In the year 1818, Mr. Owen was visited with a disorder of a most painful nature, which occasioned his withdrawment from his accustomed labours for several months; but the Lord was gracious to him, and to the Society, by restoring him in a great measure to health and activity.

"Ever since this severe and tedious illness," says a friend, "[ observed in the whole of his con⚫versation and deportment increased gravity and seriousness. He seemed to have death and eternity most deeply impressed on his mind ; and on many public occasions he repeated with great emphasis those striking words;-Work while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work."

Mr. Owen's labours as curate of Fulham parish being dispensed with by the Rector about the time when the Auxiliary Bible Society at Oxford was formed, he became the minister of Park Chapel, near Chelsea, where he continued to dispense the word of life, until disabled by his last illness.

Of the particular circumstances of that visitation we are not able to give an accurate account. Suffice it to say, that for many weeks the regular operations of his great mental powers were much weakened, and he was deprived, in a considerable degree, of an ability to express fully his views and feelings on the approach of death.

"The progress of disease presently incapacitated him either for reading much himself, or of giving his attention to others. But I learn from different friends, who had

sometimes the opportunity of speaking to him, that his mind was always most awake to subjects of religion; and that, whenever he could be roused to mental exertion, these were the subjects which recalled, for a time, his decaying energies."

"The last words (says Mr. Hughes in his Funeral Discourse, p. 45) which he spake in my hearing, were, "Those are the things!" in allusion to the following language, which I had just cited,

Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel;" meaning, as it was natural for me to conclude, that to him worldly things had lost their savour, and that he wished to be engaged, as far as his debilitated faculties would permit, in the contemplation of God, eternity, and heaven."

Mr. Owen breathed his last at Ramsgate, (to which place his friends had taken him in hope of recovery) on the 26th day of September, 1822, in the 57th year of his age.

His remains being conveyed to Fulham, were deposited in the church-yard, in a grave near the spot in which his revered friend Granville Sharpe had been interred. The funeral procession was attended by 13 carriages, and most of the shops in Fulham were closed, as a token of respect to the worthy minister, who had for many years dispensed the word of life in that parish.

We cannot close this brief and imperfect Memoir of Mr. Owen more properly than by transcribing the following just and honourable testimony officially borne to hi

* See Mr. Dealtry's Sermon, p. 36.

memory by the acting members of the Society.

"At a meeting of the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Sept. 30, 1822, the Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth, President, in the Chair: The President stated, that he had now to discharge the melancholy duty of reporting to the Committee the death of their Secretary, the Rev. John Owen, which took place on Thursday the 26th of September, at Ramsgate.

"In adverting to the afflicting dispensation which has deprived the British and Foreign Bible Society of the invaluable services of its late Secretary, the Committee cannot resist the impulse of duty and affection thus to record their grateful testimony to his zeal and unwearied exertions.

"As no one was more deeply impressed with a sense of the great importance of the Institution to the best interests of mankind, no one laboured more strenuously and effectually to promote its influence and prosperity. To this object, which was ever near to his heart, his time, his talents, and his personal labours, were unremittingly devoted. The correspondence which his official situation imposed on him was alone sufficient to occupy the time which he could spare from his professional duties; but the energies of a superior mind enabled him to extend his care and attention to every branch of the multifarious concerns of the Society, and to accomplish more than could have been expected from individual efforts. His pen and his voice were incessantly employed in its cause. The former was frequently and vigorously exercised in elucidating the principles of the Institution, or in defending its character and conduct against misrepresentation or aggression. To his pen the world is indebted for a luminous and authentic history of the origin of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and its progress during the first fifteen years of its exstence; in which the characters of truth and impartiality are through

out conspicuous: while his eloquence, so often and successfully displayed in advocating the cause of the institution, impressed on his audiences that conviction of its utility, which he himself so strongly felt, and which the progressive experience of eighteen years has now so amply confirmed.

"But his eloquence was entitled to a higher praise; it was the effusion of a heart in which candour and liberality ever predominated; it was characterised by that suavity of disposition which had endeared him to the affectionate esteem, not only of his colleagues and the Committee, but of all who were in any way associated with him in transacting the business of the Society; while his great and diversified talents commanded general respect and admiration, and never failed to produce in public meetings an harmonious feeling of mutual regard among all who had the privilege of attending them.

"In the year 1818, "Mr. Owen, at the suggestion of the Committee, undertook a journey to the Continent, principally with a view to the recovery of his health, which had materially suffered in the cause of the Institution; but also for the purpose of visiting the Bible Societies in France and Switzerland.

"Of his conduct during this excursion it is suflicient to say, that it tended to raise the reputation of the Institution, of which he was the representative; and to cement that happy union which had so long subsisted between the British and Foreign Bible Society and its Contimental associates; and that his advice and experience were eminently useful in forming arrangements for the establishment of new Societies, or for rendering those already existing more active and efficient.

The Committee, while they deeply lament, individually and collectively, the loss which the Society has sustained, cannot but devoutly express their gratitude to Almighty God for having so long granted it the benefit of the zeal and talents of their beloved associate: to the indefatigable exertion of that zeal and

when it formed a spirit whose nature rises high above gross matter, whose mysterious power of thought can dart through the vast region swarming with glorious worlds, whose conscience, estimating moral character, weighing actions, and anticipating consequences, darts forward to a whole eternity of bliss or love. Father of spirits! couldst thou create, not merely one such invisible, intangible being, with all its mysterious nature, and all its mighty powers; but have myriads of such productions spring up at thy voice to surround thy throne and partake of so glorious a resemblance to thee, and shall not these spirits adore thee? But while I adore, I tremble at the giddy height to which I am exalted; and I repeat with awe, the dread sounds, soul! rational! accountable! immortal! For ah, a sad consciousness of sin reminds me how much these privileges have been perverted, and how completely they might turn to curses! If I attempt to deprecate thy wrath due to sin, I shudder, lest I should seem to deny the enormity of offence committed against such a Being, whose claims on my reverence, obedience and affection are attested bythe thundering voice of an united creation.

But here my meditations take their sweetest turn! I can own all the extent of my guilt, I can admit how much I have deserved all the horrors of thy displeasure, and yet can plead exemption! For the mysteriously grand Creator, the inflexibly righteous moral Governor, has become the condescending, the compassionate Redeemer. Then such a Saviour is 'mighty to save,' as he was to create, or would have been to destroy! For when that Being, who could bid worlds swim in infinite space, and maintain them all by a simple volition of his infinite mind, employs this same in

finity to recover, to save and to bless, what may not be expected from his grace?

My heart reposes on thy word, thy testimony of pardon and life through Christ. My soul feels that she rests on the same, basis on which the universe is upheld; and her peace, like her being and immortality,

66 passes all understanding." But my meditation is the more sweet, when I reflect that thou hast not only pardoned me, but entered into a friendly covenant with me, and hast bound thyself by oath never to cease from doing me good. I look back through another year, and see thy faithfulness to a covenant, "ordered in all things and sure," and muse on all thy lovingkindness and thy truth, till my heart grows warm within me, and my devotion burns, to think that all this vast infinity of being and perfection that dwells with thee is all my own; that every thing which the creation displays of activity and efficiency, of might and skill, of beneficence and grandeur, is all pledged to me, to be forthcoming in every need, and to be employed throughout eternity, to make me blessed. O God, it is too much! I am ready to exclaim; but I am checked by thy voice, that says, "Too much, indeed, it might be for thee to expect, or receive; but not too much for me to give; for I delight to do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think.'"

If, then, my meditations on thy past dealings are sweet, so shall be my musings over that futurity which thou hast spread out before me. Eternity is so grand, that it is awful; from its vastness I shrink, and almost think it gloomy to have the prospect of living for ever; though I feel that my soul shudders at annihilation, as a dread abyss. But when I think of eternity with THEE, it is delightful; with thy society,

and that of thy beloved friends, I shall know no solitude; by thine infinite resources, modes of enjoyment shall be found for me which will leave no vacuum in my being or my bliss; and through eternity it shall be sweet to meditate, that, upheld by Thee, I shall never lose myself, my holiness, my heaven, and oh, still higher transport, never lose my GOD!

On the Certainty that the Influences of the Holy Spirit will be granted, in answer to the Prayer of Faith.

THERE is reason to suspect that inaccurate and unscriptural views of the sovereignty of God in the dispensation of spiritual blessings has had the effect of enfeebling, in the minds of many Christians, the confidence which they would otherwise have reposed in the promises of the effusion of the Holy Spirit. The God of inviolable faithfulness has given us the most explicit and unequivocal assurances, that He will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him. Our divine Redeemer has represented this heavenly gift to be as essential to the life and health of the soul as bread is to the life and health of the body; and has made the most touching appeal to our own feelings of parental attachment, in order to convince us, that if we could not disappoint the expectations of our own children when they look to us for bread, it is impossible that our heavenly Father should disappoint our expectations, by withholding his Holy Spirit, when we earnestly and importunately implore this gift. On such assurances as these ought we not most confidently to rely? Has not the God of all grace established an inseparable connexion between prayer for divine influence and the reception of divine influence? It is indeed most wondrous, but it is un

deniably true, that the actual participation of this influence is, by a fixed and irreversible ordinance of heaven, connected with the desire to possess, and with prayer to obtain it! "No such connexion can be traced in things of inferior value, between the desire and the attainment. We find not any such connexion between the desire of riches and riches; between the desire of honour and honour; between the appetite for food and food." Such a connexion has never been imagined by a human being, except, indeed, in the tale of avowed and romantic fiction. But in the economy of divine grace, and in the communication of spiritual influence, this is no fiction of a sportive mind, but the sober and the glorious reality of truth. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"

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Let it not, however, be forgotten, that the prayer which God honours is the prayer which honours God. In proportion to the explicitness of the promise and the faithfulness of Fim by whom it is made, should be the firmness of our reliance and

the confidence of our expectations. When on the first Christians the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were bestowed, faith in the promise and in the power of God were indispensably requisite, both on the part of him who was to perform a miracle, and on the part of him on whose behalf the miracle was to be performed. Not less necessary, in