The name of Alleine has been made familiar to the world by a treatise under the title of "An Alarm to the Unconverted," one of numerous works by the same hand, but which has survived his other productions, and by an unbounded circulation for more than an hundred and fifty years, secured to its author that permanent fame which it is the fortune of few to attain.

The celebrity of this work is some reason for offering to the world a biography of its author; but this alone would be insufficient in an age when works of this description are so greatly multiplied to gratify the curiosity of mankind, anxious to learn the private history, and to become acquainted with the characters of those whose names are in any manner distinguished. When the value of time and the influence of example, are considered, it is not enough, that a name is emblazoned in the records of fame, to justify the employment of the one, or to present the force of the other. There should be food for the hungry appetite, and that of a nourishing kind, else the time employed is worse than wasted, and the principles imbibed may be deleterious as poison. In the history of the great, we justly look for those traits of character which belong to greatness; and in the life of one who is eminent, we hope to find an example worthy of imitation. In this respect, however, disappointment often attends our researches, and the man whose name we honour as the author of some splendid enterprise or noble action, is found in the details of his life, grossly defective in all that deserves, or can receive, the favour of God, or the admiration of his intelligent creatures. Far different will be the emotions of him who reads the memoirs of Alleine. No gross discrepancy will here be found between principle and practice; no long and heavy shade to cloud the brightness of some brilliant point. His life is a practical comment on christian principle, and those who have read his favourite work, may find in the example of the author, a still louder appeal to their consciences. It may, perhaps, be thought that this praise is too high, and that too much is assumed in faviour of a man tainted like his fellow creatures, with the corruption of sin. It is but simple truth, however, to say that the life of Alleine is the record of the thoughts and actions of no common saint. He was refined in the furnace of affliction, and being supported by his Lord and Saviour, exhibited with more than usual lustre, those peculiar traits which are characteristic of him who has been renewed by the Spirit of God.

JOSEPH ALLEINE was born at Devizes, in Wiltshire, England, in the year 1633. He was the younger son of Mr. Tobias Alleine, a pious father, an affectionate, prudent, and humble Christian, under whose kind care the blessings of a religious education were exhibited at a very early age, even in his childhood, when he manifested an eminently pious disposition. At eleven years of age he was much addicted to private prayer, and on the death of his brother Edward, a worthy minister of the Gospel, he entreated his father to be educated for the same profession. In four years he acquired a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, and was declared by his master, fit for the University. He was kept at home, however, under his father’s care some time longer, and at the age of sixteen, was sent to the University of Oxford, when he entered Lincoln College. In the year 1651, he was removed to the college of Corpus Christi, in the same university, where he obtained a scholarship, a distinction which, while it rewarded his merit, relieved his parents in part, at least, from the burthen of his support. While at college, Alleine was distinguished for his assiduity in the pursuit of his studies, for the gravity of his temper, and for that amiable disposition which made him ready to assist others in cases where his own industry and greater endowments gave him a superiority. Here he might soon have attained the distinction and benefits of a fellowship; this, however gratifying to his ambition, and important to his support in life, he declined for the humbler station of a chaplain; "being pleased," as we are told, "with the opportunity which this office gave him of exercising his gift in prayer." I the career of piety, affliction, and self-denial, which marked the life of Alleine, perhaps there is no instance in which he manifested more distinctly that spirit which raised him above the world, and marked him as a devoted disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. A young man of eighteen or twenty, will hardly relinquish the honours which age and learning are ready to award him for his successful attainments in the labours and anxieties of a student’s life; honours which, when accompanied with that ease and comfort, which give to a literary life its highest zest, are greatly alluring, particularly to a young man of talents and industry. Yet, Alleine waived his claims to such a station, for an office in which he could exercise his gift in prayer; surely communion with God, must have been a delight to his soul; and of him it may be said, "he was a man of prayer." In July, 1653, he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and became a tutor in the college to which he belonged. In this arduous employment, he behaved himself with equal skill and ability, and was so assiduous and successful, that many of his pupils became very eminent non-conforming ministers, and not a few attained distinguished stations in the established Church of England.

In the year 1655, at the age of twenty-one he left the college, in order to engage in the work dearest to his soul, his master’s special work, the preaching of the Gospel. The cloisters of a college suited not the ardour of his soul, and at this early age he became assistant minister to Mr. George Newton, minister at Taunton, in Somersetshire, where he married, the same year, a lady whose education, endearing affection, and piety, proved her truly an help-meet for him. His income in this situation was small, but he was assisted by the industry of his wife, who kept a boarding-school, which enabled him to exercise that charity which appears so extraordinary, even with this aid. During seven years that he lived i this manner, he performed his pastoral duties with incredible diligence; for, besides preaching and catechising in the church, he spent several afternoons in the week in visiting the people of the town, exhorting them to a religious life. These applications were at first far from being acceptable to many families, the introduction of truth even, is unwelcome to those who are living in darkness. But his meekness, moderation, and unaffected piety, won upon their good feelings, and made him by degrees the delight of his parishioners. This duty so timidly engaged in by christian ministers, would, no doubt, generally produce similar results, if performed with equal zeal and temperance, in the fear of God.

The life of Alleine was passed during that turbulent period, when revolution, civil wars and persecutions, spread horror and destruction throughout Great Britain. Charles the First was dethroned and beheaded in the year 1649, and Charles the Second was restored to the throne of his ancestors in 1660. During the government of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, the people of Great Britain enjoyed more religious freedom than at any other period of their history; but with the royal government returned that system, which by controling the forms of worship, and dictating to the consciences of the people, involved the nation in all the miseries of a bigoted persecution.