Review of the Temple, 8fc. by George Herbert. 149 



ing what was due to his neighbour also. The friendship of these men was 

 one of no vulgar stamp; it was a friendship, based on religion, cemented by 

 mutual views and sympathy; a friendship, commenced in youth, and matured 

 in manhood, growing with their growth, and strengthening with their 

 strength, continuing unbroken through life, and only discontinued in the 

 moment of death, to be perfected in the eternity of a resurrection. 



Like Bishop Home after him, Mr. Herbert was a great admirer of music, 

 in which he is also said to have been himself a proficient : it formed the 

 solace of his leisure hours, and this accomplishment betrayed him not into 

 idle habits, but stirred up his devotional feelings, and instead of calling 

 forth the concealed evil of the heart, became in his hands a vehicle for such 

 sentiments as purify and exalt the mind. 



He matched " music against music;" he said that "It did relieve his 

 drooping spirits, repose his distracted thoughts, and raised his weary soul 

 so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven, before 

 he possessed them." 



It is recorded that in Mr. Herbert's first sermon at Bemerton, he gave 

 his parishioners many necessary, holy, and safe rules for the discharge of 

 a good conscience towards God and man, and this with great learning and 

 eloquence ; but at the close he told them that this should not be his con- 

 stant way, religion not consisting in hard questions, but that he should in 

 future be plain and practical. 



He ever selected the subject of his sermon from the services of the day, 

 and he was at great pains to explain the reasonableness and fitness of those 

 services. 



On Sunday afternoon he catechised, a practice now without any authority 

 laid aside, and he was careful never to exceed half an hour in length. 



In compliance with a regulation of the church, still in force, he had 

 prayers twice daily in the chapel annexed to his house, and they were 

 attended by the labourers and many of the gentry ; such was the influence 

 of his example. 



The death of Mr. Herbert was perfectly in accord with his life. His 

 temper, which, under constant watchfulness, seems to have lost all traces 

 of asperity, was unruffled by his bodily suffering, and his frame of mind 

 remained unchanged to the last. He died, as he had lived, a Christian; 

 and iiis last words bore testimony to the stability of that belief, by which 

 through life he had been actuated. He reflected iionour upon a family at 

 that time of the brightest among the Englisii nobility, and added another 

 to the long list of excellent and able men, who have owed their education 

 to superior mothers. 



A little before his death he sent the manuscript of his " Temple" to his 

 dear friend Mr. Farrer, with a request that he would read it, and publish 

 or burn it as he might think it likely to be useful or not; for added he, " I 

 and it arc less than the least of God'a mercies." 



