PHILIP STANHOPE DODD, M. A.

WHEN finally resolved to lay before the world a series of clerical criticism, incidentally embracing circumstances connected with the actual state of religion in this country, I certainly expected to encounter opposition the most formidable, and hostility the most acrimonious. Prejudices were not to be shaken without an effort; interests were not to be assailed with impunity; abuses were not to be exposed without danger. As, however, I entered independently on my sphere of duty, and foresaw the resistance I was likely to experience, it would have evinced something more culpable than folly, on my part, had I omitted to discipline myself for so arduous a conflict. What therefore I have not unadvisedly undertaken, I shall not pusillanimously abandon. Having estimated the im

portance of my commission, I shall still labour

to fulfil it

'As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.'

Alas! the day, the hour, is rapidly approaching, whether as to my enemies or myself, when. the views of all hearts shall be disclosedwhen what was devised secretly must be divulged openly-and when men will be estimated not by the fallacious surmises of each other, but by the unerring scrutiny of omniscience. I can leave the hypocritical heart' to him who sees not as man sees; and with him, whose ways are not as our ways, and to whom alone vengeance belongs, I also leave the punishment due' to the offences of his creatures! Here let me leave my foes.

Grateful in itself, I enter upon my present subject with sincere pleasure. I have not now to adjure our spiritual governors to withhold their consecrating hands from

⚫ Sculls that cannot teach, and will not learn.'

It is for me now to speak of one, who, were

I briefly to describe him,

I would express him simple, grave, sincere!'

After the usual course of preparatory instruction, Philip Dodd was sent to Magdalen College, Cambridge; of which he is still a Fellow. I have not enquired at what time he composed or published his Hints to Freshmen,' an ingenious and meritorious little tract. It possessed such merit, as, appearing anonymously, induced other persons to claim the authorship of it.

Mr. Dodd was long Curate of Camberwell; where he was, at length, so much noticed, as to succeed in his candidateship for Morning Preacher to the Asylum Chapel. He became Minister of South-Lambeth Chapel, June 1803, on the resignation of that situation by the Rev. Mr. Gardner. During the Mayoralty of Sir William Leighton, Mr. Dodd appeared in the character of his Chaplain. Of his two Sermons,

then printed by order of the court, the one on the Lawfulness of Judicial Swearing, which was much talked of at the time, drew forth an answer from Mr. Bevan, a leading member of the Society of the Friends.

Mr. Dodd has been the architect of his own reputation. You,' says the Rev. Lawrence Gardner (whom Mr. Dodd succeeded, at South Lambeth Chapel), in a Farewell Sermon to that congregation, delivered on June 19, 1803,

You will have the advantage of a public instructor in every respect worthy of the appointment he is going to fill. Were he not present,

I should speak of him in a manner more agreeable to my own feelings, and to his merits, than I now with delicacy can do. I shall therefore merely say, that, I verily believe, for correctness of moral conduct, for purity of principles, for soundness of doctrine, and for excellence of manner, he has very few, if any, superior to him Mr. Dodd is now Rector of St. Mary at Hill, near Billingsgate; the Afternoon Lecturer of Camberwell Church; and, having entirely

quitted South-Lambeth Chapel, the Evening Preacher at the Asylum.

Manliness of mind, and christianity of conduct, constitute the leading pretensions of this preacher. When he enters the pulpit, it is with the seriousness of one chiefly solicitous for the good of the souls committed to his charge. Of his almost peculiar excellence in repeating the Lord's Prayer, I confess myself incapable of conveying, by writing, an adequate idea to others. His plain, but nervous language, his inculcation of doctrines no less than duties, and the judicious conciseness of his applications, are evidences alike of his earnestness and ability. Proceeding from the heart, his preaching, at once, appeals to the heart. While the understanding is satisfied, the affections are rectified.

During the ceremonial as well as the preceptive part of religious duty, worshipping as teaching, Mr. Dodd is altogether uniform. Preachers have been so long accustomed to join in congregational services, that any objection to the practice will doubtless appear singu