maxims of the world concur with those of religion; for the man of piety is by his very tenets obliged to act up to the spirit of this law, and must necessarily participate in its general advantages. And as the moralist commonly finds that 'honesty is the best policy,' so the Christian ascertains, upon the same scale, even in respect to external concerns, that 'the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace:' that godliness is profitable unto all things; having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.'+ 6 "On this middle ground, the two systems touch, but beyond this there is little or no connexion on either side. My kingdom (said our Saviour) is not of this world.' And it is wonderful to behold how much the general providence, as well as the special interposition of God, has, at all times, been labouring to fix this important doctrine in our bosoms; and to shew us how little worldly power, or worldly talents, or worldly influence of any kind, have availed to propagate or uphold religion; to introduce it into the heart, or to keep it there. The brightest and most heroic times for the church, have generally been those of persecution; the darkest and most disgraceful, those in which the arm *Rom. ii. 14. +1 Tim. iv. 8. of secular power has thrust forward its impotent and unhallowed efforts in her behalf; and compelled mankind to become proselytes to the faith. "What has the mightiest and most pompous crusade ever achieved in favour of that very cross whose cause it so wantonly undertook; and under whose banners, consecrated indeed by the oil of mistaken or arrogant hierophants, but never by the unction of the eternal Spirit, the confederate armies of Europe have marched forward against the painim foe with enthusiasm? What single spot on the whole map of the globe can we select as a trophy of its triumphant career, as an extension of the boundary-line of Christendom? When have such exploits ever succeeded in permanently planting a church, or rescuing a single village from the thraldom of superstition or infidelity? Or where, indeed, have they ever been crowned with the success that might have been reasonably expected on every other occasion; and which has accompanied the sword of other powers when drawn for the spread of false religions? Where Bramha now lords it with almost undisputed sway, from the Ganges to the Indus, there is little doubt that the faith of Budha was once the reigning superstition: and the rich and variegated regions of Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Europe, the plundered and subjugated patriarchate of the East, the oppressive sufferings of the Archipelago, still attest, in a long train of triumphs, the proud harvests of the Crescent. "Whence this extraordinary difference? this contrast so irreconcileable with the natural order of things, and the march of moral calculation? The words of our adorable Saviour alone solve the mystery: 'My king |