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Obituary.-Samuel Ashton, Esq.-William Freeman, Esq.

congregation of a very handsome and costly communion-table.

The fidelity, prudence and zeal, with which he discharged the important trust reposed in him by the late Francis Dukinfield Astley, Esq., who, knowing his integrity, discretion and clear understand ing, appointed him an executor of his will, along with Thomas Gisborne, Esq., ought to be mentioned to his honour. When Mr. Astley died, his only son was an infant. There was, therefore, every probability that the executorship would be both onerous and long. The estate was deeply mortgaged, and liable to many other claims. The legal advisers of the mortgagee strongly urged the executors to sell portions of the estate to pay off the mortgage. Mr. Ashton saw, however, its capabilities, and firmly resisted all persuasions to that effect, asserting that he would try so to manage the estate as to pay off the mortgage without having recourse to a sale. One who was present said, "You are a bold man;" but bold as the plan was, he lived to accomplish it, for at the time when the heir came of age, he had so prudently and perseveringly discharged the trusts of his executorship, that he delivered the estate into his hands free from debt, with an income arising from it of about twenty thousand pounds a-year.

Mr. Ashton had a sincere reverence for religion. His piety was not ostentatious, but deeply seated in the heart, equally distant from enthusiasm and coldness. His faith was firm in the unity of God and the divine mission of Christ, and he seized on all occasions to honour the Saviour by joining with his fellow-communicants at the Lord's table. In his domestic relations he was peculiarly happy. He married the daughter of the late Mr. Turner, of Godley, a most amiable lady, whose excellent qualities greatly endeared her not only to her husband and family, but to all who knew her, and her death, about twelve years ago, was lamented by the whole neighbourhood.

Few persons, perhaps, have passed through life with more tranquil enjoyment than Mr. Ashton, both in the bosom of his family and amongst his neighbours. His sound judgment in selecting able managers of his works, greatly diminished the cares of business, aud left more time for social enjoyment amongst his friends, and for discharging the duties of a magistrate in the neighbourhood, in which his clear judgment rendered him very useful. A few years ago he resigned business into the hands of his sons, after which he attended with more than usual

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March 26, at Ryton, near Coventry, aged 76, WILLIAM FREEMAN, Esq. Mr. Freeman had been throughout his life a member of the Great meeting-house congregation, Coventry, to the interests of which he was most deeply attached. That congregation derived honour from his connection with it. Though he did not mix himself up with public business, and was indeed remarkably retiring in his habits, his value was too true and solid to escape general estimation; and his name alone was taken as a sufficient guarantee for the substantial merit of all with which it might be associated. He was a man of extensive and varied attainments, and of vigorous and far-seeing intellect; the fineness of his taste was equal to the soundness of his sense; above all pretension himself, he was never to be deceived by the pretension of others; he possessed a wit as keen as his judgment was stable; and religion, in all the fervour of its devotion, was as distinctive of him as was his love of knowledge and his force of thought. This, it will be seen, is a description of no common man, and such it is intended to be. It relates to one who was among the noblest of the class of spiritual aristocracy to which he belonged. St. Paul estimates the effect of Christianity in these words,—“ God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind." A more accurate view of the peculiarities of Mr. Freeman's character than that which this sentence expresses, could scarcely be desired. The spirit it commends was eminently his spirit; and under its influence he became one of the finest examples of a manly Christianity which it has ever been the privilege of the writer of this testimony of affection to know. A destitution of every thing like

servility or cowardice, either as regarded opinion or action,-a strong will united with a kind heart,-and a mental constitution remarkable for its healthy tone, these characteristics must have struck every one but slightly acquainted with him. A more intimate acquaintance revealed the fact, that these general features of character were, according to the different applications of which they were capable, carried throughout the whole substance of the man. Power, love, soundness of mind, these were naturally exhibited in the energy with which any subject of thought was grasped, and the depth to which it was fathomed; in the intense perception of beauty in all its forms; and in the possession of a sage-like wisdom, just as they were morally exhibited in unswerving integrity; in all-comprising goodness; and a constant service of truth. An heroic firmness of principle, patient as well as active in its heroism,-a tender sympathy, as cheerful as it was pathetic,a freedom from all affectation and assumption, all cant and vanity and flightiness,these things won for him in no ordinary degree the respect, the attachment and the confidence of each one who was happy in being numbered among his friends. He thus presented, as has been already said, a peculiarly manly character, and his manliness was distinctively Christian. He owed much to nature, much to diligent intellectual cultivation; but he owed no less to that faith and hope in the gospel which supplied to him the life of life. What he was-all he was, was regulated and sanctified, directed and perfected, by as firm a reliance upon, and as pious an obedience to, the religion of Jesus, as were ever called forth by the great revelation of truth and mercy which God has made through his Son.

Mihi quidem vivit semperque vivet.

r.

"Died, on Sunday last [April 1st], at Inkford, Worcestershire, the residence of her brother, REBECCA, the much-loved wife of the Rev. Rees L. LLOYD, of Belper, Derbyshire, and eldest surviving daughter of the late Mr. Richard Greves."-Midland Counties Herald, April 5.

This is the record of a most unlookedfor and severe bereavement; of a blow that has fallen heavily upon many kindred and friends, and upon one sufferer in particular.

In October, 1845, the subject of the present article of obituary became a wife. She and the late partner of her joys had known each other from childhood. They had been brought up in the same neighbourhood, and under the same influences.

Their long mutual regard had led, naturally and by degrees, to an union, which bore the promise of continued and solid happiness. Their views, their principles, their tastes, their pursuits, were in perfect harmony. Each lived for each; each was suited to each. In addition to numerous sources of bliss, their lot was cast in a manufacturing village, where they received the kindest attentions from high and low, and had access to some cultivated and intelligent society, and were favoured with special opportunities of increased and still increasing usefulness. Nothing, in a word, seemed wanting to the felicity of the country-pastor and of his dearest friend.

Such was the brightness, the fleeting brightness, of the morning! Dark clouds were gathering in the horizon. Amidst circumstances of peculiar interest, Mrs. R. L. Lloyd was visited with tedious illness; and this, when to all appearance it had been removed, left behind it traces of a far more distressing malady. The powers of reason and self-command were suddenly impaired; and, as the issue, the scene recently so fair and auspicious, closed in death.

Nevertheless, time and occupation will give relief to the wounded heart: Christian devotion, faith and hope will do more; these will pour into it a healing balm. In that heart Memory, it is true, will be no "unbidden guest;""pious faith and duty" will own "the wisdom of the unerring sway;" and, often and earnestly as the tearful eye is raised to Heaven, the sorrowing breast will the better know and feel the import of the assurance-"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted!"

N.

April 12, at Romsey, Mr. ABRAHAM NAISH, aged 87 years. While the voice of flattery is too often sounding forth an unmerited eulogium over the memory of the departed, let not the name of this aged patriarch pass away without a modest record of the apostolic simplicity of his character, and of his many excellences and retiring, unobtrusive virtues. The subject of this notice was born in the village of Little Lambourne, in the northern part of Hampshire, and the only school education which he ever received was from a village dame remarkable for her stately bearing and dignity of character; but he soon found how delightful is science to the soul, and by perseverance and assiduity advanced very far in the knowledge of Mathematics, as well as in the study of general literature. At the age of 18, he came to reside at Romsey, and immediately on his settling in life attracted the

attention and secured the high esteem of the most influential persons in the town. After this period, he began to hear the name of Dr. Priestley every where reviled, and the sect to which he belonged spoken against: resolving to judge for himself, he obtained one of his books, and instantly perceived the clearness of his reasoning and the scriptural nature of his arguments, and thus he persevered until he became his true disciple; the venerable Lindsey was also held in equal estimation. He took great delight in the study of law, his knowledge of which was of service to many of those who have but little to leave, and who, by his kind assistance, were enabled to leave that little to their children without the expense of legal advice. He was also very considerate of the poor; nor did he too searchingly inquire into their faults before relief was granted, but "quite forgot their vices in their woe.' He was uniformly cheerful, kind and hospitable.

March 26, at Manchester, aged 59, Mr. JOHN CHAPMAN. The best obituary notice we can offer of this worthy man, will be in the concluding paragraphs of the sermon preached, the Sunday after his funeral, at Cross-Street chapel, Manchester, by Rev. William Gaskell.

"While accompanying me in these thoughts, some of my hearers will have found in them a general reference to the character of a friend, removed from earth since we last met together, who, as it seems to me, well exemplified the spirit which I have endeavoured to recommend, both in actively doing and patiently bearing the will of God.

"In early life he had belonged to a different religious denomination from our own; but having seen reason to adopt the faith so generally spoken against, he was ever ready to give his testimony on its behalf, and shewed the sense which he entertained of its value by acting as Treasurer, for several years, to our Village Missionary Society, which has for its object the support of Unitarian views of Christian truth among the poor, in places where but for its assistance those who hold such views would be unable to worship together at all. This was an office which, from the want of interest frequently exhibited towards the objects of the Society, demanded at times no little exercise of the faith and trust of which I have spoken; but conscious that those objects were good, he steadily worked the work that was given him to do, and I have often admired the cheerful, hopeful spirit which he brought to circumstances in which most would have seen reason

only for disappointment and vexation. While thus serving what appeared to him the cause of Christian truth, his interest was likewise shewn in the great work of education by his fulfilling, for a considerable number of years, the duties of Secretary to our schools. In both these capacities, his habits of regularity in the conduct of business were well applied, and he did what his hand herein found him to do faithfully and zealously, so long as ability was continued to him. But it pleased our heavenly Father to prove him by the deprivation of one of the greatest of all earthly blessings-a deprivation sorely trying to any, but peculiarly trying to one of active habits like himself. His was the sad, irreparable loss of sight! And now came the call for the duty to which I have adverted, of waiting the will of God in faith. Many, in such circumstances, would have been rendered restless and discontented, and been inclined to dwell in querulous tones on the preciousness of the gift which they had irrecoverably lost: it was not so with him. I never saw him, after this sad deprivation had befallen him, that I did not find him cheerful, and disposed to dwell with thankfulness on the pleasures that still remained to him,-still interested as ever in the higher objects to which his more active days had been devoted-still solicitous for the progress of knowledge, and freedom, and social improvement-still earnest on behalf of the views of Christian doctrine which he had been led to embrace, and still affording an encouraging example of their power to comfort, sustain and console. And when at last the pains of earth were drawing to an end-even in his dying hours—what were the objects which had lain close to his heart, was made distinctly manifest amidst the dim wanderings of thought and feeling, as the one continually reverted to matters connected with the schools for which he had laboured, and the other found vent in portions from the hymns of praise and hope and holy trust in which he had so often joined together with us here. He is gone, we humbly trust, to the land where all is well with all who well have done '-where the sight of God's wonders shall never again be veiled from his eyes, but a far higher glory than ever rests upon earth shall shine in everlasting splendour before them. Thither let us prepare to follow him; holding ourselves ready for every Christian duty, for every work of piety and love, and waiting in faith through whatever trials we have to pass, till our Father calls us home."

THE

CHRISTIAN REFORMER.

No. LIV.]

JUNE, 1849.

[VOL. V.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION IN INDIA.

We are glad to perceive that the subject of demoniacal possession is beginning to attract some attention in this country. In the Gentleman's Magazine for January of the present year, the following notice appears:

"A premium of Fifty Guineas has been awarded to the Rev. Thomas Woodward, formerly of T. C. D., and now Curate of Fethard, in the diocese of Cashel, for the best essay on the following subject-What evidence does Holy Scripture afford for the opinion, that demoniacal possession ceased at the ascension of our Lord and the apostolic age; and how does our practical knowledge of human life correspond with the notices of Scripture on the point?""-The wording of the thesis is not to be commended for its precision: we should suppose from it that the ascension of our Lord and the apostolic age were one and the same thing. Again, Mr. Woodward's "practical knowlege of human life" may convince him that the Devil does not now enter the bodies of Irishmen; but when did he cease to do so at the Union, or the Reformation, or the landing of St. Patrick? These are questions which we do not see how a practical knowledge of human life can enable any man to answer, and therefore "the point," whether possession ceased with the apostolic age, cannot be settled in this way.

How far demoniacal possession was a phenomenon peculiar to the times of the promulgation of the gospel, is a question on which those who believe in its reality are not agreed. Some think that it always did and does still exist; others, that it was limited to that age. The reader may be surprised, perhaps, to find that Jortin* believed Providence to have suffered evil spirits to exert their malignant powers so much at that time, to give a check to Sadduceism among the Jews and Epicurean atheism among the Gentiles; that Semler thought some unusual power was then allowed to the Devil. He may be less astonished that Bishop Warburton held the Devil to have had an important part in the economy of Grace, and that demoniacal possessions were reasonably to be expected at the promulgation of the gospel, because they have an intimate relation to the doctrine of redemption. The relation appears to be this, that as the Devil had triumphed in the Fall of man, it was necessary he should be signally discomfited by him who came to bruise the serpent's head.

Since the controversy which the publication of Mr. Farmer's admirable work excited, the question of demoniacal possessions has been

* Farmer's Essay on the Demoniacs of the New Testament, pp. 129, 145. 2 T

VOL. V.

little agitated in this country. Among those who in theology are "nullius addicti jurare in verba magistri," the conviction is, we believe, universal, that they were nothing more than natural diseases-epilepsy and melancholy or raving madness. The unlettered reader of the Bible probably acquiesces in what seems to him the word of Scripture, and believes that devils in the vulgar sense had possession of the bodies of men in the times of the gospel history. Educated theologians of orthodox denominations are rather shy of enunciating their opinions on this point, but if pressed would probably declare their belief that the demoniacs of the gospel were really possessed by evil spirits, though no man who reads the New Testament in the original could fall into the vulgar error of confounding demons with devils. The Bishop of Oxford, in a volume of Sermons preached before the Queen and published at her request, has declared his own belief in the reality of possession, and holds it up as a providential circumstance that the story of the Gadarene demoniac and the destruction of the swine has been given by three of the evangelists, to refute all doubts on this subject. In Germany, such has been the change of opinion since the days of Semler, we apprehend an attempt to support the popular notion would be regarded nearly in the same light as a defence of the Ptolemaic system of the universe.

Of those who hold the reality of possessions in the time of our Saviour, some believe that evil spirits still continue to occupy the bodies of men, and find in this belief the easiest solution of the fearful phenomena of mental disease. The majority, probably, think that there was something peculiar and exceptional in the state of the world in the age of the preaching of the gospel, and that what is now a natural disease was then the effect of a supernatural cause. It would not be very easy to defend such an opinion on philosophical grounds; but this may be alleged in its behalf, that madmen do not now profess that they are possessed by demons, as they did in the age of the apostles, and that if we accept the testimony either of themselves or their contemporaries, we must believe that those whom our Saviour healed were really inhabited by evil spirits.

This is in truth the only argument which can be urged against the opinion which has been supported by the scriptural and classical learning of Joseph Mede, Sykes and Farmer, and the medical discrimination of Dr. Richard Mead. It would lose all force if we could shew that at the present day exactly the same opinions prevail and the same language is held, in cases where every intelligent observer admits that there is no real possession, and that the disease is simply natural, having its appropriate place in a system of pathology. It was therefore with great interest that we read a series of articles on Demoniacal Possession in India, in the Dublin University Magazine for March, September and October last. We regard them as containing such a valuable contribution to theological science, that we propose to transfer their substance to the pages of the Christian Reformer, where we think they will be better appreciated than among the very miscellaneous contents of the Magazine in which they first appeared. Much of their value must depend of course on the authority from which they come. We are informed that they were written by Mr. Robert Xavier Murphy, Mahratta interpreter to the Supreme Court of Madras. They

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