ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together; each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up and draw by lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men the maids."

Another kind of Valentine is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way on that day. This custom is thus alluded to by the poet Gay :

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind
Their paramours with mutual chirpings find,
I early rose, just at the break of day,
Before the sun had chas'd the stars away;
To field I went amid the morning dew,
To milk my kine (for so should housewives do,)
Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see,
In spite of Fortune, shall our true love be."
19. SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY.

This always falls on the seventieth day, or tenth week, before Easter Sunday.

A SABBATH HYMN.

Great Source of love! to thee we owe
More praise than our poor lips bestow,
When we approach thy mercy seat
With folded hands and willing feet.

When we thy creatures here below,
In darkness groped, mid pain and woe,
O'er seas of sin and sorrow borne,
Our bark by storm and tempest torn.
Thy pity and thy love were shown
In sending us thine only Son,
To guide our wandering course aright,
From darkness gross to gospel light.

Our bark by tempests tost he saves;
His heavenly voice rebukes the waves;
"Forbear your rage," he whispers “peace!”
The sea is calm, the billows cease.

Father of mercies, God of love!
Our sins forgive, our guilt remove;
Then may we, at thy footstool, bring
A pure, accepted offering.

21, 1831. REV. ROBERT HALL, A. M. ETAT. 68. This eminent Baptist Minister was the son of the Reverend Robert Hall, Minister of the Particular Baptists at Arnsby, in Leicestershire. He was first educated under the care of the Rev. Dr. Ryland, at Northampton, after which he was sent to the Baptist Academy at Bristol, whence, in 1781, he proceeded to King's College, Aberdeen. After four years residence there he returned to the Academy at Bristol, as an assistant to Dr. Evans, in which situation he continued until 1791, when he succeeded the Rev. Robert Robertson, as Minister at Cambridge. Here he became known to some of the most distinguished scholars of the age, by whom he was much admired. Among these was Dr. Parr, who said, “Mr. Hall, like Bishop Taylor, has the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, and the piety of a saint." In 1804 he removed from Cambridge to Leicester, where he was Pastor of the meeting in Harvey Lane. Here he remained until 1826, when he was invited to succeed Dr. Ryland, at Bristol; where his earthly labours terminated, and where his remains now lie, in a small burying ground attached to the chapel in Broadmead.

As a writer, we need only quote the words of the celebrated Dugald Stewart, who said :-"There is a living writer who combines the beauties of Johnson, Addison, and Burke, without their imperfections. It is a dissenting minister of Cambridge, the Rev. Robert Hall. Whoever wishes to see the English language in its perfection must read his writings." These have been lately collected by Dr. Gregory, and form six octavo volumes.

D

Mr. Hall's first publication was An Apology for the Freedom of the Press, a masterly work, written in a style of the purest argumentative eloquence, and fervid with the spirit of freedom. Sometime after, appeared his Sermon on Modern Infidelity, indisputably the first work of its kind in the language, adorned with all the graces of finished composition, and displaying the mighty powers of a master of reasoning. His Sermon on the Death of the Princess Charlotte is without a rival amongst the numbers delivered on that melancholy occasion; and those who would see noble ideas wedded to noble diction, and the eloquence of thought fitly enshrined amidst all the "glories and beauties of" impassioned language, must peruse his Sermon on War, and Thoughts on the Present Crisis.

The name of Mr. Hall stood prominent as one of the first pulpit orators of the day; his oratory was not loud, forcible, and overpowering, like some distinguished individuals, whose powers have been compared to the thunder of cataracts, but it was soft, mellifluous, rich, deep, and fluent, as the flowing of a mighty river—to this he added an earnestness and fervency which impressed his audience with the sincerity of his belief. From bad health, and a peculiarly delicate nervous temperament, he hardly ever, of late years at least, studied any of the orations that he delivered, or even thought of them until he entered the pulpit. His addresses were, in consequence, unequal. There was, at times, a heaviness in his discourses, which was apt to make strangers wonder at the reputation for oratory to which he had attained; but when his health was firm, his spirits good, and his theme congenial, no man ever rose to higher and happier flights than he did in these purely extemporaneous exhibitions.

24. ST. MATTHIAS,

The apostle chosen to supply the place of the traitor Judas Iscariot. He is supposed to have been murdered by order of Annanias, high priest of the Jews, in the year 62,

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

TILDEN ONDATIONE