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    others of a similar nature—ministers dying even while in the pulpit—only shews the ruling passion strong in death , and the strength and firmness with which the love of doing good may take up its seat in the heart . Nor was the visit to Birmingham caused by the discontent of his congregation , for they remained constant 'in their attachment to him . — " He was , *' they said , the minister of our choice , and still is of our esteem . " " Among

    the more valuable part of his society , " ( his biographer , Dyer , whom Archbishop Wrangham terms " the honest , " informs us , ) " he was admired to the last , and if he was less attended to by some former disciples , he obtained a more extensive reputation and gained more general esteem . " The occasion of Robinson ' s going to Birmingham is thus stated in the advertisement to his History of Baptism : " Mr . Robinson had engaged himself in the spring ( he went in June ) to preach the annual sermons for the benefit of the

    Dissenters' * charity-schools at Birmingham , and he promised himself great pleasure from an interview with Dr . Priestley and other gentlemen of that place . " But then the hymn , " Jesu , lover of my soul . " This , our accurate informant apprizes us , was sung in Robinson ' s presence , and he , on hearing it , said , " Oh , that I was in the same state of mind as when I composed that hymn ! " But our story-telling evangelical doubts in the commencement of

    his article , at least is not quite sure , if Robinson really did compose the hymn in question ; and the fact is , that he did not . Suppose he had , we might ask , What then ? How could the writer , how can any one , from the few words Robinson used , tell to what feelings he referred ? It is nothing less than assuming the point in question to assert that it was to his religious state of mind . It would be very possible that Robinson referred to the general state of his spirits , which , it is well known , were in the latter part of his life despondent , arising in part from his intense and even intemperate application to study , and in part also from the critical condition of his domestic affairs . We have

    the express declaration of the Biographer before-named , and who was intimate with him in the latter period of his life , for saying , that the depression did most certainly not arise from the alteration of his religious sentiments . The story has been told in reference to another hymn , which was written by Robinson— " Come , thou fount of every blessing . " If true at all , it can only be true of that hymn , which contains no sentiment to which most or all Unitarians do not heartily respond ; none on which the mind of Robinson himself underwent any change ; so that there is an end altogether of the insinuation of the writer .

    Our evangelical brother we have thus proved to be ignorant on a topic of his own choosing , from which he deduces several pithy admonitions , and in which he grounds serious impulations against his fellow-christians . We now tell him that he understands less of Robinson ' s spirit than he knows of his life . In conclusion , we add in Robinson ' s own words , " How is it that men , and Christian men too , can hear of one another ' s sicknesses , and hear of one another ' s misfortunes , without any emotions of anger , and with all the feelings of humanity and pity that Christians ought to have for one another ,

    and that they cannot bear a conscientious man to avow sentiments different from their own , without a resentment that , like a thunderbolt , hisses and wounds and kills where it falls ? If such emotions can proceed from Christians , we must suppose , what we are loth to think , that is , that some Christians are , in some unhappy moments , divested of all the principles of their holy religion , and actuated by the dispositions of the most ignorant and cruel of mankind . ' But , " say they , ' though we are not injured , yet God is dishonoured . ' Ah ! is God dishonoured ? Imitate his conduct , then ;

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    The Watchman . 193

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 193, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/41/