But to this order of mind Watts added that which altogether changed it; he possessed in an eminent degree the love of books and thought, lofty imaginations, and excursions through the far-off continents of knowledge; but he added to the volitions of genius, and the accumulations of the scholar, the doing “all for the glory of God;” few lives so useful and even so obvious seem to have been so sanctified from every human passion and selfish isolation; and hence with powers which might have found their gratification had he chosen to move like some remote and solitary planet in an unilluminating orb, he preferred rather to be a satellite, shedding a useful lustre on his serene way, and in the language of a well-known writer, “singing while he shone.” The amiable critic to whom we have already referred says that the whole lesson of Watts’ life might be condensed into the apostolic injunction, “Study to be quiet and mind your own business;” and the estimate is greatly true. He was a firm Nonconformist, but he was no agitator; he lived and wrought laboriously in his vocation, and that vocation was to bring about “the union of mental culture and vital piety.” As he did not write pamphlets to expose the evils of the hierarchy, or the defects of his own ecclesiastical system, so neither did he attempt to rebuke in print such assailants as Bradbury. He was the first in England who set the Gospel to music; and many who knew not the meaning of the words yet found their hearts melted by the melody of genius. There is a saintly dignity and peaceful purity about his life which it is not invidious to say gives to him, even in writers of his own order, a high pre-eminence. He seems to have been one whom “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” kept. And surely he has won a place in the universal Church—no Church repudiates him; his eulogy has been pronounced, and his life recorded, by Samuel Johnson, and Robert Southey, and Josiah Conder. If his hymns crowd the “Congregational Hymn Book,” they are to be found in the “Hymns Ancient and Modern;” and, as we have seen, his monument adorns not only the “conventicle” but the cathedral. Ages differ, and men differ with their age. This is the place neither to compare nor to contrast; but in an eminent sense Watts appears to have fulfilled himself. He drank deep from every kind of learning: we have seen that he wrote upon every kind of subject; and although it is the fashion now to pass him by, and even to underrate many of those pieces in prose and verse which were long held as the most cherished heirlooms of the Church, we shall have to search long and far to discover a more ample and consecrated intelligence, a more conscientious and laborious worker, than the mild, the modest, yet majestic hermit, philosopher, and sweet singer of Theobalds and Stoke Newington. [Illustration: MONUMENT OF DR. WATTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] FOOTNOTES