plause for skill, no less than courage, since he scientifically practised his profession.

Though often remonstrated with, and even sometimes alarming by his horrid imprecations the better portion of his comrades, he still went on in his evil ways, until the occurrence of what he speaks of as a vision from heaven, and would have regarded as a miracle. To fill up the interval, it seems, one morning, previous to the hour appointed for meeting certain of his associates at a dinner party, he took up one of the religious works with a quaint title, published at the era of the Protectorate, when the Puritans were in fashion and in power. He read to ridicule, but was suddenly overpowered by a conviction, awfully indescribable, of his wickedness, which threw him into a sort of vision or trance, during which he imagined, as we construe the declaration, that he saw a living representation of his crucified Master, and heard the divine voice, in tones of entreaty and to this purport, "Have I not suffered this for thee?" The dream, the fancied vision, or what you will call it, struck him with profound dismay, and awakened his soul to the consideration of its state.

From this period he was another man: strictly pious, regular in every habit, loving solitude and religious conversation and prayer. He became a disciplinarian of the noblest sort, the moral teacher as well as commander of his men. He now was used to recount the wonderful providences (so he termed them) of his life, of his extraordinary escapes, of being wounded in the mouth just after uttering a horrid oath, a punishment closely consequent on his offence of striking personal deliverance from imminent dangers. A good man and true Christian hero, after Steele's model, a saint militant, he yet was not without a besetting defect—and that was the excitability of his religious imagination. He dreamed a

:

dream of following across the part of a field his Lord and Saviour: he made a prediction of the death of the king, which turned out correct. Everything with him was miraculous, and a little heightened by (unconscious) extravagance. No doubt he was sincere: the only question is, if he was not a self-deceiver. A sudden conversion, an opportune deliverance, is sufficient to turn the head of the wisest man. We think that, like Donne's extraordinary vision of his wife and dear child, his vision was the waking dream of an imaginative mind.

Whether imagination or reality presided on these occasions, still he remained consistent and firm: unlike Volney and those cowardly blasphemers, who take back in a moment of security what they uttered in the hour of danger. Ever these circumstances remained before him, a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to guide his faltering steps. A lofty confidence elevated the hopes and daily walk of the happy man, who considered himself blessed in beholding the countenance of his Saviour and friend.

With the mass, the love for the miraculous, for prophecy, for mysteries, is more a false state, a mere religious stimulant, and not the healthy action of a vigorous soul. But it was

not so with him.

Gardiner died the death of a soldier and a Christian, on the field of battle, and in the arms of victory, an officer of the generous strain of Gustavus Adolphus; and like that lion of the North, high-toned, exact, judicious, and sincere, he fought the good fight of faith, and left behind him a sweet remembrance in the hearts of all, as a brave and accomplished officer, a steadfast Christian, a good man, and a courteous gentleman-Requiescat in pace.

To return to the general subject: for modern religious

biography, we entertain no great favor. The writers of it are in most cases ill-fitted for their task, and indeed quite unpractised in composition. Southey's Wesley (a philosophical history of Methodism) and Heber's life of Taylor are the only two classic works in this department, of the nineteenth century, we can, at present, recall. The lives of most missionaries are more interesting for the satistical information they contain than for aught else. Missionaries should be good travel writers, yet we find only a single Borrow among them. The subjects of religious biography are in most cases good enough people, but quite unworthy of being embalmed for the admiration of posterity. The embalming is thrown away, for they never reach posterity. An eminently great and good man, an exemplar of faith and charity, should never be allowed to pass out of the memories of men, cannot be forgotten; he will live in tradition, if not in printed books. But many good, humble Christians die daily, whom it is by no means essential to write the lives of; whom it rather hurts the interests of religion, and certainly of literature (considered purely as such) to make unduly prominent. The facts of their lives are few; they have done little to affect the rest of mankind; their greatest victories (silent and obscure) have been over themselves (the noblest of victories), and their profoundest discoveries have been of the wickedness of their own hearts. These facts, to the individual of all others the most important, still have little interest for the world at large. The story of the Christian's life is told in two words, Repentance and Love. Now, unless striking instances occur, or curious details are presented, a religious life, of all others, presents very little to interest even the most sympathizing intelligent) reader.

The injury done to literature by a flood of religious lives is

clear: standard works of the highest character are neglected for a new biography of the least value; corruptions of style become frequent, and essentially impair the idiomatic graces of our tongue. Inferior models of excellence are held up, to the exclusion of the most excellent; cant is prevalent; at first unconscious, it becomes at last confirmed and hypocritical.

Let no serious reader think we underrate the humblest virtues of the patient Christian. We reverence piety in the garb of the beggar; we believe it to add a crowning glory to the wisest head. Yet we protest against an indiscriminate record of the private lives of Christians, who have not some other claim on the universal attention of mankind. Want of literature is not, however, the only want of many, both of the subjects and authors, of religious lives; many have wanted real humility, many have in a secret selfpraise elevated themselves above the rest of mankind, and thought a publication of their conversion and religious experience, necessary for the salvation of the world. With such we can pretend to have no patience, since we believe that they are self-deluded after all, and rather to be pitied than admirred.

The sincere Christian need not fear oblivion. Unknown to men, he is not forgotten by his heavenly Father; and if his life is not told in the perishable books of human authors, his name is nevertheless registered in the Book of Life.

XXX.

TITLES.

WE Americans have been ridiculed for our extravagant admiration of titles, with more of justice than most of us are at all willing to allow. Notwithstanding our republican spirit, in government and political rights, we still, as a nation, entertain a vast respect for forms, ceremonies, honors, grave respects.

The most laughable part of the matter, too, is found in the fact, that a people characteristically pacific, both from inclination and policy, should affect such a violent attachment for military titles, with all the pomp and insignia of war. Every petty mechanic may become, and often is, a captain or major. Your host at the tavern is colonel: the blacksmith of the village, perhaps a general-sometimes a GREENE. The persons holding these offices are frequently among the mildest of men, probably so timid as to run, in actual conflict, at the report of artillery. Our city and country militia would hardly stand before a disciplined army-save and excepting always, in a defensive national war, and then cowards would be converted into heroes. We do not speak of such an emergency, but refer to the soldierly character of our people. A mere soldier of fortune fights equally well, or ill, everywhere, under every government; but Americans are soldiers from necessity, and at home. There they would act like brave men, as they always have done.

English writers have noticed this mock heroic trait in our people; but they have not remarked that the admiration for titles is as common in the line of civil as of military life. We are equally open to satire on that side, also. A judge of a