Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:201 (Jan 1894)
Article: John Foster
Author: D. E. Snow

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 20

John Foster

Mr. D. E. Snow

Every great and original mind is the property of the world. Such men as have lived before us, and have now gone to adorn other spheres, have left behind them influences which we feel to-day. By personal impressions made on their contemporaries which have been transmitted to us; by the printed page, on which lie coiled up their great thoughts, and over which their emotions still glow, they live and act upon us, and their life circulates through our being. Age and country are of no account, if so be he was a man of great mind and heart, and with far-seeing vision; he is for us, for he had what we want, and saw what we want to see.

The subject of this article did not draw crowds by his eloquence, like Robert Hall and Thomas Chalmers; he was not a voluminous and brilliant talker like Coleridge; he had not an attractive and fascinating style of writing like Macaulay or Gibbon. But he was a full and ready talker in social life; his written sentences are weighty with thought; he had a strong imagination, and a native and highly cultivated taste; and a massiveness of character which impresses and ennobles. His essays and letters, and critical and miscellaneous writings, have an effect to broaden and deepen the mind, and act as a tonic to every mind put into communication with his. This author shows his greatness in part by making the reader feel his own greatness as an immortal being, the greatness of God, and of the universe, of which each man is an integral part; and he invests every object in

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 21

nature, and every event in history which has a bearing upon our present and future well-being, with an importance commensurate with the destiny of the individual man.

John Foster was born in the parish of Halifax, England, September 17th, 1770. His parents were of strong understanding, strict integrity, and deep piety. His father followed the joint occupation of a farmer and a weaver. The son in his early years was employed at home a portion of the time in weaving; but his thoughts and imagination were so active that the manufacturer complained of the quality of his work, and threatened to employ him no more.

He was naturally reserved, and at twelve years of age his manners were as awkward as his observations of men and things were profound and mature. He had an extremely sensitive nature, overflowing with sentiment and emotion, yet held in by timidity and shyness. His imagination tyrannized over him, peopling the house with objects which his mind gathered in his reading, making the time of going to bed an “awful season of each day.” He was very fond of natural scenery, and the very words “woods and forests” held for him a charm. He was fond o...