his guilt. His own cheeks were often bathed in tears when he preached; and his heart was full; and his audience was often overwhelmed with deep and sudden emotion. His aim was the heart; and he well knew how other hearts would feel when he felt, and how other eyes would weep when his own ran down with tears.

As the result of the great purpose of his soul to do good on the widest scale possible, he adopted any kind of means or measures which would in his view tend to make an impression on the minds of men, and save the soul. He did this without system, or plan, save the general purpose to do good in all ways possible; he did it without inquiring whether the means used were new or old; rife or obsolete; approved or disapproved by others; commended or condemned. He employed all the means which others had ever successfully employed, and all which his own fertile imagination suggested as adapted to make an impression on the soul, and to save it. If the means which he used were not always deemed by others the most judicious which might have been employed; if, in his addresses to sinners, there was sometimes much that seemed harsh and severe; if those measures were sometimes such as seemed to more phlegmatic minds the result of over-heated zeal; still there was but one feeling with respect to the motive which prompted them. In regard to those means, he quarrelled with no man for differing from him. He had his own way, and he was willing that others should have theirs also. If they did not choose to use the measures in promoting revivals and saving souls, which he adopted, he had no con

tention with them. If, as sometimes happened, men less zealous and devoted, men more concerned about orthodoxy than the salvation of souls, complained in the presbytery or synod of the course which he adopted, he disarmed them by telling them of the good that was done; he administered a silent but most effectual rebuke, by leaving them to judge of the comparative results of their plans and of his. In the controversy which has been waged within a few years past about 'new measures,' he took no part, but kept on in his own way, and left the argument to others, while he used just such measures as he judged best, and left the keeping of his reputation to God.

As a part of his plans he was accustomed to set every young man to work who could be employed in doing good. He had plans of benevolent action which constantly demanded the aid of others; and he seized upon the assistance of others, wherever it could be commanded, to further and perfect his schemes. Every young man therefore that was with him, who had the ministry in view, and all indeed over whom he had an influence, were employed in some scheme of benevolence. In this connexion it may be mentioned, that he was the originator of the sabbath school system of instruction in this city on its present plan; and indeed it is believed also the originator of the plan itself of gratuitous instruction on the Lord's day. Robert Raikes, in England, had devised the plan of instructing children on the sabbath; but in his system the teacher was employed, and paid as is common in the weekly schools. In this country, and in this city, schools had

been taught on the evening of the sabbath; but the system of gratuitous instruction on the sabbath day, owes its origin to Mr. Patterson. His heart was deeply affected with the condition of the multitudes of children in the streets on the sabbath. In a small circle of pious females, he mentioned his feelings. The plan was suggested of gathering them into some convenient room before or after public worship on the Lord's day, and of imparting gratuitous religious instruction. The plan was adopted, and carried into execution in the lecture room of his church in Coates street-a house since, alas, desecrated, and converted to a different purpose, though without any fault of this congregation, to theatrical amusementsa purpose as skilfully and successfully adapted to destroy the souls of the young, as the other was to save them. In the estimate of Mr. Patterson's plans of usefulness, why should not the amasing result of gratuitous sabbathschool instruction be regarded as an answer to the prayer which of all others he most frequentoffered, "Lord help us to PLAN and SCHEME for the advancement of thy Kingdom!"

I add, that it was an essential part of his plan to preach "the gospel to the poor." A large portion of his ministry contemplated their welfare; and it may be added, that in their service he exhausted his constitution, and wore away his life. For many years, until the state of his health forbade it, he was accustomed to gather them in crowds on the commons, and to proclaim to them the word of salvation. No man, since the days of Whitfield, probably, could collect greater multitudes to hear him; and

though for many years he has been unable to preach in this manner, yet there was no man in Philadelphia, at whose death so many of the poor would have been gathered together to honor his memory, and to attend him to the grave. Thus

"To relieve the wretched was his pride,

“And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
"But in his duty prompt in every call,

"He watch'd and wept, he prayed and fult for all.
"And as a bird each fond endearment tries
"To tempt its new fledged offspring to the skies,
"He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
"Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."

GOLDSMITH.

IV. HIS SUCCESS. A few remarks is all that the time will admit under this head. There is an influence which a good man, and especially a minister of the gospel, exerts on a community which no one can estimate. It has already been compared to the sand or the dew. "But who can write the history of the dew or the rain?" Who can tell exactly and minutely, all the benefits which result from them to the vegetable and the animal creation? They fall on each spire of grass, on each plant, each leaf, each flower; and the influence is seen in the earth carpeted with green; in the air fragrant with the smell of flowers; in the tree that lifts its head high towards the clouds; and in the abundant food for brute and for man. There is an influence of a good man and of a minister of another kind which it is impossible to estimate. It is that which shall result from his ex

panding and developing plans when he is dead. He may have set in motion a train of causes which shall continue to operate long after he is laid in the grave, perhaps till the affairs of this world shall be wound up by the coming of the Son of man to judgment. He may have formed plans which shall be divulged only in other nations, and among a people whom he has never seen. Or he may have contributed to introduce men to stations of influence and power, and who shall act on the destinies of man, when his own name shall be forgotten. It is not to be regarded as true, therefore, that the most valuable men are always those whose usefulness can be most easily subjected to the guage, and can be admeasured. And it is sometimes true that those men are most useful whose names are least known, and least blazoned abroad by fame. We do not pretend, therefore, to be able to record all the evidences of usefulness in the life of him who has been taken from us. But there are evidences of usefulness, and of the divine blessing on his labors, rarely surpassed in the ministry in this or in any other country.

We have already seen that his early ministry in New Jersey was blessed with several revivals of religion. In this church, when he became its pastor, there were but fifty-two members. During his ministry here of twenty three years, there were received into the communion sixteen hundred and ninety members; on an average about seventy-four in a year. In the very successful ministry of Dr. Payson, it is recorded that he admitted about forty in a year on an average to the communion of the church; and, perhaps, there has not been an instance in this land of a pastor who has ad