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Testimonies to the Value of the Work.

of men, and yet there is some ground for the charge that this book advocated too much a selfish religion. You are to aim at Christian perfection because it is your only chance of happiness here and hereafter. It is true that the means by which this end is to be attained are the very reverse of selfish. Self-denial and mortification are of the essence of his scheme; but it is mortification and denial of the lower self for the advantage of the higher. Beyond the actual requirements of nature, the rich are to spend nothing upon themselves, but give all to the poor. Is this selfishness? In one sense, no; but in another, possibly, yes. If the poor are regarded simply as a sort of 'spiritual plate-powder for polishing up our own souls' (to use a rather flippant but very forcible expression of a writer of our own day), there may lurk selfishness even in this apparently most unselfish rule. It must be added that nothing was further from Law's thoughts than selfishness; but that is not to the point.

In spite, however, of these blemishes, the Christian Perfection' is a great work-a noble protest against the prevalent irreligion; and the practical good which it effected far overbalanced the possible harm which a misuse of some of its sentiments may to a slight extent have caused.

Weighty testimony to the beneficial effects which it produced might be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent. A few of the most striking evidences must here suffice. The saintly Bishop Wilson says of it: 'Law's "Christian Perfection" fell into my hands by providence; and after reading it over and over, I recommended it so heartily to a friend of mine near London, that he procured eighteen copies for each of our parochial libraries; I have recommended it to my clergy after the most affecting manner, as the likeliest way to bring them to a most serious

temper.' The elder Venn (his biographer tells us) tried to realise Law's 'Christian Perfection.' John Wesley, who was himself deeply impressed by the work, informs us that all the Methodists were greatly profited by it.2 Bishop Horne (says Bishop Ewing) either copied, or was sufficiently conversant with the 'Christian Perfection' to quote from memory whole passages from it in his sermon On the Duty of Self-denial.' And, not to weary the reader, it uffice to quote one more very practical illustration of

3

38-4fluence which the 'Christian Perfection' exercised.

ly after its publication, it is reported that as Law was ing in his publisher's shop, in London, a stranger, inquiring whether his name was the Rev. Mr. Law, ced in his hands a letter, which, on being opened, was nd to contain a banknote for 1,000l., sent, it is presumed, ome anonymous writer who was impressed with his actical treatise. It is rumoured that with this money Law founded part of the school which still exists in his native village.

1 Letter from Bishop Wilson to Lady Elizabeth Hastings, dated Warrington, September 13, 1729.

2 Wesley's 'Sermons,' vol. iii. p. 228; Sermon CVII. on 'God's Vineyard.' 3 Present-Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology, p. 13.

E

AFTER a period of about ten years' occultation, which Law probably spent in London, and, as we may gather from an incidental notice, in somewhat straitened circumstances,' he emerges from his obscurity and appears before us in very distinct individuality henceforth to the end of his life-thirty-four years later. It is said to have been about the year 1727 when he became an inmate of the family of Mr. Gibbon, grandfather of the historian, at Putney, acting in the capacity of tutor to his only son, Edward. The story of the life at Putney is immortalised in perhaps the most finished piece of literary biography in the English language-Gibbon's 'Memoirs of My Life and Writings.' Mr. Gibbon, the master of the house, had been

'The incidental notice is in a pamphlet entitled, 'An Account of all the Considerable Pamphlets that have been published on either side in the present controversy between the Bishop of Bangor and others to the end of the year 1718, with occasional observations on them by Philagnostes Criticus, 1719.' The writer has a very strong bias in favour of Bishop Hoadly, and against Law. After vehemently condemning Law's letters, he writes, "There has been for some time advertised a "Reply to the Bishop of Bangor's Answer to the Representation" by Law, to be published by subscription, and the following right zealous and orthodox divines of the Church of England, Dr. Pelling, Dr. Fiddes, Dr. Astry, and Mr. Thorold, have charitably taken the trouble of solliciting (sic) and receiving subscriptions for this great nonjuring defender of the rights of the clergy.' I think that slight as this notice is, we may certainly gather from it that Law was at the time in straitened circumstances; otherwise, with his independent character, he would never have allowed such an arrangement.

Tutor to Gibbon, Father of the Historian.

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one of the directors of the disastrous South Sea Company; and, when the bubble burst, he lost, not only his fortune, but also, like the rest of the directors, to a great extent his reputation. He appears, however, to have been an excellent man of business, and to have succeeded in a comparatively short time both in repairing his shattered fortune and in re-establishing his good name; so that at the time when Law became a member of his household he was again a reputable and wealthy man. 'He had realised a very considerable property in Sussex, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, and the New River Company; and had acquired a spacious house with gardens and lands at Putney, in Surry, where he resided in decent hospitality." In this 'spacious house' we find Law comfortably located, certainly not later than 1727, and possibly much earlier. In fact, I am by no means sure that a considerable portion of the time during which we seem to have lost sight of Law may not have been passed in Mr. Gibbon's family. Gibbon the historian is provokingly vague on the subject, but his account will at least admit of such an explanation. A parent,' he writes, 'is most attentive to supply in his children the deficiencies of which he is conscious in himself; my grandfather's knowledge was derived from a strong understanding, and the experience of the ways of men; but my father enjoyed the benefits of a liberal education as a scholar and a gentleman. At Westminster School, and afterwards at Emanuel College, in Cambridge, he passed through a regular course of academical discipline, and the care of his learning and morals was entrusted to his private tutor, the same Mr. William Law,' Now, as Mr. Edward Gibbon (Law's pupil) was born in 1707, he would be twenty years old at the time when Law is reported to have entered the family;

2

1 Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works,' vol. i. p. 13. Memoirs of my Life and Writings. 2 Ibid. i. 15.

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Character of old Mr. Gibbon.

and as it was evidently intended that he should be tutor at Putney as well as at Cambridge, it seems highly probable that he commenced his labours before his pupil had reached so ripe an age. The reasons which induced

Mr. Gibbon to select Law as a tutor for his son are obvious. Though not actually a Jacobite, Mr. Gibbon, like many other country gentlemen, had probably in his heart of hearts a strong sympathy with the cause of the exiled Stuarts. He was a staunch Tory, and had been one of the Commissioners of Customs under the famous Tory Ministry during the last four years of Queen Anne. He had acquitted himself so well in this post that, as his grandson proudly informs us, 'Lord Bolingbroke had been heard to declare that he had never conversed with a man who more clearly understood the commerce and finances of England.' He had, as we have seen, suffered severely under the Whig Ministry which succeeded with the accession of George I., and was always an implacable opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. The protégé of Bolingbroke and the foe of Walpole could hardly be without Jacobite proclivities; and thus the fact that William Law was a nonjuror would be a strong recommendation rather than a hindrance to the favour of Mr. Gibbon. Like many other shrewd but self-educated men, he probably valued the benefits of education all the more because he had felt

the want of it in his own person. A man of the attain

ments and abilities of Mr. Law was not to be met with every day; and his sturdy, independent, masculine character, his intense piety without a scrap of cant about it, and his evident firmness, which Mr. Gibbon no doubt felt that his son required in a tutor, would all commend him to his employer.

The office of half-tutor, half-chaplain and companion, in a gentleman's family was a very common resource for the nonjurors. Lord Macaulay's description of the