help and comforts of the creature, that we may rise in the realizing life of faith, and get a little higher at least in believing converse with our unseen Lord."

Three years had not elapsed ere Mrs. Hoare herself was summoned to the same blessed rest, and Mr. Pratt was called once more to condole with her bereaved husband :

"I have just been apprised of the solemn event which we had anticipated. I cannot but rejoice that the work of the gracious Refiner is finished; and that the spirit of your precious wife, washed in the blood of the Lamb, and clothed in the righteousness of her Lord, and adorned with the graces of the Spirit, has taken her station among those who have fallen asleep in Christ before her, to wait the glorious hour when our Lord will bring her with Him, and unite her to that body of humiliation, which you must soon put out of your sight, but which will then be made like unto His glorious body. Oh! I do hope and pray that, as she has found many of her dear relations and friends there, redeemed like herself by sovereign grace from among the children of men, she may be followed thither by all her surviving kindred. Glad and thankful am I, my dear friend, to see so many giving good promise of a heart and life devoted to God; and I trust that all and each will find a sealing and confirming power resting on their spirits from the testimony borne by such a life and such a death. If there be any whose hearts are not yet brought to a decision for God and heaven, I pray God that the example of one, who had at her command all that the world can give, may fix their feet firmly in the path of wisdom. She surely was raised up and sustained, as a subject of Divine grace and mercy, to shew to her whole extended circle the wisdom as well as the happiness of a simple reception of the Gospel of God our Saviour. Discerning and susceptible, yet stedfast and immoveable, she

was enabled, by the Holy Spirit, to seek acceptance with God through the alone merits of the Incarnate Saviour, and the renewal of the Divine Image in her soul by the power of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit; and in this course she has been kept by the power of God through faith, and has been borne through many conflicts and trials, brought on for the more perfectly uniting of her spirit to her Living Head, and for the cleansing and keeping open, through prayer, the channels of communion with Him. But now this lower stage of her being is passed away. She has entered on that intermediate exaltation which will prepare her disembodied spirit for the full felicity which awaits the redeemed, when the corruptible shall put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality. I know, my dear friend, that, as your years have been passed with your beloved wife in all the interchange and mutual support of endeared Christian faith and love, many places and circumstances will bring up associations in your mind, which may perhaps for the moment overwhelm you. Well! be it so; give way to your tears. You are the disciple of one who wept at the grave of His friend. Nor does He forget in heaven, what He felt as man on earth. If He closes in death the eye which ever beamed on us in love, and shuts that mouth which ever opened in wisdom, and silences the tongue in which dwelt ever the law of kindness, let us seek a more realizing faith, which shall bring us, by the continued power of the Spirit, into more direct and habitual communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. May a full measure of grace accompany this dispensation, to the eternal glory of our gracious God, in the present consolation and everlasting salvation of you all!"

CHAPTER XVII.

1835, 1836.

MR. PRATT DECLINES PREACHING THE ANNIVERSARY CHURCH MISSIONARY SERMON HIS SERMON AT THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP CORRIEIMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING THE PURITY OF TRUTH-PECULIARITIES OF MISSIONS CONNECTED WITH AN EPISCOPAL CHURCH-NEED OF A REVISION OF ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS IMPORTANCE OF A NATIVE MINISTRY-SCHOOLS-PROMISING SPHERE OF LABOUR IN THE EASTERN EMPIRE-DEATH OF BISHOP CORRIE, AND OF MR. SIMEON—ADVICE TO HIS SONS AT COLLEGE-IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT MOTIVES FOR ENTERING ON THE MINISTRY AND PREPARATION FOR ITS SACRED DUTIES-SECOND VISIT OF BISHOP CHASE TO ENGLAND-CHURCH PASTORAL-AID SOCIETY.

AFTER Mr. Pratt resigned the Secretaryship of the Church Missionary Society, he was repeatedly invited and urged by the Committee, and the Secretaries who succeeded him, to preach their Anniversary Sermon. But he could never be prevailed on to accept the invitation. It has been well observed by Bishop Wilson, that "he had not a particle of what we understand by assumption and forwardness." Unobtrusiveness was a prominent feature in his character, and in the opinion of his friends it sometimes verged to excess. It restrained him from the useful employment of his abilities on some public occasions, like that just mentioned, when his extensive knowledge on Missionary subjects, and his long and dearly-bought experience, might have been turned to much practical account. "He was willing to work underground and let others stand prominently forward, when he thought the end in view would be better attained:" and this he almost invariably imagined to be the case.

The following extracts of a letter from his relative, Mr. Jowett, then Secretary of the Society, who made one more attempt at the close of 1832 to persuade him to meet the wishes of the Committee, will at once shew on what grounds the appeal was made, and how strong must have been his natural repugnance to undertaking such a duty:

"I do not feel myself deterred by the short conversation of yesterday, but rather the more constrained to submit to you the importance of your undertaking to preach the Sermon at our next Anniversary.

"The great labour of preparing what would satisfy your own mind is, indeed, an argument of much weight against it. We partly know how many engagements press upon you; and we are bound to believe, that there are many more unknown to us and we are concerned also to be obliged to take into the account that your health, which is so precious to your own family, your parish, and the Church, does not admit of your prosecuting objects, as formerly, with uninterrupted energy.

"But now permit us to plead on the other side. You have an accumulated mass of knowledge and experience in Missionary matters, perhaps beyond any man living. God gave you these riches to be used. You cannot, indeed, if you decline our request, be accused of hiding your talent in a napkin; both because you often give us Missionary counsels, and also in the 'Register' we see your Missionary mind. But an Anniversary Sermon is a document which draws into itself more copious and well-digested views, and attracts far more public notice and in this way it affords an opportunity of doing so much the greater good.

"There is no other person that has so closely observed, for more than a whole generation, the great revival of these days; or that has been so truly pars magna of this

*

period. God cannot have ordained this for nothing. Has He not more work for you? * If time and study, and prayer and watchfulness, have all concurred to establish your judgment, then may we not ask to have the benefit of your opinion given under circumstances which no other person can command? * After all, that much mental labour will be requisite cannot be doubted. I earnestly hope, and I pray God that you may, in this respect, be strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man. As for the outer man (I mean to allude to that diffident and fastidious feeling, which would lead you to shrink from a work of great importance, through the fear of not satisfying your own mature mind, and the just expectation of the religious public), it is but an instinct, just like that of self-preservation, or any other: and it has its sanctified use, in keeping us from rashness, and impelling us to do things with the utmost (to us) practicable perfection. But if allowed to go further, may it not become a snare?

"You have seen, first the day of small things; then a day of surprising success, which elated many; then the chastisement of the Lord our God (Deuteronomy ii. 2); now, I do believe, a day of humble awe and believing enlargement (Isaiah lx. 5). Point out to us, I pray you, guidance and encouragements for a little longer. Write us a Christian Deuteronomy (Ps. lxxi. 17, 18)."

But this powerful appeal was ineffectual.

An occasion, however, of delivering publicly the results of his information and experience on subjects connected with Missions subsequently presented itself; and this, from personal considerations, he felt constrained to embrace.

In the year 1835, the Presidency of Madras and the Island of Ceylon were separated from the diocese of Calcutta, and erected into a distinct See; and the