I was constantly anticipating scenes of future grandeur, and indulging myself in the pleasures of the imagination. "After I had worn out many months in this misery, observing one day an advertisement in a newspaper, for a clerk to an attorney,' I offered myself, and was accepted. I was much liked, and soon made friends. I then obtained a better situation with another gentleman in the law; and, lastly, engaged with a solicitor of respectable character and connections in the city, with whom I remained nearly three years. During all this time I had sufficient allowance to appear as a gentleman; my desire for going abroad gradually abated, and I began to think that I should make the law my profession

for life."

It is not improbable that this premature explosion of our hero's youthful energies, exhausted in some degree the physical ardour of his character, and intimidated, at least for the time, his sanguine disposition. In the year 1790, Buchanan, whose conduct had hitherto been lamentably at variance with that sense of reli

gion which he had imbibed from education, was first effectually impress ed, by means of conversation with a friend, with a concern for salvation. By the recommendation of his pious mother, he then went to hear, and subsequently introduced himself to the venerable John Newton, rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London. Mr. Newton interested himself in the welfare of the young stranger, with his characteristic warmth of benevolence; and in him Buchanan found an enlightened and faithful counsellor, and a steady friend. The total change thus superinduced in Buchanan's views and feelings, gave rise to a determination, which his venerable friend was forward to approve, to relinquish the study of the law, and to devote himself to the ministry of the Gospel, for which his parents had once designed him. For the accomplishment of this newly awakened desire to enter the Church, he was indebted to the munificent kindness of the late estimable Henry Thornton, Esq. who determined to send him to the university of Cambridge, at his own expense.

We pass over the details of Mr. Buchanan's college employments and

correspondence; they serve, however, to evince the solid character and sincerity of his piety. In 1794, Mr. Newton made him the first direct proposal of a voyage to India; the manner in which he received it, though it does great credit to his diffidence and humility, shows that "the ardour which he had formerly evinced to enter into the ministry, without much academical preparation," was indeed sensibly abated. He referred the decision implicitly to Mr. Newton, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Grant. Only, he thought it necessary to intimate his opinion, that " as strict attention ought to be paid to human means in our endeavours to promote the success of the Gospel, as if it were merely a human dispensation."

"I once," he writes, " thought myself prepared for the Church! shudder at my temerity. A zeal, (if zeal it may be call dictated this unhallowed confidence. In ed,) "without knowledge," must have one sense, indeed, any one to whom God

has given his grace may enter the Church, however ignorant or unfit in other matters; inasmuch as all success in it comes from God."

Early in the year 1796, Mr. Buchanan's friends recurred to the plan of obtaining for him the appointment of a chaplaincy in the service of the East-India Company, which appointment he received on the 30th of March in that year, and on the 11th of August he embarked for Bengal, accredited by a letter of recommendation to the Rev. David Brown, from the Rev. Dr. Gaskin, Secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He landed at Calcutta on the 10th of March following, two days before the completion of his thirty-first year.

Here, however, he was doomed to experience a disappointment, the result of unforeseen arrangements, which seems to have palsied for the time all his energies, and overwhelmed hin with despondency. He found himself consigned to a total seclusion from active duty, at a military station at Barrackpore, sixteen miles above Calcutta. Mr. Pearson gravely remarks, that "this retirement afforded him a valuable opportunity for privat

study;" but this was not exactly the purpose for which Mr. Buchanan undertook a voyage to the Indies; and the effect of this cruel exile, combined with the influence of an enervating climate, was most pernicious. "This, Sir," writes Mr. Buchanan, is a climate which tries the mind like a furnace. Deterioration seems inherent in Indian existence." To Mr. Grant he writes,

"I seem to have come out under rather unfavourable auspices. No feature of my mission is very agreeable. But I view the whole as the counsel of the Almighty; and I know that in his plan there is great beauty, though I may not perceive it.

"I have passed this last year in milita. ry society, or in solitude. And as I shall shortly be stationed up the country, I cannot expect any material change dur ing life. But if I rightly improve the opportunities I may have, I shall do well. What I lament most is, the effect this in. active life has on my mind. You will not be surprised if both my moral and intel. lectual powers suffer by it. The climate no doubt has its effect in this hebetation of the soul; and I hope I shall recover from it in time.

"I suffered a long struggle before I could resign myself passively to my unexpected destination. But the struggle is now over; and I view myself as one who has run his race; to whom little more is left to do. I have known some, who, in such a case, would have extricated themselves with violence, and sought a new fortune in the Gospel. But it will require a very evident interposition of God indeed to bring me out of this Egypt, now that he has placed me in it; I shall esteem myself highly favoured, if I be enabled to pass my days in it, with a pure conscience, endeavouring to do a little, where much cannot be done."

Mr. Buchanan's conduct under these circumstances, was influenced by a determination" not to step beyond the prescribed limits of his duty as a military chaplain." His biographer intimates his hope, that the narrative may serve to check in any who may be similarly situated, either abroad or at home, the too natural disposition to despondency or haste." A serious illness, however, soon after threatened to affect still more permanently Mr. Buchanan's capacities of usefulness. From this he slowly recovered, but the spring and tone of his feelings seemed to be destroyed.

We find him speaking" in terms of much commendation" of the Baptist missionaries, Messrs. Thomas and Carey; but his own expectations respecting the conversion of the Hindoos, were at this period very faint indeed. Some of his remarks are, however, highly jadicious.

They

"I wish not that any prudential considerations from what has been, or from what may probably be, should check the missionary ardour of the day. Nothing great since the beginning of the world has been done, it is said, without enthusiasm. I am, therefore, well pleased to see multitudes of serious persons, big with hope, and apt to communicate; for I think it will further the Gospel. Instead of thirty missionaries, I wish they could transport three hundred. can do little harm, and may do some good. But let them send as many children as possible, or those who may have children. They will do more good by and by than their parents. No man turned of thirty can learn to speak a new language well. No Englishman turned of twenty, who is only acquainted with the labials and dentals of his mother-tongue, can ever acquire an easy and natural use of the nasals and gutturals of the Bengal language. Send, therefore, old men to take care of

the morals of the young; and send the

young to convert the heathen."

Of the Hindoos, Mr. Buchanan gives the following opinion.

"Must I say something of the natives? Their general character is imbecility of body, and imbecility of mind. Their moral powers are and have been for ages in a profound stupor; and there is seldom an instance of their being awakened. A partial attempt, or rather experiment, is now making on them by some Christian teachers. The Hindoo mind seems at present to be bound by a Satanic spell; and it will require the co-operation of a more than human power to break it. But Divine co-operation implies human endeavour. Many ages must then elapse before the conversion of India is accom

plished.

"With respect to moral action, the Hindoos pay as little attention to their own religion as a rule of life, as the EngChristian religion is a proverbial jest lish do to theirs. Your profession of the throughout the world."

"A residence in this country adds much to the personal dignity of the European. Here the labour of a multitude is de

manded for the comfort of one: and it is not so much demanded as voluntarily

given. In no other country can we so well see the homage which matter gives to

mind. Generally, however, it is but the homage which black pays to white, This is the grand argument for keeping the Hindoos in a state of mental depression. The hyperborean Scotchman, broiling under a perpendicular sun, needs some le vamina laborum; and the state of the

Hindoo minds is admirably calculated to

take care of our bodies.

"You know the character of the Hindoo superstition. It is lascivious and bloody. I know no epithet that embraces so much of it as either of these two. Of the first I shall say nothing: I shall not pollute the page with a description of their caprine orgies in the interior of their temples, nor the emblems engraved on the exterior."

At length, towards the close of the year 1799, the Marquis Wellesley, then Lord Mornington, (on the enlightened policy and beneficial effects of whose administration these volumes furnish the most ample illustration,) appointed Mr. Buchanan a third Chaplain to the Presidency, and he immediately entered upon the du

ties of his office.

In the following year, his Lordship desired Mr. Buchanan to draw out a sketch of the constitution of the col lege which he was intent upon founding at Fort William, for the instruction of the young civil servants of the company in eastern literature and general learning. Of this college, the Rev. Mr. Brown, as we have had occasion to notice, was appointed Provost, and Mr. Buchanan, Vice-Provost. Mr. Pearson gives us an abstract of the general reasons upon which the Marquis Wellesley proceeded in the formation of this important institution, as detailed in a minute in council: they reflect the highest honour on his Lordship's sagacity. "Lord Wellesley," writes Mrs. Buchanan to a friend in England, seems inclined to support the Christian religion by every means." We now find Mr. B. in a station which rekindled all his ardour, deeply interested his feelings, and demanded his utmost talents and exertions. He now preached at one of the Churches in Calcutta once, and sometimes twice, on the Sunday. In his capacity as Vice-Provost, with which was united the classical profes sorship, the superintendence and practical government of the college prin

cipally devolved upon him; besides which, he had to attend to his lectures, an extensive correspondence, and a multiplicity of occasional engage ments. His assiduity and diligence were most exemplary; they were prompted by a pure spirit of devotedness to the Gospel, which manifested itself in a constant dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of his own exertions. "One thing urges me," he writes, "to press forward with hope; and that is, that all I hear, and all I say, appears to be so very unlike what it ought to be, that I imagine something better might be attempted." Perhaps there was a mixture of morbid feeling in this restlessness and dissatisfaotion. It is remarkable, that in the midst of his indefatigable labours, he confesses, that he did not know he ever had what Christians call "zeal." "I recollect," he says, ❝ that I expected it would grow, when I entered the ministry, but I had scarcely entered the ministry, and preached a few times, when I was sent to this country." There, imprisoned in a military station, and fettered by a chaplaincy, he was, indeed, placed in circumstances not favourable to the vigorous expansion of his enthusiasm. But if he had not, what it may seem a paradox to say he had not, the feeling of zeal, in which exertions like his usually originate; if he was not susceptible of that warmth of emotion which makes action pleasureable, communicating such an inpulse to the mind, that," though the mouth be rude in speech, the full heart becomes vocal, and utters "the word in season" the strength and consistency of his principles, and the noble elevation of his character, were but the more fully evinced by this circumstance,-that he had to toil through all his performances with "a languid and heartless constitution," as he himself describes it, "both in body and mind, which made him bear easily with all things, and have little pleasure in any thing." He gave a most amiable proof of the genuine excellence of his character, when in the year 1802, his income being now considerably augmented, he author

ized his aged mother to draw upon his agents for three hundred pounds annually; and further, when he remitted to his early patron, Mr. H. Thornton, four hundred pounds, as the amount of what he had expended on Mr. Buchanan's account during his residence at college. "He never expected that I should repay him," he says, "but God has put it in my power, and therefore it is my duty." In addition to this sum, he resolved to devote five hundred pounds to the support of a young man at the University, of religious character and good ability, who might be in the circumstances of poverty in which he had once himself been placed. These were traits of a truly Christian generosity of principle.

The extensive institution at Fort William, which reflected so much honour on the enlightened and noble policy of its illustrious founder, had from the first been viewed with jealousy, and even disapprobation, by the Court of Directors. It appears that mean suspicions, or at least very inadequate notions, were entertained as to the real object of the institution, although the reasons assigned for its reduction were purely of a financial nature. The plans proposed by the Court, which were to supersede it, were miserably inefficient and impolitic. An attention to the interests of religion and morality formed no part of them, and, accordingly, the consequence of their being made known among the students at Fort William, was a gradual relaxation in their attendance on Divine Service. The signal was considered as given by the order for the abolition of the college, for a return to "the old system of relaxed morals and contracting debt;" and thus, what Dr. Buchanan declares to have been "the honest purpose of Marquis Wellesley to do good in India," was in a great measure frustrated.

We must, however, refer our readers to Mr. Pearson's narrative for further details on this subject. We must also forbear to enter at large upon Mr. Buchanan's labours to obtain the extension of the ecclesiastical

establishment to India. His views in earnestly recommending this measure, were, we are convinced, purely patriotic; and the general arguments he made use of, to show the necessity of conveying spiritual instruction to the natives, were admirable.

The remaining volume of these Memoirs is occupied with details of Dr. Buchanan's journey, in 1806, to the coast of Malabar, and his visit to the Syrian Churches; with an account of his second visit to the coast in the following year, and his return to England in 1808; and with the history of his subsequent labours. The volume is highly valuable and interesting, but Dr. Buchanan's "Christian Researches" and other publications, have already put the public in possession of much of the information it comprises. The character which Mr. Pearson has given of the subject of his memoir, is marked by candour and discrimination; no one will dispute the justness of the eulogy which he pronounces on his "distinguished worth, genuine piety, and enlarged and active philanthropy."

Review of the Narratives of the Lives of the more eminent Fathers of the three first Centuries; interspersed with coptous Quotations from their Writings, familiar Observations on their Characters and Opinions, and occasional References to the most remarkable Events and Persons of the Times in which they lived. By the Rev. ROBERT Cox, A. M. 8vo.

Abridged from the British Review.

On more than one account the early history of the Church of Christ demands our particular consideration. It was extraordinary, to a degree which entitles it to be viewed as the greatest phænomenon the world ever witnessed, during all its strange vicissitudes, that a few individuals, scarcely compacted into a body, and chiefly united by a tie too spiritual and pure to be apprehended, much less appreciated by the generality of mankind, should nevertheless successfully resist a mighty confederation of human

power, in which princes and princedoms combined their energies, achieve a victory over national antipathies and sectarian virulence, and effect a revolution in the sentiments of man, the results of which are to this day becoming every moment more obvious and magnificent. That this fact has completely nonplused all the calculations of human probability, and continues, and will for ever continue, in its ever new developements, to set at defiance the logic of unsanctified reason, and the prognostications of mere worldly sagacity, is a sort of standing moral miracle, which fully attests the divine origin of that religion, of which the individuals to whom we have referred were the representatives, the ornaments, and the pillars. The evidence deducible in favour of Christianity from the pretensions and character of its original propagators, is at once plain and incontestible; so much so, that a mission of angels to our world would seem to have been not only less proper in itself, and less adapted to accomplish the high purposes of Providence, but less permanently efficacious, than the agency of those humble men who were in fact employed.

But, without restricting our attention to the apostles and first ministers of our holy religion, the whole of what is termed the primitive age exhibits a combination of excellencies in the coadjutors and immediate successors of these sons of inspiration, in which they were scarcely excelled by their singularly gifted predecessors. The stream of piety seemed at that period to have suffered little or no adulteration since it issued from its source. It had contracted little or nothing of the taint of bigotry, the discolouration of prejudice, and the ruffle of controversy: Christians were generally agreed, united, and happy in each other; men of God were men of peace, and the whole hemisphere of the Church was studded with stars of the first magnitude, which shed a delightful radiance over the whole scene. Simeon, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and others," of whom the world was not worthy," and "whose names are

in the book of life," adorned the early age of which we are speaking; and the record of their virtues occupies indeed a short, but most interesting section of ecclesiastical history.

By the way, it would be a matter of curious inquiry to ascertain what space in general history is occupied in detailing the actions respectively of the great and the good; for, however identical these may appear in the estimation of the mass of mankind, we are inclined to believe that they constitute very different beings. On the moral map, in forming the large circles and divisions, they must necessarily be assigned to far different latitudes, if not to opposite hemispheres ; though happily, in some remarkable instances, the two diversities are blended into one individual being. These however are not commonly united; and, whenever they are, it is naturalization, in which a foreigner becomes by law at home in a country not native to him. Leaf after leaf, and volume after volume, we believe, of the universal history of our species may be turned over, without finding any, or if any, more than a very indistinct and cursory notice of those whose goodness ought to make them held in everlasting remembrance, while the GREAT-the GREAT-the GREAT, perpetually meet the eye, fill up the ambitious scroll, and almost as uniformly disgust the feeling mind.

It would further be a subject of interesting investigation to mark the relative proportions of space and attention bestowed upon the two descriptions of mankind already specified, in sacred and profane history. In fact, so far as our observations extend, each of these species of writing may be completely characterized by the degree in which it is pervaded by narratives of the one kind or the other; so that Scripture biography, or what is strictly ecclesiastical, contains, generally speaking, and with exceptions only tending to illustrate our position, the history of the GOOD, while that which is secular or civil presents us chiefly with the history of the GREAT. We are always happy to be assisted in our researches into the real, not