commentator. To the advantage derived from his public teaching, was added that which resulted from private friendship, and an uninterrupted personal intercourse, until this able minister resigned the chaplaincy of the Lock Hospital, in 1803.

During these years, Mr. Shepherd having occasionally exercised in public, his talents so far attracted the attention of those who had been favoured with evidence of his ability for preaching, that, in 1804, he was solicited to prepare himself fully for the Christian ministry. To accomplish this, he was requested to enter himself as a student at Oxford, and in the most liberal and handsome manner, many Christian friends, and others to whom he was known, promised every assistance that his most sanguine wishes could desire. This, however, after much deliberation and prayer, and the advice of some whose counsels were founded on piety, age, and experience, he eventually declined, but without losing sight of the ministerial work in which he delighted to be engaged.

Casting in his lot among the dissenters, on the 14th of January, 1814, Mr. Shepherd was ordained pastor over the church and congregation assembling at Ranelagh chapel, Chelsea. Here he has remained stationary from the above period to the present time, dispensing the word of life to those who attend his ministry; and the pleasure of the Lord has prospered in his hands. His place of worship having been found too small and inconvenient for his congregation, an enlarged and commodious place was erected in 1818, in which he continues to officiate to a numerous and highly respectable congregation.

In the early periods of his ministry, Mr. Shepherd enjoyed the friendship, and kind advice, of the late Rev. John Townsend, of Rotherhithe. It was in his pulpit that he delivered his first sermon, and their mutual and friendly intercourse remained unimpaired, until death bereaved the church of that valuable minister of Christ.

In May, 1796, Mr. Shepherd was married, at St. Mary Woolnoth, by the Rev. John Newton, to Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of the late Walter Shropshire, Esq., of Hendon, and only sister to the late Mrs. Mary Cooke, wife of the late Rev. John Cooke, of Maidenhead. His family by this lady consists of two sons and three daughters.

In the literary department, Mr. Shepherd has not been idle. His first publication appeared in 1816. This was a sermon to the young. Since that time he has published " a Sermon on the Lord's Day;" "a Sermon on Family Worship;" "The Root of all Evil," "a Sermon on Covetousness;" "Consolation for Mourners," which has passed through seven editions; a large collection of hymns, partly original, and partly collected. To the above may be added, several minor productions, which have appeared in various periodicals, especially the Evangelical Magazine, since the year 1798, under the signature of "S-, Westminster."

But it was not, either by the pulpit or the press, that Mr. Shepherd's time has been exclusively engrossed. During many years he has been a director of the London Missionary Society; and in the Home Missionary Society he has taken a lively interest from its first formation in 1819. He also fills the important and useful office of secretary to the London Society, established in 1765, for the benefit of widows.

Having been for many years greatly interested in the communication and advancement of knowledge, Mr. Shepherd readily entered into the plan for establishing, in and near the metropolis, proprietary grammar schools, for the education of youth in the best possible manner, at the least expense. Of the Western Grammar School, established at Brompton in 1828, he

was one of the first promoters and directors; and to a more recent institution, on the same plan, he has also lent his aid. It is to his unwearied and persevering exertions, that the Pimlico Grammar School owes its establishment. During its infant state, he watched over its progress and vicissitudes with great anxiety and solicitude, and, cherishing it to maturity, he has lived to see his exertions crowned with pleasing success. On the 30th of September, 1830, he had the gratification of beholding its opening session, under auspicious indications of permanent utility.

Mr. Shepherd, by thus laying himself out for public good, in the formation and support of institutions, which are a honour to the country, and a blessing to all who come within the range of their atmosphere, is gathering laurels which will never fade. To such as are captivated with the tinsel of worldly greatness, his deeds may impart no lustre, but future generations will rise up, and pronounce a blessing on these benefactors of the human race. The songs of Zion will retain their melody, when the sound of the cannon can no more be heard; and to a certain portion of this immortality, the following hymn, extracted from his volume, and with which we shall conclude this memoir, will shew that Mr. Shepherd has an indisputable title.

THOUGHTS ON THE SOUL.

day, evidencing that the sun was merely formed as a receptacle for light. So, with man; he was first made, and then endowed with a soul. The brain was constituted a receptacle of his intellectual faculties, but not the faculties themselves.

Again matter cannot derive thought from attenuation, since it must still be constituted by atoms, and if atoms cannot in themselves think, neither can they do so under any state of organization. Even were a mind to be thus formed, it must inevitably follow, that its thoughts, knowledge, &c. must always remain the same. By an enlargement of ideas, and the increase of the faculties, we must necessarily, according to such a system, suppose, the material mind to grow, which is an absurdity that no one can believe. Neither would the absurdity be removed by supposing the amalgamation of mind and matter, since they must remain distinct in whatever situation they are placed.

There have likewise been some who have supposed, that the mind, though superior to matter, consists of a chain of ideas, which, by contingency, present themselves Such reasoning of to each individual. course refutes the moral responsibility of man for his thoughts or actions. By such a system, free will gives place to the most arbitrary necessity, and man becomes a mere passive instrument in creation, whom it would be cruel and unjust to punish for delinquencies which it was not in his power to avoid. Thus would the laws of society become useless, and its misery inevitable. Again, if the soul is a chain of ideas, that part which was in existence yesterday, ceases to exist to-day, since another set has taken its place. Now, according to philosophy, every particle of the human body in a certain course of time has given way to the particles which have taken their place; and if the same is asserted respecting the soul, all identity immediately ceases, and a future state of retribution would be unjust and cruel. Moreover, to those who have studied the mind and its properties, it must be obvious that ideas no more constitute a mind, than solidity or divisibility con

stitutes matter.

The evidence of reason upon the immateriality of the soul is important, but the testimony of the scriptures is decisive. There we see no creature on earth besides man endowed with moral responsibility; and those beings who alone, by the faculties of thinking, are allied to us, to be clearly immaterial, neither clothed in the gross properties or the attenuation of matter. But man, though formed of a material sub

stance, possesses within him a mind that holds no necessary connection with matter. The heart, which is supposed to be the seat of animal life, as a communication between both, imparts to the one, joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, love and hatred, and to the other mobility. The mental powers are acted upon by the feelings, and the feelings in their turn by the mind. The body, the great engine of the soul, from being acted upon by physical depression or buoyancy, in its turn influences the passions, and these again operate upon the mind, the superior of both.

The body must die, but the soul, viz. the union of mind and life, will still retain It has indeed been supposed its existence. by many, that the part of our being, called xn, or life, will dissolve into air, or, at least, hold no longer connection with the mind. But there appears to be some arguments against such a supposition. It is asserted in Genesis, that upon infusing the "breath of life," man became a living soul, identifying its existence, in point of time, with the infusion of life. Again, the mental faculties are distinct from what we call the passions or feelings. Now, moral responsibility lies in what we call the disposition of the heart, and not merely in the mind. That religion which rests only in the head, justly passes for nothing, neither does that which consists entirely of undefined feelings deserve much claim to the title. But true religion is founded on reason; it has its source first in a sense of duty and the nature of that duty, but it does not rest here. The disposition of the heart, its hopes and fears, complete what is called the soul, that part of man over which reason has control. Animal life is the source of the feelings or the passions; for though, in a lower gradation, we see them possessed by the brutes themselves, and, in philosophical as well as in simple reasoning, we say, that the mind and the passions are distinct, sometimes united with each other, and sometimes at variance; at one time reason having the ascendancy, and at another time the passions.

Now, let us separate the mind from the life, which has its seat in the heart, and we shall have an inactive principle-a principle totally unsusceptible of feeling. Besides, as one is connected with, and influenced by the other, in this state of existence, it would seem necessary that they should exist together hereafter, even for the sake of retribution. If then the life which was breathed into man has been the prompter of the mind, or its agent, if they are linked together in moral responsibility, the one by