Representative nonconformists Author:Alexander Balloch Grosart Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JOHN HOWE, M.A., FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD. Born at Longhborough, Leicestershire, Jlfny 17, 1630 : Died at London, April 2, 1705 : Buried in Paris... more »h Church, All- Hallmvs, Bread Street. r I "'HE inevitable impression left on a capable, - " considering," and modest reader of the Life and Works of JOHN HOWE is, that he must have been a man of exceptionally noble presence, and of co-equal intellect. I wish, in the outset, TO ACCENTUATE THE FORMER. I have gone over and over to the "Considering"—a favourite word with Howe, e.g., "The continual mixture of good and evil in this present state of things . . . does naturally prompt a considering mind to the belief and hope of another" (Works, by Rogers, vol. i., p. 13). " The supposal of a not unusual asyndeton, would, without the help of magic, have relieved a considering reader" (Ibid., voL v., p. 169), etfrequenter Williams' Library to study and re-study his portrait there; while at home I have found myself similarly drawn to Sir Peter Lely's equally authentic one, as engraved by F. Holl for Hewlett I never have been thus occupied without enrichment, or without a deepened sense of his greatness and sanctity. It actualizes to me—next to Milton's—the world-known saying of "the human face divine." Henry Rogers—his amplest Biographer—thus puts it:— " Howe's external appearance was such as served to exhibit to the greatest advantage his rare intellectual and moral endowments. His stature was lofty, his aspect commanding, and his manner an impressive union of ease and dignity. His countenance—the expression of which is at once so sublime and so lovely, so full both of majesty of thought and purity of feeling—is best understood by the portrait. It is (to use the language of Gregory Nyssa in reference to Basil) /3X'...« less