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Utting it , ' and to deal faithfally with a bad heart , without dealing cruell y with it . He must know ' how to inspire the poor with true sentiments ot j ^ heir own nature , and with a true sense of the worth of character ; he should know how to wnapathize with human weakness , and how to call forth human strength ; how to count and ta characterize the pulsations of the mind , and ,
like a ' skilful physician , to direct bis attention to the prevailing- symptoms of moral disease . Do not say that such men are not to be found ; let the demand for them be what it should be , and they will be found . I shall haiVwith joy unspeakable the day , should I live to see it , when I shall * learn that this ministry is well begun in England . " — Pp . 14—16 .
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The first half of this volume closes the Correspondence of Doddridge , on which we have already said enough to shew our opinion of its value . Our present concern is with the Diary . We were not mistaken in our anticipation that its publication would lay opeti recesses hitherto unexplored of a spirit whose ingenuousness , never perhaps surpassed , had to maintain so incessant a struggle with timidity , that its inward workings were never so fully revealed to men as those of many a less innocent being . Here we have the revelation complete : we mean in , the
union of the Correspondence and Diary ; for heaven forbid that Doddndge should be judged by the Diary alone ! In it we see how a sensitive constitution like bis ; made for perpetual alternations of joy and grief , for transitions from mirth to meditation , for impassioned love , for devoted general benevplence , for a true understanding of the bliss of existence , and for a foretaste of the steadfast , substantial enjoyments of a better state , may be cramped , may be perverted , may be exasperated by tyrannical restraints , till it becomes ferocious in the infliction of self-torture , and all but impious in its erroneous estimate of the good and evil that are in the world . It has
been long enough urged and acknowledged that Doddridge was . a bright example of the efficacy of religion in stimulating to benevolent exertion , and in sanctifying the life . He was such an example ; but for the honour of true religion it must be further inquired whether his powers were developed to the utmost , and whether he enjoyed—whether his heart and mind were kept in the peace which passeth understanding . It needs but a glance into his Diary to be convinced that it was not so . We find there a paralyzing superstition under which his powers languished ; and a harrowing misery
under which faith could not but faint , and almost expire . Endowed with an imagination which should have poised itself on steady wings in an exalted region of light and hope , he crouched in the darkness , he grovelled in the dust "beneain the scourge of a savage theology . The vivid apprehension which shoutd have been clear to discern the workings of God throughout a wide range of objects , was directed full upon petty coincidences , till the
finest sensibilities were placed under the tyranny of the commonest accidents , and the pilgrimage from strength to strength was rendered gloomy by the shadows o ^ superstition , and retarded by needless fears of the multitude of spectres which haunt such an obscurity . That all things are done by the workings of the Divine Spirit , that thoughts pass through the mind of man as shadows glide over the face of the earth , that every dewdrop has its destination , and every whisper of the breeze its burden of meaning , is
acknow-• „ , . i B —___———_____ — ¦ ¦ —~~ ? The Correspondence and Diary of P . ' Doddridge , D . D . Vol . V . Edited by J . D . Humphreys . Esq . London . 1831 .
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Dr . Doddridge * s Correspondence and Diary * 321
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DR . DODDRIDGE ' S CORRESPONDENCE AND DIARY . *
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VOI _ . V . 2 A
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 321, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/33/
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