In these pages we have been careful to speak of Mr. Skinner mostly as he appeared in his relations to the community in which he lived. It can hardly be needful that we should dwell at any length upon the traits of character which are so clearly manifested in his life and acts. From his youth upward, he had a deep and firm conviction that only as a true religion and a pure morality were practiced by the individuals who make up society, would that society be safe and happy. In accordance with this conviction, his own support was given always and earnestly both to morality and religion, and his own hearty resistance was opposed to all covert or open attacks upon the living purity of either. On repeated occasions he committed. himself publicly against such a political sin as slavery, and such a national vice as intemperance,-not because they were unwise or dishonorable merely, but because they were opposed to the plain law of conscience and of God.

Mr. Skinner had a high estimate of the value of education, and of the relation which, in a country like ours, the educated few should bear to the comparatively uneducated many. There were few characters so repulsive to him as that of the unscrupulous demagogue who, instead of guiding the populace, would pander to their ignorance, and indulge their blind perverseness for the sake of his own advancement. A higher education and superior intelligence, he felt, brought with them new and higher duties. The people's will should govern, to be sure, but it should be their will intelligent and educated. Most important was it that in all matters which concern the whole people and in which they are to act, they should be enlightened and instructed by those whose power or opportunity of knowl. edge is greater than theirs. This trait in Mr. Skinner's character was particularly apparent in his connection with the New Haven water-project. Day after day, by personal conversation and by column after column in the newspapers, he endeavored to show the public what was for their highest good, preferring that they themselves should act intelligently rather than that they should be led, although himself might be the leader. All measures for the diffusion of knowledge received his heartiest approbation and support. In nothing did he take more pride

than in the educational institutions of his own city and State. "If there is anything," said he, "in which we may justly glory, it is our ample provision for general education and the eminence of our literary institutions." To the end of his life he was an earnest and active friend of the College where he grad uated. A few years ago, the literary society of which he had been a member while in college, was about to remove into a new hall, and sought the advice of Mr. Skinner in decorating and furnishing it. He at once entered into the matter, with as much interest and ardor as if he had been still an active member of the society, of which he had once been President. His leisure time for several weeks was spent in these labors to promote its interest and prosperity; and the exquisite beauty and propriety of ornament and arrangement, which call forth the admiration of all visitors to the hall of the Brothers in Unity, should be gratefully attributed to his refined and generous good taste.

Mr. Skinner had also a firm belief in the refining and purifying influence of art, and his belief was not merely a theoretical one, consenting to "divorce the feeling from her mate, the deed," but, on the contrary, was eminently practical. The beauty of nature, cultivated and aided, when needful, by the graceful hand of art, was powerful, as he believed, for good to all men. Therefore he labored that the city where he dwelt should be beautiful with well-kept public-squares, with arching trees, with ornamental architecture. How much he did in this respect for New Haven, and how much more he would gladly have done, must sufficiently appear from the foregoing sketch of his life and public services. We will only add, that almost the last occasion on which Mr. Skinner appeared in public, was the opening of an exhibition of works of art, in New Haven, a little more than a year ago. In the care and responsibility, and in the hard work, with which this exhibition was attended, Mr. Skinner could not greatly share, in consequence of his already failing health. But he justly regarded it as a wise and generous attempt to educate and elevate the taste of the young men in college, and of the people in the city. No one lent to the movement a more hearty sym

pathy, nor gave to it, as far as was possible, more cheerful effort. And, as the gallery became more and more a place of pleasurable and profitable resort, and proved in every way successful,—as it became the means of exciting and developing in the minds of many, a new sensibility to beauty, a new taste for art, as it opened, before not a few of the young, a new realm of pleasure quite unknown before,-no one rejoiced. more cordially and more intelligently than he.

Such an example of clear-headed judgment, of refined and cultivated taste, of patient and thorough industry, employed for the good of the public, with a generous and unrewarded disinterestedness; such unselfishness which yet never became self-forgetfulness, but was combined continually with dignity and with an honorable self-respect, is most worthy of the imitation of all who seek to bear "the grand old name of gentleman." Opportunities for usefulness, like those which Mr. Skinner had, are everywhere abundant. We see from his example how easily, and to what good end, such opportunities may be improved. May we not well take courage and receive instruction from the record of a life like his? To one who, like the poet yearning for the "golden year," asks longingly,

"Ah! when shall all men's good

Be each man's rule?"

it surely should be eloquent with prophecy of better things. In every life so pure, so noble, and so generous, should there not be to us the promise of

"The larger heart, the kindlier hand,"

that shall, one day, no longer be the rare exception but the blessed rule?

ARTICLE IX.-DR. TYLER AND HIS THEOLOGY.*

Lectures on Theology. By Rev. BENNET TYLER, D. D. With a Memoir by Rev. NAHUM GALE, D. D. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co.

THE Christian life of every regenerate man is a new edition of the Christian doctrine. The conversion of three thousand at Jerusalem, in a single day, evinced the moral power of the Gospel, by an argument, certainly not less conclusive than that of the theopneustic logic in the Epistle to the Romans. The epistolary statement is Christianity in posse, the new births are the same in esse, standing related to each other as proposition and proof, principle and practice. The vital and practical in Christian theology resolves itself, in this view, into a Christian Biology, the science of that new life of faith and love, commenced in regeneration, and matured in sanctification. Hence, the truthful delineation of a good man's life, his spiritual conflicts, his defeats and victories, has a two-fold value. It augments the ever-accumulating, demonstrative proof of the gospel doctrine, by showing it to be the power of God unto salvation to them that believe. It also serves as a practical commentary upon the didactic Scriptures.

Thus Church History, in the department of Christian Biology, makes important contributions to Biblical interpretation. There are many passages of the divine Word, which baffle the finest merely philological acumen, whose deep, rich meaning, rises to the very surface, in the light of this biological illustra

*It having been thought advisable that some sketch of the late Dr. Tyler should be inserted in the New Englander, from the pen of one who sympathizes with his views, Professor Lawrence, of the East Windsor Theological Seminary, has prepared, by request, this Article. It will be seen that he has found it necessary, in referring to the points of controversy between Dr. Tyler and Dr. Taylor, to state to some extent the theological opinions of the latter. We deem it important to say that the Editors of the New Englander, in publishing this statement, without comment, are not to be understood as vouching for its correctness, for which the Author alone is responsible.—Ed. New Englander.

tion, when the historic spirit, in the student, is combined with hermeneutic skill. The key to the inner sanctuary and significance of Biblical theology, is given into his hands who has traced in Christian biography, with quick sensibility and sound judgment, the life-history of the successive generations of good men, in its ebbs and flows, its strivings after holiness, and its struggles against sin.

Hence we welcome as a new treasure to our hermeneutic and historical storehouse, the faithfully-written biography of every true man of God. In the variant forms of philosophy and of faith observed in such men, in the shadings of error and of evil, and in the idiosyncrasies and excrescences which we perceive falling away in the divine process, and which are replaced by the verities and vitalities of the Christian life, its harmonies, and beauties, and charities,-in this we have the many-sided view of our doctrine, and its divine adaptation to the emergencies of man's condition.

Dr. Gale was fortunate in the subject committed to his literary and filial guardianship. The biographer of Dr. Tyler had no dark places to illumine by the light of an apologetic rhetoric, and no perilous chasms to bridge by the links of a factitious logic. The work is well-done,-certainly not overdone.

The first impression, on opening the volume, is that made by the engraving, which is in the best style of the art. No thoughtful mind can contemplate that picture,-its harmony of contrasts, intellect and sentiment, gentleness and force, divine principle and chastened human passion, without being attracted to examine further. The broad, high forehead, as an arched propylaeum to the acropolis of thought, betokening, even to the casual observer, the mysterious machinery that worked behind it, the large, but finely turned Grecian nose, and the mild blue eyes, through which beam upon you love. and wisdom-these are a whole table of contents. The slightly compressed lips, and gracefully moulded mouth, individualize the expression, and speak of a nobleness of soul, and a dignity strictly his own. The round, full chin, and the firm Lutherian neck, with the proportional shoulders, indicate, in the lower