than three months, and although he never perfectly recovered from the injury inflicted on his constitution by this long and severe indisposition, his strength was not remarkably impaired nor his vigour abated. Hence he would often remark that he was obliged to bring in the aid of reason to tell him that he was an old man. At the advanced period of eighty-two, he moved about with much alertness and agility: the sight of his single eye was remarkably good, and his hand-writing was firm and distinct. When mentioning, in conversation, about six months before his death, the words of the psalmist "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow,"

he

added with a smile, "But I have not found them either labour or sorrow." Much of this freshness and vigour may be ascribed, under the blessing of God, to his early rising, his strict habits of temperance, the equanimity of his temper, and that internal peace and composure which resulted from his humble but stedfast faith, and his habit of continual communion with God. Mr. Hey was enabled to live constantly in the spirit of prayer. "It is a very desirable thing," he says in a letter to Miss Hey, dated October 24, 1799, "to be enabled to hold a kind of secret communion with God in our minds, while engaged in the common scenes and duties of life. I can remember some seasons when I was young,

and had not a multitude of cares to distract me, that I have been enabled to keep my mind much occupied in the contemplation of Divine things. A multitude of important concerns now press upon me, yet find much refreshment and strength from secret ejaculations. When this is neglected, my mind grows dry and uncomfortable." "The cheerful and happy state of Mr. Hey's mind in the latter years of his life," says one who knew him well, "may be easily accounted for. He had no time to be unhappy. His life was usefully employed, and he was conscious that he lived for valuable and useful purposes. His views of the gospel of Jesus Christ were remarkably clear and distinct. He was deeply sensible that his own righteousness could never justify him before God; but he had likewise learned that there is forgiveness with him, and that mercy is freely and fully bestowed on every repenting sinner who has fled for refuge to the hope set before him in the gospel. He did not esteem it presumptuous to believe that God was his reconciled Father in Christ Jesus; that all things under the direction of infinite wisdom and boundless goodness were contributing to the final salvation and everlasting happiness of himself and of all who truly loved and feared God. This assurance of hope he endeavoured to maintain firm to the end. Perhaps few persons lived under a more abiding sense of the Divine favour than Mr. Hey. He loved God, he delighted in his

service, he walked with him, and here was the prime source of all his happiness. The spirit of adoption, which was the prevailing temper of his mind, shed a bright lustre on the surrounding prospects of life, and opened a vista through which the eye of faith already caught some beams of that light which shall shortly pour an eternal day of joy and gladness on the people of God."

The illness by which this venerable servant of God was at length called to his eternal rest, was short, and not very painful, but still such as incapacitated him for any connected conversation. His end was emphatically peace." The short expressions which he made use of were sufficient to show that the "rod and staff" of the good Shepherd did not fail him, and he lay occasionally ejaculating, "Glory, praise, glory," as if, wrapt up in holy meditation, he obtained by faith some bright glimpses of the heavenly Canaan to which he was approaching. Mr. Hey died on the "Even evening of the 23rd of May, 1819. to your old age I am he; and to hoar hairs "Blessed will I carry you," Isa. xlvi. 4. are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city," Rev. xxii. 14.

The more prominent features of Mr. Hey's character as a medical man, although not enlarged on, may be readily understood by the preceding account. To considerable intel

lectual power he united a thirst for knowledge, a good acquaintance with the medical literature of his day, and much patient and experimental research, from which it was always his aim to deduce conclusions of practical usefulness. The spiritual as well as temporal health of his patients was always an object of his most anxious solicitude, and to promote it he seized every favourable opportunity. In the early part of life, his manner was thought to savour rather of austerity and reserve, but towards the close of it this is said to have very much worn away, and in the society of intimate friends he was always open, cheerful, and sometimes even loquacious. The great equanimity of mind that he manifested was, doubtless, the result of constant and simple dependence on that gracious, though unseen, Hand which conducted him through all the difficulties and perplexities of the present life to a city of everlasting habitation. The following short remarks which Mr. Hey made in conversation, on the Collect for the eighth Sunday after Trinity, will illustrate his views on this subject, and may form an appropriate conclusion to this brief memoir. Collect: "O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth, we humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." "I cannot conceive," said he, a more elevated state

of devotion than that of a soul prostrating itself before the throne of the Almighty, and breathing out its desires in this beautiful prayer. It is the very spirit and disposition which becomes a frail, ignorant, short-sighted creature. We here acknowledge the overruling and never-failing providence of God, and present, as it were, a blank, to be filled up as Infinite Wisdom sees best for us. We beg of God to 'put away from us all hurtful things,' and to 'give us those things which be profitable for us.' We do not ask for riches, or honour, or ease, or health: these may be hurtful to us. We do not pray to be preserved from sickness, trials, or adversities; these may be profitable to us; we leave the disposal of all events to Him who is too wise to err, and too gracious to be unkind; and could we imbibe more of the spirit which breathes through these holy petitions, this would be the habitual language of our hearts."

THOMAS BATEMAN, M.D.

DR. THOMAS BATEMAN was born at Whitby, in Yorkshire, on the 29th of April, 1778, at which place he died on the 9th of April, 1821. He was, from infancy, of a delicate constitution, and being naturally silent and reserved, manifested but little indication of the talent and ability which afterwards distinguished him.