was called to the bar in 1664, and his business became immediately very, large, a proof of which exists in the admirable Reports of the Decisions of the court of king's bench compiled by him from 1666 to 1672. They contain all the cases of importance during that period, and he was counsel in every one of them. He was gross and dirty, but witty and good-natured—indifferent to politics and free with his money. Zeal for his client and his cause was his leading characteristic as a lawyer; and the suggestions he made as counsel for giving the king (his client) a victory over the city and over the whigs, pleased Charles so much that he knighted Saunders, and not long afterwards very unexpectedly made him chief-justice. These honours and the dignified life they demanded did not agree with the new judge, who had been on the bench scarcely six months when he died of a palsy, June 19, 1683. An edition of his Reports, with notes by Justice Patteson and Justice Williams, was published in 1824.—(Campbell's Lives.)—R. H.
SAUNDERSON, Nicholas, a blind mathematician, was born at Thurlestone in Yorkshire in 1682, and died at Cambridge on the 19th of April, 1730. In the first year of his life he lost his eyesight completely by small-pox; but his other senses afterwards acquired extraordinary acuteness. He was educated at the school of Penistone in Yorkshire. He soon distinguished himself highly in different branches of learning, and above all, in mathematics; in which his reputation was such, that having entered Christ's college, Cambridge, 1707, he was appointed Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1711. He was the friend of Newton, and one of the earliest expounders of his philosophy; and was noted especially, notwithstanding his blindness, for his skill in explaining the principles of optics. He wrote a treatise on algebra, of high authority in its day.—W. J. M. R.
SAURIN, Elias, an eminent protestant minister, famous for his controversy with Jurieu, born at Usseaux on the borders of Dauphiné in 1639, was successively pastor at Venterol, Embrun, Delft, and Utrecht. He died in 1703.
SAURIN, Jacques, the most celebrated preacher of the French protestants, was born at Nismes on 6th January, 1677, of a family which had long been distinguished in civil and military life, as well as in science. His father was an eminent jurist, and escaped with three young sons to Geneva in 1685, in the persecution of the protestants which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. At Geneva he enjoyed an excellent education, which, however, was interrupted by the war of the coalition against Louis XIV., which broke out in 1694. He joined the standard of Victor Amadeus III., duke of Savoy, and served as a volunteer for four years, against the cruel persecutor of his family and fellow-protestants. At the peace of Ryswick, he returned to Geneva, and resumed his studies. After two years' attendance in the philosophical faculty he commenced theology in 1699, under the famous professors Tronchin, Pictet, and Alphonse Turretin. His four years of campaigning had not improved his character, and for some time he manifested a spirit of levity and scepticism which broke out even in the public theological exercises. But a solemn warning and rebuke administered to him in public by one of his professors proved the turning point of his religious life, and from that day forward he became a new man. As soon as he entered the pulpit he gave proof of distinguished powers as a preacher. While he was still a student his fame spread in the city, and the crowd that pressed to hear one of his earliest sermons was so great, that he was obliged to preach it in the pulpit of the cathedral. In 1700 he was ordained, and accepted the charge of a French congregation in London, where he laboured with great success for four years. His sojourn in England was of great advantage to him He was a frequent hearer of Tillotson, who was esteemed the greatest English preacher of the age. In 1705 he made a journey to Holland, where thousands of the French refugees had found a new home, and his preaching made so deep an impression upon his countrymen that he was earnestly solicited to settle at the Hague. As the climate of England had not suited him, he was all the more willing to accept this invitation, and at the Hague he spent the whole remainder of his life. For twenty-five years his fame and usefulness as a preacher continued steadily to increase. He officiated in one of the largest churches of the city, which was always filled to overflowing. The testimony of contemporaries to the power and beauty of his discourses, is unanimous. He went by the name of "the great Saurin," "the famous Saurin," "the protestant Chrysostom." His preaching was equally popular with all ranks, from the highest to the lowest. His personal figure was imposing; he had a fine harmonious voice, and he was equally admired for the purity of his language, the force of his logic, and the elevation of his thoughts. But these advantages alone would not have secured for him the admiration of the wisest of his contemporaries, had they not been accompanied with solid excellence in the substance and religious spirit of his discourse. His sermons were rich in christian truth, and enforced it in a tone of deep and impressive earnestness. When Abbadie heard him for the first time, he exclaimed, "Is it a man I hear, or an angel?" It was long before Clericus could be induced to go to hear him, and when at length he yielded to the importunities of a friend, he resolved to criticise severely. But he soon forgot his resolution; he was moved and shaken to his inmost soul, and confessed himself fairly overcome by the preacher's power. After his celebrated sermon on almsgiving (L'aumône), preached in behalf of the poor protestant refugees, not only a shower of money, but gold ornaments, jewels, rings, everything in short that came to hand, were poured into the collection boxes. The care of his suffering fellow-countrymen was an object that always lay very near his heart. He was also one of the earliest examples of evangelical missionary zeal. He drew up the plan of a foreign missionary society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen, especially in the Dutch colonial possessions, and he published his thoughts upon it in the preface to his "Abrégé de la Théologie et de la morale Chrétienne," in 1722. In 1725-27 he published a series of letters entitled "L'etat du Christianisme en France;" and in 1720-28 appeared two folio volumes of "Discours historiques, critiques, théologiques et moraux sur les événemens les plus mémorables du Vieux et du Nouveau Testament," which were translated immediately into German and English. But his chef d'œuvre was his "Sermons," five volumes of which, containing his best sermons, were published by himself, 1707-25, and other seven volumes were brought out posthumously by his son. The whole collection has been several times reprinted, the last edition so lately as 1829-35, and has been translated into several languages. Mons. Bonnet of Frankfort, his latest biographer, compares these celebrated sermons with those of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon, in the following terms—"He is as grand as Bossuet, but wants his perfect ease of form and literary taste. He is inferior to Bourdaloue in the fine and deep insight of an experienced moralist into the hidden folds of the human heart. He has none of the melting pathos which in Massillon moves the whole soul. But he has more and better than all this. He preaches the gospel full, complete, divine. His power and authority is not that of a church to which he is always appealing, but the holy scripture, the word of the living God, and, therefore, instead of severity to the mean and flattery to the great, Saurin is never so severe and unsparing as when he preaches against the vices of courtiers. What was wanting to this great man, and we frankly own it, was that precious gift which the French call 'onction.' He carries the soul aloft in the high flight of his thoughts; he enriches the mind with profound knowledge; he rouses the conscience by the earnestness of christian truth; he strengthens faith by the power of his invincible arguments; but he does not feed the soul with that tenderness of love and that depth of sympathy which flowed from the heart of Christ; and that is one of the reasons why Saurin is now so little read." Saurin died at the Hague in 1730.—P. L.
SAURIN, Joseph, a French mathematician, was born at Courtaison in the principality of Orange, in 1655 or 1659, according to different authorities, and died in Paris on the 29th of December, 1737. He was the son of a protestant pastor, and at first followed the same profession. Having become obnoxious to the French government through his zeal for freedom of conscience, he fled about 1683 to Geneva, whence he afterwards went to Berne, and in 1690 he returned to France, and joined the Roman catholic church. Through the influence of Bossuet, he obtained a small pension from Louis XIV. He was a strong advocate of the Cartesian vortices; but attained some reputation by defending the differential calculus against some ill-founded attacks.—His son, Bernard Joseph, born at Paris in 1706, obtained distinction as a dramatic poet. He numbered among his friends Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Helvetius. His masterpiece is the tragedy of "Spartacus." His works were collected at Paris in 1783. He became a member of the Academy in 1761, and died in 1781.—W. J. M. R.
