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of them a passage which with almost identical expression urges the duty of progress with the words, "The Christian soldier's motto is "forward.'"

Mr. Robertson's life, short as it was, was one of familiarity with disappointment, sorrow, and harassing trials, for which the admiration and enthusiasm generally felt and expressed for his character and genius were hardly compensations; and, to those who knew him best and loved him most, it was hardly a cause of surprise that an organization of exquisite sensibility, such as his was, should have developed under the pressure of nervous excitement and mental distress disease in the head, which, after a short season of acute suffering, terminated his brief but beautiful career.

The present collection of sermons (which are but imperfectly preserved, as he never wrote or even made notes of his discourses) remains to attest the excellence and power of his preaching. But, beside the effect produced by his public ministry and per3onal intercourse on the more educated classes who came within his influence, Mr. Robertson obtained a power for good over the working men and mechanics of Brighton, which makes his name a

watchword still among them, full of divine inspiration, of strength, and efficacy. His deep respect and tender love for humanity induced him and enabled him to become a friend to the laboring population of the city where he lived, such as they may hardly hope in each of their individual lives to find again.

With the strongest feeling for their peculiar trials, he had a wise and true perception of their duties and compensations; his sympathy for them never betrayed him into injustice to others, and the temperate soundness and manly sobriety of his judgment prevented his genuine and deep tenderness of feeling from ever becoming that species of pseudo-philanthropy, which, in its championship of the rights of one class, forgets the claims of all men, and becomes a bitter sort of social fanaticism, which has nothing in common with the spirit of Christ.

The death of this man was assuredly his own exceeding great reward. To all who knew him, it must be a life-long loss, but sadly softened by the remembrance of his excellence.

MEMOIR.

FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON was born in London, the 3d February, 1816. He had Scotch blood in his veins; his grandfather held a commission in the 83d or Glasgow Regiment, during the American war. Of his early life we know little; it seems to have been passed in considerable vicissitude. One fact is interesting for its clear foreshadowing of the man: when four years old he derived his chief pleasure from books; to the last he was an ardent, zealous student. He passed some years of his childhood at Leith Fort, where his father, a Captain of Artillery, was stationed. At nine we find him at the Grammar School of Beverley. Removed from this, he accompanied his parents to the Continent, residing chiefly in France; and at fifteen he entered the New Academy in Edinburgh, where, under Archdeacon Williams, he distinguished himself in Greek and Latin verse. After a year of the Academy, he attended the philosophical classes at the University, and prepared himself for the study of the Law.* The profession was uncongenial, his dislike to it grew upon him, and in a few months it was abandoned for the Army, to which he had a strong predilection..

He was of a military ancestry and a military family. To the end it was the heart of a soldier that beat within the delicate and shattered frame. "Those who have enjoyed his confidence, even of late years, can well understand the boyish ardor and enthusiasm with which he contemplated a military life. Despite extreme nervous sensibility, and an almost feminine delicacy of feeling, he

• Dr. Terrot, now Bishop of Edinburgh, acted as his private tutor.

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