return to England, Reginald Heber was admitted into Holy Orders, and was instituted by his brother, to the family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire; a place which he had long regarded with feelings of peculiar attachment. He returned to Oxford, however, for a short time, and took his degree of Master of Arts. His mind at this period, as appears from his correspondence, was chiefly occupied by theological subjects; and it may be mentioned that some doubts respecting the right interpretation of certain Articles of the Established Church, for awhile withheld him from accepting Priest's Orders. He did not, however, altogether lay aside the exercise of his poetical talents. He revised and carried forward, a poem entitled "Europe," which he had begun at Dresden in the summer of 1806, and which was published within two or three years afterwards. He also interested himself at this time, in bringing about the establishment of the Quarterly Review; being earnestly of opinion that some such work was urgently required, in order "to set some limits to the despotic authority of the Edinburgh." To the early numbers of the Quarterly, he was himself a contributor; as he was also, occasionally, to some other periodicals. In the month of April, 1809, REGINALD HEBER finally quitted the University, and entered upon domestic life. He married Amelia, youngest daughter of Dr. Davies Shipley, dean of St. Asaph, and granddaughter of Dr. Jonathan Shipley, bishop of the same diocese ; and betaking himself at once to the retirement of a country parish, he devoted himself to the conscientious discharge of the laborious duties. of the ministry. At Hodnet, Heber remained during the next fourteen years of his life, fully occupied in the care of his extensive parish. He preached twice on Sundays, the practice of his predecessor having been to deliver a sermon only in the morning of the Sabbath, and he also insitituted a weekly lecture. Aware of the necessity of adapting his language to the understanding of his untutored flock, he was especially careful to use great plainness of speech; and while he distinctly taught the great doctrines of the gospel, his discourses were eminently practical in their design and character. Of the fruits of his labours at Hodnet, he is said to have seen less than he might reasonably have hoped. It may be, however, that the precious seed which he was permitted to sow, sprang up in after-times, and is even now bringing forth its harvest, while he is reaping his reward in a better and brighter world. Soon after his establishment in his parsonage at Hodnet, Reginald Heber, whose poetic taste never forsook him, began the composition of a volume of hymns; and having a remarkable facility in the use of different metres, he adapted these sacred compositions to various popular airs. In a musical point of view, the good taste of this proceeding may, perhaps, be questionable; it had, however, the good effect of securing to his beautiful hymns a more extended circulation than they might otherwise have commanded. The duties of his parish constituted Reginald Heber's occupation; the pursuits of literature his relaxation. In the year 1812 he published a small volume of poems consisting of translations from Pindar, and other miscellaneous compositions; but the favourite occupation of his leisure, at this period of his life, was the formation of a dictionary or concordance to the Bible. Of this laborious undertaking he thus speaks, in a letter addressed to a friend: "My main project, however, and in which I work hard a part of every day, is a sort of critical Dictionary of the Bible; which, if I ever finish it, will supply, on a large scale, the defects of Calmet; and even if I do not, it makes me more and more familiar with those books, which it should be the business of my life to study." This occupation, however, and others of a more serious kind, did not prevent him from occasionally indulging himself in those flights of imagination, in which, in his younger days, he had delighted. A poetical romance, entitled the "Morte d'Arthur," was written during his residence at Hodnet; and has since been published in the Appendix to his "Life." Palestine," too, had been set to music by the late eminent Dr. Crotch, the Professor of Music at Oxford; and Heber was induced to publish that poem, in conjunction with a shorter composition of a somewhat similar character, entitled "The Passage of the Red Sea." 66 As a visitor of his parishioners, Heber was most exemplary; and that, not only under ordinary circumstances, but in times of especial trial and danger. On one occasion, a highly infectious fever prevailed in his parish; and his friends remonstrated with him on the danger to which he exposed himself by visiting the sick. His reply to their well-intended representations, was such as became the devoted servant of Him, who "went about doing good." "Am I not," he said, "as much in God's keeping, in the sick man's chamber as in my own?" The disease at length attacked not only himself, but all the members of his family; but in no instance in that family did it terminate fatally. In the year 1813, this devoted parish-priest removed with his family to Moreton, a perpetual curacy, in the neighbourhood of Hodnet; the rectory-house, at the latter place, requiring extensive repairs. To Hodnet he returned in 1814, invigorated in health, and, if possible, more than ever devoted to his pastoral duties. During the following year (1815), he was appointed by the University of Oxford, to deliver the Bampton Lectures; a series of sermons, which he soon afterwards published under the title of "The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter, Asserted and Explained, in a course of Sermons on John xvi. 7." In 1818, the subject of this memoir was visited by a domestic affliction, which his tenderness of heart caused him to feel with peculiar acuteness. His infant daughter died after a brief illness; and this event it was which gave occasion to the following beautiful composition, known to many of the admirers of Heber's hymns: Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee, Thy Saviour has pass'd through its portal before thee, And the lamp of His love was thy guide through the gloom! Thou art gone to the grave! we no longer behold thee, Thou art gone to the grave, and its mansion forsaking, And the sound which thou heard'st was the seraphim's song! Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee, About this time, Heber contributed several articles to the Quarterly Review, in the prosperity of which he took much interest. The critique on Milman's "Fall of Jerusalem," and the yet more elaborate Strictures of Southey's "Life of Wesley," were from his pen; and at a somewhat later period, he reviewed, in the same periodical, Lord Byron's Dramatic Poems. To the Christian Observer, he also contributed some valuable papers. About the year 1821, Heber produced a copious life of Jeremy Taylor, with a review of his writings; and almost immediately after the publication of these compositions, which were prefixed in the year 1822, to a complete edition of Taylor's works, Heber was elected by the Benchers of Lincoln's-Inn, preacher to their society. On this appointment he had chambers in London, with an addition of about £600 to his annual income, the duty required being the preaching of thirteen sermons during the year. This office, so honourable both on account of the abilities and high character of those who elect to it, and on account of the literary eminence of the persons by whom it has been held, is usually, as it is well known, regarded as offering to its possessor the prospect of a bishopric; and to a speedy elevation to the English Episcopal bench. Heber, whose Lincoln's-Inn sermons were compositions of extraordinary merit, might now have looked forward with confidence to an English bishopric; but the time was approaching when he was to be removed to another and a wider field of Christian exertion. It might at that time, comparatively speaking, be regarded as a rare circumstance, that a man of high intellectual powers, and great literary attainments, should be willing to forego the honours and emoluments which these advantages might be expected to procure for him in England, for the sake of presiding over a Christian church in a distant and semi-barbarous country. The condition of India had, however, long occupied the attention of Reginald Heber; and the duty of this country with regard to its Eastern dependencies pressed heavily upon his mind. He saw, in the possession by England of that wide and populous portion of the globe, the means provided by Divine Providence for the dissemination of the truths of the gospel among nations which for ages had been sunk in the gross darkness of heathenism, or deluded by the false faith of Mohammedanism. He read with keen interest the published accounts of the labours of Christian missionaries of various denominations in that benighted region; and he deeply regretted that the Church of England had done so little in aid of the great work of evangelizing India. In the Christian labours of Henry Martyn he was especially interested; with that devoted servant of God, he traversed, in imagination, the sultry regions of the East; he shared in his privations; he sympathized in his sorrows; and he exulted in the prospects of success with which occasionally his path was cheered. India, in short, took possession of his mind; and he often expressed his wish that his own lot were cast there. Even the natural phenomena of tropical climes, their luxuriant vegetation and magnificent scenery, had no small charms for his enthusiastic mind. The love of Eastern manners, too, he had imbibed from his study of the Bible in infancy. It will therefore be readily believed, that when the Bishopric of Calcutta was offered to him, on the death of Dr. Middleton, who had been appointed to that important see, on its erection, about eighteen years before, he took the offer into his most serious consideration. He was, indeed, most affectionately attached to his flock at Hodnet; he dreaded to subject his wife and child to the dangers of a long voyage, and an insalubrious climate; and he was far from confident respecting his own fitness for an office which he regarded as in the highest degree important. Twice he declined the proffered bishopric; finally accepting it, from the conviction that in so doing he was following the call of duty. On his appointment being publicly announced, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He then preached at Hodnet a farewell sermon, which deeply affected all who heard it; and received from his parishioners, who greatly regretted his departure, a token of regard in the form of a piece of plate, towards the cost of which, the humblest among them was anxious to contribute. He then visited for the last time, his birth-place, Malpas, and there, as at Hodnet, took leave of his many friends, in an affecting discourse. On his arrival in London, he preached before the Benchers of Lincoln'sInn, a striking and faithful sermon on the subject of the Atonement, and resigned the office, the duties of which he had so well discharged. On the 14th of May, 1827, Dr. Heber was consecrated at Lambeth, and on the 16th of the following month, he embarked at Gravesend, with his wife and infant daughter, on board the Company's ship Grenville, and landed at Calcutta on the 11th of October following. Of the episcopal career of this eminent man, whose splendid talents and Christian excellences" rendered," as one of his friends has remarked, "his course of life, from the moment that he was crowned with academical honours till the day of his death, one track of light, the admiration both of Britain and of India," we hope to give a brief account in our next number. AN ADMONITION. TIME was; is past; thou can'st not it recall: |