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MEMOIR OF DR. HAMILTON. "THERE were giants on the earth in those days," is often the exclamation of men who muse on the past to the neglect of the present. In spite of our veneration for the past, we are often reminded that a great man has passed away from amongst us. The fir trees howl, for the cedars are fallen. The mighty is spoiled. In the death of Dr. Richard Winter Hamilton, the Congregational denoniinati ii, the friends of t, -0 free education and religious liberty, and the human race at large, have sustained a severe loss. In the prune of lite, in the pride of his power, and in the. beauty of his strength, he has been called home to the promised rest. At a time when he had become a chief among his brethren, and wheu his name was a tower of strength to the advocates of mental and spi- ritual freedom, his work is done. The followingparticulars of his history, compiled from an able sketch in the locals Mercury, will be interesting to our readel-s Dr. Hamilton had been suffering severely for some weeks from cellular erysipelas in the left arm; but the complaint, though obstinate and very reducing, had nearly yielded to sur- gical skill, and the apprehensions of his friends had almost sub- sided, when the hot weather of last 'week prostrated his little remaining strengthon Sunday the symptoms became very z!1 alatiytiii, -on Monday he wis-&-cl 'ying mtiil,-ancl at one o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 18th Inst., he expired. He had just completed his fifty-fourth year. I)r Hamilton was a native of London, where he was born on the 6th of July, 1794. His father was the Itev. Frederick Itamitm, Independent minister, of Brighton and. his mother Martha, the daughter of the Rev. Richard Winter, ft, p., who, for the long space of forty years, was pastor of the Independent church, New-court, Carey-street, London. Mr. Winter married on the 12th ofSeptembe1",17âl,:Srl1.h, youngest surviving daughter of the eminent Joseph Williams,, it'So,,eph liain. of Kidderminster, author of The Diary, Meditations, and Letters," sowell known, adS9 highly estimated. She was a lady of great piety. She had two daughters,, the youngest of whom, Martha, married the Rev. Frederick Haffiiltonf^ndwis' the mother of Dr, Hamilton. She, too,, was. a lady of-exalted piety, which, added to great sweetness of •demeanour, aild a' more than common share of personal attractions and. mental attainments, rendered her the admiration of an extensive cir- cle, containing many highly esteemed and religious characters. By tracing back still more remotely, it would seem that: piety and Nonconformity descended upon Dr. Hamilton like a rich entail, and united in him to form a champion whose loss to the cause of religion, and religious liberty, will be long felLandde- plared. The celebrated Thoihas Bradbury, who lived fyatn the i eign of William and Mary to thAt of George II., was his mo- ther's great uncle, Richard Winter Hamilton was educated partly at a school in the Isle of Wight, and partly at the Protestant Dissenters' grammar school, Mill-hill, near London, in the latter of which Sergeant Talfourd was his schoolfellow. It is remembered of his childhood that he was slow in learning to read,—a fact,, which, considering his natural quickness and power of memory, can only be ascribed to boyish volatility of spirits. He was admitted a member of his father's church on. the 21st November, 1809. His early piety and speaking talent caused him to devote himself to the ministry. His theological education was received at Hoxton College, then under the presidency of the Rev. Dr. Simpson; and here, nearly at the commencement of his academical course, he formed a close friendship with another young student of the highest character, John Ely-a friendship which endured through life with a warmth and constancy very seldom wit. nessed. The great abilities and prodigious memory of young Hamil- ton made his acquisition of knowledge extremely rapid; he had entered the college in August, 1810, when only sixteen years of age, and he left it before he had completed his twen- tieth year. He was invited to Leeds to supply the pulpit of Albion chapel, where he was so much admired that he received a call from the church and congregation of that place, dated on the 5th June, 1814,-a month before he was twenty years of age. He accepted the call, and was ordained the minister of the chapel on the 15th March, 1815. His eloquence, his high attainments, his generous warmth of disposition, and even his extreme youth, caused him to be popular at the very eorrlmencement of his ministry. But he was destined to sustain a speedy reverse, which was painful at the time, though salutary in its effect on his subsequent cha- racter, He had, in his ministerial capacity, attended with as- siduity and kindness Mr. Joseph Blackburn, an attorney of this town, who was executed at York for forgery in the spring of 1815 and he preached a sermon to an immense audience in Cloth-hall yard, to improve the melancholy event. Being pressed to publish the sermon, which had not previously been written, he wrote it out in the course of a visit to London, and sent off the manuscript piecemeal to the printer, without any opportunity for revision. For this imprudence the juvenile author paid dear. Unhappily it was disfigured by faults of taste in the composition, and especially by a learned phrase- ology and somewhat inflated style, which brought upon the autnor unmerciful criticism. Forthwith it became fashionable to cry down the young preacher as a pedantic and bombastic declaimer and the impression for a considerable time thinned his congregation. Mr. Hamilton married, on the 21st of May, 1816, Rachel, the daughter of Michael Thackrey, Esq., of this town, by whom he had two daughters and a son. The birth of the lat- ter was fatal to the mother. After a widowhood of sixteen years, he married, on the 6th December, 1836, Harriet, daugh- ter of John Robson, Esq., of Sutton Hall, who lives to mourn her irreparable loss, though with the consolation that she constituted a large part of the domestic happiness of her hus- band during the most useful and important period of his exist- ence. The laborious discharge of his duties as a minister, com- bined with the attractions of his eloquence, and of his charac- ter, filled Albion chapel inconveniently; and his people ac- cordingly erected another and far more spacious building. This structure, named Belgrave chapel, was handsome and ,Commodious; it was opened on the 6th of January, 1836 and in that place did the reverend gentleman carry on his instruc- tive and valuable ministry till the close of his life. The first work of any magnitude published by Mr. Hamil- ton, was a volume of Sermons" in 1833. It is a treasure of racred eloquence, containing some of the author's richest and most delightful compositions. The following year he pub- lished a small volume entitled Pastoral Appeals on Personal, Domestic, and Social Prayer," a work of remarkable excel- lence, unveiling the inmost heart of the pastor in its tenderest and most spiritual moods. Some years later he put forth a volume of domestic prayers, entitled The Little Sanctuary." In the year 1841 he published several of his papers read before the Philosophical Society, together with other papers. and poems, under the title of Nugoe Literarice: Prose and Verse." In 1842 appeared his work on "Missions: their authority, scope, and encouragement: an Essay to which the second prize, proposed by a recent association in Scotland, was ad- judged"—(the first prize having been won by that consummate essayist, the Rev. Dr. Harris, of Cheshunt College). This was a noble production, full of high and warm thoughts, profound reasoning, scripturaHllustration, and fervent appeal. Mr. Hamilton had now done quite enough to entitle him to those literary honours which our universities have it in their power to bestow. Accordingly the University of Glasgow con- 'ferred upon him the diploma of Doctor of Laws, on the 1st of February, 1844 and in the course of the same year the uni- versity of New York sent him thedegree of Doctor of Divinity. The next work published by Dr. Hamilton was his essay, en- titled The Institutions of Popular Education," to which a prize of one hundred guineas, given by If a patriotic Church- man of Manchester," was adjudged. In the year 1846 the Doctor published a second series" of "sermons," on some of the highest subj ects of Christian con- templation, and characterised by all his excellencies. The Revealed Doctrine of Rewards and Punishments," being the twelfth series, of 1-1 The Congregational lecture" for 1846, was published in the year 1847. It is the most elaborate and learned of all his works, and it has been received by the critics of different Evangelical denominations as an important and valuable addition to our theological literature. It is espe- cially direeted against the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked at death, which some time since appeared to be gaining ground, In the beginning of the present year, Dr. Hamilton published a small but valuable treatise—" Horce et Vindicee Sabbaticce, or Familiar Disquisitions on the Revealed Sabbath." His last publication was the Introductory Memoir," pre- fixed to the Posthumous works of the late Rev. John Ely," of which he was the editor. It is inscribed by the hand of friendship, but under the watchful guidance of truth. Mr. Ely, on his death bed, cautioned his friend against being top partial," and being "misled by their long friendship;" and Dr. Hamilton replied by the assurance, Think you not that I should shudder to write aught but truth of you, when I thought of your truthful spirit looking down upon me, and ad- juring me by its holy severity;" The Memoir fulfils the pledge it is a strictly impartiarnarrative and portraiture. His last sermon to his own people in Belgrave chapel was, preached on the morning of the 7th of May, from the strikingly appropriate text, For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come," Heb. xiii. 14. In his sermon he gave a glowing description of the heavenly state and city, and con.- eluded by the exclamation of Bunyan, after describing the same happy, place, which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them In the afternoon of the same day he adminis- tered the Lord's Supper, which formed the solemn and de- lightful close to his services among his own people. On tjie following day he went to London to attend the meeting of the Congregational Union. It was on the Saturday of that week, the 18th. of May, that he perceived the small boil on his wrist, which was the commencement of his illness.. During his whole illness, amidst intense pain and oppressive langour, he had experienced the peace that pasrpth under- standing, and a heavenly enjoyment, arising from a sense of HiVine love," which he himself described ap amounting to "-transport." When informed by his medical men, after their consultation on Sunday night, that his end was near, he ex- claimed—" That is the best tidings you could have brought me,'11 He calmly summoned his family an.d friends, he set his house in order, he saw his deacons and many other, friends, and spoke to them all in the strain of a Christian hero, standing on the brink of eternity. He said tjhat he had taught his peo- ple i^ow to live, and it now became him to te^ich theni how ■die, A combined dignity and tenderness characterised his' manrer during the last day of his life. His" entire hope was in the imputed righteousness and atoning blood of the Saviour, At a minute past one o'clock, on Tuesday morning, the 17th of July, he entered into rest,

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