loved, but the fond remembrance of warm attachments and christian virtues, which, amidst many sighs and tears, be has honestly, however inadequately, attempted to display. Poole, March, 1822. A Poem, "The Land of the Blessed" Professor Walker's Testimony to his cha- ....... MEMOIRS, My beloved child, WILLIAM FRIEND, SO named from his maternal grandfather, was born January 7th, 1803.* It was no sooner announced to me that 66 a man child was born into the world," than I most solemnly dedicated him to his Maker; and from that day to the dreadful moment in which I heard he was gone beyond the reach, or the need of prayer, I never once, to the best of my recollection, *The author deems it necessary to inform his youthful readers, that a few of the commencing pages refer to the treatment of his child almost in the very nursery. They will perceive, in the progress of the work, his reasons for paying so much attention to the earlier stages of his history. But if they find this part uninteresting, they may, without impropriety, proceed at once to the account of his moral and religious, or that of his intellectual, education; the exact places of which are indicated in the Table of Contents. offered my supplications to God in private, without distinctly remembering and mentioning him. Since his removal, it has been one of my bitterest griefs, that neither he nor those with whom he had a common and an equal interest in my affections, remain to form an object of solicitude in such hallowed employments. The sincerity with which I so often made that dedication, has now been put to a severe test; and, though "not without "strong crying and tears," I have been enabled, through the grace of HIM who smote me, to say, "The LORD gave and the LORD taketh away, and blessed be the name of the LORD." The celebrated John Howe, in addressing Sir Charles and Lady Hoghton,* on an occasion similar to that which has agonized my heart, says, "You concurred in this the dedication of your son-you covenanted with God in Christ to be his God. But then you ought to consider what the import and meaning was of that your covenant. Was it not * Dedication to his "Redeemer's Dominion over the invisible World," a Sermon of almost unequalled vigor, beauty and pathos, preached nearly a century and half ago, |