Translation of the above.

How lovely, O Lord, are the shrines of thy sacred temple, to such as there offer sacrifices with joyful hands, when thy name is praised on the festal day, and many a victim falls before thine altar! But, alas! I wander far from thence. Shall I

I never return and be free from sadness? Under the roof of the temple, and at thy very altars, doth the bird build its nest, and repay the privilege with a grateful song. Even the birds enjoy that pleasure of which I am deprived. Ah! cruel is my

fate! Thou dost debar me from the sacred boundaries of my native country.Happy are they who go up to thy sanctuary with sounding harps, and fill it with their grateful voices; they call to mind thy kindnesses, and their joyful songs never end. Happy is he for whom thou portionest out joy joy with unsparing hand, whilst he advanceth on his way with sure feet. Hope is his support, his strength is increased, and soon he endeth his troublesome journey.

The changeful years translate all thing's into a better state. After fierce winter icometh spring. The seeds committed to the earth repay an increase to the husbandmen, when autumn now displayeth his rich harvests. Often have I beheld roses and drooping lilies which pined away at eve, yet flourish again in the morning. Oftener have I beheld the sun bury himself beneath the waters, wrapped in a stormy cloud, and yet he repaired his rosy head, clothed himself with shining rays, and again brightened the day.

Me, driven from my country, and a wanderer through these desert places, an enemy each day pursueth, nor ceaseth from the bloody pursuit until the night hath arrived, with the lengthening shades. But to me, the day, and the darkness of night, are both the same, for each continually reneweth my grief.

When thus the exiled Prophet of old, in a time of grief, committed these sad words to his plaintive harp; the hills

Memoirs of the late Right Reverend THOMAS WILSON, D. D. Bishop of Sodor and Man.

DOCTOR THOMAS WILSON, the venerable and apostolic Bishop of Sodor and Man, was born at Burton, a village in the hundred of Wirral, in the county palatine of Chester, on the 20th of December, 1663; and, as he says himself in his Manuscript Diary, " of honest parents, fearing God." He was baptized the Monday following, or, to use his own words, he "had an early right to the covenant of grace."

The family from which he was descended had been inhabitants, timeimmemorial, of that part of the county of Chester. His father died in the year 1702; his mother, whose maiden name was Sherlock, and who was born at Oxton, in the same county, survived her husband a few years; so that both his parents lived to see him a Bishop..

In his Diary he always speaks of his parents in the most dutiful and affectionate terms; and it appears to have been his daily practice to offer up prayers for their temporal and eter

nal welfare.

Great care was taken of his education; and, at the proper age, he was placed under the tuition of Mr. Harper, a very eminent schoolmaster in the city of Chester, with whom he continued till he was sufficiently qualified for the University. He was then removed to Trinity College, in Dublin, whither most of the young gentlemen of Lancashire and Cheshire were at that time sent, with an allowance of twenty pounds a year; a sum which, however small it may now be thought, was, in those days, sufficient for a sober VOL. III.

[VOL. III.

student in so cheap a country as Ireland.

Upon Mr. Wilson's admission into the University, it was his intention to have studied physic; but he was persuaded by Archdeacon Hewetson to dedicate himself to the Church, for which he seemed by nature more particularly designed. He did not, however, entirely relinquish the pursuit of medical knowledge; a circumstance which was afterwards productive of much benefit to the people of his Diocess.

During his residence at Dublin, he conducted himself with the utmost regularity and decorum; and, by his diligent application, made a great proficiency in academical learning. He continued at College till the year 1686, when, on the 29th of June, he was, at the immediate instance and desire of his friend the Archdeacon, ordained a Deacon by Dr. Moreton, Bishop of Kildare. The ordination was held for him alone, on the day of the consecration of the Church of Kildare, in the presence of a very numerous congregation; and our pious divine ever after kept the anniversary of it holy, and poured forth his heart to God in a particular prayer on the occasion.

Mr. Wilson's good conduct, and his consequent preferment, gave very great pleasure to his friend the Archdeacon; who continued to correspond with him till the year 1704.

The exact time of Mr. Wilson's leaving Dublin is not known; but it is understood that he quitted the University sooner than he at first intended, on account of the political and religious disputes of those days; nor could it have been long after his ordination that he took his leave of Ire

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land; for on the tenth of December, in the same year, (1686) he was licensed by Thomas Lord Bishop of Chester, to be the curate of New Church, in the parish of Winwick, in Lancashire, of which Dr. Sherlock, his maternal uncle, was then Rector. His stipend was no more than thirty pounds a year; but being an excellent economist, and having the advantage of living with his uncle, this small income was not only sufficient to supply his own wants, but it enabled him to administer to the wants of others; and for this purpose he set apart one tenth of his income.

On the 20th of October, 1689, Mr. Wilson was ordained a Priest by Nicholas Lord Bishop of Chester.

It was not long before Mr. Wilson's religious deportment and amiable conduct in private life, recommended him to the notice of William, Earl of Derby; who, in the year 1692, appointed him his domestic chaplain, and preceptor to his son, James Lord Strange, with a salary of thirty pounds a year. He was soon after elected master of the alms-house at Latham, which brought him in twenty pounds a year more. He had now an income far beyond his expectations, far beyond his wishes, except as it increased his ability to do good. Blessed with a liberal heart, and thoroughly disposed to charity, he made use of the good gifts which God had bestowed, to such purposes only as he considered were for the glory of the great Author and Giver, and the benefit of his neighbours in distress. Accordingly, we find that he now set apart one fifth of his income for pious uses, and particularly for the poor.

In 1697, the Earl of Derby offered him the Bishopric of the Isle of Man, which had been vacant ever since the death of Dr. Baptiste Levinz, who died in the year 1693. This kind offer, however, Mr. Wilson modestly declined, alledging, that he was unequal to, as well as unworthy of, so great a charge; and thus the matter Lested till Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York, complained to King William that a Bishop was wanting in his province to fill the See of Man; acquaint

ing the King, at the same time, that the nomination was in the Lord of the Isle, the Earl of Derby, but that the approbation rested in his Majesty; and urging the necessity of such an appointment, as the See had now been vacant four years, a circumstance with which he apprehended his Majesty might be unacquainted. The King hereupon sent for the Earl of Derby, who was at that time master of the horse, and told him, that he expected an immediate nomination of a Bishop for the See of Man, and that if his Lordship delayed it any longer, he should take the liberty of filling up the vacancy himself. In consequence of this admonition, Lord Derby insisted on his chaplain's accepting the preferment; and accordingly Mr. Wilson was (to use his own expression) "forced into the Bishopric;" a promotion for which he was in all respects eminently qualified, and which he justly merited as a reward for his faithful services to the Earl of Derby and his son.

Mr. Wilson took great pains with his noble pupil. Want of consideration, and a precipitancy of temper, seem to have been the principal faults in this young nobleman's character; and his tutor exerted his best endeavours to correct his Lordship's disposition in these respects. The following extraordinary instance of his management, upon a particular occasion, is said to have produced its proper effect:-One day, as Lord Strange was going to set his name to a paper which he had not read, Mr. Wilson dropped some burning sealing-wax on his finger; the sudden pain made him very angry, but his tutor soon pacified him, by observing, that he did it in order to impress a lasting remembrance on his mind, never to sign or seal any paper he had not first read and attentively examined.

On the 15th of January, 1697-8, Mr. Wilson being first created Doctor of Laws by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was confirmed Bishop of Man, at Bow Church, by Dr. Oxenden, Dean of the Arches; and the next day he was consecrated at the Savoy Church, by Dr. Sharp, Archbishop of York, assisted by the Bi shops of Chester and Norwich. On the fifth of April following, he landed at Derby Haven, in the Isle of Man, and on the 11th he was enthroned in the cathedral of St. Germain's, in Peel Castle.

On the 29th of September, the same year, he set sail for England, and landed the day following at Liverpool, whence, after a short stay, he went to Warrington, where he paid his addresses to Mary, daughter of Thomas Patten, Esq. to whom he was married on the 27th of October, at Winwick Church, by the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Finch, the Rector.

The Bishop staid in England till the 6th of April, 1699, when he took leave of his friends at Warrington, and arrived, with Mrs. Wilson, the next day, safe at his Diocess. This most amiable woman was every way the companion of his soul; pious, devout, and charitable, as himself. He had by her four children.

His prayers and his sermons furnish a sufficient proof of his study; his prayers were constant and devout, with his flock and with his family; and three times a day he communed with his own heart, privately, in his closet. During the fifty-eight years of his pastoral life, except on occasion of sickness, he never failed, on a Sunday, to expound the Scripture, preach the Gospel, or administer the Sacrament at some one or other of the churches of his Diocess; and, if absent from the island, he always preached at the Church where he resided for the day. When in London, he was generally solicited to preach for some one or other of the public charities, being much followed and admired.

In the year 1699, he published a small tract, in in Manks and English, entitled, "The Principles and Duties of Christianity," for the use of the

* The Manks is supposed to be the ancient Galic, or Erse language.

† This book was afterwards corrected and improved, and published under the title of "The Knowledge and Practice of Christianity made easy to the meanest capacities; or, an Essay towards an Instruc.

Island, the first book ever printed in the Manks language; and, with the assistance of Dr. Thomas Bray, he be gan to found parochial libraries, which he afterwards established and completed throughout the Diocess, and gave to each a proper book-case, furnishing them with Bibles, Testaments, and such books as were calculated to instruct the people in the great truths of the Gospel.

His family prayers were as regular as his public duties: Every summer morning at six, and every winter morning at seven, the family attended him to their devotions in his chapel, where he himself, or one of his students, performed the service of the day, and in the evening they did the same. And thus it was he formed his young Clergy for the pulpit, and a graceful delivery. In the prayers for his closet we meet with the purest sentiments of Christianity; and his Sacra Privata bear ample testimony of his uniform piety, and the excellency of his understanding.

He kept a diary as well of the special favours in extraordinary deliverances, as of the merciful visitations and chastisements he experienced in a variety of instances.

On the 9th of December, 1700, a fire broke out in the Bishop's palace about two in the morning, in the chamber over that in which the Bishop slept, "which," he says, "by God's providence, to which I ascribe all the blessings and deliverances I meet with, I soon extinguished; had it continued undiscovered but a very short space of time, the wind was so high, that, in all probability, it would have reduced my house to ashes.

"Blessed be God for this, and all other his mercies vouchsafed to me, and to my family; God grant that a just sense of his obligations, laid so often upon me, may oblige me to such returns of gratitude as become such mighty favours. Amen."

In the year 1703, he obtained the Act of Settlement, of which mention is made in his history of the Isle of