may be said to be entirely destroyed; the few remains that have been picked up so demolished as to be of little value; and if all had been destroyed at once, it would not have been half the vexation that attends the recovery of any thing we have got.

"It is impossible by letter to give you any idea of the situation of this place; a place, I trust, Dr. Priestley will never be induced to live in again, if ninety-nine out of a hundred requested it. We have been here eleven years, and do not know that man, woman, or child has had reason to complain of us; and to be thus rewarded once, I think, is enough in one's life. It is a great comfort to feel conscious we deserved very different treatment. However, as we have been driven off the Birmingham stage, by the audience and our fellowactors, I do not think that God can require it of us, as a duty, after they have smote one cheek, to turn the other. I am for trying a fresh soil, though old to be transplanted, and leave them to settle at their leisure the repentance and sorrow they have brought upon themselves. **

"Dr. Priestley comes into the country as soon as I can join him to take a journey. All our fellow sufferers are as well as can possibly be expected. They will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second time, to make a bonfire of. So much for King and Church for ever." pp. 365, 366.

It appears to have been the expectation of Priestley's enemies, and the wish of many of his friends, that he would leave at once the country which had expressed to him so strongly its displeasure, and seek refuge in France or America. But not so did he feel. He was determined to do nothing that looked like cowardly or guilty flight. It was with some difficulty that he was prevailed upon to take any measures for escape from personal injury. As soon as he reached London, he informed the king's ministers of his presence and his readiness to answer any questions, but no notice was taken of his message. It was long before any public investigation was made in regard to the riot, and then less than the most common justice was awarded him, in a pecuniary compensation coming short, by two thousand pounds, of the fair amount of his loss. This was not paid till nearly two years after the event. Meantime, however, numerous societies and friends had done much to compensate him in every way. Large sums were given, and the most flattering assurances of esteem and sympathy. Noth

VOL. XVI.

N. S. VOL. XI. NO. II.

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ing could be more honorable than some of these testimonies, and we wish we had room for extracts. Even wide differences of religious opinion did not prevent entirely the expression of good feeling, respect, and regret. We find, to be sure, no relentings in the government or church party, nothing magnanimous, Christian, or even humane (we were on the point of saying human), so far as this volume testifies. But we do find letters from Dissenters of other and various denominations, whose language is equally creditable to themselves and to Priestley. This may be shown by a simple sentence from a letter written in the naine of three denominations. "In the cause of religious and civil liberty, we respect you as a confessor, and admire the magnanimity and meekness, equally honorable to the man and the Christian, with which you have borne the lo-ses you have sustained." Priestley published an "Appeal to the Public" in relation to the riots, to which the clergy of Birmingham replied. He followed their reply by a another Appeal, using the utmost plainness, and accusing some of them of being promoters and abettors of the outrage. To this they promised a reply, but never gave one. It was his intention then to. return to Birmingham, and resume his pastoral relation there, which he had not resigned. His congregation sent him most. affectionate and pressing requests to return. They and he were soon convinced, however, that he could not go back with safety; and he announced that conviction in a letter, the following passages of which will give some idea, both of the persecution that still followed him, and of the spirit in which he met it.

"What must be the government of a country, nominally Christian, in which such outrages against all law and good order cannot be restrained, and in which a man cannot be encouraged by his best friends to come to the discharge of the duties of a peaceable profession, without the apprehension of being insulted, if not murdered. ***** Though the enemy has burned our places of public worship, and lighted the fires, as I have been informed, with our Bibles, they cannot destroy the great truths contained in them, or deprive us of the benefit of our Saviour's declaration; 'Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake.'"- pp. 169, 170.

Dr. Priestley received flattering proposals and importu

nate requests from France, to make that country his home, and seems at one time to have been much inclined to accede to these proposals. He was regularly made a citizen of France, and was invited by several of the departments to represent them in the National Convention. This last honor he at once declined, having little confidence in his qualifications for such a place, and less relish for political life. His prevailing wish was still to remain in England, exposed as he was, to use his own words, "not only to unbounded obloquy and insult, but to every kind of outrage.' " And when, before the close of the year 1791, he received an invitation to succeed Dr. Price at Hackney, as pastor of the Gravelpit Meeting, he gladly accepted it, and soon removed there, entering immediately upon his duties, opening lectures to young people, delivering lectures also to the students of the new college in the neighbourhood, replacing his philosophical apparatus, "though after the loss of nearly two years," and declaring himself as happy as he had ever been, notwithstanding the singular trials to which he had been and still was subjected. For petty and malignant persecution had not yet ceased. It had hardly abated; one of the strongest proofs possible, that it was persecution from the worst of motives, rancorous religious hate. The house he took at Hackney he could not take in his own name, but was compelled to use that of a friend; he declined preaching a public charity sermon, because, after being invited and having consented, the treasurer became alarmed for the consequences; his friends living near him were advised to remove their papers and valuable effects to a safer place; he was more than once burnt in effigy with Paine, and was constantly receiving insulting and threatening letters from different parts of the kingdom. All this time he was quietly pursuing his useful occupations, preaching, lecturing, writing, and publishing, with unabated industry. Among his publications at this period were "Letters" in reply to Wakefield's "Essay on Public Worship," "Letters" in answer to Evanson's "Dissonance of the Evangelists," and "Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France on the Subject of Religion," suggested by the thought, that the position in which he then stood to France gave him an advantage in attempting to urge upon them the evidences of religion. A distinct. volume on the Evidences of Revealed Religion also ap

peared at this time from his busy pen. It would seem to have been thought by some of his philosophical and skeptical friends, that religious persecutions would have shaken or wearied out his attachment to the faith. He lost no opportunity of setting them right on that point. "Excuse me," said he, in answering a commendatory letter from a Philosophical Society, "if I still join theological to philosophical studies, and if I consider the former as greatly superior in importance to mankind to the latter."

From the time that Dr. Priestley was driven from Birmingham, though he fully intended, as we have said, to remain in England, his attachment to that country sensibly declined. "I cannot be supposed to feel much attachment to a country in which I have found neither protection nor redress." It is doubtful, however, whether he would have left England, but for the situation of his sons. He found it impossible to settle them there to advantage, such was the general feeling or fear in regard to the whole family. He encouraged therefore their going to America, especially as they had a scheme, in connexion with Mr. Cooper (well known in this country since) and other English emigrants, of forming a large settlement in Pennsylvania, near the head of the Susquehanna. In this scheme Priestley had no individual concern; but he thought it a promising one for his sons, and determined to follow them. Early in 1794 he took leave, with more emotion than was common for him to show, of his parish, his friends, and a married daughter, from whom a necessary separation, probably for life, and for such causes, was a severe trial. We admire, we reverence, the Christian fortitude and forgiving nobleness of spirit, with which he endured this trial. We see abundant instances, in the letters at this period, of his affection as well as strength of mind, and his domestic as well as public worth. We can give but one of these letters, and that a very short one, written to Mr. Rutt by Samuel Rogers of London, in 1832.

"No man, as you say, could be more amiable in his family than Dr. Priestley, and he had his reward; for no man could be more beloved than he was there. I have, all my life, received delight from the works of the great masters in painting; but no picture of theirs ever affected me half so much as a living one which I saw, a night or two before his departure from this country. The way in which his daughter hung over

him, as he sat in his chair, I can never forget. Though it is now near forty years ago, it is as present to my mind as if it had been yesterday. Yours, &c."- p. 227.

Dr. Priestley sailed from London on the 8th of April, 1794, for New York, where he arrived on the 4th of June, after a rough passage. One of the little incidents, which are of more value than great events, as showing the ceaseless activity and religious tendency of his mind, is seen in a letter which he wrote at sea, where he says, "I think I shall nearly read my New Testament through, before I get to New York, and I think I read it with more satisfaction than ever. Unbelievers, I am confident, do not read it, except with a predisposition to cavil." During the voyage, he wrote and prepared for the press, Observations on the Cause of the present Prevalence of Infidelity, to which he was led by the skepticism of his friend Cooper and other intelligent men. He remained in New York two or three weeks, was noticed by Governor Clinton and many other respectable citizens, and was much pleased with their manner of receiving him. He was not, however, invited to preach; for the clergy, though very civil, evidently feared him or the odium attached to him, and one of them, Dr. Rodgers, took some pains to insult him in church. "I invite,' says he, 'all of you to partake of the Lord's supper; but none,' lifting up his hand, and throwing his palm outward towards Gov. Clinton's seat, where the Priestleys were, 'no, none of those who deny the divinity of our Saviour."""

Several political and philosophical societies in New York, and the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, hastened to offer Dr. Priestley assurances of respect and cordial welcome. Something was said about his remaining in New York and forming a Unitarian Society. But he soon went to Philadelphia, where he passed a month, and then removed to Northumberland, partly on account of his sons' settling there, though their original plan was relinquished, but more from considerations of economy and his wife's health. Before he was fairly fixed there, he was chosen to the Professorship of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, with the offer of employment as Unitarian preacher also. Had these offers been made sooner, he would probably have accepted them; but, fearing the expense and interruptions of a city residence, and being struck