"The measure of mercy is the measure of obligation. Of the course I should take at present I see nothing. All is dark, very dark. Work which I had thought to d«> is now abandoned. This one thing is left me, and I will do it. For discipline I will do it. I have naturally a love for the beautiful, and a shrinking, almost, a loathing, of in- firmity and deformity. The thing I would not do is the very thins: I am now resolved to do. Alas! poor idiot! while he is the greater sufferer, I am the greater sinner."
His benevolence was both a natural enthusiasm and a sacred religious duty, and whatever his warm heart prompted, his clear head conceived and his strong hand executed. A keen discriminator of character, he knew how to bend the wills of others to his purpose. As a speaker, he was endowed with very great power of elo- quence. After the fashion of his generation, he was somewhat rhetorical and magniloquent, but there was a mighty power of passion in him. His Sermons and ( 'hargt .-■, recently published, contain specimens of a very high order of pulpit eloquence; and few sermons of modern times have produced a greater effect than his missionary sermon at Surrey Chapel. His power in the pulpit was attested by his own crowded chapel, and by the large numbers whom he admitted to his Church fellowship. He was a polemic of no mean power — "a sharp threshing-instrument having teeth;" and perhaps earl Russell never listened to a more powerful or skilful storm of rhetoric than at the British and Foreign School meeting in Exeter Hall, when Dr. Reed claimed him as a leader in opposition to Sir J. Graham's Factories Bill. Dr. Reed's power of work was immense ; his recreation
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was change of benevolent employment, either the en- ergetic prosecution of some philanthropic scheme or a campaign of provincial preaching. Amid all his lit- erary and other labors, he * 1 i < 1 not think of writing his life. One of his Bons, perceiving that his venerable father was fasl failing, asked him if he had ever ar- ranged any memoir. Dr. Reed replied by writing the following note :
■ / boy «7io said he iconld icrite my life, and
' i- matt i iitl.s:
A.R. I was BOBN YK8TEBT) n : I SHALL 1>IK To-Mouitow :
,\\l> I Ml SI Mil M'NN PAT
IN I I I.I.IM, WHAT I UAVK H"N I . BUT IN IIIIINi; WHAT I MAY FOB
HIM
WHO HAS HONK ALL FOR ME. . PROM THE PEOPLE; 1 HAVE LIVED FOE THE PI OPI.B— THE MOST FOB THE MOST ITNHAPPV : AMI Till. PB IPI.E, WHEN THEY KNOW IT, WILL not ALLOW ME TO DIE ODT OF LOVING BEMEMBBANOE."
What can l"' added to such a summary? "It is not surprising that the suns of Dr. Andrew Reed should wish to publish thi: history of his life of goodness and active benevolence— though, in fact, the permanent records of his character and works exisl in the many institutions which owe their existence to his activity and devotion." These are the words of the queen of England in refer- ence to a man who was the honored instrument of doing such a vast amount of good that his name undoubtedly ranl^ among the first philanthropists of the age. Dr. Reed wrote many works in practical theology, princi- pally on practical religion— all of which have had a most extensive circulation, and of which a list is given in Allihone. Dr. Reed is the author of many hymns, among which is the one beginning " There is an hour when I must part." In 1835 he visited this country as a representative of the Congregational Union of Britain, and made many friends here. On his return home, he wrote on his Visit to the American Churches, and the work was republished here (N. Y. 1835, and often). See, besides, the M emoir (Lond. 1863, small 8vo ; 3d ed. 1867); London Reader, 1863, ii, 724; London Patriot, Dec. 17. 1863; Eclectic and Congregational Rev. dan. 1864; Allihone. Diet, of Brit, and Amer. Auth. s. v.; Grant, Metropolitan Pulpit, 1839. ii, 265-278; Mm of th rimes I L862), p. 648.
Reed, Caleb, an American divine, who belonged to the New Jerusalem Church, was horn in 1707. He
entered the minis! ry. but. was finally made editor of t he Ntio Jerusalem Magazine, and continued its manage- ment for twenty years. He died in 1854. His publi- cations were of a secular character.
Reed, Fitch, D.D., a minister of the Methodisl Episcopal Church, whose memory is precious in all the communities where he has resided, was born March 28, 1795. His early Christian training was under Calvin- istic influences, but, in his nineteenth year, while study- ing medicine, he was converted under the labors of the Rev. Marvin Richardson, and accepted Arminian doc- trines as preferable. In L815 be was licensed to preach, and was employed upon a circuit by Dr. Nathan Bangs, riding elder. In 1817 he was admitted into the
New York Conference, and was sent to the extreme
eastern point of Long Island. His second appoiutmenl was Dunham Circuit, in Canada East, which offered him
all the hardships which the Severity of a northern win- ter, a new country, unimproved and sometimes almost impassable roads,a poor people, and ill-constructed log- huts could afford. Of this he himself told, as follows. in a semi-centennial sermon: -I did at firsl wonder that my loi had fallen jusl here, and thought that possibly, after all. the bishop had made a mistake; yet the harsh