276 WORKMEN AND HEROES '- levelled against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and un fairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form. As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived from his treatise entitled " A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Pro- fessing Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it breathes through- out a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the unpopu- larity of the subject and the writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked everything dear to a public man and a politician as such, consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the same light ; for he wrote : " Taken in all its probable effects, I do sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain, since the publi- cation in 1797, and more in America; and to have been translated into most European languages. In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was punctual and active beyond his apparent strength ; and those who further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings and committees con- nected with religious and charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame of mind which he habitually en- joyed ; but it is important to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear- witness, on the physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his Sabbath ; and that he could name sev- eral of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath." In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. . He died, after a gradual de- cline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp ; but his orders were disregarded, in com. pliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives by many of the most distin-
