PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE very flattering manner in which the first edition has been received, and the encomiums passed by the highly respectable reviews annexed, as well as others, the writers being totally unknown to the author of these Reminiscences, demand his most grateful acknowledgments.

In addition to these, he has received a number of letters, from strangers to him, in different parts of the kingdom, in commendation; and what is still more dear to him, the approbation of his and Mr. Hall's oldest and most valued friends at Cambridge, who have pronounced the Reminiscences not only a faithful record, but as exhibiting such a portrait as to have affected them by bringing Mr. Hall and olden times immediately before them.

In other quarters he has been censured for interfering, and not leaving the life in the hands of those appointed to the task. In answer to this, he has to observe, that his was intended as an appendix, and that he never approved, in common with many of Mr. Hall's best friends, of the first selection of a biographer, (now unhappily no more); for however competent in point of talent and early youthful association Sir James Mackintosh might have been, it was impossible for him faithfully to delineate his after conduct and deportment, as a pastor, a preacher, and a friend; for he scarcely ever saw, heard, or wrote to Mr. Hall for the last thirty years. It appeared to us to be very much in the spirit of the age to prefer great names, as if they could add dignity to real greatness; and Sir James, not being a decidedly professed religious character, mixing and identified with the religious public, it appeared in employing him just as extraordinary (and he felt the difficulty) as employing Plutarch to write the life of one of the Christian fathers, with whom he had never associated. It must have been a similar failure to that which one of Mr. Hall's friends engaged in (from over persuasion, some years since) when he wrote the life of a celebrated literary character, and the edition has never been sold.

Mr. Hall observed to the present writer, as soon as that work appeared, "Sir, our friend has quite

mistaken biography, he has given us a criticism and history of his writings instead of the life of the man."

This just and admirable criticism made so deep an impression upon the mind of the writer that he was determined to avoid that error. However inferior in point of talent, having no pretensions to literary excellence or fame, yet he was anxious, if not ambitious, to place the character of his friend and pastor, and the guide of his youth, fairly before the public, in the pulpit, at home and abroad; and having seen, known, and heard Mr. Hall more, and for a longer space of time, than any person now living, his friends urged him to the task of looking over the materials preserved, which are three times more numerous than have been yet given.

In conclusion, he is very sorry to differ so materially from his friend, the Rev. Mr. John Foster, as to pronounce his criticism (in part) of Mr. Hall, in his prayers and as a preacher, erroneous; and this opinion is in common with those friends who knew him most: the fact is, that Mr. Foster seldom heard Mr. Hall of a morning all the time he was at Bristol, and never knew much of him before, according to his own confession. It is well known that Mr. Hall's preaching of a morning was more didactic and experimental,

"indi

and his prayers more spiritual and unctious, than those of an evening; and those persons who did not hear him in the morning, and who did not attend his administration of the Lord's Supper, are not competent to form a correct opinion of his general ministry. He would, particularly in the latter seasons, pour out his whole soul and the souls of the individual communicants, in prayer with strong cries and tears, as an oblation to the Deity for the unspeakable gift of a Saviour, and to the great Master of the feast for his love in dying for sinners. No one then would have thought such a thing as Mr. Foster has said, "that he did not individualize.". I have known instances in which Mr. Hall has been so vidual" in his services, bringing home the word of God to every man's bosom and business, that conscience has said, "Thou art the man." Private circumstances, of recent transaction, have been laid so naked and bare by the quick and powerful preaching of the word of God, that the parties have conceived some one must have told them to him. At the same time, on hearing this to be the case, he has solemnly declared he knew nothing of their affairs. Every one must admire the splendid talent and elegance of Mr. Foster's critique; but Mr. Hall's oldest and dearest friends must consider his prayers to have been the model of excellence, and his sermons nearest to the model of perfection ever yet produced; and what Mr. Foster calls an

excellence in prayer,

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a more thinking performance, a series of ideas more reflectively conceived," or rather more frigid. Mr. Hall had too much feeling and too much of the true spirit of impassioned prayer, arising from a sense of the absolute need of Divine help, as being lost and undone without, to make it "a more thinking performance;" and I am certain my valued friend, Mr. John Foster, on mature reflection, would never call a thinking performance" the essence or chief ingredient in prayer, or even an indispensable adjunct— prayer being naturally the offspring of feeling and necessity rather than a "series of ideas."

JOHN GREENE.

CAMBRIDGE COTTAGE, BRISTOL ROAD, BIRMINGHAM, July 1, 1833.