On this principle we cannot doubt, that the determination to which Colonel Gardiner came, and in which he was encouraged by the excellent Doddridge, to continue in his original calling, and not to quit the army when he came under deep convictions of religion, has rendered him a far greater blessing to the world, than he could have been, had he yielded to his first impressions, and left the service. His memoir would in that case have remained a record of the unspeakable goodness of God. He might have edified the world by the piety of his life, and he might have been named to succeeding generations as a monument of Divine Grace, rescuing man from the bondage of sin, and plucking him like a brand out of the fire. But the memoir, as it now stands, is rendered still more valuable by the testimony of his later life, and by the evidence it contains to that faith by which he lived; and the power of the grace of God is manifested more signally in upholding him amidst the opposition which he at one time thought himself incapable of meeting, than in enabling him to fly from it at first. Whatever might have been thought then of Colonel Gardiner’s determination at the time, there can be no doubt, that Christ was more nobly confessed in the midst of a sinful and adulterous generation, than He could have been in the retirement of religious life; and that the doctrine of the gospel was more visibly adorned by the example of one, who lived in the world without belonging to the world, than it could have been by the piety which withdrew its subject from general observation, and led him to seek security by withdrawing from the scene of temptation. But it is obvious that the value of such memoirs is enhanced by their rarity. Probably from the causes which have been enumerated, the narratives which exhibit the moral and religious character of men belonging to the army or navy are comparatively few; and those professions in consequence lack the benefit, which example and experience offer in other cases.