1812. He could not help looking with anxiety to the fact that five sons, all approaching manhood, would soon expect to be established in business, while he could not command the capital necessary to ensure the probability of their success. He was in easy circumstances, and had even lent a few hundred pounds; but this is to be accounted for by his economy in living, and as in no degree resulting from extended trade or accumulated profits. His means were sufficient for himself, but could not satisfy the expectations of his family. Looking about him, he saw the stream of manufacturing prosperity, which he had started as a very small rill at the Hall-in-the-Wood some thirty years before, now sweeping along like a great river, carrying wealth and prosperity to the mansions of all who dwelt upon its banks, but ever passing his humble dwelling without leaving there any portion, however small, of these abundant riches.

"We must not say that this made him envious, but assuredly he felt it to be an undeserved hardship; and it occurred to him, and to others also about the same time, that some share of this enormous wealth should, in strict justice, be intercepted in its passage, and placed at the door of him who had originated the mighty stream upon which it was borne along."

A memorial was addressed to the Government in 1812, on Crompton's behalf; his Lancashire friends were powerful and his expectations were naturally raised. His petition, founded on the memorial, was laid before the house of Commons; it was favourably received; and a committee was appointed to investigate his claims, of which the chairman was Lord Stanley. On the committee we observe the names of Sir Robert Peel, Spencer Perceval, George Rose, and Wilberforce, together with many of the Lancashire members of that day. They reported" that the petitioner appeared to them to be highly deserving of a national reward." Crompton's hopes were high, though now they had been "long deferred." He spent several dreary months in London, waiting, as suitors do, in lingering suspense about the lobby of the house of Commons. At length the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Perceval, "was prepared to propose a grant to Samuel Crompton as a reward for his valuable invention." On the 11th of May, 1812, he was in the lobby of the house in conversation with Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Blackburn, the member for Lancashire, upon the subject of his claim which was about to be brought forward. One of these gentlemen remarked, "Here comes Mr. Perceval." The group was immediately joined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who addressed them: "You will be glad to know that we mean to propose twenty thousand pounds for Crompton: do you think that will be satisfactory?" Crompton did not hear the reply, as from delicacy he had turned aside. A minute or two, and a shot was heard and Perceval fell dead by the hand of his assassin, still grasping a paper, in which were the figures "Crompton £20,000, £10,000, £5000." It was understood to signify that he did not mean to accept less than £5000,

but to obtain the largest sum, if possible. The ministry was broken up; the new Chancellor of Exchequer, Mr. Vansittart, found himself surrounded by financial difficulties: riots occurred at Bolton, and the subject of a grant to a Bolton manufacturer became, no doubt, at the time distasteful. But five thousand pounds was at length awarded him. A great part of it had been already forestalled; the remainder was invested in his business, in which he was joined by his sons. But still he was unsuccessful. He took bleaching grounds; for the business of bleaching for calico printers was just then very prosperous; but coal pits were sunk near his premises, injuring the quality as well as the supply of his spring water, on which everything depended; a tedious and expensive lawsuit followed of course; old age was creeping on; Crompton became less than ever fitted for business; and at length he sank into poverty. A few generous friends in the neighbourhood of Bolton now purchased for him an annuity which produced sixty-three pounds, and on this sum he lived when all his other resources had disappeared. At the age of seventy-four, in the year 1827, Crompton died, and a long train of the most honoured of the town and neighbourhood attended to see his body committed to the dust.

A great moral belongs to this biography. It is the fashion of late years, especially with our public lecturers, to tell young men that their fortunes are in their own keeping; that industry and uprightness will secure success; that the man may be whatever the lad resolves to be, sickness and unavoidable calamity, perhaps, being allowed for. They are not addressed as a company of feeble and sinful creatures, but as creatures who can do what they will, and want only the will to do it. Indomitable will is the golden image set up. The sentiment has been, within the last few years, a hundred times repeated. Sir Robert Peel gave his sanction to it when he addressed the Glasgow students, and Mr. Gladstone, referring to Sir Robert Peel, repeated it the other day at Edinburgh.

"Let me recall to you," he said, "how another lord rector of Glasgow, whose name is cherished in every cottage of his country, and whose strong sagacity, vast range of experience, and energy of will were not one whit more eminent than the tenderness of his conscience and his ever-wakeful and wearing sense of public duty--let me recall to you how Sir Robert Peel, choosing from his quiver with a congenial forethought that shaft which was most likely to strike home, averred before the same academic audience, what may as safely be declared to that there is a presumption, amounting almost to certainty, that if any one of you will determine to be eminent, in whatever profession you may choose, and will act with unvarying steadiness in pursuance of that determination, you will, if health and strength be given to you, infallibly

succeed.'

you,

It is true that Mr. Gladstone qualifies Sir Robert Peel's asser

tion; but his own statement lies far beneath the level of true Christian magnanimity; for after all, the love of praise and the hope of triumph are so put before his audience, that the love of God is no longer the one commanding motive. Let those who read what follows remember the testimony of Henry Martyn when he had gained the coveted honors of the Senior Wrangler, "I had obtained the object of my ambition, and I found to my surprise that I had grasped a shadow."

"And, gentlemen, the hope of an enduring fame is, without doubt, a powerful incentive to virtuous action, and you may suffer it to float before you as a vision of refreshment, second always, and second with long interval, to your conscience and the will of God. For an enduring fame is one stamped by the judgment of the future, that future which dispels illusions and smashes idols into dust. Little of what is criminal, little of what is idle, can endure even the first touch of the ordeal; it seems as though this purging power, following at the heels of man and trying his work, were a witness and a harbinger of the great and final account. So, then, the thirst of an enduring fame is near akin to the love of true excellence. But the fame of the moment is a dangerous possession and a bastard motive; and he who does his acts in order that the echo of them may come back as a soft music in his ears, plays false to his noble destiny as a Christian man, places himself in continual danger of dallying with wrong, and taints even his virtuous actions at their source. Not the sublime words alone of the Son of God and his apostles, but heathenism too, even while its vision was limited to this passing scene, testifies with an hundred tongues that the passing scene itself presents to us virtue as an object and a moral law, graven deeply in our whole nature, as a guide. But now, when the screens that so bounded human vision have been removed, it were sad, indeed, and not more sad than shameful, if that being should be content to live for the opinion of the moment who has immortality for his inheritance. He that never dies, can he not afford to wait patiently awhile? And can he not let faith, which interprets the present, also guarantee the future? Nor are there any two habits of mind more distinct than that which chooses success for its aim and covets after popularity, and that, on the other hand, which values and defers to the judgments of our fellow-men as helps in the attainment of truth. But I would not confound with the sordid worship of popularity in after life the graceful and instinctive love of praise in the uncritical period of youth. On the contrary, I say, avail yourselves of that stimulus to good deeds, and, when it proceeds from worthy sources, and lights upon worthy conduct, yield yourselves to the warm satisfaction it inspires; but yet, even while young, and even amid the glow of that delight, keep a vigilant eye upon yourselves, refer the honour to Him from whom all honour comes, and ever be inwardly ashamed for not being worthier of His gifts."

Fame then, and success in life, are to be two grand inspiring motives-only they are to be subjected to the higher rule of conscience and religion. And they are generally, too, at the command of the young man himself. A youth well spent will secure a

prosperous career. Now although the converse of this proposition is true, the proposition itself is not so, except it be taken with limitations and exceptions which make it of little or no value. A youth squandered is a manhood crippled of some of its best proportions; but the most exemplary conduct in youth will not secure even a fair measure of success in life. What has it done, at this moment, for thousands of poor clergymen, not a few of whom, as they read this memoir, will feel that, in the hopelessness of the struggle at least, Crompton's life has, so far, been the counterpart of their own? What has it done for thousands of the other sex, who have, we do not say squandered, but sacrificed youth and health and perhaps the deepest of all possible affections, to an invalided parent; and who now live on solitary and poor, and must live on so to the end of their days? Are these the rewards of a well spent youth, resolving to be great, and so achieving greatness? Yet these are amongst the noblest instances of Christian heroism. The proposition starts upon a false principle; it makes this world the theatre in which God's purposes and man's destiny are acted out. A Christian knows better: he accepts the cross. "Son, remember that in thy lifetime thou hadst thy good things," is not exactly the greeting for which he is anxious to qualify himself when the eternal gates shall be unbarred. Having food and raiment, he will be therewith content. If more is given, he receives it thankfully; if less, he cheers himself onward with the anticipations of that day when he shall "eat bread in the kingdom of God;" and this will make amends for all.

Such inducements as those which tell of certain success in life produce a stunted patriotism and a stunted morality; for we will not even speak of a stunted piety. They lead young men unconsciously to study effect; to measure themselves, and others too, by their prosperity. Failure is disgrace; obscurity is ignominious; the humble pursuit of virtue for her own sake is at an end; it is for the sake of the success she brings, of the gold in her hand, or the plaudits on her lips, that she is courted. How truly noble in contrast to all this are the precepts of that book which tells us that we are "to do well, and suffer for it, and take it patiently;" for here we have no abiding city-we seek one to come. And the policy of such instruction is no less unsound. The shipwrecks of life bear a sad proportion to its brilliant successes; but those who go down on this tempestuous ocean disappear unnoticed. Few can be successful, fewer still can be eminent, in any walk of life. Circumstances which add to the value of the character in God's sight frequently impede success in this world. Many a blustering, unscrupulous manufacturer, noisy, vulgar, and unprincipled, enriched himself while Crompton struggled on meekly, silently. Crompton was laughed at in the marts of business for his shyness and modesty; and these qualities, no doubt, were in painful excess; but they were natural to him; he had not had the opportuni

ties in youth of fighting them down and how nobly were they compensated by genius, by strict integrity, by unwearied application, by domestic virtue. And yet Crompton died a beadsman, dependant upon charity. It is a sickly morality which tells young men to look for success in this world: rather remind them that they are born to be the heirs of a glorious immortality; and that success on earth is nothing except as it contributes to God's honor and their own eternal welfare.

Crompton was a religious man. He worshipped God in his family when family worship was a rare occurrence. In his later years he joined the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgian sect. The ministry of the church of England was cold and doctrinally imperfect, and in the mysterious reveries of Swedenborg his soul sought repose, and a warmer and more loving creed. The services of the little band of Swedenborgians at Bolton were presided over by a venerable, and, strange as it may sound, we believe, a sincerely pious clergyman from Manchester, the Rev. John Clowes. Probably neither Crompton nor his pastor embraced all the doctrines of Swedenborg; they added to their church of England creed his notions of intimate commerce with the world of spirits; just as, in later days, good men have added mesmerism and tableturning, without a suspicion that these absurdities trenched upon their allegiance to the orthodox faith. Be this, however, as it may, we close our short memorial of his life with a renewed tribute of respect for the memory of a great and good man; one whose greatness was seen by a lifelong struggle with adversity, and his goodness in the meekness with which he bore it, and his contempt of the shifts and manoeuvres by which he might, more than once, have altered the complexion of his fortunes.

HOARE ON THE VERACITY OF GENESIS.

The Veracity of the Book of Genesis; with the Life and Character of the Inspired Historian. By the Rev. William H. Hoare, M.A., &c. &c. London: Longman and Co. 1860. 1 Vol. 8vo. WE hail this work of Mr. Hoare as a contribution to our literature of a class most important at the present time; bringing before the church of God truths which have been too much lost sight of or neglected. Those, indeed, who have passed the period of middle life, in whom the ardour of inquiry is abated or quenched, may perhaps with safety ignore the principal matters which his book brings before us. With them the material is often subdued by the spiritual. With affections fixed more steadily upon things above, they look upon the things and concerns of the physical universe as of little comparative moment. And all human know