wealth, the result of his skill as a merchant, created for him neither envy nor hostility. He had acquired it by no extortion; and the means by which he gathered his property, served to enrich thousands, and enable the families of the industrious to rejoice in gains arising from employment which his liberal enterprise provided. He was liberally-minded; and, in the improvement of his own estate, had ever in view public convenience and the embellishment of his native city. Many of the great schemes of benevolence, in Philadelphia, owe much of their success to his munificent encouragement, and some enjoyed his personal supervision as long as his health would permit. His death will be mourned by thousands, and his good deeds held in continued, grateful remembrance."

GREGORY T. BEDELL, D.D.

DR. BEDELL was an eloquent and popular clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was born in Staten Island, October 28th, 1798, and graduated at Columbia College, New York, in 1811. His father was Israel Bedell, and his mother was a sister of the Right Rev. Richard Channing Moore, D.D., Bishop of Virginia. Soon after leaving college he commenced preparation for holy orders, and was ordained Deacon, by Bishop Hobart, on the 4th of November, 1814, within one week after he had attained the canonical age. In the summer of 1815, he accepted the rectorship of the church in Hudson, on the North River. In the latter part of the year 1818, he left Hudson, and removed to Fayetteville, N. C., having been invited to assume the duties of rector of the church in that place. Here he remained successfully occupied in the labors of his profession for more than three years, when he was induced, from declining health, to seek a more northern residence. On his return to his native State, he made a short visit to Philadelphia, and during his stay of a few days arrangements were made for the erection of a new church, of which he was to be the rector. The corner-stone was laid September 9th, 1822, and it was consecrated

May 31st, 1823. From this period until his death, Dr. Bedell continued to officiate in St. Andrew's Church, and the parish, during his whole ministration, experienced great prosperity. None could have heard him preach without remembering and appreciating the peculiarities of his oratory. His death took place on the 30th of August, 1834. Notwithstanding the feeble health of Dr. Bedell, but few clergymen have accomplished so much as he did in the same space of time. In addition to the various labors connected with his station as rector of a large parish, and to those growing out of the interest he took in the public institutions of the church, he wrote and published many works. And it is but an act of justice to his memory to say, that whatever came from his pen was creditable to him as a scholar as well as a clergyman.

REV. JOSEPH BELCHER, D.D.

THIS gentleman died in Philadelphia on the 10th July, 1859, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was born in Birmingham, England, April 5th, 1794, and emigrated to this country in 1844, where he commenced his services in the Baptist Church. Dr. Belcher was a man much known in England among the literati. He was a personal friend of Robert Hall, the greatest of all England's preachers, and in this country we have the fullest and most complete collection of his writings edited by Dr. Belcher, and published by the Harpers of New York. The number of his publications reach nearly two hundred, many of which have attained enormous circulations. Among these may be mentioned "The Life of Whitfield;""Life of William Carey, Missionary to India;" "The Life of Andrew Fuller," published by the American Baptist Publication Society; and the "Life of Robert Hall," published by Harper and Brothers, of New York. His "History of Religious Denominations" also sold enormously, 10,000 copies having been disposed of in a single year in the State of Indiana alone. "Flavel's Fountain of Life," "Sketches from Life," the "Baptist Manual,"

and a vast number of similar works, which are household words in thousands of Christian families, were also from the prolific pen of this lamented writer.

He has also furnished many biographies for the "American National Portrait Gallery," and he has written for Graham's Magazine a history of the State-House in Philadelphia.

His last work is now in press. It is a "History of Hymns and their Authors." The good old man had just commenced indexing his completed work when the hand of Death struck away his pen. When upon his death-bed, alluding to his unremitting literary toil, he said to his eldest son, "When I was your age I tried to do the work of five men. I am now paying the penalty of that task."

ROBERT BELL.

THE original edition of "Common Sense" was published in Philadelphia by Robert Bell, with whom it is said that Paine was then employed as a clerk. Robert Bell was a Scotchman, who came to Philadelphia in 1766. He had been a partner as a bookseller in Dublin with the facetious George Alexander Stevens. He was first an auctioneer, and afterwards a bookseller in Philadelphia, where he published Blackstone's Commentaries by subscription in 1772, "a stupendous enterprise for the times." The Revolution broke up his business, and he turned auctioneer again and peddler, dying at Richmond, in Virginia, in 1784. He headed his auction announcements, "Jewels and diamonds to be sold or sacrificed by Robert Bell, humble proveditore to the sentimentalists;" and sought subscribers to Blackstone with the invitation: "Intentional encouragers, who wish for a participation of this sentimental banquet, are requested to send their names to Robert Bell."

ANTHONY BENEZET.

MR. BENEZET, a philanthropist of Philadelphia, was born at St. Quintus, a town in the province of Picardy, France, January 13th, 1713. About the time of his birth, the persecution against the Protestants was carried on with relentless severity, in consequence of which many thousands found it necessary to leave their native country, and seek a shelter in a foreign land. Among these were his parents, who removed to London in February, 1715, and, after remaining there upwards of sixteen years, came to Philadelphia in November, 1731. During their residence in Great Britain, they had imbibed the religious opinions of the Quakers, and were received into that body immediately after their arrival in this country.

In the early part of his life, Benezet was put apprentice to a merchant; but soon after his marriage, in 1732, when his affairs were in a prosperous situation, he left the mercantile business, that he might engage in some pursuit which would afford him more leisure for the duties of religion, and for the exercise of that benevolent spirit for which, during the course of a long life, he was so conspicuous. But no employment, which accorded perfectly with his inclination, presented itself till the year 1742, when he accepted the appointment of instructor in the Friends' English School of Philadelphia. The duties of the honorable, though not very lucrative office of a teacher of youth, he from this period continued to fulfil with unremitting assiduity and delight, with very little intermission, till his death. During the two last years of his life, his zeal to do good induced him to resign the school which he had long superintended, and to engage in the instruction of the blacks. In doing this, he did not consult his worldly interest, but was influenced by a regard to the welfare of men whose minds had been debased by servitude. He wished to contribute something towards rendering them fit for the enjoyment of that freedom to which many of them had been restored. So great was his sympathy with everything capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, towards the close of his life, to eat no animal food. This change

in his mode of living is supposed to have been the occasion of his death. His active mind did not yield to the debility of his body. He persevered in his attendance upon his school till within a few days of his decease. He died May 3d, 1784, aged seventy-one

years.

Such was the general esteem in which he was held that his funeral was attended by persons of all religious denominations. Many hundred negroes followed their friend and benefactor to the grave, and, by their tears, they proved that they possessed the sensibilities of men. An officer, who had served in the army during the war with Great Britain, observed at this time, "I would rather be Anthony Benezet in that coffin, than George Washington with all his fame." He exhibited uncommon activity and industry in everything which he undertook. He used to say that the highest act of charity was to bear with the unreasonableness of mankind. He generally wore plush clothes, and gave as a reason for it that, after he had worn them for two or three years, they made comfortable and decent garments for the poor. So disposed was he to make himself contented in every situation that, when his memory began to fail him, instead of lamenting the decay of his powers, he said to a young friend, "This gives me one great advantage over you, for you can find entertainment in reading a good book only once; but I enjoy the pleasure as often as I read it, for it is always new to me." Few men, since the days of the Apostles, ever lived a more disinterested life; yet, upon his death-bed, he expressed a desire to live a little longer, "that he might bring down self." The last time he ever walked across his room was to take from his desk six dollars, which he gave to a poor widow, whom he had long assisted to maintain. In his conversation he was affable and unreserved; in his manners gentle and conciliating. For the acquisition of wealth he wanted neither abilities nor opportunity; but he made himself contented with a little, and, with a competency, he was liberal beyond most of those whom a bountiful Providence had incumbered with riches. By his will, he devised his estate, after the decease of his wife, to certain trustees, for the use of the African school. While the British army was in possession of Philadelphia, he was indefatigable in his endeavors to render the situation of the persons who suffered from captivity