←556
←556
Mather’s Life of Eliot. His biographer, in the same spirit, on his entrance on the Ministry, having met with the remark—‘that the lack of mortification in a Minister is very often the cause of the unsuccessfulness of his Ministry, resolved to read over Dr. Owen’s valuable Treatise on Mortification, with some other books for instruction and direction on the same subject—Life of Cotton Mather, by his son—an excellent abridgment of which may be found among an admirable system of Christian Biography, now publishing by the Religions Tract Society. See some hints on the subject, in the Life of Owen Stockton, republished in the same series. Henry Martyn appears to have deeply felt the incalculable value of this Ministerial habit—‘A despicable indulgence in lying in bed’ (he writes soon after his Ordination) ‘gave me such a view of the softness of my character, that I resolved on my knees to lead a fife of more self-denial; the tone and vigour of my mind rose rapidly: all those duties, from which I usually shrink, seemed recreations. I collected all the passages from the four gospels that had any reference to this subject. It is one on which I need to preach to myself, and mean to preach to others.’ Life, p. 68.