years old. The title of this sermon is, "No Justification by the Law of

years old. The title of this sermon is, "No Justification by the Law of

been a period, from the time of his ordination, when he did not preach clear, distinct, and unmistakable evangelical doctrines. The truths of the glorious gospel appear to have been applied to his heart by the Holy Spirit from the days of his childhood at Hartlepool. From the very first he was a well-instructed divine, and, unlike many clergymen, had nothing to unlearn after he was ordained.

The proof of this may be seen in the sermon which he preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, as chaplain to the Lord Mayor, on September 2, 1741. At this time, it will be remembered, he was only twenty-seven years old. The title of this sermon is, "No Justification by the Law of Nature," and the text is Romans 2:14 , 15 . Cadogan, his biographer, justly remarks on this sermon: "Although we do not discover in this discourse the same fertile experience, use, and application of the truth as are to be found in his later writings, yet we discover the same truth itself by which he was then made free from the errors of the day, and in the enjoyment of which he lived and died. The truth is, he was a believer possessed of that unfeigned faith which dwelt in his father and mother before him, and we are persuaded that it was in him also."

The second marked period in Romaine's ministerial life extends from 1748 to 1766. Within this space of eighteen years he met with some of his greatest trials, and filled many different posts in the Lord's vineyard, but always in London. I may add, that at no time in his life, perhaps, was he more useful and more popular. He was in the full vigour of body and mind, and enjoyed a reputation as a bold and uncompromising preacher of evangelical doctrine throughout the metropolis, which few other living men equalled, and fewer still surpassed.

The first post that Romaine regularly occupied in London was that of lecturer at St. Botolph's, Billingsgate. The circumstances which led to his appointment were so singular that I think it well to mention them. They supply an admirable illustration of the manner in which God works by his providence in finding a right position for his

people. It seems, then, to have been Romaine's intention, after finishing his edition of Calasio's Lexicon, to return to his native county, and to seek employment near his home. In fact, he had actually packed up his trunks, and sent them on board ship with this view. But as he was going to the water-side, in order to secure his own passage, he was met by a gentleman, an entire stranger to him, who stopped and asked him if his name was Romaine. The gentleman had formerly known his father, and was led to make the inquiry by observing a strong resemblance to him in the clergyman whom he met. After some conversation about his family, this gentleman, who was a man of some influence in the city, told him that the lectureship of St. Botolph's, Billingsgate, was then vacant, and that if he liked to become a candidate for the post, he would gladly exert his influence in his behalf. Romaine, seeing in this unexpected providence the finger of God, at once consented, provided he was not obliged to canvass the voters in person, a custom which he always thought inconsistent with the office of a clergyman. The result was, that in the autumn of 1748 he was chosen lecturer of St. Botolph's, and commenced his long career as a London clergyman.

It is deeply instructive to observe in a case like this, how God chooses the habitation of his people, and places them where he knows it is best for them to be. Cadogan, Romaine's excellent biographer, remarks on this part of his history "A settlement in the metropolis was the thing of all others which he last thought of, and to which he was the least inclined. From the bent of his genius to the study of nature, of minerals, fossils, and plants, and the wonders of God in creation, a country life, so favourable to these pursuits, would have been chosen by him. But God chose otherwise for him; and by a Circumstance trivial and accidental to appearance, but in reality a turn of providence such as decides the condition of most men, called him to a city-lectureship, and so detained him in London, where he was kept to the end of his existence as a witness for Jesus Christ, with abilities as truly suited to this meridian as those of the Apostle Paul to the meridian of Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome."

In the year 1749, he was chosen lecturer of St. Dunstan's in the West —an appointment which brought down on him one of the fiercest storms of persecution which he had to face in the course of his ministry. The Rector of St. Dunstan's, for some reason, disputed his right to the pulpit, and occupied it himself during the time of prayers, in order to exclude him from it. Romaine, in the meantime, appeared constantly in his place to assert his claim to the lectureship, and his readiness to perform the duties of the office. The affair was at length carried into the Court of King's Bench, and after hearing the cause argued, Lord Mansfield decided that Romaine was legally entitled to the lectureship, and that seven o'clock in the evening was a convenient time to preach the lecture.

Even then, however, the troubles of the lectureship were not over. Cadogan says that even after Lord Mansfield's decision, the churchwardens refused to open the doors of the church till seven o'clock, and to light it when there was occasion. The result was, that Romaine frequently read prayers and preached by the light of a single candle, which he held in his own hand. Besides this, as the church doors were kept shut until the precise moment fixed for preaching the lecture, the congregation was usually assembled in Fleet Street waiting for admission. The consequence was a great concourse of people, collected in a principal thoroughfare of the metropolis, and though not noisy or disorderly, occasioning much inconvenience to those who passed that way. This state of things actually continued for some time. Happily for all parties, Dr. Terrick, Bishop of London, who had once held the lectureship himself, happened to pass through Fleet Street one evening when the congregation were waiting outside St. Dunstan's. Observing the crowd, he asked the cause of it, and being told that it was Romaine's congregation, he interfered with the rector and churchwardens on their behalf, expressed great respect for the lecturer, and obtained for him and his hearers that the service should begin at six, that the doors should be opened in proper time, and that lights should be provided in the winter season. From this time forth Romaine continued in the quiet exercise of his ministry at St. Dunstan's,

without disturbance, and to the edification of many, to the end of his life. In fact, he held this lectureship for no less than forty-six years, though it was only worth eighteen pounds a-year!

In the year 1750, Romaine was appointed assistant morningpreacher at St. George's, Hanover Square, and held the office for five years. Of all the many pulpits which he occupied during his long ministry, this was by far the most important. Standing, as the church does, in an extremely prominent 'position in the west end of London, and well known as the mother-church of the most fashionable quarter of the metropolis, it opened up to him a great and effectual door of usefulness. Romaine, in many respects, was just the man for the post. His undeniable powers as a preacher attracted attention. His well-known scholarship commanded respect even from those who did not agree with him. And best of all, his bold, uncompromising declarations of the real gospel of Christ, and plain denunciations of fashionable sins, were precisely the message which the Bible leads us to expect God will bless. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that from the day St. George's, Hanover Square, was built, to this very day, it has never had its pulpit so well filled on Sunday mornings as it was for five years by Romaine.

The circumstances of the times in which he preached at St. George's made his testimony peculiarly valuable and important. A cold heartless scepticism about all the leading truths of Christianity prevailed widely among the upper and middle classes of society. Bishop Butler had complained not long before, that "many persons seemed to take it for granted that Christianity was fictitious, and that nothing remained but to set it up as a principal object of mirth and ridicule." That such principles naturally produced the utmost profligacy, recklessness, and immorality of practice, no Bible reader will be surprised to hear. In fact, the utter ungodliness of the age was so thorough that few living in the present day can have the slightest conception of it. Against this ungodliness Romaine boldly lifted up a standard, and blew the trumpet of the gospel with no uncertain sound. He was in the highest sense a man for the times, and he was

exactly in the right place. Those who would like to see how boldly and powerfully he delivered his Master's message, would do well to read two sermons which he delivered at St. George's, one of them entitled, "A Method for Preventing the Frequency of Robberies and Murders;" and the other, "A Discourse on the Self-Existence of Jesus Christ."

Just about the time that he was removed from the pulpit of St. George's, the inhabitants of London were dreadfully frightened by two severe shocks of an earthquake. Happening simultaneously with the awful earthquake which in a moment overthrew Lisbon and destroyed forty thousand persons, this event caused great alarm. Thousands of persons fled to Hyde Park and spent the night there. Hundreds crowded to the places of worship where so-called Methodist doctrines were preached, and anxiously sought consolation. Even Sherlock, Bishop of London, thought it necessary to publish a Letter to his Diocese on the subject, in which he exhorted .the clergy "to awaken the people, to call them from their lethargy, and make them see their own danger." Here again Romaine was just the man for the occasion. He preached and printed two sermons, which even now will amply repay perusal. One of them is called, "An Alarm to a Careless World;" and the other, "The Duty of Watchfulness Enforced." Delivered at the time they were, we cannot doubt that they are specimens of the kind of sermons which Romaine usually preached at that period of his ministry. I think it impossible to read them without feeling deep regret that the Church of England in the west end of London has not had more of such preaching.

Romaine's ministry, as assistant morning-preacher at St. George's, Hanover Square, began in April 1750 and ended in September 1755. During that time he preached occasionally at Bow Church, in exchange with Dr. Newton, afterwards Bishop of Bristol; and also at Curzon Chapel, then called St. George's, Mayfair, in exchange with the Rector. The circumstances under which he left St. George's are so remarkable that they deserve special notice.

It appears that the office which he filled as assistant morningpreacher was not a regularly endowed and independent appointment, but one entirely dependent on the Rector, and kept up at his own option, discretion, and expense. The Rector of St. George's, who first invited Romaine to take the office, and then at the end of five years removed him from it, was Dr. Andrew Trebeck. His appointment was owing to his high character and reputation, and not to personal friendship; his removal was caused by the popularity and plainness of his ministry. The real truth was, that his preaching attracted such crowds to the old parish-church, that the regular seatholders took offence, and complained that they were put to inconvenience. Strong pressure was brought to bear upon the Rector; and he, "willing to please "the parishioners, gave Romaine notice to terminate his engagement. This notice he received quietly, saying, that "he was willing to relinquish the office, hoping that his doctrine had been Christian, and owning the inconvenience which had attended the parishioners." A more discreditable affair than this probably never disfigured the parochial annals of the diocese of London. An eminent and godly clergyman was removed from his post because he attracted too many hearers! And yet, at this very time, scores of clergymen in London churches were no doubt preaching every week to empty benches or to congregations of half-adozen people, without anyone interfering with them!

It is consolatory to think that there was one parishioner at least in St. George's, Hanover Square, who made a noble protest against the treatment which Romaine received. This was the old Earl of Northampton. He rebuked those who complained that the parishchurch was crowded, by reminding them that they bore the greater crowd of a ball-room, an assembly, or a play-house, without the least complaint. "If," said he, "the power to attract be imputed as a matter of admiration to Garrick, why should it be urged as a crime against Romaine Shall excellence be considered exceptionable only in divine things' "—Another member of the congregation who is said to have adhered steadfastly to Romaine's cause at this juncture, was Mr. John Sanderson, afterwards state-coachman to George III. This

worthy man lived to the great age of eighty-nine, and died in 1799, after long adorning the doctrine he professed by an exemplary and godly life.

During the five years that Romaine was preaching at St. George's, he occupied for a short time the situation of Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College. There is little record extant of what he did in this office, and it is doubtful whether he was very successful in it. In all probability he was a much better theologian than an astronomer, and was better fitted for lecturing about Christ and heaven than about the sun, moon, and stars. But whatever credit he lost as a professor of astronomy, he retrieved a hundred-fold by his conduct about the Bill for removing Jewish disabilities. This he thought it his duty to oppose vehemently, to the great gratification of many citizens of London. In fact, his arguments were so highly esteemed, that his various letters on the subject were collected into a pamphlet and reprinted by his friends in the City in 1753.

From the date of Romaine's removal from St. George's, Hanover Square, until his appointment to the Rectory of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, we find him occupying several different positions, and never long in anyone. The only post which he never vacated was the Lectureship of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street. In the beginning of 1756 he became curate and morning-preacher at St. Olave's, Southwark. He continued in this office until the year 1759, residing most of the time in Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth. After leaving St. Olave's, he was morning-preacher for two years at St. Bartholomew the Great, near West Smithfield. From thence he removed to Westminster Chapel, but only preached there six months. The abrupt termination of his engagement there was occasioned by a fresh piece of persecution. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster withdrew their patronage and protection from the chapel, and refused him their nomination for a licence to preach there. From this time he had no stated employment in the Church, except the Lectureship of St. Dunstan's, until he was chosen Rector of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in 1766.

We must not, however, suppose for a moment that Romaine was an idle man during the years when he had no settled employment in the morning of Sundays. He appears to have been constantly preaching charity sermons in London churches; for which purpose, from his great popularity, his services were eagerly sought after. He also preached very frequently at the chapel of the Lock Hospital, upon the first institution of that charity.

At this period of his life he was several times called upon to preach before the University of Oxford. This, however, came to an end after he had preached two sermons, entitled, "The Lord our Righteousness," on March 20, 1757, in St. Mary's. These sermons gave great offence, and he was never allowed to enter the University pulpit again after delivering them. They are to be found among his published works at the present day, and furnish a melancholy proof of the spiritual darkness in which Oxford was sunk a hundred years ago! The governing body of an University which could exclude a man from its pulpit for preaching such doctrine as these sermons contain, must indeed have been in a miserably benighted state of mind. Romaine's dedication of them to Dr. Randolph, President of Corpus Christi, and Vice-chancellor of the University, is well worth reading. He says, "When I delivered these discourses I had no design to make them public; but I have been since compelled to it. I understand they gave great offence, especially to you, and I am in consequence thereof refused the university pulpit. In justice, not to myself, for I desire to be out of the question, but to the great doctrine here treated of, namely, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only ground of our acceptance and justification before God the Father, I have sent to the press what was delivered from the pulpit. I leave the friends of our Church to judge, whether there be anything herein advanced contrary to the Scriptures and to the doctrines of the Reformation. If not, I am safe. If there be, you are bound to make it appear. You have a good pen, and have great leisure; make use of them; and I hope and pray you may make use of them for your good and mine." Comment on the whole affair is needless. The treatment which Romaine received at Oxford was as little creditable to the

University as that which he received in the west end of London was to the parishioners of St. George's, Hanover Square.

It was about this period of his life that Romaine became intimate with the well-known Lady Huntingdon, who made him one of her domestic chaplains. In this capacity he used to pre hi-fiequently at her house, both in London and near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and at the various chapels, or preaching houses, which she built at Brighton, Bath, and elsewhere. To her friendship, indeed, he was finally indebted for his appointment to the Rectory of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in the fifty-second year of his age. The circumstances, however, of his appointment to this post, the history of his twentynine years' ministry in it, and some account of his writings, letters, and character, are matters which I shall reserve for another Chapter.

Chapter 2

Rector of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, 1764—Difficulties in the way of his Appointment—Letter to Lady Huntingdon—Usefulness at Blackfriars —Peculiarities of Address and Temperament—Last Illness and Dying Saying—Death 1795—Public Funeral—Literary Remains.

THE biographer of William Romaine can hardly fail to observe that his life naturally divides itself into three portions. The first extends from his birth to the commencement of his London ministry in 1746. The second ranges from 1746 to his final settlement at St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in 1764. The third comprises his ministry at Blackfriars, up to the time of his death in 1795. It is this third and last portion of his history which I propose to deal with in this Chapter.

Romaine's appointment to the rectory of St. Anne's, Black-friars, took place at a very critical period in his ministerial life. He was now about fifty years old. After preaching as a lecturer in London for eighteen years, he was still without a stated position as the incumbent of a parish. Every door seemed shut against him. Opposition and persecution followed him wherever he went. It

seemed, in short, a question whether he had not better give up London altogether, and turn his steps elsewhere. Lord Dartmouth offered him a living in the country. Whitefield urged him to accept a large church at Philadelphia, in America. Hot-headed friends pressed him to let them build him a chapel. It seemed far from improbable that he might fulfil the predictions of his enemies, and end by leaving the Church of England and becoming a regular dissenter.

But Romaine had a very deep sense of the value of the Church of England. He loved her Articles and Prayer-Book with no common love. Whatever her defects in administration, and however ill she treated her best children, he believed that the occupant of her pulpits had peculiar advantages; and he steadfastly refused to leave her. He was catholic, and kind, and liberal to those who were not churchmen, and lived in habits of friendly communion with many of, them. To this even John Wesley, Arminian as he was, bears strong testimony. In a letter to Lady Huntingdon, in 1763, he says, "Mr. Romaine has shown a truly sympathizing spirit, and acted like a brother." But nothing could induce him to give up his own position and become a Nonconformist. At this juncture he was greatly strengthened in his determination by the advice of that excel-lent clergyman, Walker of Truro. He resolved to stick by the Church in which he had been ordained, and to wait patiently for some door to be opened. His patience was at length rewarded. By a singular train of providences, he became rector of an important parish in the City, and there spent the last twenty-nine years of his life in the undisturbed exercise of his ministry.

The circumstances under which Romaine was appointed to his new sphere of duty were somewhat remarkable. The patronage of the united parish of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe with St. Anne's, Blackfriars, is vested in the Lord-Chancellor and the parishioners alternately. The immediate predecessor of Romaine was Mr. Henley, nephew of the then Lord-Chancellor Henley. He only held the living about six years, and died of putrid fever, caught in visiting a parishioner. Upon his death the appointment fell to the turn of the

parishioners; and at once some friends of Romaine, without his knowledge and consent, resolved to nominate him as a candidate for the vacant living. It was soon found that at least two-thirds of the parishioners were in his favour; and though he refused to canvass for votes himself, his interest was warmly supported by Lady Huntingdon, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Madan.

There were two other candidates beside Romaine, and in accordance with the custom on such occasions, he was called on to preach a probationary sermon before the parishioners. This sermon, preached on September 30, 1764, from 2 Corinthians 5:5 , is to be found among his printed works, and is creditable both to his heart and head. One part of it, in which he assigned his reason for not canvassing the electors in person, deserves particular notice. He says,

"Some have insinuated that it was from pride that I would not go about the parish, from house to house, canvassing for votes; but truly it was from another motive,—I could not see how this could promote the glory of God. How can it be for the honour of Jesus that his ministers, who have renounced fame, riches, and ease, should be most anxious and earnest in the pursuit of those very things which they have renounced? Surely this would be getting into a worldly spirit, as much as the spirit of parliamenteering. And as this method of canvassing cannot be for Jesus' sake, so neither is it for our honour; it is far beneath our function: nor is it for your profit. What good is it to your souls—what compliment to your understanding— what advantage to you, in any shape, to be directed and applied to by every person with whom you have any connection, or on whom you have any dependence? Is not this depriving you of the freedom of your choice 4 Determined by these motives, when my friends, of their own accord, put me up as a candidate, to whom I have to this hour made no application, directly or indirectly, I left you to yourselves. If you choose me, I desire to be your servant for Jesus' sake; and if you do not, the will of the Lord be done."

It deserves notice that this sermon did the preacher's cause no harm, but rather operated in his favour. It was well received by the parishioners, and was published at their request.

Notwithstanding the strong support Romaine received, his appointment was not finally secured without great difficulty and opposition. A hotly contested election, a poll, a scrutiny and an appeal to the Court of Chancery, interposed between the first movement of his friends and the final accomplishment of their wishes. At length, after eighteen months' delay, all obstacles were overcome, a decree was given in his favour by Lord Henley, and he was instituted and inducted rector of St. Anne's, Blackrriars, in February 1766. No one, perhaps, throughout this anxious period of suspense, worked more heartily in his behalf than Lady Huntingdon. She saw clearly the immense importance of such a champion of Christ's gospel being settled in a prominent position in London; and she left no stone unturned to secure his success. Help, too, was raised up in some quarters of a most unexpected kind. A publican in the parish is said to have been one of his most active supporters and canvassers; and at first no one could understand the reason. But after all was over, on Romaine's calling on him to thank him, the worthy publican replied, "Indeed, sir, I am more indebted to you than you to me; for you have made my wife, who was one of the worst, the best woman in the world."

Romaine entered on his new sphere with a very deep sense of his own insufficiency. He who intended him to be a wise master-builder, taught him to lay a sound foundation of self-abasement and humility. His own letters on the occasion of his election give a very graphic picture of his feelings.

In one he says: "My friends are rejoicing all around me, and wishing me a joy that I cannot take. It is my Master's will, and I submit. He knows best what is for his own glory and his people's good; and I am certain he makes no mistakes on either of these points. But my head hangs down upon the occasion, through the awful apprehension

which I ever had of the care of souls. I am frightened to think of watching over two or three thousands, when it is work enough to watch over one. The plague of my own heart almost wearies me to death; what can I do with so vast a number?"

In a letter to Lady Huntingdon, of the same date, he says: "Now, when I. was setting up my rest, and had begun to say unto my soul, Soul, take thine ease, I am called into a public station, and to the sharpest engagement, just as I had got into winter quarters. I can see nothing before me, so long as breath is in my body, but war; and that with unreasonable men, a divided parish, an angry clergy, and a wicked world, all to be resisted and overcome. Besides all these, a sworn enemy, subtle and cruel, with whom I can make no peace—no, not a moment's time, night and day—with all his children and his host, is aiming at my destruction. When I take counsel of the flesh I begin to faint; but when I go to the sanctuary, I see my good cause, and my almighty Master and true Friend, and then he makes my courage revive. Although I am no way fit for the work, yet he called me to it, and on him I depend for strength to do it, and for success to crown it. I utterly despair of doing anything as of myself, and therefore the more I have to do, the more I shall be forced to live by faith on Him. In this view I hope to get a great income by my living . I shall want Jesus more, and shall get closer to him."

Whatever anticipations of trouble Romaine may have formed in his mind, he met with comparatively little at Blackfriars. In fact, his twenty-nine years' ministry there, compared to his earlier days, was a season of quietness. Enemies and opponents no doubt he had, like every faithful clergyman who preaches the gospel. But they could do little to disturb him. The result was that the latter years of his life, though not less useful than the former, were certainly less eventful. Like the river that at first dashes brawling down the mountain-side, but glides silently along when it reaches the plains and becomes navigable, so Romaine's ministry from the time of his settlement at Blackfriars, though it made less noise, was probably more beneficial to the Church of Christ. He necessarily became less of an itinerant

and missionary preacher. The claims of his own parish and pulpit obliged him to stay much at home, and absorbed much of his time and attention. But his usefulness, whatever some hasty judges might think, was not only not diminished, but was probably much increased.

The plain truth is, that as rector of a London parish, Romaine became a rallying point for all in London who loved evangelical truth in the Church of England. Man after man, and family after family, gathered round his pulpit, until his congregation became the nucleus of a vast amount of good in the metropolis. His constant, unflinching declaration of Christ's whole truth insensibly produced a powerful impression on men's minds, and made them understand what a true clergyman of the Church of England ought to be. His undeniable learning made him an adversary that few cared to cope with, and gave a weight to these assertions which they did not always possess when they came from the lips of half-educated men. His position gave him peculiar advantages. Almost within sight both of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, he held a post from which he was always ready to go forth and do battle, either with tongue or pen. If error arose rampant, he was on the spot prepared to attack it. If truth was assaulted, he was equally prepared to sally forth and 'defend it. In short, the good that he did, as rector of Blackfriars, though less showy, was probably more solid and permanent than the good that he did all the rest of his life.

To attempt to chronicle all the events of his life during his twentynine years at Blackfriars would be of little use, even if we possessed materials for doing it. From the very beginning of his incumbency, he took great pains to have the services of his church conducted with strict reverence and good order. Like many other clergymen, he never rested till he had put the fabric of his church in good repair, had built a good parsonage, and made the parochial schools thoroughly efficient. These things once accomplished, he gave himself entirely to the direct work of his office. He was never idle, and seldom passed a silent Sabbath. Preaching, visiting, writing for

the press, or corresponding with the many who asked his advice, occupied nearly all his time to his life's end.

He was not perhaps what would be called now-a-days a "genial" man. He was "naturally close and reserved," says Cadogan, "irritable to a certain degree, short and quick in his replies, and frequently mistaken as being rude and morose where he meant nothing of the kind. Had he paid more attention than he did to the various distresses of soul and body which were brought before him, he would have had no time left for reading, meditation, and prayer, and, in short, for what every man must attend to in private who would be useful in public. It was not uncommon for him to tell those who came to him with Cases of conscience and questions of spiritual concern, that he said all he had to say in the pulpit. Thus people might be hurt for the moment by such a dismissal, but they had only to attend his preaching, and they soon found that their difficulties had impressed him as well as themselves; that they had been submitted to God, and that they had been the subject of his serious and affectionate consideration."

These observations of Cadogan's deserve special attention. Romaine, unhappily, is not the only minister whose reputation has suffered from gross misrepresentation and misconstruction. Few men, unfortunately, are so liable to be unfairly judged as ministers who fill prominent posts, and are eminent for gifts and graces. Even Christians are too ready to set them down as haughty, proud, cold, distant, reserved, and unsocial, without any just ground for so doing. The immense demands continually made on the & tune and strength, the many private difficulties they frequently have to contend with, the absolute necessity they are under of much daily reading, meditation, and communion with God—all these things are too often entirely forgotten. Many indeed are the wounds of feeling which ministers have to endure from the unkind remarks of unreasonable friends. The cup which Romaine had to drink is a cup which many clergymen have to drink in the present day.

The few anecdotes preserved about Romaine are all somewhat characteristic of the man as Cadogan describes him. They all give the idea of one who was short and abrupt to an extreme in his communications; so much so, in fact, that we can quite understand captious people being offended by him. And yet the anecdotes always tend to prove that he was a man of no common graces, gifts, and good sense.

He was one evening invited to a friend's house, and, after tea, the lady of the house asked him to play at cards, to which he made no objection. The cards were brought out, and when all were ready to begin playing, Romaine said, "Let us ask the blessing of God." "Ask the blessing of God!" sail the lady in great surprise; "I never heard of such a thing before a game of cards." Romaine then inquired, "Ought we to engage in anything on which we cannot ask God's blessing I" This reproof put an end to the card-playing.

On another occasion he was addressed by a lady, who expressed the great pleasure she had enjoyed under his preaching, and added that she could comply with his requirements, with the exception of one thing. "And what is that?" asked Romaine. "Cards, sir," was the reply. "You think you could not be happy without them?" "No, sir, I know I could not." "Then, madam," said he, "cards are your god, and they must save you." It is recorded that this pointed remark led to serious reflections, and finally to the abandonment of card playing.'

When the unhappy Dr. Dodd was sentenced to death for forgery, Romaine, among others, felt a deep and melancholy interest about him. There was once a time when he and Dodd had been on terms of intimacy, from their common zeal for the prosecution of Hebrew learning. When, however, poor Dodd began to love the world better than Christ, the intimacy gradually ceased, and he actually told Romaine that he hoped he would not acknowledge him if they met in public! Before his execution, Romaine visited him in Newgate at his particular request, and many were anxious to know what he thought of the prisoner's spiritual state. But the only answer that could be

extracted from him was this: "I hope he may be a real penitent; but there is a great difference between saying, God be merciful to me a sinrter,' and really feeling it."

Short and abrupt as the rector of Blackfriars evidently was in his demeanour, he was very sensible of his own deficiencies of temper, and very willing to confess himself in the wrong. On one occasion a dissenting Minister who often attended his lectures, called on him to complain of some severe reflections which he thought Romaine had made upon Dissenters. Having made his complaint, Romaine replied, "I do not want to have anything to say to you, sir."— "If you will hear me," added the other, "I will tell you my name and profession. I am a Protestant dissenting minister."— "Sir," said Romaine, "I neither wish to know your name nor your profession." Upon this the unfortunate Nonconformist bowed and took his leave. Not long after Romaine, to the great surprise of his hearer and reprover, returned the visit, and after the usual salutation, began: "Well, Mr. T., I am not come to renounce my principles, I have not changed my sentiments, I will not give up my preference for the Church of England; but I am come as a Christian to make some apology. I think my behaviour to you sir, the other day, was not becoming, nor such as it should have been." They then shook hands, and parted good friends.

Romaine's last illness found him still doing his Father's business, and happy in his work. He lived to the great age of eighty-one, and enjoyed the full use of his faculties to the very last. During the last ten years of his life he seems to have become greatly mellowed and softened, and to have been a beautiful example of that lovely sight, a godly old man, "a hoary head found in the way of righteousness." He went gradually down the valley toward the river, with all the golden richness of a setting sun in summer. There appeared to be little but heaven in his sermons or in his life; and, like dying Baxter, he spoke of his future home with great familiarity, like one who had already seen it.

It was well remarked by some of his friends, in these last days of his ministry, that he was a true diamond, naturally rough and pointed, but the more he was broken by years the more he appeared to shine. There was often a light upon his countenance—and particularly when he preached—which looked like the dawn, or a faint appearance of glory. If anyone asked him how he did, his general answer was, "As well as I can be out of heaven." He made this reply, shortly before his death, to a friend of a different communion, and then added, "There is but one central point, in which we must all meet—Jesus Christ and him crucified." This was the object which he always kept in sight— the wonderful God-man, whom, according to his own words, "He had taken for body and for soul, for time and for eternity, his present and everlasting all."

Romaine's simple and regular habits of life, no doubt, had much to say to his length of days and vigorous old age. There are ministers, unquestionably, who seem independent of regular food and hours, and whose iron constitutions appear to stand any strain. But their number is small. Of Romaine, Cadogan says, "His hour of breakfast was six in the morning; of dinner, half-past one in the afternoon; and of supper, seven in the evening. His family was assembled to prayer at nine o'clock in the morning, and at the same hour at night. His Hebrew Psalter was his constant companion at breakfast, and he often said how much his first repast was sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. From ten o'clock to one he was generally employed in visiting the sick and friends. He retired to his study after dinner, and sometimes walked again after supper in summer. After evening service in his family, he retired again to his study, and to his bed at ten. From this mode of living he never deviated, except when he was a guest in the house of friends; and then he breakfasted at seven, dined at two, and supped at eight. His adherence to rules, in this respect, was never more marked than in a circumstance which happened during the last years of his life. He was invited by an eminent dignitary of the Church to dine with him at five o'clock. He felt respect for the inviter, and wished to show it. Instead, therefore, of sending a written apology, he waited upon him himself, thanked

him for the invitation, and excused himself by pleading his long habits of early hours, his great age, and his often infirmities."

Romaine's deathbed was a beautiful illustration of the truth of John Wesley's saying, "Our people die well! The world may find fault with our opinions, but the world cannot deny that our people die well." This was eminently the case with Romaine. His fatal illness attacked him on Saturday, the 6th of June 1795, and put an end to his life on the 26th of July. The last sermon which he preached was on the preceding Thursday evening at St. Dunstan's. It was an exposition of the eighteenth Chapter of St. John's Gospel; and he remarked to his curate that he must get on as fast as he could, lest he should not get through the Gospel before the lectures closed for the summer. His concluding sermon at Blackfriars was on the preceding Tuesday 'morning, from the thirteenth verse of the 103rd Psalm— "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." These dates are worthy of special notice. This fine old servant of Christ, at the age of eighty-one, was evidently preaching at least three clays in every week!

From the moment he was seized with his illness, he considered it to be his last; and though he had occasional symptoms of recovery during the seven weeks that his illness continued, he never entered the pulpit again. He spoke of himself as a dying man, but always as one that had peace in believing. On the morning of his seizure he came down to breakfast as usual, in the house at Balham Hill, where he was staying, and presided in family devotion. It was observed that he prayed most earnestly to God that "he would fit them for, and support them in their trials that day, which might be many." He returned the same day to his own house in London, and conversed most profitably and comfortably in the way, on the approach of death and near prospect of eternity. He said, "How animating is the view which I have now of death, and the hope laid up for me in heaven, full of glory and immortality!" On arriving at home his last illness struck him.

He continued at his own house in London under medical advice for three weeks, and used all the means which his physician thought fit to prescribe. But he said, "You are taking much pains to prop up this feeble body; I thank you for it will not do now." His Hebrew Psalter lay close by him, and out of it he frequently read a verse or two, not being able to attend to more. From the nature of his illness he could speak but little; and being once asked if he would see some of his friends, he replied, "He needed no better company than he enjoyed."

"On the 26th of June," says his biographer, Cadogan, "he left town, and went to a friend's house at Tottenham for a fortnight, where he was so much better that he was able to walk about the garden. Upon his return to town, he told his curate that he had laid long in the arms of death, and if recovering, it was very slowly. 'But,' said he, 'this is but a poor dying life at best; however, I am in His hands who will do the best for me; I am sure of that. I have lived to experience all I have spoken and all I have written, and I bless God for it.'— To another friend he said, 'I have the peace of God in my conscience, and the love of God in my heart; and that, you know, is sound experience. I knew before that the doctrines I preached were truths, but now I experience them to be blessings.'—Thanking another friend for a visit, he told him that he had come to see a saved sinner.'—This he often affirmed should be his dying breath; he desired to die with the language of the publican in his mouth—' God be merciful to me a sinner!'

He continued in London for a few days in this blessed frame of mind, and then returned on the 13th of July to the house of his friend, Mr. Whitridge, at Baiham Hill, where he had been the day that he was first taken ill. From this date his strength rapidly decayed, but his faith and patience never failed him. He was often saying, "How good is God! What comforts does he give me! What a prospect do I see before me of glory and immortality! He is my God in life, in death, and throughout eternity." On the 23rd of July, as he sat at breakfast, he said, "It is now nearly sixty years since God opened my mouth to publish the everlasting sufficiency and eternal glory of the salvation

in Christ Jesus; and it has now pleased him to shut my mouth, that my heart might feel and experience what my mouth has so often spoken."

On the 24th of July, after being helped down-stairs for the last time, he said, "Oh, how good is God! With what a night has he favoured me!" requesting at the same time that prayer without ceasing might be made for him, that his faith and patience might not fail. He spoke with great kindness and affection of his wife; and, thanking her for all her care of him, said, "Come, my love, that I may bless you: the Lord be with you a covenant God for ever to save and bless you!"— Mrs. Whitridge, in whose house he was dying, on seeing and hearing him bless his wife, said, "Have you not a blessing for me, sir?" "Yes," he replied; "I pray God to bless you." And so he said to everyone that came to him.

On Saturday the 25th of July, he was not able to get down stairs, but lay upon a couch all day, in great weakness of body, but strong in faith, giving glory to God, and the power of Christ resting on him. Towards the close of the day some thought they heard him say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."—About an hour before his, death, Mr. Whitridge, his host and friend, said, "I hope, my dear sir, you now find the salvation of Jesus Christ precious, dear, and valuable to you." His answer was, "He is a precious Saviour to me now." These were the last words he spoke to man. To the Lord he was heard to say, "Holy! Holy! Holy! Blessed Jesus! To thee be endless praise!" About midnight, as the Sabbath began, he breathed his last, and entered that eternal rest which remains for the people of God. Well saith the Scriptures, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace" (Psalm 37:37).

Romaine's friends and relations had fully intended to give him a private funeral. But this proved impossible. The many hearers of a minister who had preached the gospel in London for forty-five years could not be prevented showing their respect, and affection by

following him to the grave. Scores looked up to him as their spiritual father. Hundreds venerated his character and consistency, even though they did not fully embrace the gospel he had preached. The consequence was that his funeral, in spite of all wishes and intentions, was a peculiarly public one. Fifty coaches followed the hearse from Clapham Common, besides many persons on foot. By the time the procession reached the obelisk in St. George's Fields, the multitude collected was very great indeed; but silence, solemnity, and decorum prevailed. At the foot of Blackfriars' Bridge the city marshals were waiting with their Alen in black silk scarfs and hatbands, and rode before the hearse to the entrance of the church. They had been ordered out by the lord mayor, as his token of respect for the memory of a man whose character had stood so high in the city of London. Thus went to his long home on August 3 rd, 1795, amidst every outward mark of respect and affection, the venerable rector of Blackfriars. At the end of his long forty-five years' ministry no one lifted up his tongue against him. The winds and waves of persecution had at length ceased. He had fairly lived down all opposition, and he died honoured and lamented. So true is that word of Scripture, "When a .man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7).

Romaine was once married, though rather later in life than many ministers. His wife was a Miss Trice, and, as we have already seen, she survived him. He had children, of whom one son died at Trincomalee in 1782, to his great sorrow. Another son was with him in his last illness, of whom he spoke with great affection, expressing his hope of him as a son in the faith, as well as a son in the flesh. Of his other children I can find no account.

Most of Romaine's literary works are so well known that I need not trouble my readers with any account of them. His largest work, "The Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith," has been often reprinted, and holds a respectable position among English evangelical classics. His "Twelve Sermons on the Law and the Gospel" have also been more than once republished, and in my judgment deservedly so. I regard it

as the best and most valuable work he ever sent to the press. His expository sermons on the 107th Psalm and on Solomon's Song are not so well known as they ought to be. The latter especially throws more light on a most difficult book of Scripture than many works of much higher pretensions. His single sermons are of course very little known. But no one who wants to get a just idea of the kind of preacher Romaine was, should omit to read them. For simplicity, pith, point, and forcibleness,—for short, true, vigorous sentences,— they will bear a favourable comparison with almost any evangelical sermons of the last century.

Many of his letters in his published correspondence are very valuable. Like John Newton, he wrote in days when the modern machinery of societies, committee meetings, Exeter Hall gatherings, etc, was totally unknown, and when a man had more leisure to write long letters than he has now. Those who like reading Newton's "Cardiphonia" and "Omicron," would find Romaine's correspondence well worth perusing. Christ and the Bible are the two golden threads which seem to run through all his letters.

Perhaps, after all, one of the most useful publications that Romaine ever sent forth is one that is hardly known at all. I may be wrong, but my firm belief is, that my estimate of its usefulness will be found correct at the last day. The publication I refer to is called "An Earnest Invitation to the Friends of the Established Church to join with several of their brethren, clergy and laity, in London, in setting apart an hour of every week for Prayer and Supplication during the present troublesome times." There is strong reason to believe that this little publication was made eminently useful when it first appeared, and has led to an amazing succession of supplications, intercessions, and prayers down to the present day. It was beyond all doubt a move in the right direction. It sent men to Him who alone has all hearts in his hands, and alone can revive his Church in dead times. Who can tell but that much of the Spirit's work in the last sixty years will be found at last to have been the answer to Romaine's prayers? One fact, at any rate, deserves to be specially remembered. When Romaine first

sent forth this Invitation in 1757, he only knew about a dozen clergymen in all England who were willing to unite with him, and join his scheme of prayer. But when he died, in 1795, he reckoned that the number of like-minded men in the Establishment had swelled to at least three hundred. That fact alone speaks for itself.

I leave the fourth spiritual hero of the eighteenth century here, and ask my readers to give his name the honour that it deserves. He had not all the popular gifts of some of his contemporaries. He had not the genial attractive characteristics of many in his day. But take him for all in all, he was a great man, and a mighty instrument in God's hand for good. He stood in a most prominent position in London for forty-five years, testifying the gospel of the grace of God, and never flinching for a day. He stood alone, with almost no backers, supporters, or fellow-labourers. He stood in the same place, constantly preaching to the same hearers, and not able, like Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, and other itinerant brethren, to preach old sermons. He stood there witnessing to truths which were most unpopular, and brought down on him opposition, persecution, and scorn. He stood in a most public post, continually watched, observed, and noticed by unfriendly eyes, ready to detect faults in a moment if he committed them. Yet, during all these forty-five years, he maintained a blameless character, firmly upheld his first principles to the last, and died at length, like a good soldier at his post, full of days. and honour. The man of whom these things can be said must have been no common man. It is place and position that specially prove what we are. In England one hundred years ago there were not four spiritual champions greater and more honourable than William Romaine.

VII. Daniel Rowlands And His Ministry

Chapter 1

Born in Wales 1713—Educated at Hereford, and never at a University —Ordained 1733—Curate of Llangeitho—An Altered Man in 1738— Extraordinary Effect of his Preaching —Extra-parochial and Outdoor Preaching—License Withdrawn by the Bishop in 1763— Continues to Preach in a Chapel at Llangeitho—Died 1790—Account of his Portrait.

One of the greatest spiritual champions of the last century, whom I wish to introduce to my readers in this Chapter, is one who is very little known. The man I mean is the Revelation Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho in Cardiganshire. Thousands of my countrymen, I suspect, have some little acquaintance with Whitefield, Wesley, and Romaine, who never even heard the name of the great apostle of Wales.

That such should be the case need not surprise us. Rowlands was a Welsh clergyman, and seldom preached in the English language. He resided in a very remote part of the Principality, and hardly ever came to London. His ministry was almost entirely among the middle and lower classes in about five counties in Wales. These circumstances alone are enough to account for the fact that so few people know anything about him. Whatever the causes may be, there are not many Englishmen who understand Welsh, or can even pronounce the names of the parishes where Rowlands used to preach. In the face of these circumstances, we have no right to be surprised if his reputation has been confined to the land of his nativity.

In addition to all this, we must remember that no biographical account of Rowlands was ever drawn up by his contemporaries. Materials for such an account were got together by one of his sons, and forwarded to Lady Huntingdon. Her death, unfortunately, immediately afterwards, prevented these materials being used, and what became of them after her death has never been ascertained. The only memoirs of Rowlands are two lives, written by clergymen who are still living. They are both excellent and useful in their way, but of

course they labour under the disadvantage of having been drawn up long after the mighty subject of them had passed away. These two volumes, and some very valuable information which I have succeeded in obtaining from a kind correspondent in Wales, are the only mines of matter to which I have had access in drawing up this memoir.

Enough, however, and more than enough, is extant, to prove that Daniel Rowlands, in the highest sense, was one of the spiritual giants of the last century. It is a fact that Lady Huntingdon, no mean judge of clergymen, had the highest opinion of Rowlands. Few people had better opportunities of forming a judgment of preachers than she had, and she thought Rowlands was second only to Whitefield. It is a fact that no British preacher of the last century kept together in one district such enormous congregations of souls for fifty years as Rowlands did. It is a fact, above all, that no man a hundred years ago seems to have preached with such unmistakable power of the Holy Ghost accompanying him as Rowlands. These are great isolated facts that cannot be disputed. Like the few scattered bones of extinct mammoths and mastodons, they speak volumes to all who have an ear to hear. They tell us that, in considering and examining Daniel Rowlands, we are dealing with no common man.

Daniel Rowlands was born in the year 1713, at Pant-y-beudy in the parish of Llancwnlle, near Llangeitho, Cardiganshire. He was the second son of the Revelation Daniel Rowlands, rector of Llangeitho, by Jennet, his wife. When a child of three years old, he had a narrow escape of death, like John Wesley. A large stone fell down the chimney on the very spot where he had been sitting two minutes before, which, had he not providentially moved from his place, must have killed him. Nothing else is known of the first twenty years of his life, except the fact that he received his education at Hereford Grammar School, and that he lost his father when he was eighteen years old. It appears, from a tablet in Llangeitho Church, that when Rowlands was born, his father was fifty-four and his mother fortyfive years old. His father's removal could not therefore have been a

premature event, as he must have attained the ripe age of seventytwo.

From some cause or other, of which we can give no account, Rowlands appears to have gone to no University. His father's death may possibly have made a difference in the circumstances of the family. At any rate, the next fact we hear about him after his father's death, is his ordination in London at the early age of twenty, in the year 1733. He was ordained by letters dimissory from the Bishop of St. David's, and it is recorded, as a curious proof both of his poverty and his earnestness of character, that he went to London on foot.

The title on which Rowlands was ordained was that of curate to his elder brother John, who had succeeded his father, and held the three adjacent livings of Llangeitho, Llancwnlle, and Llandewibrefi. He seems to have entered on his ministerial duties like thousands in his day—without the slightest adequate sense of his responsibilities, and utterly ignorant of the gospel of Christ. According to Owen he was a good classical scholar, and had made rapid progress at Hereford School in all secular learning. But in the neighbourhood where he was born and began his ministry, he is reported never to have given any proof of fitness to be a minister. He was only known as a man remarkable for natural vivacity, of middle size, of a firm make, of quick and nimble action, very adroit and successful in all games and athletic amusements, and as ready as anyone, after doing duty in church on Sunday morning, to spend the rest of God's day in sports and revels, if not in drunkenness. Such was the character of the great apostle of Wales for some time after his ordination! He was never likely, afterwards, to forget St. Paul's words to the Corinthians, "Such were some of you" (1 Corinthians 6:11), or to doubt the possibility of anyone's conversion.

The precise time and manner of Rowlands' conversion are points involved in much obscurity. According to Morgan, the first thing that awakened him out of his spiritual slumber, was the discovery that, however well he tried to preach, he could not prevent one of his

congregations being completely thinned by a dissenting minister named Pugh, It is said that this made him alter his sermons, and adopt a more awakening and alarming style of address. According to Owen, he was first brought to himself by hearing a well-known excellent clergyman, named Griffith Jones, preach at Llandewibrefi. On this occasion his appearance, as he stood in the crowd before the pulpit, is said to have been so full of vanity, conceit, and levity, that Mr. Jones stopped in his sermon and offered a special prayer for him, that God would touch his heart, and make him an instrument for turning souls from darkness to light. This prayer is said to have had an immense effect on Rowlands, and he is reported to have been a different man from that day. I do not attempt to reconcile the two accounts. I can quite believe that both are true. When the Holy Ghost takes in hand the conversion of a soul, he often causes a variety of circumstances to concur and co-operate in producing it. This, I am sure, would be the testimony of all experienced believers. Owen got hold of one set of facts, and Morgan of another. Both happened probably about the same time, and both probably are true.

One thing, at any rate, is very certain. From about the year 1738, when Rowlands was twenty-five, a complete change came over his life and ministry. He began to preach like a man in earnest, and to speak and act like one who had found out that sin, and death, and judgment, and heaven, and hell, were great realities. Gifted beyond most men with bodily and mental qualifications for the work of the pulpit, he began to consecrate himself wholly to it, and threw himself, body, and soul, and mind, into his sermons. The consequence, as might be expected, was an enormous amount of popularity. The churches where he preached were crowded to suffocation. The effect of his ministry, in the way of awakening and arousing sinners, was something tremendous. "The impression," says Morgan, "on the hearts of most people, was that of awe and distress, and as if they saw the end of the world drawing near, and hell ready to swallow them up. His fame soon spread throughout the country, and people came from all parts to hear him. Not only the churches were filled, but also the churchyards. It is said that, under deep

conviction, numbers of the people lay down on the ground in the churchyard of Llancwnlle, and it was not easy for a person to pass by without stumbling against some of them."

At this very time, however curious it may seem, it is clear that Rowlands did not preach the full gospel. His testimony was unmistakably truth, but still it was not the whole truth. He painted the spirituality and condemning power of the law in such vivid colours that his hearers trembled before him, and cried out for mercy. But he did not yet lift up Christ crucified in all his fulness, as a refuge, a physician, a redeemer, and a friend; and hence, though many were wounded, they were not healed. How long he continued preaching in this strain it is, at this distance of time, extremely difficult to say. So far as I can make out by comparing dates, it went on for about four years. The work that he did for God in this period, I have no doubt, was exceedingly useful, as a preparation for the message of later days. I, for one, believe that there are places, and times, and seasons, and congregations, in which powerful preaching of the law is of the greatest value. I strongly suspect that many evangelical congregations in the present day would be immensely benefited by a broad, powerful exhibition of God's law. But that there was too much law in Rowlands' preaching for four years after his conversion, both for his own comfort and the good of his hearers, is very evident from the fragmentary accounts that remain of his ministry.

The means by which the mind of Rowlands was gradually led into the full light of the gospel have not been fully explained by his biographers. Perhaps the simplest explanation will he found in our Lord Jesus Christ's words, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine" (John 7:17). Rowlands was evidently a man who honestly lived up to his light, and followed on to know the Lord. His Master took care that he did not long walk in darkness, but showed him "the light of life." One principal instrument of guiding him into the whole truth was that same Mr. Pugh who, at an earlier period, had thinned his congregation! He took great interest in Rowlands at

this critical era in his spiritual history, and gave him much excellent advice. "Preach the gospel, dear sir," he would say; "preach the gospel to the people, and apply the balm of Gilead, the blood of Christ, to their spiritual wounds, and show the necessity of faith in the crucified Saviour." Happy indeed are young ministers who have an Aquila or Priscilla near them, and when they get good advice are willing to listen to it! The friendship of the eminent layman, Howell Harris, with whom Rowlands became acquainted about this time, was no doubt a great additional help to his soul. In one way or apother, the great apostle of Wales was gradually led into the full noontide light of Christ's truth; and about the year 1742, in the thirtieth year of his age, became established as the preacher of a singularly full, free, clear, and well-balanced gospel.

The effect of Rowlands' ministry from this time forward to his life's end was something so vast and prodigious, that it almost takes away one's breath to hear of it. We see unhappily so very little of spiritual influences in the present day, the operations of the Holy Ghost appear confined within such narrow limits and to reach so few persons, that the harvests reaped at Llangeitho a hundred years ago sound almost incredible. But the evidence of the results of his preaching is so abundant and incontestable, that there is no room left for doubt. One universal testimony is borne to the fact that Row lands was made a blessing to hundreds of souls. People used to flock to hear him preach from every part of the Principality, and to think nothing of travelling fifty or sixty miles for the purpose. On sacrament Sundays it was no uncommon thing for him to have 1500, or 2000, or even 2500 communicants! The people on these occasions would go together in companies, like the Jews going up to the temple feast in Jerusalem, and would return home afterwards singing hymns and psalms on their journey, caring nothing for fatigue.

It is useless to attempt accounting for these effects of the great Welsh preacher's ministry, as many do, by calling them religious excitement. Such people would do well to remember that the influence which Rowlands had over his hearers was an influence

which never waned for at least forty-eight years. It had its ebbs and flows, no doubt, and rose on several occasions to the spring-tide of revivals; but at no time did his ministry appear to be without immense and unparalleled results. According to Charles of Bala, and many other unexceptionable witnesses, it seemed just as attractive and effective when he was seventy years old as it was when he was fifty. When we recollect, moreover, the singular fact that on Sundays, at least, Rowlands was very seldom absent from Llangeitho, and that for forty-eight years he was constantly preaching on the same spot, and not, like Whitefield and Wesley, incessantly addressing fresh congregations, we must surely allow that few preachers have had such extraordinary spiritual success since the days of the apostles.

Of course it would be absurd to say that there was no excitement, unsound profession, hypocrisy, and false fire among the thousands who crowded to hear Rowlands. There was much, no doubt, as there always will be, when large masses of people are gathered together. Nothing, perhaps, is so infectious as a kind of sham, sensational Christianity, and particularly among unlearned and ignorant men. The Welsh, too, are notoriously an excitable people. No one, however, was more fully alive to these dangers than the great preacher himself, and no one could warn his hearers more incessantly that the Christianity which was not practical was unprofitable and vain. But, after all, the effects of Rowlands' ministry were too plain and palpable to be mistaken. There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the lives of many of his hearers were vastly improved after hearing him preach, and that sin was checked and distinct knowledge of Christianity increased to an immense extent throughout the Principality.

It will surprise no Christian to hear that, from an early period, Rowlands found it impossible to confine his labours to his own parish. The state of the country was so deplorable as to religion and morality, and the applications he received for help were so many, that he felt he had no choice in the matter. The circumstances under which he first began preaching out of his own neighbourhood are so

interesting, as described by Owen, that I shall give his words Without abbreviation:

"There was a farmer's wife in Ystradffin, in the county of Carmarthen, who had a sister living near Llangeitho. This woman came at times to see her sister, and on one of these occasions she heard some strange things about the clergyman of the parish—that is, Rowlands. The common saying was, that he was not right in his mind. However, she went to hear him, and not in vain; but she said nothing then to her sister or to anybody else about the sermon, and she returned home to her family. The following Sunday she came again to her sister's home at Llangeitho. 'What is the matter?' said her sister, in great surprise. 'Are your husband and your children well?' She feared, from seeing her again so soon and so unexpectedly, that something unpleasant had happened. 'Oh, yes,' was the reply, 'nothing of that kind is amiss.' Again she asked her, 'What, then, is the matter?' To this she replied, 'I don't well know what is the matter. Something that your cracked clergyman said last Sunday has brought me here today. It stuck in my mind all the week, and never left me night nor day.' She went again to hear, and continued to come every Sunday, though her road was rough and mountainous, and her home more than twenty miles from Llangeitho.

"After continuing to hear Rowlands about half a year, she felt a strong desire to ask him to come and preach at Ystradffin. She made up her mind to try; and, after service one Sunday, she went to Rowlands, and accosted him in the following manner:—'Sir, if what you say to us is true, there are many in my neighbourhood in a most dangerous condition, going fast to eternal misery. For the sake of their souls, come over, sir, to preach to them.' The woman's request took Rowlands by surprise; but without a moment's hesitation he said, in his usual quick way, 'Yes, I will come, if you can get the clergyman's permission.' This satisfied the woman, and she returned home as much pleased as if she had found some rich treasure. She took the first opportunity of asking her clergyman's permission, and easily succeeded. Next Sunday she went joyfully to

Llangeitho, and informed Rowlands of her success. According to his promise he went over and preached at Ystradffin, and his very first sermon there was wonderfully blessed. Not less than thirty persons, it is said, were converted that day! Many of them afterwards came regularly to hear him at Llangeitho."

From this time forth, Rowlands never hesitated to preach outside his own parish, wherever a door of usefulness was opened. When he could, he preached in churches. When churches were closed to him, he would preach in a room, a barn, or the open air. At no period, however, of his ministerial life does he appear to have been so much of an itinerant as some of his contemporaries. He rightly judged that hearers of the gospel required to be built up as well as awakened, and for this work he was peculiarly well qualified. Whatever, therefore, he did on week days, the Sunday generally found him at Llangeitho.

The circumstances under which he first began the practice of fieldpreaching were no less remarkable than those under which he was called to preach at Ystradffin. It appears that after his own conversion he felt great anxiety about the spiritual condition of his old companions in sin and folly. Most of them were thoughtless headstrong young men, who thoroughly disliked his searching sermons, and refused at last to come to church at all. "Their custom," says Owen, "was to go on Sunday to a suitable place on one of the hills above Llangeitho, and there amuse themselves with sports and games."Rowlands tried all means to stop this sinful profanation of the Lord's day, but for some time utterly failed. At last he determined to go there himself on a Sunday. As these rebels against God would not come to him in church, he resolved to go to them on their own ground. He went therefore, and suddenly breaking into the ring as a cock-fight was going on, addressed them powerfully and boldly about the sinfulness of their conduct. The effect was so great that not a tongue was raised to answer or oppose him, and from that day the Sabbath assembly in that place was completely given up. For the rest of his life Rowlands never hesitated, when occasion required, to preach in the open air.

The extra-parochial work that Rowlands did by his itinerant preaching was carefully followed up and not allowed to fall to the ground. No one understood better than he did, that souls require almost as much attention after they are awakened as they do before, and that in spiritual husbandry there is need of watering as well as planting. Aided, therefore, by a few zealous fellow-labourers, both lay and clerical, he established a regular system of Societies, on John Wesley's plan, over the greater part of Wales, through which he managed to keep up a constant communication with all who valued the gospel that he preached, and to keep them well together. These societies were all connected with one great Association, which met four times a-year, and of which he was generally the moderator. The amount of his influence at these Association-meetings may be measured by the fact that above one hundred ministers in the Principality regarded him as their spiritual father! From the very first this Association seems to have been a most wisely organized and useful institution, and to it may be traced the existence of the Calvinistic Methodist 'body in Wales at this very day.

The mighty instrument whom God employed in doing all the good works I have been describing, was not permitted to do them without many trials. For wise and good ends, no doubt —to keep him humble in the midst of his immense success and to prevent his being exalted overmuch—he was called upon to drink many bitter cups. Like his divine Master, he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." The greatest of these trials, no doubt, was his ejection from the Church of England in 1763, after serving her faithfully for next to nothing as an ordained clergyman for thirty years. The manner in which this disgraceful transaction was accomplished was so remarkable, that it deserves to be fully described.

Rowlands, it must be remembered, was never an incumbent. From the time of his ordination in 1733, he was simply curate of Llangeitho, under his elder brother John, until the time of his death in 1760. What kind of a clergyman his elder brother was is not very clear. He was drowned at Aberystwith, and we only know that for

twenty-seven years he seems to have left everything at Llangeitho in Daniel's hands, and to have let him do just what he liked. Upon the death of John Rowlands, the Bishop of St. David's, who was patron of Llangeitho, was asked to give the living to his brother Daniel, upon the very reasonable ground that he had been serving the parish as curate no less than twenty-seven years! The bishop unhappily refused to comply with this request, alleging as his excuse that he had received many complaints about his irregularities. He took the very singular step of giving the living to John, the son of Daniel Rowlands, a young man twenty-seven years old. The result of this very odd proceeding was, that Daniel Rowlands became curate to his own son, as he had been curate to his own brother, and continued his labours at Llangeitho for three years more uninterruptedly.

The reasons why the Bishop of St. David's refused to give Rowlands the living of Llangeitho may be easily divined. So long as he was only a curate, he knew that he could easily silence him. Once instituted and inducted as incumbent, he would have occupied a position from which he could not have been removed without much difficulty. Influenced, probably, by some such considerations, the bishop permitted Rowlands to continue preaching at Llangeitho as curate to his son, warning him at the same time that the Welsh clergy were constantly complaining of his irregularities, and that he could not long look over them. These "irregularities," be it remembered, were neither drunkenness, breach of the seventh commandment, hunting, shooting, nor gambling! The whole substance of his offence was preaching out of his own parish wherever he could get hearers To the bishop's threats Rowlands replied, "that he had nothing in view but the glory of God in the salvation of sinners, and that as his labours had been so much blessed he could not desist."

At length, in the year 1763, the fatal step was taken. The bishop sent Rowlands a mandate, revoking his license, and was actually foolish enough to have it served on a Sunday! The niece of an eyewitness describes what happened in the following words: "My uncle was at Llangeitho church that very morning. A stranger came forward and

served Mr. Rowlands with a notice from the bishop, at the very time when he was stepping into the pulpit. Mr. Rowlands read it, and told the people that the letter which he had just received was from the bishop, revoking his license. Mr. Rowlands then said, 'We must obey the higher powers. Let me beg you will go out quietly, and then we shall conclude the service of the morning by the church gate.' And so they walked out, weeping and crying. My uncle thought there was not a dry eye in the church at the moment. Mr. Rowlands accordingly preached outside the church with extraordinary effect."

A more unhappy, ill-timed, blundering exercise of episcopal power than this, it is literally impossible to conceive! Here was a man of singular gifts and graces, who had no objection to anything in the Articles or Prayer-book, cast out of the Church of England for no other fault than excess of zeal. And this ejection took place at a time when scores of Welsh clergymen were shamefully neglecting their duties, and too often were drunkards, gamblers, and sportsmen, if not worse! That the bishop afterwards bitterly repented of what he did, is very poor consolation indeed. It was too late. The deed was done. Rowlands was shut out of the Church of England, and an immense number of his people all over Wales followed him. A breach was made in the walls of the Established Church which will probably never be healed. As long as the world stands, the Church of England in Wales will never get over the injury done to it by the preposterous and stupid revocation of Daniel Rowlands' license.

There is every reason to believe that Rowlands felt his expulsion most keenly. However, it made no difference whatever in his line of action. His friends and followers soon built him a large and commodious chapel in the parish of Llangeitho, and migrated there in a body. He did not even leave Llangeitho rectory; for his son, being rector, allowed him to reside there as long as he lived. In fact, the Church of England lost everything by ejecting him, and gained nothing at all. The great Welsh preacher was never silenced practically for a single day, and the Church of England only reaped a

harvest of odium-and dislike in Wales, which is bearing fruit to this very hour.

From the time of his ejection to his death, the course of Rowlands' life seems to have been comparatively undisturbed. No longer persecuted and snubbed by ecclesiastical superiors, he held on his way for twenty-seven years in great quietness, undiminished popularity, and immense usefulness, and died at length in Llangeitho rectory on October the 16th, 1790, at the ripe old age of seventyseven.

"He was unwell during the last year of his life," says Morgan, "but able to go on with his ministry at Llangeitho, though he scarcely went anywhere else. It was his particular wish that he might go direct from his work to his everlasting rest, and not be kept long on a death-bed. His heavenly Father was pleased to grant his desire, and when his departure was drawing nigh, he had some pleasing idea of his approaching end."

One of his children has supplied the following interesting account of his last days:— "My father made the following observations in his sermons two Sundays before his departure. He said, 'I am almost leaving, and am on the point of being taken from you. I am not tired of work, but in it. I have some presentiment that my heavenly Father will soon release me from my labours, and bring me to my everlasting rest. But I hope that he will continue his gracious presence with you after I am gone.' He told us, conversing on his departure after worship the last Sunday, that he should like to die in a quiet, serene manner, and hoped that he should not be disturbed by our sighs and crying. He added, I have no more to state, by way of acceptance with God, than I have always stated: I die as a poor sinner, depending fully and entirely on the merits of a crucified Saviour for my acceptance with God.' In his last hours he often used the expression, in Latin, which Wesley used on his death-bed, God is with us;' and finally departed in great peace."

Rowlands was buried at Llangeitho, at the east end of the church. His enemies could shut him out of the pulpit, but not out of the churchyard. An old inhabitant of the parish, now eighty-five years of age, says: "I well remember his tomb, and many times have I read the inscription, his name, and age, with that of his wife's, Eleanor, who died a year and two months after her husband. The stone was laid on a three feet wall, but it is now worn out by the hand of time."

Rowlands was once married. It is believed that his wife was the daughter of Mr. Davies of Glynwchaf, near Llangeitho. He had seven children who survived him, and two who died in infancy. What became of all his family, and whether there are any lineal descendants of his, I have been unable to ascertain with accuracy.

The engraving of him which faces the title-page of the lives drawn up by Morgan and Owen, gives one the idea of Rowlands being a grave and solemn-looking man. It is probably taken from the picture of him which Lady Huntingdon sent an artist to take at the very end of his life. The worthy old saint did not at all like having his portrait taken. "Why do you object, sir?" said the artist at last. "Why?" replied the old man, with great emphasis; "I am only a bit of clay like .thyself." And then he exclaimed, "Alas! Alas! Alas! Taking the picture of a poor old sinner! Alas! alas!"— "His countenance," says Morgan, "altered and fell at once, and this is the reason why the picture appears so heavy and cast down."

I have other things yet to tell about Rowlands. His preaching and the many characteristic anecdotes about him deserve special notice. But I must reserve these points for another Chapter.

Chapter 2

Analysis of his Preaching—Much of Christ—Richness of Thought— Felicity of Language —Large Measure of Practical and Experimental Teaching—Manner, Delivery, and Voice—Christmas Evans' Description of his Preaching—Testimony of Mr. Jones of Creaton—

Specimens of Rowlands' Sermons—Inner Life and Private Character —Humility, Prayerfulness, Diligence, Self-Denial, Courage, Fervour— Rowland Hill s Anecdote.

In taking a general survey of the ministry of Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho, the principal thing that strikes one is the extraordinary power of his preaching . There was evidently something very uncommon about his sermons. On this point we have the clear and distinct testimony of a great cloud of witnesses. In a day when God raised up several preachers of very great power, Rowlands was considered by competent judges to be equalled by only one man, and to be excelled by none.

Whitefield was thought to equal him; but even Whitefield was not thought to surpass him. This is undoubtedly high praise. Some account of the good man's sermons will probably prove interesting to most of my readers. What were their peculiar characteristics? What were they like?

I must begin by frankly confessing that the subject is surrounded by difficulties. The materials out of which we have to form our judgment are exceedingly small. Eight sermons, translated out of Welsh into English in the year 1774, are the only literary record which exists of the great Welsh apostle's fifty years' ministry. Besides these sermons, and a few fragments of occasional addresses, we have hardly any means of testing the singularly high estimate which his contemporaries formed of his preaching powers. When I add to this, that the eight sermons extant appear to be poorly translated, the reader will have some idea of the difficulties I have to contend with.

Let me remark, however, once for all, that when the generation which heard a great preacher has passed away, it is often hard to find out the secret of his popularity. No well-read person can be ignorant that Luther and Knox in the sixteenth century, Stephen Marshall in the Commonwealth times, and George Whitefield in the eighteenth century, were the most popular and famous preachers of their

respective eras. Yet no one, perhaps, can read their sermons, as we now possess them, without a secret feeling that they do not answer to their reputation. In short, it is useless to deny that there is some hidden secret about pulpit power which baffles all attempts at definition. The man who attempts to depreciate the preaching of Rowlands on the ground that the only remains of him now extant seem poor, will find that he occupies an untenable position. He might as well attempt to depreciate the great champions of the German and Scottish Reformations.

After all, we must remember that no man has a right to pass unfavourable criticisms on the remains of great popular preachers, unless he has first thoroughly considered what kind of thing a popular sermon must of necessity be. The vast majority of sermonhearers do not want fine words, close reasoning, deep philosophy, metaphysical abstractions, nice distinctions, elaborate composition, profound learning. They delight in plain language, simple ideas, forcible illustrations, direct appeals to heart and conscience, short sentences, fervent, loving earnestness of manner. He who possesses such qualifications will seldom preach to empty benches. He who possesses them in a high degree will always be a popular preacher. Tried by this standard, the popularity of Luther and Knox is easily explained. Rowlands appears to have been a man of this stamp. An intelligent judge of popular preaching can hardly fail to see in his remains, through all the many disadvantages under which we read them, some of the secrets of his marvellous success.

Having cleared my way by these preliminary remarks, I will proceed at once to show my readers some of the leading characteristics of the great Welsh evangelist's preaching. I give them as the result of a close analysis of his literary remains. 'Weak and poor as they undoubtedly look in the garb of a translation, I venture to think that the following points stand out clearly in Rowlands' sermons, and give us a tolerable idea of what his preaching generally was.

The first thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is the constant presence of Christ in all his addresses. The Lord Jesus stands out prominently in almost every page. That his doctrine was always eminently "evangelical" is a point on which I need not waste words. The men about whom I am writing were all men of that stamp. But of all the spiritual champions of last century, none appear to me to have brought Christ forward more prominently than Rowlands. 'The blood, the sacrifice, the righteousness, the kindness, the patience, the saving grace, the example, the greatness of the Lord Jesus are subjects which appear to run through every sermon, and to crop out at every turn. It seems as if the preacher could never say enough about his Master, and was never weary of commending him to his hearers. His divinity and his humanity, his office and his character, his death and his life, are pressed on our attention in every possible connection. Yet it all seems to come in naturally, and without effort, as if it were the regular outflowing of the preacher's mind, and the language of a heart speaking from its abundance. Here, I suspect, was precisely one of the great secrets of Rowlands' power. A ministry full of the Lord Jesus is exactly the sort of ministry that I should expect God to bless. Christ-honouring sermons are just the sermons that the Holy Spirit seals with success.

The second thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is a singular richness of thought and matter. Tradition records that he was a diligent student all his life, and spent a great deal of time in the preparation of his sermons. I can quite believe this. Even in the miserable relics which we possess, I fancy I detect strong internal evidence that he was deeply read in Puritan divinity. I suspect that he was very familiar with the writings of such men as Gurnall, Watson, Brooks, Clarkson, and their contemporaries, and was constantly storing his mind with fresh thoughts from their pages. Those who imagine that the great Welsh preacher was nothing but an empty declaimer of trite commonplaces, bald platitudes, and hackneyed phrases, with a lively manner and a loud voice, are utterly and entirely mistaken. They will find, even in the tattered rags of his translated sermons, abundant proof that Rowlands was a man who

read much and thought much, and gave his hearers plenty to carry away. Even in the thin little volume of eight sermons which I have, I find frequent quotations from Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Bernard, and Theophylact. I find frequent reference to things recorded by Greek and Latin classical writers. I mark such names as Homer, Socrates, Plato, Eschines, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Carneades. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Nero, the Augean stable, Thersites, and Xantippe, make their appearance here and there. That Rowlands was indebted to his friends the Puritans for most of these materials, I make no question at all. But wherever he may have got his learning, there is no doubt that he possessed it, and knew how to make use of it in his sermons. In this respect I think he excelled all his contemporaries. Not one of them shows so much reading in his sermons as the curate of Llangeitho. Here again, I venture to suggest, was one great secret of Rowlands' success. The man who takes much pains with its sermons, and never brings out what has "cost him nothing," is just the man I expect God will bless. We want wellbeaten oil for the service of the sanctuary.

The third thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is the curious felicity of the language in which he expressed his ideas. Of course this is a point on which I must speak diffidently, knowing literally nothing of the Welsh tongue, and entirely dependent on translation. But it is impossible to mistake certain peculiarities in style which stand forth prominently in everything which comes from the great Welsh apostle's mind. He abounds in short, terse, pithy, epigrammatic, proverbial sentences, of that kind which arrests the attention and sticks in the memory of hearers. He has a singularly happy mode of quoting Scriptures in confirming and enforcing the statement he makes. Above all, he is rich in images and illustrations, drawn from everything almost in the world, but always put in such a way that the simplest mind can understand them. Much of the peculiar interest of his preaching, I suspect, may be traced to this talent of putting things in the most vivid and pictorial way. He made his hearers feel that they actually saw the things of which he was speaking. No intelligent reader of the Bible, I suppose, needs to be

reminded that in all this Rowlands walked in the footsteps of his divine Master. The sermons of Him who "spake as never man spake," were not elaborate rhetorical arguments. Parables founded on subjects familiar to the humblest intellect, terse, broad, sententious statements, were the staple of our Lord Jesus Christ's preaching. Much of the marvellous success of Rowlands, perhaps, may be traced up to his wise imitation of the best of patterns, the great Head of the Church.

The fourth and last thing which I notice in the remains of Rowlands, is the large measure of practical and experimental teaching which enters into all his sermons. Anxious as he undoubtedly was to convert sinners and arouse the careless, he never seems to forget the importance of guiding the Church of God and building up believers. Warnings, counsels, encouragements, consolations suited to professing Christians, are continually appearing in all his discourses. The peculiar character of his ministerial position may partly account for this. He was always preaching in the same place, and to many of the same hearers, on Sundays. He was not nearly so much an itinerant as many of his contemporaries. He could not, like Whitefield, and Wesley, and Berridge, preach the same sermon over and over again, and yet feel that probably none of his hearers had heard it before. Set for the defence of the gospel at Llangeitho every Sunday, and seeing every week the same faces looking up to him, he probably found it absolutely necessary to "bring forth new things as well as old," and to be often exhorting many of his hearers not to standstill in first principles, but to "go on unto perfection." But be the cause what it may, there is abundant evidence in the sermons of Rowlands that he never forgot the believers among his people, and generally contrived to say a good many things for their special benefit. Here again, I venture to think, we have one more clue to his extraordinary usefulness. He "rightly divided the word of truth," and gave to every man his portion. Most preachers of the gospel, I suspect, fail greatly in this matter. They either neglect the unconverted or the true Christians in their congregations. They either spend their strength in perpetually teaching elementary

truths, or else they dwell exclusively on the privileges and duties of God's children. From this one-sided style of preaching Rowlands seems to have been singularly free. Even in the midst of the plainest addresses to the ungodly, he never loses the opportunity of making a general appeal to the godly. In a word, his ministry of God's truth was thoroughly well-balanced and well-proportioned; and this is just the ministry which we may expect the Holy Ghost will bless.

The manner and delivery of this great man, when he was in the act of preaching, require some special notice. Every sensible Christian knows well that voice and delivery have a great deal to say to the effectiveness of a speaker, and above all of one who speaks in the pulpit. A sermon faultless both in doctrine and composition will often sound dull and tiresome, when tamely read by a clergyman with a heavy monotonous manner. A sermon of little intrinsic merit, and containing perhaps not half-a-dozen ideas, will often pass muster as brilliant and eloquent, when delivered by a lively speaker with a good voice. For want of good delivery some men make gold look like copper, while others, by the sheer force of a good delivery, make a few halfpence pass for gold. Truths divine seem really "mended" by the tongue of some, while they are marred and damaged by others. There is deep wisdom and knowledge of human nature in the answer given by an ancient to one who asked what were the first qualifications of an orator: "The first qualification," he said, "is action; and the second is action; and the third is action." The meaning of course was, that it was almost impossible to overrate the importance of manner and delivery.

The voice of Rowlands, according to tradition, was remarkably powerful. We may easily believe this, when we recollect that he used frequently to preach to thousands in the open air, and to make himself heard by all without difficulty. But we must not suppose that power was the only attribute of his vocal organ, and that he was nothing better than one who screamed, shouted, and bawled louder than other ministers. There is universal testimony from all good judges who heard him, that his voice was singularly moving,

affecting, and tender, and possessed a strange power of drawing forth the sympathies of his hearers. In this respect he seems to have resembled Baxter and Whitefield. Like Whitefield, too, his feelings never interfered with the exercise of his voice; and even when his affections moved him to tears in preaching, he was able to continue speaking with uninterrupted clearness. It is a striking feature of the moving character of his voice, that a remarkable revival of religion began at Llangeitho while Rowlands was reading the Litany of the Church of England. The singularly touching and melting manner in which he repeated the words, "By thine agony and bloody sweat, good Lord, deliver us," so much affected the whole congregation, that almost all began to weep loudly, and an awakening of spiritual life commenced which extended throughout the neighbourhood.

Of the manner, demeanour, and action of Rowlands in the delivery of his sermons, mention is made by all who write of him. All describe them as being something so striking and remarkable, that no one could have an idea of them but an eye-witness. He seems to have combined in a most extraordinary degree solemnity and liveliness, dignity and familiarity, depth and fervour. His singular plainness and directness made even the poorest feel at home when he preached; and yet he never degenerated into levity or buffoonery. His images and similes brought things home to his hearers with such graphic power that they could not help sometimes smiling. But he never made his Master's business ridiculous by pulpit joking. If he did say things that made people smile occasionally, he far more often said things that made them weep.

The following sketch by the famous Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, will probably give as good an idea as we can now obtain of Rowlands in the pulpit. It deserves the more attention, because it is the sketch of a Welshman, an eye-witness, a keen observer, a genuine admirer of his hero, and one who was himself in after-days a very extraordinary man:

"Rowlands' mode of preaching was peculiar to himself—inimitable. Methinks I see him now entering in his black gown through a little door from the outside to the pulpit, and making his appearance suddenly before the immense congregation. His countenance was in every sense adorned with majesty, and it bespoke the man of strong sense, eloquence, and authority. His forehead was high and prominent; his eye was quick, sharp, and penetrating; he had an aquiline or Roman nose, proportionable comely lips, projecting chin, and a sonorous, commanding, and well-toned voice.

"When he made his appearance in the pulpit, he frequently gave out, with a clear and audible voice, Psalm 27:4 to be sung. Only one verse was sung before sermon, in those days notable for divine influences; but the whole congregation joined in singing it with great fervour. Then Rowlands would stand up, and read his text distinctly in the hearing of all. The whole congregation were all ears and most attentive, as if they were on the point of hearing some evangelic and heavenly oracle, and the eyes of all the people were at the same time most intensely fixed upon him. He had at the beginning of his discourse some stirring, striking idea, like a small box of ointment which he opened before the great one of his sermon, and it filled all the house with its heavenly perfume, as the odour of Mary's alabaster box of ointment at Bethany; and the congregation being delightfully enlivened with the sweet odour, were prepared to look for more of it from one box after the other throughout the sermon.

"I will borrow another similitude in order to give some idea of his most energetic eloquence. It shall be taken from the trade of a blacksmith. The smith first puts the iron into the fire, and then blows the bellows softly, making some inquiries respecting the work to be done, while his eye all the time is fixed steadily on the process of heating the iron in the fire. But as soon as he perceives it to be in a proper and pliable state, he carries it to the anvil, and brings the weighty hammer and sledge down on the metal, and in the midst of

stunning noise and fiery sparks emitted from the glaring metal, he fashions and moulds it at his will.

"Thus Rowlands, having glanced at his notes as a matter of form, would go on with his discourse in a calm and deliberate manner, speaking with a free and audible voice; but he would gradually become warmed with his subject, and at length his voice became so elevated and authoritative, that it resounded through the whole chapel. The effect on the people was wonderful; you could see nothing but smiles and tears running down the face of all The first flame of heavenly devotion under the first division having subsided, he would again look on his scrap of notes, and begin the second time to melt and make the minds of the people supple, until he formed them again into the same heavenly temper. And thus he would do six or seven times in the same sermon.

"Rowlands' voice, countenance, and appearance used to change exceedingly in the pulpit, and he seemed to be greatly excited; but there was nothing low or disagreeable in him—all was becoming, dignified, and excellent. There was such a vehement, invincible flame in his ministry, as effectually drove away the careless, worldly, dead spirit; and the people so awakened drew nigh, as it were, to the bright cloud-to Christ, to Moses, and Elias-eternity and its amazing realities rushing into their minds.

"There was very little, if any, inference or application at the end of Rowlands' sermon, for he had been applying and enforcing the glorious truths of the gospel throughout the whole of his discourse. He would conclude with a very few striking and forcible remarks, which were most overwhelming and invincible; and then he would make a very sweet, short prayer, and utter the benediction. Then he would make haste out of the pulpit through the little door. His exit was as sudden as his entrance. Rowlands was a star of the greatest magnitude that appeared the last century in the Principality; and perhaps there has not been his like in Wales since the days of the apostles."

It seems almost needless to add other testimony to this graphic sketch, though it might easily be added. The late Mr. Jones of Creaton, who was no mean judge, and heard the greatest preachers in England and Wales, used to declare that "he never heard but one Rowlands." The very first time he heard him, he was so struck with his manner of delivery, as well as his sermon, that it led him to a serious train of thought, which ultimately ended in his conversion.— Charles of Bala, himself a very eminent minister, said that there was a peculiar "dignity and grandeur" in Rowlands' ministry, "as well as profound thoughts, strength and melodiousness of voice, and clearness and animation in exhibiting the deep things of God."—A Birmingham minister, who came accidentally to a place in Wales where Rowlands was preaching to an immense congregation in the open air, says: "I never witnessed such a scene before. The striking appearance of the preacher, and his zeal, animation, and fervour were beyond description. Rowlands' countenance was most expressive; it glowed almost like an angel's."

After saying so much about the gifts and power of this great preacher, it is perhaps hardly fair to offer any specimens of his sermons. To say nothing of the fact that we only possess them in the form of translations, it must never be forgotten that true pulpit eloquence can rarely be expressed on paper. Wise men know well that sermons which are excellent to listen to, are just the sermons which do not "read" well. However, as I have hitherto generally given my readers some illustrations of the style of my last century heroes, they will perhaps be disappointed if I do not give them a few passages from Rowlands.

My first specimen shall be taken from his sermon on the words, "All things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).

"Observe what he says. Make thou no exception, when he makes none. All! Remember he excepts nothing. Be thou confirmed in thy faith; give glory to God, and resolve, with Job, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' The Almighty may seem for a season to be

your enemy, in order that he may become your eternal friend. Oh! Believers, after all your tribulation and anguish, you must conclude with David, 'It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.' Under all your disquietudes you must exclaim, 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' His glory is seen when he works by means; it is more seen when he works without means; it is seen, above all, when he works contrary to means. It was a great work to open the eyes of the blind; it was a greater still to do it by applying clay and spittle, things more likely, some think, to take away sight than to restore. He sent a horror of great darkness on Abraham, when he was preparing to give him the best light. He touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and lamed him, when he was going to bless him. He smote Paul with blindness, when he was intending to open the eyes of his mind. He refused the request of the woman of Canaan for a while, but afterwards she obtained her desire. See, therefore, that all the paths of the Lord are mercy, and that all things work together for good to them that love him.

"Even affliction is very useful and profitable to the godly. The prodigal son had no thought of returning to his father's house till he had been humbled by adversity. Hagar was haughty under Abraham's roof, and despised her mistress; but in the wilderness she was meek and lowly. Jonah sleeps on board ship, but in the whale's belly he watches and prays. Manasseh lived as a libertine at Jerusalem, and committed the most enormous crimes; but when he was bound in chains in the prison at Babylon his heart was turned to seek the Lord his God. Bodily pain and disease have been instrumental in rousing many to seek Christ, when those who were in high health have given themselves no concern about him. The ground which is not rent and torn with the plough bears nothing but thistles and thorns. The vines will run wild, in process of time, if they be not pruned and trimmed. So would our wild hearts be overrun with filthy, poisonous weeds, if the true Vine-dresser did not often check their growth by crosses and sanctified troubles. 'It is

good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.' Our Saviour says, 'Every branch that beareth fruit, my Father purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit.' There can be no gold or silver finely wrought without being first purified with fire, and no elegant houses built with stones till the hammers have squared and smoothed them. So we can neither become vessels of honour in the house of our Father till we are melted in the furnace of affliction, nor lively stones in the walls of new Jerusalem till the hand of the Lord has beaten off our proud excrescences and tumours with his own hammers.

"He does not say that all things will , but do , work together for good. The work is on the wheel, and every movement of the wheel is for your benefit. Not only the angels who encamp around you, or the saints who continually pray for you, but even your enemies, the old dragon and his angels, are engaged in this matter. It is true, this is not their design. No! They think they are carrying on their own work of destroying you, as it is said of the Assyrian whom the Lord sent to punish a hypocritical nation, 'Howbeit, he meaneth not so;' yet it was God's work that he was carrying on, though he did not intend to do so. All the events that take place in the world carry on the same work—the glory of the Father and the salvation of his children. Every illness and infirmity that may seize you, every loss you may meet with, every reproach you may endure, every shame that may colour your faces, every sorrow in your hearts, every agony and pain in your flesh, every aching in your bones, are for your good. Every change in your condition—your fine weather and your rough weather, your sunny weather and your cloudy weather, your ebbing and your flowing, your liberty and your imprisonment, all turn out for good. Oh, Christians, see what a harvest of blessings ripens from this text! The Lord is at work; all creation is at work; men and angels, friends and foes, all are busy, working together for good. Oh, dear Lord Jesus, what halt thou seen in us that thou shouldst order things so wondrously for us, and make all things — all things to work together for our good?"

My second specimen shall be taken from his sermon on Revelations 3:20 :

"Oh, how barren and unfruitful is the soul of man, until the word descends like rain upon it, and it is watered with the dew of heaven! But when a few drops have entered and made it supple, what a rich harvest of graces do they produce! Is the heart so full of malice that the most suppliant knee can expect no pardon '? Is it as hard to be pacified and calmed as the roaring sea when agitated by a furious tempest'? Is it a covetous heart; so covetous that no scene of distress can soften it into sympathy, and no object of wretchedness extort a penny from its gripe? Is it a wanton and adulterous heart, which may as soon be satisfied as the sea can be filled with gold? Be it so. But when the word shall 'drop on it as the rain, and distil as the dew,' behold, in an instant the flint is turned into flesh, the tumultuous sea is hushed into a calm, and the mountains of Gilboa are clothed with herbs and flowers, where before not a green blade was to be seen! See the mighty change! It converts Zaccheus; the hard-hearted publican and rapacious tax-gatherer, into a restorer of what he had unjustly gotten, and a merciful reliever of the needy. It tames the furious persecuting Saul, and makes him gentle as a lamb. It clothes Ahab with sackcloth and ashes. It reduces Felix to such anguish of mind that he trembles like an aspen leaf. It disposes Peter to leave his nets, and makes him to catch thousands of souls at one draught in the net of the gospel. Behold, the world is converted to the faith, not by the magicians of Egypt, but by the outcasts of Judaea!"

The last specimen that I will give is from his sermon on Hebrews 1:9 :-

"Christ took our nature upon him that he might sympathize with us. Almost every creature is tender toward its own kind, however ferocious to others. The bear will not be deprived of her whelps without resistance: she will tear the spoiler to pieces if she can. But how great must be the jealousy of the Lord Jesus for his people! He

will not lose any of them. He has taken them as members of himself, and as such watches over them with fondest care. How much will a man do for one of his members before he suffers it to be cut off? Think not, O man, that thou wouldst do more for thy members than the Son of God. To think so would be blasphemy, for the preeminence in all things belongs to him. Yea, he is acquainted with all thy temptations, because he was in all things tempted as thou art. Art thou tempted to deny God? So was he. Art thou tempted to kill thyself? So was he. Art thou tempted by the vanities of the world? So was he. Art thou tempted to idolatry? So was he; yea, even to worship the devil. He was tempted from the manger to the cross. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The Head in heaven is sympathizing with the feet that are pinched and pressed on earth, and says, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

I should find no difficulty in adding to these extracts, if the space at my command did not forbid me. Feeble and unsatisfactory, as they undoubtedly are, in the form of a translation, they will perhaps give my readers some idea of what Rowlands was in the pulpit, so far as concerns the working of his mind. Of his manner and delivery, of course, they cannot give the least idea. It would be easy to fill pages with short, epigrammatic, proverbial sayings culled from his sermons, of which there is a rich abundance in many passages. But enough, perhaps, has been brought forward to give a general impression of the preaching that did such wonders at Llangeitho. Those who want to know more of it should try to get hold of the little volume of translated sermons from which my extracts have been made. Faintly and inadequately as it represents the great Welsh preacher, it is still a volume worth having, and one that ought to be better known than it is. Scores of books are reprinted in the present day which are not half so valuable as Rowlands' eight sermons.

The inner life and private character of the great Welsh preacher would form a deeply interesting subject, no doubt, if we knew more about them. But the utter absence of all materials except a few scattered anecdotes leaves us very much in the dark. Unless—the

memoirs of great men are written by relatives, neighbours, or contemporaries, it stands to reason that we shall know little of anything but their public conduct and doings. This applies eminently to Daniel Rowlands. He had no Boswell near him to chronicle the details of his long and laborious life, and to present him to us as he appeared at home. The consequence is, that a vast quantity of interesting matter, which the Church of Christ would like to know, lies buried with him in his grave.

One thing, at any rate, is very certain. His private life was as holy, blameless, and consistent, as the life of a Christian can be. Some fifteen years ago, the Quarterly Review contained an article insinuating that he was addicted to drunkenness, which called forth an indignant and complete refutation from many competent witnesses in South Wales, and specially from the neighbourhood of Llangeitho. That such charges should be made against good men need never surprise us. Slander and lying are the devil's favourite weapons, when he wants to injure the mightiest assailants of his kingdom. Satan is preeminently "a liar." Bunyan, Whitefield, and Wesley had to drink of the same bitter cup as Rowlands. But that the charge against Rowlands was a mere groundless, malicious falsehood, was abundantly proved by Mr. Griffith, the vicar of Aberdare, in a reply to the article of the Quarterly Review , printed at Cardiff. We need not be reminded, if we read our Bibles, who it was of whom the wicked Jews said, "Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" (Matthew 11:19). If the children of this world cannot prevent the gospel being preached, they try to blacken the character of the preacher. What saith the Scripture? "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" (Matthew 10:24 , 25).

The only light that we can throw on the character and private habits of Rowlands is derived from he few anecdotes which still survive

about him. I shall, therefore, conclude my account of him by presenting them to my readers without note or comment.

One leading feature in Rowlands' character was his humility . Like every eminent servant of God of whom much is known, he had a deep and abiding sense of his own sinfulness, weakness, and corruption, and his constant need of God's grace. On seeing a vast concourse of people coming to hear him, he would frequently exclaim: "Oh, may the Lord have mercy on me, and help me, a poor worm, sinful dust and ashes!"—When a backslider was pointed out to him, who had once been one of his followers, he said: "It is to be feared indeed that he is one of my disciples; for had he been one of My Lord's disciples, he would not have been in such a state of sin and rebellion." He often used to say, during his latter days, that there were four lessons which he had laboured to learn throughout the whole course of his religious life, and yet that he was but a dull scholar even in his old age. These lessons were the following —(1) To repent without despairing; (2) To believe without being presumptuous; (3) To rejoice without falling into levity; (4) To be angry without sinning. He used also often to say, that a self-righteous legal spirit in man was like his shirt, a garment which he puts on first, and puts off last.

A habit of praying much was another leading characteristic of Rowlands. It is said that he used often to go to the top of Aeron Hills, and there pour out his heart before God in the most tender and earnest manner for the salvation of the numerous inhabitants of the country which lay around him. "He lived," says Morgan, "in the spirit of prayer, and hence his extraordinary success. On one occasion having engaged to preach at a certain church which stood on an eminence, he had to cross a valley in sight of the people, who were waiting for him in the churchyard. They saw him descend into the bottom of the valley, but then lost sight of him for some time. At last, as he did not come up by the time they expected, and service-time had arrived, some of them went down the hill in search of him. They discovered him, at length, on his knees in a retired spot a little out of

the road. He got up when he saw them, and went with them, expressing sorrow for the delay; but he added, I had a delightful opportunity below.' The sermon which followed was most extraordinary in power and effect."

Diligence was another distinguishing feature in the character of Rowlands. He was continually improving his mind, by reading, meditation, and study. He used to be up and reading as early as four o'clock in the morning; and he took immense pains in the preparation of his sermons. Morgan says, "Every part of God's Word, at length, became quite familiar to him. He could tell Chapter and verse of any text or passage of Scripture that was mentioned to him. Indeed the word of God dwelt richly in him. He had, moreover, a most retentive memory, and when preaching, could repeat the texts referred to, off-hand, most easily and appropriately."

Self-denial was another leading feature of Rowlands' character. He was all his life a very poor man; but he was always a contented one, and lived in the simplest way. Twice he refused the offer of good livings—one in North Wales, and the other in South Wales—and preferred to remain a dependent curate with his flock at Llangeitho. The offer in one case came from the excellent John Thornton. When he heard that Rowlands had refused it, and ascertained his reasons, he wrote to his son, saying, "I had a high opinion of your father before, but now I have a still higher opinion of him, though he declines my offer. The reasons he assigns are highly creditable to him. It is not a usual thing with me to allow other people to go to my pocket; but tell your father that he is fully welcome to do so whenever he pleases." The residence of the great Welsh evangelist throughout life was nothing but a small cottage possessing no great accommodation. His journeys, when he went about preaching, were made on horseback, until at last a small carriage was left him as a legacy in his old age. He was con-tent, when journeying in his Master's service, with very poor fare and very indifferent lodgings. He says himself, "We used to travel over hills and mountains, on our little nags, without anything to eat but the bread and cheese we

carried in our pockets, and without anything to drink but water from the springs. If we had a little buttermilk in some cottages we thought it a great thing. But now men must have tea, and some, too, must have brandy!" Never did man seem so thoroughly to realize the primitive and apostolic rule of life" Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content."

Courage was another prominent feature in Rowlands' character. He was often fiercely persecuted when he went about preaching, and even his life was sometimes in danger. Once, when he was preaching at Aberystwith, a man swore in a dreadful manner that he would shoot him immediately. He aimed his gun, and pulled the trigger, but it would not go off.—On another occasion his enemies actually placed gunpowder under the place where he was about to stand when preaching, and laid a train to a distant point, so that at a given time they might apply a match, and blow up the preacher and congregation. However, before the time arrived, a good man providentially discovered the whole plot, and brought it to nothing.— On other occasions riotous mobs were assembled, stones were thrown, drums beaten, and every effort made to prevent the sermon being heard. None of these things ever seems to have deterred Rowlands for a moment. As long as he had strength to work he went on with his Master's business, unmoved by opposition and persecution. Like Colonel Gardiner, he "feared God, and beside him he feared nothing." He had given himself to the work of preaching the gospel, and from this work he allowed neither clergy nor laity, bishops nor gentry, rich nor poor, to keep him back.

Fervent and deep feeling was the last characteristic which I mark in Rowlands. He never did anything by halves. Whether preaching or praying, whether in church or in the open air, he seems to have done all he did with heart and soul, and mind and strength. "He possessed as much animal spirits," says one witness, "as were sufficient for half-a-dozen men." This energy seems to have had an inspiring effect about it, and to have swept everything before it like a fire. One who went to hear him every month from Carnarvonshire, gives a striking

account of his singular fervour when Rowlands was preaching on John 3:16 . He says, "He dwelt with such overwhelming, extraordinary thoughts on the love of God, and the vastness of his gift to man, that I was swallowed up in amazement. I did not know that my feet were on the ground; yea, I had no idea where I was, whether on earth or in heaven. But presently he cried out with a most powerful voice, 'Praised be God for keeping the Jews in ignorance respecting the greatness of the Person in their hands! Had they known who he was, they would never have presumed to touch him, much less to drive nails through his blessed hands and feet, and to put a crown of thorns on his holy head. For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' "

I will wind up this account of Rowlands by mentioning a little incident which the famous Rowland Hill often spoke of in his latter days. He was attending a meeting of Methodist ministers in Wales in one of his visits, when a man, nearly a hundred years old, got up from a corner of the room and addressed the meeting in the following words:— "Brethren, let me tell you this: I have heard Daniel Row-lands preach, and I heard him once say, Except your con-sciences be cleansed by the blood of Christ, you must all perish in the eternal fires." Rowlands, at that time, had been dead more than a quarter of a century. Yet, even at that interval, "though dead he spoke." It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all remembrance, that the ministry which exalts Christ crucified most, is the ministry which produces most lasting effects. Never, perhaps, did any preacher exalt Christ more than Rowlands did, and never did preacher leave behind him such deep and abiding marks in the isolated corner of the world where he laboured a hundred years ago.

VIII. John Berridge And His Ministry

Chapter 1

Born at Kingston, Notts, 1716—Educated at Nottingham—Fails to learn the Business of a Grazier—Goes to Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1734 —Elected Fellow of Clare, 1742— Curate of Stapleford, 1749—Vicar of Everton, 1755—Begins to Preach the Full Gospel, 1757—Open-air Preaching—Itinerant and Extra-parochial Ministrations—Singular Physical Effect on some Hearers—Opposition and Persecution—Dies, 1793—His Epitaph.

Hundred years ago there were spiritual giants in the Eastern Counties of England, as well as in Lancashire and Wales. The sixth leader of the great revival of last century whom I wish to introduce to my readers, was a man as remarkable in his way as either Grimshaw or Row lands. Like them, he lived in an obscure and out-of-the-way village. But, like them, he shook the earth around him, and was one of those who "turn the world upside down." The man I mean is John Berridge, Vicar of Everton, in the county of Bedfordshire.

Of all the English evangelists of the eighteenth century, this good man was undeniably the most quaint and eccentric. Without controversy he was a very odd person, a comet rather thana planet, a man who must be put in a class by himself; a minister who said and did things which nobody else could say or do. But the eccentricities of the Vicar of Everton are probably better known than his graces. With all his peculiarities, he was a man of rare gifts, and deeply taught by the Holy Ghost. Above all, he was a mighty instrument for good in the orbit in which he Moved. Few preachers, perhaps, a hundred years ago, were more honoured by God and more useful to souls than the eccentric John Berridge.

My account of this good man is compiled from very scanty materials. A single volume, of no great size, containing his literary remains, and a short biography by his curate, Mr. Whittingham, is the only source of information about him that I can find. In this, however, there is nothing that should surprise us. He was never married, and lived entirely alone. He resided in an isolated rural parish, far away from London, in days when there were no railways, and even turnpike roads were not good. He was settled at a distance from his own family, in a county where, apparently, he had no relatives or connections. He wrote very little, and was chiefly known by his preaching. Add to these facts the mighty one, that Berridge belonged to "a sect everywhere spoken against," and we need not wonder that the records remaining of him are very few. But there is a memorial of him that will never perish. The last day will show that his Master kept "a book of remembrance," and that "his record was on high."

John Berridge was born at Kingston, in the county of Nottinghamshire, on March 1, 1716, within a very few years of Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, Romaine, and Rowlands. The village in which he was born may be seen any day from Kegworth Station by those who travel to the north along the Midland Railway. His father was a wealthy farmer and grazier at Kingston, who married a Miss Sarah Hathwaite, in the year 1714. John Berridge was his eldest son. He had three other sons, about whom I can find out nothing, except that his brother Thomas lived and died at Chatteris, in the Isle of Ely, and survived the subject of this memoir.

The first fourteen years of Berridge's life were chiefly spent with an aunt at Nottingham, with whom he was a particular favourite. Here also he received the groundwork of his education, but at what school, and under what teacher, I have been unable to ascertain. It is evident that, even when a boy he was remarkable for seriousness and steadiness; so much so, as to excite the attention of all who knew him. There is not, however, the slightest proof that he knew anything at this time of scriptural religion; nor was it likely, I fear, in those days, that he would hear anything about it in Nottingham. No doubt,

in after-life he had abundant reason to be thankful for his early morality. Steadiness and correctness of life, of course, are not conversion, and save no man's soul. But still they are not to be despised. The scars left by youthful sins, even after forgiveness and complete reconciliation with God, are never wholly effaced, and the recollection of them often causes bitter sorrow.

Berridge himself ascribes his first serious impressions to a singular circumstance:— "One day, as he was returning from school, a boy, who lived near his aunt, invited him into his house, and asked if he might read to him out of the Bible. He consented. This, however, being repeated several times, he began to feel a secret aversion, and would gladly have declined if he had dared. But having obtained the reputation of being pious , he was afraid to risk it by refusal. One day, however, as he was returning from a fair, where he had been spending i holiday, he hesitated to pass the door of his neighbour, lest he should be invited as before. The boy, however, was waiting for him, and not only invited him to come in and read the Bible, but also asked if they should pray together. It was then that Berridge began to perceive he was not right before God, or else he would not have felt the aversion that he did to the boy's invitations. And such, he says, was the effect of that day's interview, that not long afterwards he himself began a similar practice with his companions."

Facts such as these are always interesting to those who study God's ways of dealing with souls. It is clear that he often "moves on the face" of hearts by his Spirit long before he introduces light, order, and life. We must never despise the "day of small things." The impressions and convictions of children, especially, ought never to be rudely treated or overlooked. They have often a green spot in their characters which ought to be carefully cultivated by good advice, kind encouragement, and prayer. Berridge, unfortunately, seems to have had no one near him at this critical period to guide and direct him. Who can tell but the counsel of some Aquila or Priscilla, if they had found him at Nottingham, might have saved him from many years of darkness, and from many agonizing exercises of mind?

At the age of fourteen Berridge left school, and returned to his home at Kingston, with the intention of taking up his father's business. This plan, however, soon fell to the ground. For some time his father used to take him about to markets and fairs, in order that he might become familiar with the price of cattle, sheep, and pigs, and learn his business by observation and experience. The next step, of course, was to ask him to give his judgment of the value of animals which his father wished to purchase—a matter in which necessarily lies the whole secret of a grazier's success. Here, however, poor John was so invariably wrong in his estimates, that old Mr. Berridge began to despair of ever making him fit to be a grazier; and used often to say, "John, I find you cannot form any idea of the price of cattle, and I shall have to send you to college to be a light to the Gentiles."

How long this state of suspense about Berridge's future life continued, we have no means of ascertaining. In all probability it went on for two or three years, and was a cause of much family trouble. An old Nottinghamshire grazier was not likely to let his eldest son forsake oxen and sheep, and go to college, without a hard struggle to prevent him. But the son's distaste for his father's calling was deep and insuperable. His religious impressions, moreover, were kept up and deepened by conversation with a tailor in Kingston, with whom he became so intimate that his friends threatened to bind him to articles of apprenticeship under him. At last old Mr. Berridge, seeing that his son had no apparent inclination for anything but reading and religion, had the good sense to give up his cherished plans, and to consent to his going to Cambridge. And thus John Berridge was finally entered at Clare Hall on October 28, 1734, in the nineteenth year of his age.

God's ways are certainly not like man's ways. Curious as it may appear, for fourteen or fifteen years after entering Clare Hall, John Berridge seems to have gone backward rather than forward in spiritual things. He took his degree as B.A. in 1738, and as M.A. in 1742; and about the same time was elected Fellow of his College, and resided there, doing comparatively nothing, till 1749. He was a hard-

reading man, and made such progress in every branch of literature that he obtained a high reputation in the University as a thorough scholar. A clergyman who knew him well for fifty years, said that he was as familiar with Greek and Latin as he was with his mother tongue. He says himself that he sometimes, at this period of his life, read fifteen hours a-day. But his very cleverness became a snare to him. His natural love of humour and social disposition entailed on him many temptations. His acquaintance was courted by people of high rank and position; and men like the elder Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, were among his intimate associates and friends. All this, no doubt, was very pleasant to flesh and blood, but very bad for his soul. In short, he had to learn, by bitter experience, that wit and brilliant powers of conversation, like beauty, musical skill, and a fine voice, are very perilous possessions. They seem to help people forward in this world, but they are in reality most dangerous to their possessors.

Whittingham, his biographer, says of him at this time: "'Hudibras' was so familiar to him, that he was at no loss in using any part of it on any occasion. While he was at college, if it was known he would be present at any public dinner, the table was sure to be crowded with company, who were delighted with the singularity of his conversation and his witty sayings. But as 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' so Berridge speedily caught the spirit of his company, and drank in the Socinian scheme of religion to such a degree that he lost all his serious impressions, and discontinued private prayer for the space of ten years, a few intervals excepted! In these intervals he would weep bitterly, reflecting on his sad state of mind compared with what it was when he first came to the University; and he would often say to a fellow-student, afterwards an eminent clergyman, 'Oh that it were with me as in years past!' "

This part of Berridge's history is indeed a melancholy picture. It is the more so when we remember that it was during this period of his life that he must have taken holy orders as a Fellow of Clare Hall, and professed than he was "inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost" to take

upon him the office of a minister! He was probably ordained by the Bishop of Ely. How utterly unfit he was for the ministerial office, we may see at a glance from the account given of him by Whittingham. Yet it is a sorrowful fact, I fear, that the case of Berridge has only been that of thousands. No earthly condition appears to be so deadening to a man's soul as the position of a resident Fellow of a college, and the society of a Common room at Oxford or Cambridge. If Berridge fell for a season before the influences brought to bear upon his soul at Clare Hall, we must in justice remember that he was exposed to extraordinary temptations. How hardly shall resident Fellows of colleges enter the kingdom of God! It was a miracle of grace that he was not cast away for ever, and did not sink beneath the waters, never to rise again.

In the year 1749 it pleased God to awaken his conscience once more, and to revive within him his old religious impressions. In that year, after eleven years of apparent idleness, he began to feel a desire to do something as a clergyman, and accepted the curacy of Stapleford, near Cambridge. At this period, it will be remembered, he was thirtythree years old, and thus had lost no less than ten valuable years of time.

Berridge entered on his duties as curate of Stapleford with great zeal, and a sincere desire to do good, and served his church regularly from college for no less than six years. He took great pains with his parishioners, and pressed upon them very earnestly the importance of sanctification, but without producing the slightest effect on their lives. His preaching, even at this time, was striking, plain, and attractive. His life was moral, upright, and correct. His diligence as a pastor was undeniable. Yet his ministry, throughout these six years, was entirely without fruit, to his own great annoyance and mortification. The fact was, that up to this time he was utterly ignorant of the gospel. He did not really know what message he had to deliver to his hearers. He knew nothing aright of Christ crucified, of justification by faith in his blood, of salvation by grace, of the complete present forgiveness of all who believe, and of the absolute

necessity of coming to Christ as our Saviour, as the very first step towards heaven. At present these blessed truths were hidden from the Fellow of Clare College, and he could tell his people nothing about them. No wonder that he did no good! If he wounded, he could not heal. If he pulled down, he could not build up. If he showed his flock that they were wrong, he had no idea what could set them right. In short, his Christianity was like a solar system without the sun, and of course did no good to his congregation. There can be no doubt that he learned lessons as curate of Stapleford which he remembered to the last day of his life. He learned the thorough uselessness of a ministry, however zealous, in which Christ has not his rightful office, and faith has not its rightful place. But we may well believe that the clever and accomplished Fellow of Clare learned his lesson with much humiliation and with many bitter tears.

In the year 1755, Berridge was presented by his college to the vicarage of Everton, in Bedfordshire. He took up his residence at once on his living, and never moved again till he was called away to a better world, after holding his cure for no less than thirty-eight years. It was at this place that his eyes were opened to the whole truth as it is in Jesus, and the whole tone of his ministry was changed. It was here that he first found out the enormous mistakes of which he had been guilty as a teacher of others, and began to preach in a scriptural manner the real gospel of Christ. The circumstances under which this change took place are so well described by his biographer Whittingham, that I think it best to give the account in his own words.

"At Evertor," he says, "Mr. Berridge at first pressed sanctification and regeneration on his hearers as strenuously as he had at Stapleford, but with as little success. Nor was it to be wondered at, as his preaching rather tended to make them trust in themselves as righteous, than to depend on Christ for the remission of sins. Having continued for two years in this unsuccessful mode of preaching, and his desire to do good continually increasing, he began to be discouraged. A doubt arose in his mind whether he was right himself,

and preached as he ought to do. This suggestion he rejected for some time with disdain, supposing the advantages of education, which he had improved to a high degree, could not have left him ignorant of the best mode of instructing his people. This happened about Christmas 1757. But not being able to repel these secret misgivings, his mind was brought into a state of embarrassment and distress to which hitherto he had been a stranger. However, this had the happy effect of making him cry mightily to God for direction. The constant language of his heart was this—'Lord, if I am right, keep me so; if I am not right, make me so, and lead me to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.'—After the incessant repetition of this child-like prayer, it is no wonder that God should lend a gracious ear, and return him an answer, which he did almost two days after. As he sat one morning musing on a text of Scripture, the following words seemed to dart into his mind like a voice from heaven—'Cease from thine own works; only believe.' At once the scales seemed to fall from his eyes, and he perceived the application. He saw the rock on which he had been splitting for many years, by endeavouring to blend the Law and the Gospel, and to unite Christ's righteousness with his own. Immediately he began to think on the words faith' and believe,' and looking into his Concordance, found them very frequently used: This surprised him so much, that he instantly resolved to preach Jesus Christ and salvation by faith. He therefore composed several sermons of this description, and addressed his hearers in a manner very unusual, and far more pointed than before.

"God very soon began to bless this new style of ministry. After he had preached in this strain two or three Sabbaths, and was wondering whether he was yet right, as he had perceived no better effect from them than from his former discourses, one of his parishioners came to inquire for him. Being introduced, he said, Well, Sarah, what is the matter Matter!' she replied; why, I don't know what is the matter. Those new sermons! I find we are all to be lost now. I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. I don't know what is to become of me.' The same week came two or three more on a like errand. It is easy to conceive what relief these visits must have

afforded his mind in a state of anxiety and suspense. So confirmed was he thereby in the persuasion that his late impressions were from God, that he determined in future to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. He was deeply humbled that he should have spent so many years of his life to no better purpose than to confirm his hearers in their ignorance. He therefore immediately burned all his old sermons, and shed tears of joy over their destruction. This circumstance aroused the neighbourhood. His church soon became crowded with hearers, and God gave testimony to the word of his grace in the frequent conviction and conversion of sinners."

In describing this period of his life, Berridge says himself, in a letter to a friend: "I preached up sanctification by the works of the law very earnestly for six years in Stapleford, and never brought one soul to Christ. I did the same at Everton for two years, without any success at all. But as soon as I preached Jesus Christ, and faith in his blood, then believers were added to the Church continually; then people flocked from all parts to hear the glorious sound of the gospel; some coming six miles, others eight, and others ten. And what is the reason why my ministry was not blessed, when I preached up salvation partly by faith and partly by works I It is because this doctrine is not of God, and because he will prosper no ministers but such as preach salvation in his own appointed way; namely, by faith in Jesus Christ."

I pity the man who can read such an account as this without interest. If ever there was a case in which we can see clearly the hand of the Holy Spirit, it was this case of John Berridge. Here is a clergyman in the prime of bodily and mental vigour, suddenly changed from being a preacher of morality into a preacher of Christ's gospel. He is not a mere boy, but a man of forty-two years of age, well read, of acknowledged literary attainments, and the very reverse of a fool. He is not persuaded and influenced by any living person, and seems to have no earthly friend or adviser. Yet all of a sudden he begins to preach the very same doctrine as Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw,

Romaine, and Rowlands, and with the same effects. One account alone , can be given of the whole affair. It was the finger of God. Flesh and blood did not reveal the truth to Berridge, but our Father who is in heaven. Well would it be for the churches if there were more cases like his!

Once enlightened by the Holy Ghost and brought into the liberty of God's children, John Berridge made rapid advances both in preaching and practice. He was not a man to do anything by halves, whether converted or unconverted; and as soon as he was converted he threw himself with constitutional energy into his Master's service, with all his might, and soul, and strength. The learned Fellow of Clare soon ceased to preach written sermons, having discovered, by a providential accident, that he possessed the happy gift of preaching without book. His next step was to commence preaching outside his own parish, all over the district in which he lived, like a missionary. This he began on June 22, 1758. One of the first-fruits of this itinerant aggression was a clergyman named Hicks, rector of Wrestlingworth, near Everton, who afterwards became a very useful man, and a faithful labourer in Christ's vineyard. His third and crowning step was to commence preaching out of doors. This he began doing on May 14, 1759, and describes it himself in a letter quoted by Whittingham:— "On Monday week, Mr. Hicks accompanied me to Meldred. On the way we called at a farm-house. After dinner, I went into the yard, and seeing nearly a hundred and fifty people, I called for a table, and preached for the first time in the open air. We then went to Meldred, where I preached in a field to about four thousand people. In the morning, at five, Mr. Hicks preached in the same field to about a thousand. Here the presence of the Lord was wonderfully among us; and I trust, beside many that were slightly wounded, nearly thirty received heart-felt conviction."

Berridge had now climbed to the top of the tree as an evangelist. He preached the pure gospel; he preached extempore; he preached anywhere and everywhere where he could get hearers; he preached, like his Master, in the open air, if need required. We cannot therefore

wonder that he was soon publicly known as a fellow-labourer with Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, and Romaine, and, as a popular preacher, little inferior to any of these great men. His life from this time forth, with little intermission, for more than thirty years, was spent in preaching the gospel. To this work he gave himself wholly. In season and out of season, out of doors or in doors, in churches or in barns, in streets or in fields, in his parish or out of his parish, the old Fellow of Clare College was constantly telling the story of the Cross, and exhorting sinners to repent, believe, and be saved. He became acquainted with Lady Huntingdon, John Thornton, John Wesley, Fletcher, John Newton, and other eminent Christians of his day, and kept up friendly intercourse with them. He went to London sometimes in the winter, and preached occasionally in the wellknown Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road. But, as a general rule, he seldom went far from his own district, and rarely went into society. He found enough, and more than enough, to do in meeting the spiritual wants of congregations within that district, and seldom went to regions beyond.

The extent of his labours was prodigious. He used to preach in every part of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and in many parts of Hertfordshire, Essex, and Suffolk. He would often preach twelve times, and ride a hundred miles in a week. Nor was he content with preaching. He watched carefully over those who were aroused by his sermons, and provided lay evangelists to look after them when he left them. Some of these evangelists appear to have been nothing but humble labouring men, for whose maintenance he had to provide out of his own pocket. But expenses like these he cheerfully defrayed out of his own purse as long as he had a shilling to spare, counting it an honour to spend his income in furthering Christ's gospel When he had nothing of his own to give, he would ask help of the well-known John Thornton, the London merchant; and to the honour of that good man he never seems to have asked in vain.

The spiritual effects that were produced by his preaching were immense. In fact, a singular blessing appears to have attended his

ministry from the very moment that he began to preach the gospel: When we find that he was the means of awakening no less than four thousand persons in one single year, we may have some little idea of the good that he did in his district by his thirty years' preaching. In calculations like these, allowance must always be made for a vast amount of exaggeration, and for an equally vast amount of excitement and false profession. Still, after every reasonable deduction has been made, there is no just ground for doubting that Berridge was the means of doing good to thousands of souls. Wherever he went he produced some impression. Some were reclaimed from sin, some were awakened and convinced, and some were thoroughly converted to God. If this is not doing good, there is no such thing as doing good in the world. Spiritual work done in rural parishes is, perhaps, less "seen of men" than any work within the province of the Christian ministry. The work that Berridge did among farmers and labourers had few to proclaim and chronicle it. But I strongly suspect the last day will prove that he was a man who seldom preached in vain. How few there are of whom this can be said!

It is undeniable that at certain periods of Berridge's ministry very curious physical effects were produced on those who were aroused by his preaching. Some of his hearers cried out aloud hysterically, some were thrown into strong convulsions, and some fell into a kind of trance or catalepsy, which lasted a long time. These physical effects were carefully noticed by John Wesley and others who witnessed them, and certainly tended to bring discredit on the gospel, and to prejudice worldly people. But it is only fair to Berridge to say, that he never encouraged these demonstrations, and certainly did not regard them as a necessary mark of conversion. That such phenomena will sometimes appear in cases of strong religious excitement—that they are peculiarly catching and infectious, especially among young women—that even the most scientific medical men are greatly puzzled to explain them,—all these are facts which have been thoroughly established within the last twenty years during the Irish revival. To attempt to depreciate Berridge's usefulness because of

these things, is simply ridiculous. Whatever the faults of the vicar of Everton were, he certainly does not seem to have favoured fanaticism. That he was perplexed by the physical demonstrations I have described, and at first attached more value to them than they deserved, is the utmost that can be said against him on the subject. But, after all, the same may be said of many calm and sober-minded witnesses who saw the Ulster revival in 1858. In short, the whole subject, like demoniacal possession, is a very deep and mysterious one, and there we must be content to leave it. But a minister ought certainly not to be put down as a fanatic because people go into convulsions under his preaching

It is needless to tell any Christian that Berridge was fiercely persecuted by the world throughout the whole period of his ministry. No name was too bad to be given to him. No means were left untried by his enemies to stop him in his useful career. Foremost, of course, among his persecutors were the unconverted clergy of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cam-bridgeshire, who, like the dog in the manger, would neither do good themselves nor let anyone else do it for them. But, singularly enough, no weapon forged against the vicar of Everton seemed to prosper. Like Grimshaw at Haworth, there was an invisible wall of protection around him, which his bitterest foes could not pull down. Irregular as his proceedings undoubtedly were, offensive as they necessarily must have been to the idle, worldly clergymen who lived near him, they appeared unable to lay hold upon him and shut his mouth, from one end of his ministry to the other. From some extraordinary cause which we cannot now explain, the itinerant evangelist of Everton was never stopped by his persecutors for a single day! So true is the Word of God: "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him."

One special interposition of God in order to protect Berridge from his enemies was so remarkable that it deserves particular notice. It derives a peculiar interest from the fact that the record of it has been handed down in the good man's own words. He says:

"Soon after I began to preach the gospel of Christ at Everton, the church was filled from the villages around us, and the neighbouring clergy felt themselves hurt at their churches being deserted. A person of my own parish, too, was much offended. He did not like to see so many strangers, and be so incommoded. Between them both, it was resolved, if possible, to turn me out of my living. For this purpose, they complained of me to the bishop of the diocese, that I had preached out of my parish. I was soon after sent for by the bishop; I did not much like my errand, but I went. When I arrived, the bishop accosted me in a very abrupt manner: Well, Berridge, they tell me you go about preaching out of your own parish. Did I institute you to the livings of A—y, or E—n, or P—n —' No, my lord,' said I; neither do I claim any of these livings. The clergymen enjoy them undisturbed by me.'—'Well, but you go and preach there, which you have no right to do!'—'It is true, my lord, I was one day at E—n, and there were a few poor people assembled together, and I admonished them to repent of their sins, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls; and I remember seeing five or six clergymen that day, my lord, all out of their own parishes upon E—n bowling-green.'—'Poh!' said his lordship; I tell you, you have no right to preach out of your own parish; and if you do not desist from it, you will very likely be sent to Huntingdon gaol.'—'As to that, my lord,' said I, I have no greater liking to Huntingdon gaol than other people; but I had rather go thither with a good conscience, than live at my liberty without one.'—Here his lordship looked very hard at me, and very gravely assured me that I was beside myself, and that in a few months' time I should either be better or worse.'—'Then,' said I, my lord, you may make yourself quite happy in this business; for if I should be better, you suppose I should desist from this practice of my own accord; and if worse, you need not send me to Huntingdon gaol, as I shall be provided with an accommodation in Bedlam.'—His lordship now changed his mode of attack. Instead of threatening, he began to entreat. Berridge,' said he, you know I have long been your friend, and I wish to be so still. I am continually teazed with the complaints of the clergymen around you. Only assure me that you will keep to your

own parish; you may do as you please there. I have but little time to live; do not bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.'— At this instant two gentlemen were announced, who desired to speak with his lordship. 'Berridge,' said he, go to your inn, and come again at such an hour, and dine with me.'—I went, and, on entering a private room, fell immediately upon my knees. I could bear threatening, but knew not how to withstand entreaty, especially the entreaty of a respectable old man.

"At the appointed time I returned. At dinner I was treated with great respect. The two gentlemen also dined with us. I found they had been informed who I was, as they sometimes cast their eyes towards me, in some such manner as one would glance at a monster. After dinner his lordship took me into the garden. Well, Berridge,' said he, have you considered of my request?'—'I have, my lord,' said I, 'and have been upon my knees concerning it'.'Well, and will you promise me that you will preach no more out of your own parish? 'It would afford me great pleasure,' said I, to comply with your lordship's request, if I could do it with a good conscience. I am satisfied the Lord has blessed my labours of this kind, and I dare not desist'—'A good conscience!' said his lordship; do you not know that it is contrary to the canons of the Church?'—' There is one canon, my lord,' I replied, which says, "Go preach the gospel to every creature."But why should you wish to interfere with the charge of other men? One man cannot preach the gospel to all the world.'—'If they would preach the gospel themselves,' said I, there would be no need for my preaching it to their people; but, as they do not, I cannot desist'—His lordship then parted with me in some displeasure. I returned home not knowing what would befall me, but thankful to God that I had preserved a conscience void of offence.

"I took no measures for my own preservation; but Divine Providence worked for me in a way I never expected. When I was at Clare Hall I was particularly acquainted with a certain Fellow of that college, and we were both on terms of intimacy with Mr. Pitt,

the late Lord Chatham, who was at that time also at the university. This Fellow of Clare Hall, when I began to preach the gospel, became my enemy, and did me some injury. At length, however, when he heard that I was likely to come into trouble, and to be turned out of my living at Everton, his heart relented. He began to think within himself, We shall ruin this poor fellow among us.' This was just about the time that I was sent for by the bishop. Of his own accord he writes a letter to Mr. Pitt, saying nothing about my Methodism, but to this effect Our old friend Berridge has got a living in Bedfordshire, and I am told there is one of his neighbours who gives him a great deal of trouble, has accused him to the bishop, and, it is said, will turn him out of his living. I wish you would contrive to stop his proceedings.' Mr. Pitt was then a young man, and, not desiring to apply himself to the bishop, spoke to a certain nobleman about it to whom the bishop was indebted for his promotion. This nobleman made it his business, within a few days, to see the bishop, who was then in London. 'My lord,' he said, 'I am informed you have a very honest fellow named Berridge in your diocese, and that he has been ill-treated by a litigious neighbour. I hear he has accused him to your lordship, and wishes to turn him oat of his living. You would oblige me, my lord, if you would take no notice of this person, and not suffer the honest man to be interrupted.'—The bishop was astonished, and could not imagine in what manner things could thus have got round. It would not do, however, to object; he was obliged to bow compliance, and so I continued ever after uninterrupted in my sphere of action."

Great as Berridge's labours were, they do not appear to have materially affected his bodily health. He seems to have possessed one of those iron constitutions, which nothing but old age can quite break down. He lived to be seventy-seven; and though in his latter years a feeble old man, and very solitary, without wife, sister, or brother, to minister to him, he was mercifully kept in great peace to the last. Henry Owen's account of a visit to him in 1792, the year before he died, is very touching and interesting. He says, "I lately visited my dear brother Berridge. His sight is very dim, his ears can

scarcely hear, and his faculties are fast decaying, so that, if he continues any time, he may outlive the use of them. But in this ruin of his earthly tabernacle it is surprising to see the joy in his countenance, and the lively hope with which he looks for the day of his dissolution. In his prayer with me and my children, we were much affected by his commending himself to the Lord, as quite alone , not able to read or hear, or do anything. But he said, Lord, if I have thy presence and love, that sufficeth."

Berridge died at Everton vicarage on January 22nd, 1793. For some little time the infirmities natural to his years had pre-vented him doing much public work. But he was most mercifully spared any long season of pain and disease, and died after only a few days' illness, the weary wheels of life not so much broken by sickness as worn out and standing still. His frame of mind during his last days was very comfortable. He spoke but little, but what he did say was in terms of gratitude for the rich support he experienced in the prospect of eternity. He felt the stability of the rock on which he had been long resting his hopes of heaven; and while speaking of the excellency and preciousness of the Saviour, he said in an emphatic manner, "What should I do now if I had no better foundation to rest upon than what Dr. Priestley the Socinian points out I"

He was buried in Everton churchyard on the following Sunday, amidst an immense concourse of people assembled from all parts of the country.

Six clergymen, "devout men, carried him to his grave, and made great lamentation over him." A funeral sermon was then preached by the well-known Charles Simeon, from 2 Timothy 4:7 , 8 , a text admirably well suited to the occasion. Old Henry Venn of Yelling, his son John Venn, and Charles Simeon, were among the few neighbours with whom the good old Vicar of Everton felt entire sympathy; and his letters give frequent evidence of the value he set on them, and the pleasure he took in their society.

Berridge's tomb is placed on the north-east side of Everton churchyard, where formerly those only were buried who had come to some dishonourable end. But before he died he frequently said that his remains should be laid in that part of the churchyard, which, he said with characteristic pleasantry, might be "a means of consecrating it." His epitaph, composed by himself, is so remarkable in its way, that I think it needless to make any excuse for giving it entire. It is inscribed on the south side of his tomb, and at the time of his death required nothing but the date of that event being inserted to complete it. True to himself Berridge was quaint even to his grave.

HERE LIE THE EARTHLY REMAINS OF JOHN BERRIDGE, LATE VICAR OF EVERTON, AND AN ITINERANT SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST, WHO LOVED HIS MASTER AND HIS WORK, AND AFTER RUNNING ON HIS ERRANDS MANY YEARS WAS CALLED UP TO WAIT ON HIM ABOVE.

READER,

Art thou born again?

No salvation without a new birth!

I was born in sin, February 1716.

Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730.

Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1754

Was admitted to Everton vicarage, 1754.

Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.

Fell asleep in Christ, January 22, 1793.

I leave the Vicar of Everton here. I have yet other things to tell about him, but I have no room to give them now. A few anecdotes

illustrating his character, and some account of his sermons, literary remains, and correspondence, will form the substance of another Chapter.

Chapter 2

His Quaintness and Eccentricity—No Quaintness in his Outlines of Sermons—His Style of Preaching Defended—Specimen of his Quaint Thoughts—His Humility, Love of Christ, Kindness, Self-Denial, Shrewdness, Courage—His Sympathizing letters.

EVERY student of natural history knows well that some of God's creatures are curiously odd-looking and grotesque. There are birds, like the American toucan, with bills of such enormous size that we cannot understand how they are used. There are beasts, like the Mandril baboon, marked with such brilliant blue and red colours that we are fairly at a loss to explain their object. Yet they are all the work of an all-wise Creator. Our Father made them all. Not one of them could have been made better. Each and all, we need not doubt, is perfectly adapted for the place in creation which it was intended to fill.

Thoughts such as these come across my mind when I survey the character of John Berridge, Vicar of Everton. Never, probably, did the grace of God dwell in a vessel of such singularly tempered clay. There was a strange vein of quaintness in his mental constitution, which seemed to crop out and bubble up on every occasion. He was continually saying odd things, and employing odd illustrations to convey his meaning. I do not for a moment think that he was an intentional "joker of jokes," or really wished to set people laughing; but his mind was so peculiarly compounded that he could not help putting things in a ludicrous way. It was in vain that his friends warned him of his besetting sin, and entreated him to lay it aside. The poor old evangelist acknowledged his infirmity, and pleaded that

he was born with a fool's cap on, and that a fool's cap was not so easily put off as a night-cap. Hard as he strove to keep down his enemy, it was never completely subdued. "Odd things," he said, "break from me as abruptly as croaking from a raven." The habit of 'quaintness was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. It stuck to him as closely as his skin, and never left him until he was laid in the grave. Quaintly he thought and quaintly he spoke, quaintly he preached and quaintly he wrote, quaint he lived and quaint he died. In this respect I fully concede he was a beacon to be avoided, and not an example to be followed.

While, however, I admit that Berridge was painfully quaint and odd, I do not at all admit the justice of Southey's remark, that he was "buffoon as well as fanatic." This judgment is unwarrantably severe. The twenty-six Outlines of Sermons, which his biographer has published, contain abundant proof that the Vicar of Everton never deliberately prepared buffoonery for the pulpit. On the contrary, with one or two trifling exceptions, there is a "conspicuous absence" of anything that could create a smile. The reader of these Outlines will find them very simple, very full of Scripture, very spiritual, and very evangelical. He will find in them, no doubt, nothing very deep or profound, nothing very striking or original; though he will always find man painted in his true colours and put in his right place, and Christ magnified, glorified, and exalted in every page. But if he expects to find anything ludicrous, jocose, or absurd, any quaint anecdotes, or ridiculous illustrations, he will be utterly and entirely disappointed. I should like those who decry poor Berridge as a mere pulpit jester, to read over, with attention, the hundred pages in which Whittingham has recorded the remains of the good man's preaching. If they do not alter their opinion very materially, I shall be much surprised. They will probably agree with me that if the composer of such Outlines of Sermons was a "buffoon and a fanatic," it would do no harm to the Church of England if she had a few more such "buffoons and fanatics" among her clergy.

In justice to Berridge, I give it as my own deliberate opinion, that whatever quaintness there was in his sermons, was strictly confined to the extemporaneous part of them, or to the illustrations which struck him on the spur of the moment. At any rate, there is little or no trace of it in his written Outlines. A man like the old Fellow of Clare Hall, of great natural genius, and a keen sense of the ludicrous, with his mind full of Aristophanes and Hudibras, might surely be lightly judged if he sometimes said odd things in his sermons. The excitement of seeing a great multitude hanging on his lips was doubtless great. The anxiety to say what would arrest and arouse was, doubtless, overwhelming. What wonder if he sometimes broke away from the outlines of his sermons, and said things in the heat of his zeal which in calmer moments he might condemn I One thing, at any rate, is very clear from the remains of his preaching, and that is, that he was a methodical preacher. If he did occasionally break over the fence, and let fall odd sayings, he managed to get back into the road, and was sooner or later marching along in good order.

After all, I venture to think that men are often far too squeamish in their judgment of preachers. Great allowance ought always to be made for those who, like Berridge, are constantly preaching in rural districts to uneducated congregations. None but those who have preached for many years in such districts can have the least idea of the preacher's difficulties. There is a gulf between his mind and the minds of his hearers of which few have the smallest conception. How to get at their understandings, how to make them comprehend what we are saying, is the grand problem that has to be solved. Their standard of taste is not that of Oxford or Cambridge. Things that sound coarse and vulgar and unrefined to a trained mind and a well educated ear, do not sound so to them. Their first and foremost want is to understand what the preacher is talking about; and he that can make poor farmers and labourers understand what he says is a preacher deserving of the highest praise. They care nothing for fine abstract ideas and rhetorical figures. They only care to hear what they can carry away . Now this, I suspect, was precisely the thing that Berridge never forgot. His grand aim was to make his hearers

understand, and to attain that aim he sacrificed everything. If he made them smile, he also made them weep. If he excited them, he did not let them go to sleep. If he broke the rules of taste, and made men laugh, he also succeeded in breaking hard hearts, and making them repent. All honour be to him for his boldness! Better a thousand times for men to smile and be converted, than to look stiff, and grave, and sleepy in their pews, and remain dead in trespasses and sins. I do not defend Berridge's escapades and transgressions of good taste. I do not recommend him as a model to young preachers. I only say that those who run him down and depreciate him because of his quaintness, would do well to remember that he did what many do not—he awakened and converted souls. Thousands of correct, and smooth, and prim, and proper clergymen are creeping through this world, who never broke a canon of taste in the pulpit, never told an anecdote, never used a vulgar illustration, and never raised a smile. They have their reward! Their educated friends and relations admire them, and the world praises them. But they never prick a conscience, never frighten a sinner, never build up a saint, never pull down a single stone of the devil's kingdom—never save a soul. Give me the man who, like Berridge, may commit many mistakes, and offend many scrupulous ears, but yet reaches hearts, and helps to fill heaven.

Those who wish to form a correct idea of the singularly quaint workings of Berridge's mind, must turn from the Outlines of his Sermons to his other literary remains. These remains consist of a collection of hymns called "Zion's Songs," a prose work entitled "The Christian World Unmasked," and a selection of private letters to friends. The hymns I shall leave alone. The Vicar of Everton was no more a poet than Cicero or Julius Caesar; and although the doctrine of his hymns is very sound, the poetry of them is very poor, while the ideas they occasionally present are painfully ludicrous. The "Christian World Unmasked" is a dialogue between two imaginary characters about the way of salvation, and contains much that is pointed and clear; but it is written throughout in such a very unrefined style, that it is not likely to be extensively useful. The

letters to private friends are excellent, and are worth all the rest of Whittingham's volume put together. From these and the "Christian World" I will now select a few specimens of Berridge's quaintness. I have spoken a good deal about it, and it is only just and lair to let the reader see what it was like.

Let us hear how Berridge speaks of human nature: "Nature lost her legs in Paradise, and has not found them since; nor has she any will to come to Jesus. The way is steep and narrow, full of self-denials, crowded up with stumbling-blocks: she cannot like it; and when she does come, it is with huge complaining. Moses is obliged to flog her tightly, and make her heart ache, before she casts a weeping look on Jesus. Once she doated on this Jewish lawgiver, was fairly wedded to him, and sought to please him by her works—and he seemed a kindly husband; but now, he grows so grim a tyrant, there is no bearing of him. When she takes a wrong step, his mouth is always full of cursing, and his resentment so implacable, no weeping will appease him, nor promise of amendment."

Let us hear Berridge about the "Whole Duty of Man:" "The 'Whole Duty of Man' was sent abroad with a good intent, but has failed of its purpose, as all such teaching ever will. Morality has not thriven since its publication; and never can thrive, unless founded wholly upon grace. The heathen, for want of this foundation, could do nothing. They spoke some noble truths, but spoke to men with withered hearts and loathing appetites. They were like way-posts, which show a road, but cannot help a cripple forward; and yet many of them preached higher morals than are often taught by their modern friends. In their way they were skilful fishermen, but fished without the gospel-bait, and could catch no fry. And after they had toiled long in vain, we take up their angle-rods, and dream of more success, though not possessed of half their skill. God has shown how little human wit and strength can do to compass reformation. Reason has explored the moral path, planted it with roses, and fenced it round with motives; but all in vain.

Let us hear him again: "Men are rightly treated in the reading-desk, and called by their proper name of miserable sinners . But in the pulpit they are complimented on the dignity of their earthly, sensual, devilish natures, are flattered with a princely will and power to save themselves, and ornamented with a lusty seam of merit. Justification by faith, the jewel of the Gospel covenant, the groundwork of the Reformation, the glory of the British Church, is now derided as a poor old beggarly element, which may suit a negro or a convict, but will not save a lofty scribe nor a lewd gentleman. And the covenant of grace, though executed legally by Jesus, purchased by his life and death, written and sealed with his blood, is deemed of no value, till ratified by Moses. Paul declares no other foundation can we lay beside that which is laid, Christ Jesus. But men are growing wise above that which is written, and will have two foundations for their hopes. These are, fancied merit, added to the meritorious life and death of Christ. If an angel should visit our earth, and proclaim such a kind of gospel as is often hawked from the press and pulpit, though he preached morality with most seraphic power, and till his wings dropped off, he would never turn one soul to God, nor produce a single grain of true morality, arising from the love of God, and aiming only at his glory."

Let us hear him again: "Once I went to Jesus as a coxcomb, and gave myself fine airs, fancying, if He were something, so was I; if He had merit, so had I. I used him as a healthy man will use a walking-staff— lean an ounce upon it, and vapour with it in the air. But now He is my whole crutch; no foot can stir a step without him. He is my all, as he ought to be if he will become my Saviour, and bids me cast all my care on him. My heart can have no rest unless it leans upon him wholly; and then it feels his peace. But I am apt to leave my restingplace; and when I ramble from it, my breast will quickly brew up mischief. Some evil temper now begins to boil, or some care would fain perplex me, or some idle wants to please me, or some deadness or lightness creeps upon my spirit, and communion with my Saviour is withdrawn. When these thorns stick in my flesh, I do not try, as heretofore, to pick them out with my own needle; but I carry all my

complaints to Jesus, casting every care on him. His office is to save, and mine to look to him for help. If evil tempers arise, I go to him as some demoniac. If deadness creeps upon me, I go as a paralytic. If dissipation comes, I go as a lunatic. If darkness clouds my face, I go as a Bartimeus. And when I pray, I always go as a leper, crying, as Isaiah did, Unclean, unclean."

Let us hear what he says in a letter to John Newton, dated October 18, 1771: "The foulest stain and highest absurdity in our nature is pride. And yet this base hedgehog so rolls himself up in his bristly coat, we can seldom get a sight of his claws. It is the root of unbelief. Men cannot submit to the righteousness of Christ, and pride cleaves to them like a pitched shirt to the skin, or like leprosy to the wall. No sharp culture of ploughing and harrowing will clear the ground of it. The foul weed will be sure to spring up again with the next kindly rain. This diabolical sin has brought more scourges on my back than anything else; and it is of so insinuating a nature, that I know not how to part with it. I hate it, and love it; I quarrel with it, and embrace it; I dread it, and yet suffer it to lie in my bosom. It pleads a right, through the fall, to be a tenant for life; and has such a wonderful appetite, that it can feed kindly both on grace and garbage —will be as warm and snug in a cloister as a palace, and be as much delighted with a fine prayer as a foul oath."

Let us hear what he says in a letter to Samuel Wilkes, dated August 16, 1774: "Sitting closely on the beach is very sweet after a stormy voyage; but I fancy you will find it more difficult to walk closely with Jesus in a calm than a storm, in easy circumstances than in straits. A Christian never falls asleep in the fire or in the water, but grows drowsy in the sunshine. We love to nestle, but cannot make a nest in a hard bed. God has given you good abilities. This, of course, will make you respected by men of business, and tempt you at times to admire yourself, and thus bring a smart rod upon your back. Sharp genius, like a sharp knife, often makes a wrong gash, and cuts a finger instead of food. We scarcely know how to turn our backs on admiration, though it comes from the vain world; yet a kick from the

world does believers less harm than a kiss. I apprehend a main part of your trial will" lie here. When you are tempted to think gaudily of yourself, and spread your feathers like a peacock, remember that fine parts in themselves are like the fine wings of a butterfly, which garnish out the moth and grub beneath. Remember, too, that a fiend has sharper parts than the sharpest of us, and that one grain of godly grace is of more worth than a hundred thousand heads ful of Attic wit, or of philosophic, theologic, or commercial science."

Let us hear what he writes to Lady Huntingdon about the marriage of ministers, on March 23, 1770: "Before I parted with honest G., 1 cautioned him much against petticoat snares. He has burnt his wings already. Sure he will not imitate a foolish gnat, and hover again about the candle? If he should fall into a sleeping-lap, like Samson, he will soon need a flannel night-cap, and a rusty chain to fix him down, like a chained Bible to the reading-desk. No trap so mischievous to the field-preacher as wedlock; and it is laid for him at every hedge corner. Matrimony has quite maimed poor Charles [Wesley], and might have spoiled John [Wesley] and George [Whitefield], if a wise Master had not graciously sent them a brace of ferrets. Dear George has now got his liberty again; and he will escape well if he is not caught by another tenter-hook. Eight or nine years ago, having been grievously tormented with house-keeping, I truly had thought of looking out for a Jezebel myself. But it seemed highly needful to ask advice of the Lord. So, kneeling down on my knees before a table, with a Bible between my hands, I besought the Lord to give me a direction." I may add that Jeremiah 16:2 settled the question, to Berridge's satisfaction, in the negative.

In another letter he says: "A man may be constitutionally meek as the lamb, constitutionally kind as the spaniel, constitutionally cheerful as the lark, and constitutionally modest as the owl; but these things are not sanctification. No sweet, humble, heavenly tempers, no sanctifying graces, are found but from the cross."

In another letter he says: "A Smithfield fire would unite the sheep of Christ, and frighten the goats away; but when the world ceases to persecute the flocks, they begin to fight each other. Indeed, the worst part of the sheep is in his head, which is not half so good as a calf's head; and with this they are ever butting at each other."

In another letter he says: "I told my brother Mr. Henry Venn he need not fear being hanged for sheep-stealing, while he only whistles the sheep into a better pasture, and meddles neither with the flock nor fleece. And I am sure he cannot sink much lower in credit; for he has lost his character right honestly by preaching law and gospel without mincing. The scoffing world makes no other distinction between him and me, than between Satan and Beelzebub. We have both got tufted horns and cloven feet; only I am thought the more impudent devil of the two."

I leave the subject of John Berridge's quaintness here. It would be easy to multiply quotations like those I have given; but I have probably said enough to give my readers some idea of the strange workings of the good Vicar of Everton's mind. I do not pretend to defend his odd sayings. I fully admit that they were calculated to interfere with his usefulness. But, once for all, I must request my readers not to judge them too severely, and, above all, to beware of setting down the eccentric author of them as a ranting fool. Berridge, we may depend on it, was nothing of the kind. Quaint as his sayings were, a Christian reader will seldom fail to discern in them a deep vein of common sense, shrewdness, and sagacity. Odd and unrefined as his illustrations often were, they were just the kind of thing that arrests and keeps up the attention of rural hearers. Let us grant that he erred in an excess of quaintness , but let us not forget that hundreds of preachers err in an excess of correct dulness , and never do good to a single soul.

I should be sorry to leave on my reader's mind the impression that quaintness was the leading characteristic of the good Vicar of Everton. There were other prominent features in his character which

were quite as remarkable as his quaintness, but which his detractors have found it convenient to forget. There were many grand and fine points about this old evangelist, which deserve to be had in remembrance, and which all who love pure and undefiled religion will know how to appreciate. I will briefly mention a few of them, and then draw my account of him to a conclusion.

Berridge was a man of deep humility . That queen of all the graces, which adorned Whitefield and Grimshaw so remarkably, was a prominent feature in his character. No man could be more sensible of his infirmities than he was, and no one could speak of himself more disparagingly than he did. He says, in 1773: "Ten years ago, I hoped to be something long before this time, and seemed in a promising way; but a nearer view of the spiritual wickedness in my heart, and of the spiritual demands of God's laws, has forced me daily to cry, 'O wretched man that I am! God be merciful to me a sinner!' I am now sinking from a poor something into a vile nothing; and wish to be nothing, that Christ may be all. I am creeping down the ladder from self-complacence to self-abhorrence; and the more I abhor myself, the more I must hate sin, which is the cause of that abhorrence."— "As the heart is more washed, we grow more sensible of its remaining defilement; just as we are more displeased with a single spot on a new coat, than with a hundred stains on an old one. The more wicked men grow, the less ashamed they are of themselves; and the more holy men grow, the more they learn to abhor themselves."

For another thing, Berridge was a man who gloried in our Lord Jesus Christ , and in all his preaching, speaking, and writing, delighted to make much of Him. He says, in one of his letters: "Once I was sensible of my lameness, but did not know that Christ was to be my whole strength as well as righteousness. I saw His blood could purge away the guilt of sin; but I thought I had some natural might against the power of sin. Accordingly, I laboured to cut away my own corruptions, and pray away my own will, but laboured in the fire. At length, God has shown me that John Berridge cannot drive the devil

out of himself; but Jesus Christ, blessed be his name, must say to the Legion, 'Come out.' I see that faith alone can purify the heart as well as purify the conscience, and that Christ is worthy to be my all in everything, in wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

For another thing, Berridge was a man of singular kindness and self-denial . No man perhaps ever carried on Christ's work with more thoroughly disinterested views. Whether at home or abroad he was always giving, and never receiving, and went through all his immense labours gratuitously. Houses and barns were rented for preaching, lay-preachers maintained in all directions, and his own travelling expenses defrayed by himself. Whenever he preached in a cottage, he invariably left half-a-crown for the use of it; and, during his itinerancy, he actually spent £500 in this way alone. Cases of distress and suffering always met with munificent help from him. His whole income, both private and professional, was annually spent in doing good, and even his family plate was sold to buy clothes for his itinerant preachers. As to his own habits at home, they were simple in the extreme. To one who came to supply his pulpit (the Hon. and Revelation W. Shirley), when absent from home, he wrote the following quaint intimation: "You must eat what is set before you, and be thankful. I get hat victuals but once a week for myself, namely, on Saturday; but, because you are an Honourable man, I have ordered two hot joints to be got each week for you. Use what I have just as your own. I make no feasts, but save all I can, to give all I can. I have never yet been worth a groat at the year's end, nor desire it." As to his fare abroad, when itinerating in the eastern counties, he says in another letter: "I fear my weekly circuit would not suit a London or Bath divine. Long rides, and miry roads, in sharp weather! Cold houses to sit in, with very moderate fuel, and three or four children roaring or rocking about you! Coarse food, and meagre liquor! Lumpy beds to lie on and too short for the feet, with stiff blankets like boards for a covering! Rise at five in the morning to preach; at seven, breakfast on poor tea; at eight, mount a horse with

boots never cleaned, and then ride home praising God for all mercies!"

For another thing, Berridge was a man of uncommon shrewdness, good sense, and sagacity . Never was there a more complete mistake than to suppose that he, anymore than Romaine, was a mere ranting, weak-headed fanatic. A careful perusal of his remains will show them to be replete with deep, thoughtful, and farsighted remarks. His criticism of Cowper's Poems, his letters about Lady Huntingdon's College at Trevecca, his well-balanced statements of some of the most disputed points in the Calvinistic controversy, and his sensible treatment of enthusiasts under his ministry, are excellent evidences of this feature in his character. I know few wiser and more comprehensive letters of advice to a young minister about a sermon than one (not dated) which Whittingham has inserted at the end of his collection. Among other things, he says: "When you open your commission, begin with laying open the innumerable corruptions of the hearts of your audience. Moses will lend you a knife, which may be often whetted at his grindstone. Lay open the universal sinfulness of men's natures, the darkness of the mind, the frowardness of the will, the fretfulness of the temper, and the earthliness and sensuality of the affections. Speak of the evil of sin in its nature, its rebellion against God as our Sovereign, ingratitude to God as our Lawgiver, and contempt both of his authority and love. Declare the evil of sin in its effects, bringing all our sicknesses, pains, and snares—all the evils we feel, and all the evils we fear."— "Lay open the spirituality of the law and its extent, reaching to every thought, word, and action, and declaring every transgression, whether by omission or commission, deserving of death. Declare man's utter helplessness to change his nature, or make his peace."— "When your hearers are deeply affected with these things, which is often seen by the hanging down of their heads, then preach Christ. Lay open the Saviour's almighty power to soften the hard heart and give it repentance, to bring pardon to the broken heart, a spirit of prayer to the prayerless heart, holiness to the filthy heart, and faith to the unbelieving heart. Let them know that all the treasures of

grace are lodged in Jesus Christ for the use of the poor needy sinner, and that he is full of love as well as of power; turns no beggar from his gate, but receives all corners kindly; loves to bless them, and bestows all his blessings free. Here you must wave the gospel flag, and magnify the Saviour supremely. Speak it with a full mouth, that his blood can wash away the foulest sins, and his grace subdue the stoutest corruptions. Entreat the people to seek his grace, to seek it directly, to seek it diligently, to seek it constantly; and acquaint them that all who thus seek shall assuredly find the salvation of God."

For another thing, Berridge was a man of extraordinary courage and boldness . He was one of those who could say with David: "I will speak of thy testimonies before kings, and not be ashamed." In doing his Master's business, and delivering his Master's message, he was never stopped for a moment by fear of personal danger or regard for the opinion of the world. Neither bishops, squires, nor parsons had any terrors for him. At an early period of his evangelical ministry he took his line, and from that line he never swerved. The occasion of his first resolving never to be afraid is strikingly described in the following anecdote, which I take from the "Churchman's Monthly Penny Magazine" for 1852:—

"In one of the villages in which he was known as a preacher of the new doctrines, which were then beginning to excite a great sensation in different spots in England, he was exposed, when passing through it, to the hootings and revilings of the mob to an extent which frequently chafed his excitable spirit. This village was composed nearly exclusively of a long, straggling street, and, as is to be seen in many similar hamlets in England and elsewhere, was surrounded on one side by a narrow lane, which, jutting off at one end, joined it again, by a much wider circuit than that made by the street, at the other. On one day in which Berridge was about to pass through this village, his spirit quailed within him, in anticipation of the rough reception he would certainly meet with from the bigoted inhabitants. He felt as if he could not encounter it, and accordingly turned into the narrow lane of which we have spoken just at the

moment when a pig-driver of his acquaintance entered the street with his noisy charge. It was their hap, each pursuing his own course, to meet again at the farther end of the village, when the pigdriver, who not only knew Berridge, but knew his principles, and knew the truth, looked up in his face with a most peculiar expression, and said: ' So you are ashamed on't .'

"The saying went to his heart. 'Yes,' he said, I have been ashamed on't ; I resolve, in the strength of God, to be ashamed of it no more, but henceforth to press after it, firm unto the end.' A resolution which, undertaken by a resolute mind in the fear of God, was, perhaps, never more faithfully carried out in the future progress of a long and devoted life."

Last, but not least, Berridge was a man of deep acquaintance with Christian experience, and tender sympathy with the people of God. Those who fancy that he was a rough, vulgar, ranting outdoor preacher, always full of jests and jokes and high spirits, and always dwelling on elementary truths, know very little of the good man's character. Let them read the following letters carefully, and mark how the itinerant evangelist of Everton could write to his friends. The first of the three was written to a friend on the occasion of his wife's death, and will be found in Whittingham's volume. The other two have come to me from private hands, and have never been printed before:—

EVRRTON, March 26, 1771.

"Dear BROTHER,—Mr. W— informs me of the loss of your dear wife. You once knew she was mortal; but she has now put off mortality, and is become immortal. Can this grieve you? Oh, that I was where she now is;-

'Safe landed on that peaceful shore,

Where pilgrims meet to part no more.'

She was once a mourning sinner in the wilderness, but she is now a glorified saint in Zion; the Lord is become her everlasting light—the days of her mourning are ended. Does this trouble you?—She was once afflicted with bodily pains and weakness, encompassed with cares, and harassed with a crowd of anxious, needless fears.; but she has now arrived at her Father's house, and Jesus has wiped away all tears from her eyes, and freed her in a moment from all pains, cares, fears, and wants. And shall this affect you?—You have not lost your wife; she has only left you for a few moments—left an earthly husband to visit a heavenly Father—and expects your arrival there soon, to join the hallelujah for redeeming love. Are you still weeping? —Fie upon you, brother!—weeping because your wife can weep no more! Weeping because she is happy, because she is joined to that assembly where all are kings and priests! Weeping because she is daily feasted with heavenly manna, and hourly drinking new wine in her Father's kingdom! Weeping because she is now where you would be, and long to be eternally! Weeping because she is singing, and singing sweet anthems to her God and your God!-O shameful weeping! Jesus has fetched your bride triumphantly home to his kingdom, to draw your soul more ardently thither, he has broken up a cistern to bring you nearer, and keep you closer to the fountain; has caused a moment's separation, to divorce your affections from the creature; and has torn a wedding-string from your heart, to set it ableeding more freely, and panting more vehemently for Jesus. Hereafter you will see how gracious the Lord has been, in calling a beloved wife home, in order to betroth the husband more effectually to himself. Remember that the house of mourning becomes and befriends a sinner; that sorrow is a safe companion for a pilgrim, who walks much astray until his heart is well broken. May all your tears flow in a heavenly channel, and every sigh waft your soul to Jesus! May the God of all consolation comfort you through life, and in death afford you a triumphant entrance into his kingdom! So prays your friend and brother in the gospel of Christ, "J. BERRIDGE."

EVERTON, Sept. 14, 1773.

"DEAR SIR, I received your kind letter, and thank you for it. You want nothing but an opened eye to see the glory of Christ's redemption; and he must give it, and will bestow it, when it is most for his glory and your advantage. Had you Daniel's holiness, Paul's zeal, John's love, Magdalen's repentance (and I wish you had them all), yet altogether they would give you no title to a pardon. You must at last receive it as a ruined sinner, even as the Cross-thief received it.

"No graces or services of your own can give you a right to pardon; you must come to Jesus for it, weary and heavy-laden; and if you are afflicted for sin, and desirous of being delivered from its guilt and power, no past iniquities in your life, nor present corruptions of your heart, will be a bar to pardoning mercy. If we are truly seeking salvation by Jesus, we shall be disposed, as we are really bound, to seek after holiness.

"But remember, though holiness is the walk to heaven, Christ is the way to God; and when you seek for pardon, you must go wholly out of your walk, be it good or bad, and look only to Him who is the way. You must look to him as a miserable sinner, justly condemned by his law, a proper brand for hell, and look to be plucked from the fire by rich and sovereign grace. You have just as much worthiness for a pardon as the Cross-thief had, which is none at all; and in your best estate you will never have anymore. A pardon was freely given to him upon asking for it freely, and given instantly because no room was left for delays; and a pardon is as ready for you as for him, when you can ask for it as he did, with self-loathing and condemnation; but the proper seasons of bestowing the pardon are kept in Jesus' own hand. He makes his mercy manifest to the heart when it will most glorify his grace and benefit the sinner. Only continue asking for mercy; and seek it only through the blood of the cross, without any eye to your own worthiness, and that blood in due time will be sprinkled on your conscience, and you shall cry, Abba, Father.

"Present my kindest love to my dear brother Mr. Romaine. The Lord continue his life and usefulness. Kind respects and Christian salutation to Mrs. Olney. Grace and peace be with both, and with your affectionate and obliged servant. J. BERRIDGE."

EVERTON, Nov. 7, 1786.

"DEAR SIR,—I received your kind letter, along with your present. I thank you for the present, as being a token of your respect, and attended, I find, with your daily prayers for me, which I value more than human presents. The Lord bless you, and lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you a sweet enjoyment of his peace.

"I have hitherto found that Christian people who live in the dark, fearing and doubting, yet waiting on God, have usually a very happy death. They are kept humble, hungering and praying, and the Lord clears up their evidences at length in a last sickness, if not before, and they go off with hallelujahs.

"From what I know of you, and from the account you give of yourself, I have no doubt of the safety of your state: yet rest not here, but seek further. Two things should be carefully attended to by all upright people—one is the evidence of the Word, the other is the evidence or witness of the Spirit. The Word says: All that believe are justified from all things' (Acts 13:39). I ask, then, do you not place your whole dependence on Jesus Christ for salvation? Do you not heartily accept of Jesus Christ in all his offices, and are you not daily seeking to him to teach you and rule you, as well as to pardon you? Then you are certainly a believer, and as such are justified in God's sight from all your sins, according to the plain declaration of God's Word. Let this encourage you to seek with confidence for the evidence of the Spirit, to proclaim that justification to your heart. The evidence of the Word is given to hold up the heart in a season of doubts and fears, and the evidence of the Spirit comes to scatter those fears. Remember also that salvation does not depend on the

strength of faith, but the reality of it. In the gospels, Jesus often rebukes weak faith, but never rejects it. Weak faith brings but little comfort, yet is as much entitled to salvation as strong.

"I have had much of my nervous fever this summer; never once stirred out of my parish, and never further in it than to my church! Through mercy I am somewhat better; and when alone, with a Bible before me, am composed and comfortable, yet scarce able to bear visits, so weak are my spirits. Give my love to Mr. G—, and tell him from first to last he has been the friend of my heart. I send my kind respects to your partner. Grace and peace be with you both, and with your affectionate servant, "JOHN BERRIDGE."

I close my account of the good old Vicar of Everton with one remark. The man who could write such letters as these is not one who ought to be lightly esteemed. John Berridge is a minister who has never been rightly valued on account of his one besetting infirmity. The one "dead fly in his ointment" has made the Church ignore his many gifts and graces. Yet he was a man of whom the world was not worthy. Good judges of men, such as John Thornton, Lady Huntingdon, Wesley, Venn, Fletcher, John Newton, Rowland Hill, Charles Simeon, Jones of Creaton, were all agreed about him, and all held him in honour. Let us reform our judgment of the good man, and cast our prejudices aside. Whatever some may please to say, we may rest assured that there were few greater, better, holier, and more useful ministers a hundred years ago than old John Berridge.

IX. Henry Venn And His Ministry

Chapter 1

Born at Barnes, Surrey, 1724—His Ancestors—Curious Anecdotes of his Boyhood and Youth—Enters St. John's, Cambridge, 1742—Fellow

of Queen's, 1749—Curate of West Horsley, 1750—Curate of Clapham, 1754—Change in his Religious Views—Becomes acquainted with Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon—Married, 1757—Vicar of Huddersfield, 1759.

The seventh spiritual hero of the last century to whom I wish to direct the attention of my readers, is one better known than several of his contemporaries. The man I mean is Henry Venn, for some time Vicar of Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, and afterwards Vicar of Yelling, in Huntingdonshire. He is the only English minister of the eighteenth century whom I consider worthy to be ranked with the six whose memoirs I have already put together—viz., Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, Romaine, Rowlands, and Berridge. These seven men appear to me, in some respects, to stand alone in the religious history of England a hundred years ago. Beside them, no doubt, there were many others of eminent grace and gifts. But none attained to the degree of the first seven.

One reason why Henry Venn is better known than many of his day, is the excellence of the only biography of him. Few men certainly have been so fortunate in their, biographers as the evangelical Vicar of Huddersfield. In the whole range of Christian memoirs, I know few volumes so truly valuable as the single volume of "Henry Venn's Life and Letters." I never take it down from my shelves without thinking of the words which our great poet puts in the mouth of Queen Katherine:—

"After my death I wish no other herald,

No other speaker of my living actions,

To keep mine honour from corruption,

But such an honest chronicler as—."

Henry VIII ., Act iv. sc. 2.

In fact, almost the only fault I find with the book is one which is most rare in a biography—it is too short!

Another reason why Henry Venn's name is so well known to English evangelical Christians, is the happy circumstance that he left behind him children who followed him "even as he followed Christ." His son, and his son's sons, have all been thoroughly like-minded with him. For more than a century there has never been wanting a minister of his name within the pale of the Church of England, to preach the same doctrine which he preached in the pulpit of Huddersfield. The name of "Venn" has consequently never ceased to be before the public. When Whitefield and Wesley and Berridge were laid in their graves, they left no sons "to keep their name in remembrance," however numerous their spiritual children may have been. But the family-name of Venn has been so much in men's mouths for three generations, that there are few English Christians who are not acquainted with it.

While, however, I fully admit that Henry Venn's name is well known in this country, I cannot help thinking that there is much confusion in men's minds as to the period of his ministry, and the time when he died. Some, I know, are in the habit of speaking of him as a contemporary of Scott, and Cecil, and Simeon. Even a writer like Sir James Stephen, in an article contributed to the Edinburgh Review , speaks of him as the "last of four evangelical fathers," of whom Scott, Newton, and Milner were the first three! All these ideas about Venn are totally inaccurate. The authors of them, I suspect, confound Henry Venn with his son John Venn of Clapham. Henry Venn belonged to an earlier generation, and was well known and popular long before Newton, or Scott, or Cecil, or Simeon, or Milner, were ever heard of. To class him with these good men is an entire mistake. His true place is with Whitefield, and Wesley, and Grimshaw, and Rowlands, and Romaine, and Berridge. These were the men by whose side he laboured. These were the men with whom he must be ranked. To clear up Henry Venn's true history, and to convey some correct information about the main facts of his life and

ministry, is the object that I set before me in the present memoir. Once for all, I wish it to be understood that the men I undertake to write about in this work are men of the last century. The men of the present century are men that I purposely leave alone.

Henry Venn was born at Barnes, in Surrey, on the 2nd of March 1724 —within twenty-one years of the birth of John Wesley. He was the descendant of a long line of clergymen, reaching downwards in unbroken succession from the time of the Reformation. William Venn died vicar of Otterton, Devonshire, in 1621. Richard Venn, his son, succeeded him at Otterton; and after suffering greatly for his steadfast adherence to the Church of England in the Commonwealth times, died quietly in possession of his living. After him, his son, Dennis Venn, died vicar of Holberton, in Devonshire, in 1691. And finally his son, Richard Venn, rector of St. Antholin's, in the City of London, was the father of the subject of this memoir. These facts are full of interest. At the present day the name of Venn has appeared for seven generations in the clergy list of the Church of England!

Henry Venn's father is said to have been "an exemplary and learned minister, very zealous for the interests of the Church of England, and remarkable for great liberality towards the poor, and especially towards distressed clergymen." Little is known about him, except the fact that he was the son of a very strong-minded mother, who said that "Richard should not go to school till he had learned to say 'No.' " He was once brought into much public notice, and incurred obloquy, on account of the opposition which he made, in conjunction with Bishop Gibson, to the appointment of Dr. Rundle to the Bishopric of Gloucester. The grounds of his objection were certain expressions which he had heard Dr. Rundle use, of a deistical tendency; and the result of his opposition was, that Dr. Rundle was actually kept out of the see of Gloucester, and was obliged to content himself with the Irish bishopric of Derry. When we remember what times they were when these things happened, and what kind of a man Dr. Rundle's patron, Sir Robert Walpole, was, it is impossible not to admire the courage and conscientiousness which Richard Venn displayed in the

affair. He died at the early age of forty-eight, when his son Henry was only fifteen years old.

The facts recorded about Henry Venn, as a boy, are few, but interesting. They are enough to show that from his earliest childhood he was a "thorough" and decided character, and one who never did anything by halves. In fact, Dr. Gloucester Ridley was so struck with his energy of character when young. that he said, "This boy will go up Holborn, and either stop at Ely Place (then the London palace of the Bishop of Ely), or go on to Tyburn!" (the place where criminals were hanged) The following three anecdotes will show what kind of a boy he was. I give them in his son's own words:—

"While he was yet a child, Sir Robert Walpole attempted to introduce more extensively the system of Excise. A violent opposition was excited, and the popular feeling ran strongly against the measure. Young Henry Venn caught the alarm, and could not sleep in his bed lest the Excise Bill should pass; and on the day when it was to be submitted to Parliament, his boyish zeal made him leave his father's house early, and wander through the streets, crying 'No Excise!' till the evening, when he returned home exhausted with fatigue, and with his voice totally lost by his patriotic exertions."

"A gentleman, who was reported to be an Arian, called one day upon his father. Young Henry Venn, then a mere child, came into the room, and with a grave countenance earnestly surveyed him. The gentleman, observing the notice which the child took of him, began to show him some civil attentions, but found all his friendly overtures sternly rejected. At length, upon his earnestly soliciting him to come to him, the boy indignantly replied, 'I will not come near you; for you are an Arian.' "

"As he adopted. with all his heart the opinions which he imbibed, he early entertained a most vehement dislike of all Dissenters. It happened that a Dissenting minister's son, two or three years older

than himself, lived in the same street in London with his father; and young Henry Venn, in his zeal for the Church, made no scruple to attack and fight the unfortunate Nonconformist whenever he met him. It was a curious circumstance, that, many years after, he became acquainted with this very individual, who was then a Dissenting minister. He frankly confessed that young Venn had been the terror of his youthful days, and acknowledged that he never dared leave his father's door till he had carefully looked on every side to see that this young champion of the Church was not in the street."

Henry Venn's education began at the age of twelve, in a school at Mortlake, near Barnes. From this school he was removed to one kept by a Mr. Croft, at Fulham, but only stayed there a few months. He left at his own request under very singular circumstances. He complained to his mother, as very few boys ever do, "that his master was too indulgent, and the discipline was not sufficiently strict." From Fulham he went to a school at Bristol, kept by Mr. Catcott, author of a work on the Deluge, and an excellent scholar, though a severe master. From thence he removed to a school kept by Dr. Pitman at Markgate Street, in Hertfordshire, and there finished his early education.

In June 1742, at the age of seventeen, Henry Venn entered St. John's College, Cambridge. He only continued a member of that house three months, as he removed to Jesus College in September, on obtaining a scholarship there, and remained on the books of Jesus for seven years. In the year 1745, he took the degree of B.A. In 1747, he was appointed by Dr. Battie, who had been a ward of his father's, to one of the university scholarships which he had just founded; and in June the same year he was ordained deacon by Bishop Gibson, without a title, from the respect which the bishop bore to his father's memory. In 1749, he became M.A., and was elected Fellow of Queen's College. This was the last of the many steps and changes in his educational career. At this date his ministerial life begins; and

although he held his fellowship until his marriage, in 1757, from this time he had little more close connection with Cambridge.

Henry Venn's ministerial life began in 1749, when he was twenty-five years old. He first served the curacy of Barton, near Cambridge, and afterwards officiated for various friends, at Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire, and Little Hedingham in Essex, and other places of which I cannot find out the names. In 1750 he ceased to reside at Cambridge, and became curate of Mr. Langley, rector of St. Matthew, Friday Street, London, and West Horsley, near Guildford. Venn's duty was to serve the church in London during part of the summer, and to reside the remainder of the year at Horsley. In this position he remained continuously for four years, until he became curate of Clapham in 1754.

I can find no evidence that Venn had any distinct theological views for some little time after he was ordained. In fact, he appears, like too many, to have taken on him the holy office of a minister without any adequate conception of its duties and responsibilities. It is clear that he was moral and conscientious, and had a high idea of the deportment suited to the clerical life. But it is equally clear that he knew nothing whatever of evangelical religion; and in aftertime he regarded his college days as "days of vanity and ignorance."

One thing, however, is very plain in Venn's early history—he was scrupulously honest and conscientious in acting up faithfully to anything which he was convinced was right. Indeed, he used often to say "that he owed the salvation of his soul to the resolute self-denial which he exercised, in following the dictates of conscience in a point which seemed itself of only small importance."

"The case," says his son, "was this: He was extremely fond of cricket, and was reckoned one of the best players in the university. In the week before he was ordained he played in a match between Surrey and All England, which excited great interest, and was attended by a very numerous body of spectators. When the game

terminated in favour of the side on which he was playing, he threw down his bat, saying, 'Whoever wants a bat which has done me good service may take that, as I have no further occasion for it.' His friends inquiring the reason, he replied, 'Because I am to be ordained on Sunday; and I will never have it said of me, "Well struck, parson."' To this resolution, notwithstanding the remonstrances of friends, he strictly adhered; and, though his health suffered by a sudden transition from a course of most violent exercise to a life of comparative inactivity, he never could be persuaded to play anymore. From being faithful in a little, more grace was imparted to him."

"His first considerable religious impressions," adds his son, "arose from an expression in the form of prayer, which he had been accustomed to use daily, but, like most persons, without paying much attention to it—'That I may live to the glory of thy name.' The thought powerfully struck his mind, What is it to live to the glory of God'? Do I live as I pray? What course of life ought I to pursue to glorify God?' After much reflection, he came to the conclusion that to live to God's glory required that he should live a life of piety and religion in a degree in which he had not yet lived; and that he ought to be more strict in prayer, more diligent in reading the Scriptures and pious books, and more generally holy in his conduct. And, seeing the reasonableness of such a course of life, he showed his honesty and uprightness by immediately and steadily pursuing it. He set apart stated seasons for meditation and prayer, and kept a strict account of the manner in which he spent his time and regulated his conduct. I have heard him say that, at this period, he used to walk almost every evening in the cloisters to Trinity College while the great bell of St. Mary's was tolling at nine o'clock, and amidst the solemn tones of the bells, and in the stillness and darkness of the night, he would indulge in impressive reflections on death and judgment, heaven and hell."

"In this frame of mind," his son continues, "Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life' was particularly useful to him. He read it

repeatedly, with peculiar interest, and immediately began, with great sincerity, to frame his life according to the Christian model there delineated. He kept a diary of the state of his mind—a practice from which he derived great benefit, though not in the way he expected, for it chiefly made him better acquainted with his own deficiencies. He also allotted the hours of the day, as far as was consistent with the duties of his station, to particular acts of meditation and devotion. He kept frequent fasts; and was accustomed often to take solitary walks, in which his soul was engaged in prayer and communion with God. I have heard him mention, that in these retired walks in the meadow behind Jesus College he had such a view of the goodness, mercy, and glory of God, as elevated his soul above the world, and made him aspire toward God as his supreme good."

Such was the religious condition of Henry Venn's mind when he first began the active work of the Christian ministry. Earnest, zealous, moral, conscientious, and scrupulously determined to do his duty, he put his hand to the plough and went forward. At Barton he distributed religious tracts and conversed with the poor in such an affectionate manner, that some remembered him after an interval of thirty years. At Horsley he instructed many of the poor on the weekdays at his own home. His family prayers were attended by thirty or forty poor neighbours, and the number of communicants increased from twelve to sixty. In fact, the neighbouring clergy began to regard him as an enthtisiast and a Methodist. But his zeal, unhappily, was so far entirely without knowledge. He knew nothing whatever of the real gospel of Christ, and, of course, could tell his hearers nothing about it. The consequence was, that for nearly four years of his ministerial life his labours were in vain.

Henry Venn's four years at Horsley, however, were by no means thrown away. If he did little good to others, he certainly learned lessons there of lasting benefit to his soul. The solitude and seclusion of his position gave him abundant time for reading, meditation, and prayer; and in the honest use of such means as he had, God was

graciously pleased to show him more light, and to lead him onward towards the full knowledge of the gospel. Little by little he began to find out that "Law's" divinity was very defective, and that his favourite author did not give sufficient honour to Christ. Little by little he began to discover that he was, in reality, trying to "work out a righteousness" of his own, while, in truth, he had nothing to boast of; and that, with all his straining after perfection, he was nothing better than a poor weak sinner. Little by little he began to see that true Christianity was a scheme providing for man's wants as a ruined, fallen, and corrupt creature; and that the root of all vital religion is faith in the blood and righteousness and mediation and mercy of a Divine Saviour—Christ the Lord. The scales began to fall from his eyes. The tone of his preaching began sensibly to alter. And though, when he left Horsley for Clapham he had not even yet attained full light, it is perfectly evident that he went out of the parish in a totally different state of mind from that with which he entered. It was true that even now he "saw men as trees, walking;" but it is no less true that he could have said, "I was blind, and now I see."

I pity the man who can read the story of Henry Venn's religious experience without deep interest. The steps by which God leads his children on from one degree of light to another are all full of instruction. Seldom does He seem to bring his people into the full enjoyment of spiritual knowledge all at once. We must not, therefore, "despise the day of small things." We should rather respect those who fight their way out of darkness and grope after truth. What has been won by hard fighting is often that which wears the longest. Theological principles taken up second-hand have often no root, and endure but for a little season. Striking and curious is the similarity in the experience of Whitefield, Berridge, and Venn. They all had to fight hard for spiritual light; and having found it, they held it fast, and never let it go.

The five years during which Henry Venn was curate of Clapham completely settled his theological creed, and formed a turning-point

in his religious history. His work there was very heavy, as he held two lectureships in London, beside his curacy. His regular duty on Sunday consisted of a full service at Clapham in the morning; a sermon in the afternoon at St. Alban's, Wood Street; and another in the evening at Swithin's, London Stone. On Tuesday morning, he preached again at Swithin's; on Wednesday morning, at seven o'clock, at his father's old church, St. Antholin's; and on Thursday evening at Clapham. To preach six sermons every week was undoubtedly a heavy demand on a curate of only four years' standing I Yet it is not unlikely that the very necessity for exertion which his position entailed on him was the means of calling forth latent power. Men never know how much they can do, until they are put under the screw, and obliged to exert themselves. At any rate Venn was compelled to learn how to preach from notes, from sheer inability to write six sermons a week, and thus attained a facility in extemporaneous speaking which he afterwards found most useful.

In a spiritual point of view, Venn's character was greatly influenced, during his five years' residence at Clapham, by three circumstances. The first of these was a severe illness of eight months' duration, which laid him aside from work in 1756, and gave him time for reflection and self-examination. The second was his marriage, in 1757, to the daughter of Dr. Bishop, minister of the Tower Church, Ipswich; a lady who, from her piety and good sense, seems to have been admirably qualified to be a clergyman's wife. The third, and probably the most important circumstance of his position, was the friendship that he formed with several eminent Christians, who were of great use to his soul. At Horsley he seems to have had no help from anyone, and whatever he learned there he did not learn from man. At Clapham, on the contrary, he at once became intimate with the well known layman John Thornton and Dr. Haweis, and afterwards with George Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon.

To Lady Huntingdon, Henry Venn seems to have been under peculiar obligations for advice and counsel. The following extract from a letter which she addressed to him about the defects in his first

preaching at Clapham, is an interesting example of her faithfulness, and throws much light on the precise state of her correspondent's mind at this period. She says: "O my friend, we can make no atonement to a violated law; we have no inward holiness of our own; the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord our righteousness.' Cling not to such beggarly elements, such filthy rags, mere cobwebs of Pharisaical pride; but look to him who lath wrought out a perfect righteousness for his people. You find it a hard task to come naked and miserable to Christ; to come divested of every recommendation but that of abject wretchedness and misery, and receive from the outstretched hand of our Immanuel the riches of redeeming grace. But if you come at all you must come thus; and, like the dying thief, the cry of your heart must be, 'Lord, remember me.' There must be no conditions; Christ and Christ alone must be the only mediator between God and sinful men; no miserable performance can be placed between the sinner and the Saviour. And now, my dear friend, no longer let false doctrine disgrace your pulpit. Preach Christ crucified as the only foundation of the sinner's hope. Preach him as the Author and Finisher as well as the sole Object of faith, that faith which is the gift of God. Exhort Christless sinners to fly to the City of Refuge; to look to Him who is exalted as Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and the remission of sins. Go on, then, and may your bow abide in strength. Be bold, be firm, be decided. Let Christ be the Alpha and Omega of all you advance in your addresses to your fellow-men. Leave the consequences to your Divine Master. May his gracious benediction rest upon your labours! and may you be blessed to the conversion of very many, who shall be your joy and crown of rejoicing in the great day when the Lord shall appear."—The date of this faithful letter is not given. I am inclined, however, to conjecture that it was written between the time of Venn's illness in 1756 and his marriage in 1757. At any rate, it is a remarkable fact, recorded by his son, that he used to observe that after 1756 he was no longer able to preach the sermons which he had previously composed. Lady Huntingdon's faithful letter was probably not written in vain.

Whatever defects there may have been in Venn's doctrinal views during the first few years of his Clapham ministry, they appear to have completely vanished after his restoration to health in 1757. He was soon recognized as a worthy fellow-labourer with that noble little company of evangelists which, under the leading of Whitefield and Wesley, was beginning to shake the land; and from his gifts as a preacher took no mean position among them. Whitefield seems especially to have delighted in him. In a letter written some time in 1757, he says to Lady Huntingdon: "The worthy Venn is valiant for the truth, a son of thunder. He labours abundantly, and his ministry has been owned of the Lord to the conversion of sinners. Thanks be to God for such an instrument to strengthen our hands! I know the intelligence will rejoice your ladyship. Your exertions in bringing him to a clearer knowledge of the everlasting gospel have indeed been blessed. He owes your ladyship much, under God, and I believe his whole soul is gratitude to the Divine Author of mercies, and to you the honoured instrument in leading him to the fountain of truth." Testimony like this is unexceptionable. George Whitefield was one of the last men on earth to be satisfied with any preaching which was not the full gospel. We cannot for a moment doubt that during the last two years of Venn's curacy at Clapham, he at length walked in the full light of Christ's truth, and "declared all the counsel of God."

In the year 1759, Henry Venn was appointed vicar of Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, by Sir John Ramsden, at the solicitation of Lard Dartmouth. He accepted the appointment from the purest of all motives, a desire to do good to souls. The town itself presented no great attractions. In point of income he was positively a loser by the move from Clapham. But he felt deeply that the offer opened "a great and effectual door" of usefulness, and he did not dare to turn away from it. He seems also to have had a strong impression that he had not been successful at Clapham, and that this was an indication that he ought not to refuse a change. His wife was averse to his moving; and her opinion no doubt placed him in much perplexity. But the result showed beyond doubt that he decided rightly. In leaving Clapham for Yorkshire, he was in God's way.

Henry Venn became vicar of Huddersfield at the age of thirty-five, and continued there only twelve years. He went there a poor man, without rank or influence, and with nothing but God's truth on his side. He found the place a huge, dark, ignorant, immoral, irreligious, manufacturing town. He left it shaken to the centre by the lever of the gospel, and leavened with the influence of many faithful servants of Jesus Christ, whom he had been the means of turning from darkness to light. Few modern ministers appear to have had so powerful an influence on a town population as Henry Venn had on Huddersfield. The nearest approach to it seems to have been the work of Robert M'Clieyne at Dundee.

The story of Henry Venn's life from the time of his settlement at Huddersfield is a subject which I must reserve for another Chapter. I do not feel that I could possibly do justice to it now. How he lived, and worked, and preached, and prospered in his great manufacturing parish—how he turned the world upside down throughout the district around, and became a centre of light and life to hundreds— how his health finally gave way under the abundance of his labours, and obliged him to leave Huddersfield—how he spent the last twenty years of his life in the comparative retirement of a little rural parish in Huntingdonshire,—all these are matters which I can—' not enter into now. I hope to tell my readers something about them in another Chapter.

Chapter 2

Mode of Working at Huddersfield—Effect of his Ministry—Fruits found in 1824—Extra-parochial Labours—Friendly relation with Whitefield—Health Fails—Wife Dies—Leaves Huddersfield for Yelling, 1771—Description of Yelling—Second Marriage—Description of Life at Yelling—Dies, 1797.

Henry Venn was Vicar of Huddersfield from 1759 to 1771. These twelve years, we need not doubt, were the period of his greatest public usefulness. In the full vigour of his bodily and mental

faculties, with his mind thoroughly made up about all the leading doctrines of the gospel, with his heart thoroughly set on his Master's business, he entered his new sphere with peculiar power and acceptance, and soon "made full proof of his ministry." His time there was certainly short, if measured by years alone, in consequence of his failing health; but it measured by action and usefulness, like Edward the Sixth's reign, it was very long indeed.

For more than one reason a peculiar interest attaches to Venn's ministry at Huddersfield. For one thing, he was the only one of the seven spiritual heroes of the last century who ever became incumbent of a large town population. Wesley and Whitefield were itinerant evangelists, whose parish was the world. Romaine was the rector of a little confined district in the City. Rowlands lived and died among Welsh mountains, Grimshaw on Yorkshire moors, and Berridge on Bedfordshire plains. Venn was the only man among the seven who could number his lawful parishioners by thousands.—For another thing, he was the first evangelical clergyman in the Church of England who proved that the manufacturing masses of our fellowcountrymen can be thoroughly reached by the gospel. He proved to a demonstration that the working-classes in our great northern towns are to be got at just like other men, if they are approached in the proper way. He proved that the preaching of the cross suits the wants of all Adam's children, and that it can "turn the world upside down" among looms and coal-mines, just as thoroughly as it can in watering-places, country parishes, or metropolitan chapels-of-ease. We all know this now. Nobody would dream of denying it. But we must remember it was not so well known a hundred years ago. Let honour be given where honour is due. The first clergyman in England who fairly proved the power of evangelical aggression on a manufacturing parish, was Henry Venn.

A clergyman's work in a large town district in the last century was very unlike what it is in these times. A vast quantity of religious machinery, with which everyone is familiar now, in those days did not exist. City missions, Scripture readers' societies, Pastoral aid

societies, Bible women, mothers' meetings, were utterly unknown. Even schools for the children of the poor were few, and comparatively defective, and utterly out of proportion to the wants of the population. In short, the evangelical minister of a great town a hundred years ago was almost entirely shut up to the use of one weapon. The good old apostolical plan of incessant preaching, both "publicly and from house to house," was nearly the only machine that he could use. He was forced to be pre-eminently a man of one thing, and a soldier with one weapon, a perpetual preacher of God's Word. Whether in the long run the minister of last century did not do more good with his one weapon than many do in modern times with an immense train of parochial machinery, is a question which admits of much doubt. My own private opinion is, that we have too much lost sight of apostolical simplicity in our ministerial work. We want more men of "one thing" and "one book," men who make everything secondary to preaching the Word. It is hard to have many irons in the fire at once, and to keep them all hot. It is quite possible to make an idol of parochial machinery, and for the sake of it to slight the pulpit.

These things ought to be carefully remembered in forming an estimate of Venn's ministry at Huddersfield. Let us never forget that he went to his great Yorkshire parish, like David against Goliath, with nothing but his sling and stones, and an unwavering faith in the power of God. He went there with no sympathizing London committee to correspond with him, encourage him, and assist him with funds. He went there with no long-tried plans and approved modes of evangelical aggression in his pocket. He went there with nothing but his Bible, and his Master at his side. Bearing these things in mind, I think the following extracts from his admirable biography ought to possess a peculiar interest in our eyes.

His son, John Venn, says: "As soon as he began to preach at Huddersfield, the church became crowded to such an extent that many were not able to procure admission. Numbers became deeply impressed with concern about their immortal souls; persons flocked

from the distant hamlets, inquiring what they must do to be saved. He found them in general utterly ignorant of their state by nature, and of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. His bowels yearned over his flock, and he was never satisfied with his labours among them, though they were continued to a degree ruinous to his health. On the Sunday he would often address the congregation from the desk, briefly explaining the psalms and the lessons. He would frequently begin the service with a solemn and most impressive address, exhorting the worshippers to consider themselves as in the presence of the great God of heaven, whose eye was in a particular manner upon them, while they drew nigh to him in his own house. His whole soul was engaged in preaching; and as at this time he only used short notes in the pulpit, ample room was left to indulge the feelings of compassion, tenderness, and love, with which his heart overflowed towards his people. In the week he statedly visited the different hamlets in his extensive parish; and collecting some of the inhabitants at a private house, he addressed them with a kindness and earnestness which moved every heart." A letter written in 1762 to Lady Huntingdon, informs us that in that year, beside his stated work on the Lord's day, the Vicar of Huddersfield generally preached eight or ten sermons in the week in distant parts of the parish, when many came to hear who would not come to church. It also mentions that his outdoor preaching was found especially useful.

His grandson, Henry Venn, has gathered some additional facts about his Huddersfield ministry, which are well worth recording. He tells us that "Mr. Venn made a great point of the due observance of the Sabbath, both in the town and parish. He induced several of the most respectable and influential inhabitants to perambulate the town, and by persuasion, rather than by legal intimidation, to repress the open violation of the day. By such means a great and evident reformation was accomplished,"

"He endeavoured to preserve the utmost reverence and devotion in public worship, constantly pressing this matter upon his people. He read the service with peculiar solemnity and effect. The Te Deum ,

especially, was recited with a triumphant air and tone, which often produced a perceptible sensation throughout the whole congregation. He succeeded in inducing the people to join in the responses and singing. Twice in the course of his ministry at Huddersfield he preached a course of sermons in explanation of the Liturgy. On one occasion, as he went up to church, he .found a considerable number of per-sons in the churchyard, waiting for the commencement of the service: He stopped to address them, saying, he hoped they were preparing their hearts for the service of God, and that he had himself much to do to preserve his heart in a right frame. He concluded by waving his hand for them to go into the church before him, and waited till they had all entered."

"He took great pains in catechizing the younger members of his congregation, chiefly those who were above fourteen years of age. The number was often very considerable; and he wrote out for their use a very copious Explanation of the Church Catechism, in the way of questions and answers."

The immediate effects produced by Henry Venn's preaching appear to have been singularly deep, powerful, and permanent. Both his son and grandson have supplied some striking illustrations of them.

His son says: "A club, chiefly composed of Socinians, in a neighbouring market town, having heard much censure and ridicule bestowed upon the preaching of Henry Venn, sent two of their ablest members to hear this strange preacher, detect his absurdities, and furnish matter of merriment for the next meeting. They accordingly went to Huddersfield Church; but were greatly struck, on entering, by seeing the multitude that was assembled together, and by observing the devotion of their behaviour, and their anxiety to attend the worship of God. When Mr. Venn ascended the reading-desk, he addressed his flock, as usual, with a solemnity and dignity which showed him to be deeply interested in the work in which he was engaged. The subsequent earnestness of his preaching, and the solemn appeals he made to conscience, deeply impressed the

visitors, so that one of them observed, as they left the church, Surely God is in this place! There is no matter for laughter here! This gentleman immediately called on Mr. Venn, told him who he was, and the purpose for which he had come, and earnestly begged his forgiveness and his prayers. He requested Mr. Venn to visit him without delay, and eft the Socinian congregation;; and from that time to the hour of his death became one of Mr. Venn's most faithful and affectionate friends."

"Another gentleman, highly respectable for his character, talents, and piety, the late William Hey, Esq., of Leeds, used frequently to go to Huddersfield to hear Mr. Venn preach, and he assured me that once returning home with an intimate friend, they neither of them opened their lips to each other till they came within a mile of Leeds, a distance of fifteen miles, so deeply were they impressed by the truths which they had heard, and the manner in which they had been delivered."

Henry Venn's grandson visited Huddersfield in 1824, fifty-three years after his honoured grandfather had left the place. On inquiry he found that even after the lapse of half a century, the fruits of his wonderful ministry were yet remaining on earth. The memorials he gathered together from these survivors of the old congregation are so deeply interesting that I am sure my readers will be glad to hear them, though in a somewhat abridged form.

Mr. Venn's grandson says: "Through the kind assistance of lienja.min Hudson, Esq., of Huddersfield, I saw all the old people then living in the town and neighbourhood who had received their first religious impressions under my grandfather's ministry, and still maintained a religious character. They were all in the middle or lower ranks of life; none of a superior class had survived. What I am about to record must, therefore, be received as the genuine and unstudied testimony of persons of plain, unpolished sense.

"Mr. William Brook of Longwood gave me the following account of the first sermon he heard at Huddersfield Church: ' I was first led to go by listening with an uncle of mine, named W. Mellor, at the door of a prayer-meeting: we thought there must be something uncommon to make people so earnest. My uncle was about nineteen, and I was about sixteen; and we went together to the church one Thursday evening. There was a great crowd within the church, all silent, and many weeping. The text was, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." W. Mellor was deeply attentive; and when we came out of church we did not say a word to each other till we got some way into the fields. Then W. Mellor stopped, leaned his back against a wall, and burst into tears, saying, "I can't stand this." His 'conviction of sin was from that time most powerful, and he became quite a changed character. I was not so much affected at that time; but I could not after that sermon be easy in sin. I began to pray regularly; and so, by degrees, I was brought to know myself, and to seek salvation in earnest. The people used to go from Longwood in droves, to Huddersfield Church, three miles off. Some of them came out of church together, whose ways home were in this direction; and they used to stop at the Firs' End, about a mile off; and talk over, for some time, what they had heard, before they separated to go to their homes. That place has been to me like a little heaven below!

"I never heard a minister like him. He was most powerful in unfolding the terrors of -the law. When doing so, he had a stern look that would make you tremble. Then he would turn off to the offers of grace, and begin to smile, and go on entreating till his eyes filled with tears."

"The next person I saw was George Crow, aged eighty-two, of Lockwood, a hamlet about a mile from the town. When I asked him whether he ever thought of old times, he answered, Ali, yes! And shall do to the last. I thought when Mr. Venn went I should be like Rachel for the rest of my days, weeping and refusing to be comforted. I was abidingly impressed the first time I heard him, at

an early period of his ministry. Ile was such a preacher as I never heard before or since; he struck upon the passions like no other man. Nobody could help being affected: the most wicked and illconditioned men went to hear him, and fell like slaked lime in a moment, even though they were not converted. I could have heard him preach all the night through."

"I also visited Ellen Roebuck, eighty-five, living at Almond-bury. She was very deaf and infirm, but when she understood the object of my visit she talked with great energy. 'I well remember his first coming to Huddersfield, and the first sermon he preached. It was on that text, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved:" and it was as true of himself as it was of St. Paul. He took every method for instructing the people; he left nothing unturned. Always at work! It was a wonder lie had not done for himself sooner. The lads he catechized used to tell him that people said he was teaching a new doctrine, and leading us into error; but he always replied, "Never mind them; do not answer them; read your Bibles, and press forward, dear lads; press forward, and you cannot miss heaven."

"I saw also John Starkey of Cawcliff, aged eighty. As I conversed with him, he seemed gradually to wake up, till his countenance glistened with joy. He said, I esteemed Mr. Venn too much for a man. I almost forgot that he was a creature and an instrument. His going away went nearer to my heart than anything. He was a wonderful preacher. When he got warm with his subject, he looked as if he would jump out of his pulpit. He made many weep. I have often wept at his sermons. I could have stood to hear him till morning. When he came up to the church, he used to go round the churchyard and drive us all in before him."

I make no excuse for making the above extracts. They speak for themselves. I pity the man who can read them without interest. If after fifty years such living witnesses to the power of Henry Venn's ministry could be found, what may we suppose must have been the

effect of his preaching in his day and generation I If the direct good he did was so marked and unmistakable, what a vast amount of indirect good must have been done by his presence in the district where God placed him?

We must not for a moment suppose that Henry Venn's labours in Christ's cause were entirely confined to Huddersfield during the time that he was vicar of that parish. So far from this being the case, there is abundant evidence that he occasionally did the work of an evangelist in many parts of England very distant from Yorkshire. We possess no journal of his movements, but a close examination of that interesting but oddly-arranged book, "Lady Huntingdon's Life and Times," shows plainly that the Vicar of Huddersfield preached every year in many pulpits besides his own. It could hardly be otherwise. He was on terms of intimate friendship with all the leading evangelists of his day, such as Wesley, Whitefield, Grimshaw, and Fletcher. These apostolic men not unfrequently found their way to Huddersfield vicarage, and preached for him in his pulpit. We cannot wonder that, so long as health permitted, Venn helped them in return. In fact, he seems frequently to have made excursions through various parts of England, and to have laboured in every way to preach the gospel, as an itinerant, so far as parochial engagements would allow him. We hear of him constantly in Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Oathall near Brighton, and at Bath. At one time he is at Bretby near Burton-on-Trent. At another he is at Fletcher's famous establishment at Trevecca in South Wales. Occasionally we read of his preaching at Bristol, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Worcester, and London. The half of his labours, probably, outside his own parish, is entirely unknown.

The truth must be spoken on this point. It is vain to attempt to draw any broad line of distinction between Henry Venn and his great contemporaries in the revival of the last century. No doubt he had a large town parish, and of course found it more difficult than others to be long absent from home. But in all spiritual points, in matters of doctrine and practice, and in his judgment of what the times

required, he was entirely one with Whitefield—and Grimshaw. He delighted in their labours. He stood by their side and helped them, whenever he had an opportunity. When Grimshaw died, it was Henry Venn who preached his funeral sermon in Luddenden Church. When Whitefield died, the man who preached the noblest funeral sermon in Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Bath was the same Henry Venn. Conduct like this, I am afraid, will not recommend my hero to some Churchmen. They will think he would have done better had he confined his labours to Huddersfield, and abstained from apparent irregularities. I content myself with saying that I cannot agree with them. I think that in keeping up intimate relations with the itinerant evangelists of last century, Venn did what was best and wisest in the days in which he lived. I think his unhesitating attachment to White-field to the very last a singularly noble trait in his character. It ought never to be forgotten that the last sermon preached by Whitefield in Yorkshire, before he sailed for America to die, was delivered in the pulpit of Huddersfield Church.

An extract from a letter written by Venn to Lady Huntingdon, about the year 1768, will give a very clear idea of the unhesitating course of action which the Vicar of Huddersfield adopted, and the boldness with which he supported Whitefield. It was written on the occasion of Whitefield preaching on a tombstone in the churchyard of Cheltenham Parish Church, after permission had been refused to preach in the church. Venn says: "To give your ladyship any just description of what our eyes have witnessed and our hearts have felt within the last few days at Cheltenham, exceeds my feeble powers. My inmost soul is penetrated with an overwhelming sense of the power and presence of Jehovah, who has visited us with an effusion of his Spirit in a very eminent manner. There was a visible appearance of much soul-concern among the crowd that filled every part of the burial-ground. Many were overcome with fainting; others sobbed deeply; some wept silently; and a solemn concern appeared on the countenance of almost the whole assembly. But when he pressed the injunction of the text (Isaiah 4:1) on the unconverted and ungodly, his words seemed to act like a sword, and many burst out

into piercing cries. At this juncture Mr. Whitefield made an awful pause of a few seconds, and wept himself. During this interval Mr. Madan and myself stood up and requested the people, as much as possible, to restrain themselves from making a noise. Oh, with what eloquence, what energy, what melting tenderness, did Mr. Whitefield beseech sinners to be reconciled to God, to come to Him for life everlasting, and to rest their weary souls on Christ the Saviour! When the sermon was ended the people seemed chained to the ground. Mr. Madan, Mr. Talbot, and myself; found ample employment in trying to comfort those who seemed broken down under a sense of guilt. We separated in different directions among the crowd, and each was quickly surrounded by an attentive audience still eager to hear all the words of this life. Of such a season it may well be said, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succoured thee; behold! Now is the accepted time— behold! Now is the day of salvation!"

In the year 1771, Henry Venn's useful Yorkshire ministry came to an end. Most reluctantly he left Huddersfield, and became the rector of Yelling, a small country living in Huntingdonshire. This happened when he was only forty-seven years old. There were many who blamed him for the step, and thought that he ought to have died at his post in Yorkshire. But really, when the circumstances of the case are fairly considered, it seems impossible to say that he was wrong. His health during the latter period of his residence at Huddersfield failed so completely, that his public usefulness was almost at an end. He had a cough and spitting of blood, beside other symptoms of approaching consumption. He was only able to preach once a fortnight; and even then the exertion rendered him incapable of rising from his couch for several days. In short, it is very evident that if he had continued at Huddersfield much longer, he would have died. Just at this crisis, his friend the Lord Chief Baron Smythe, who was one of the Com-missioners of the Great Seal, offered him the Chancellor's living of Yelling. The offer appears to me to have been a providential opening, and I think Venn was quite right to accept it.

It is easy to find fault with Venn for "overworking" himself at Huddersfield, and to hold him up as a beacon and warning to young ministers who are full of zeal and abundant in labours. I venture to doubt, however, whether it is quite just and fair. It was not "overworking" alone that made his health break down. There were mental causes as well as physical. Nothing, I suspect, had so much to do with his removal from Huddersfield as the death of his wife in 1767, leaving him a widower with five young children. Up to this time, his position at Huddersfield had been one of many trials, partly from the bitter opposition of many who hated evangelical religion, partly from the straitened circumstances to which his very scanty income often reduced him. But so long as his wife lived, none of these things seemed to have moved him. Mrs. Venn was a woman of rare prudence, calmness, good sense, affection, and sympathy. She was, in fact, her husband's right hand. When she died, such a load of care and anxiety was accumulated on his head, that his health gradually gave way. People who have not been placed in similar circumstances, may probably not understand all this. Those who have had this cross to carry, can testify that there is no position in this world so trying to body and soul as that of the minister who is left a widower, with a young family and a large congregation. There are anxieties in such cases which no one knows but he who has gone through them; anxieties which can crush the strongest spirit, and wear out the strongest constitution. This, I strongly suspect, was one chief secret of Venn's removal from Huddersfield. He left it, no doubt, because he felt himself too ill to do anymore work there. But the true cause probably of his breaking down was the load of care entailed on him by the death of his wife. It was just one of those secret blows from which a man's bodily health never recovers.

Venn's own private feelings, on leaving Huddersfield, are best described in a letter which he wrote at the time to Lady Huntingdon: — "No human being," he says, "can tell how keenly I feel this separation from a people I have dearly loved. But the shattered state of my health, occasioned by my unpardonable length and loudness in speaking, has reduced me to a state which incapacitates me for the

charge of so large a parish. Providence has put it into the heart of the Lord Commissioner to offer this small living to me. Pray for me, my most faithful friend, that God's blessing may go with me, and render my feeble attempts to speak of his love and mercy efficacious to the conversion of souls. At Yelling, as at Huddersfield, I shall still be your ladyship's willing servant in the service of the gospel; and when I can be of any use in furthering your plans for the salvation of souls and the glory of Christ, I am your obedient servant at command."

It is recorded that the last two or three months of Venn's residence at Huddersfield were peculiarly affecting. At an early hour the church was crowded when he preached, so that vast numbers were compelled to go away. Many came from a great distance to take leave of him, and tell him how much they owed him for benefits received under his ministry. Mothers held up their children, saying, "There is the man who has been our faithful minister and our best friend!" The whole parish was deeply moved; and when he preached his farewell sermon (Colossians iii. 2) he could hardly speak for deep emotion.

The parish of Yelling, to which Henry Venn retired on leaving Huddersfield, is a little agricultural district on the south-east border of Huntingdonshire, about seven miles south of Huntingdon, five east of St. Neots, and twelve miles west of Cambridge. At this present day it has a population of about 400 souls. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the great evangelist of Yorkshire found between his new cure and his old. Vast indeed is the transition from the warmhearted and intelligent worshippers of a northern manufacturing district to the dull, and cold, and impassive inhabitants of a purely agricultural parish in the south of England! Venn felt it deeply. He says himself in a letter to Stillingtleet, "Your letter found me under great searchings of heart, upon the point of beginning uly ministry in this place. What a change from thousands to a company of one hundred! From a people generally enlightened, and many converted, to one yet sitting in darkness, and ignorant of the first principles of the gospel! from a house resounding with the voice of thanksgiving, like the noise of many waters, to one where the

solitary singers please themselves with empty sounds, or gratify their vanity by the imagination of their own excellence! From a Bethel to myself, and many more, to a nominal worship of the God of Christians A change painful indeed, yet unavoidable. With a heavy heart, therefore, did I begin yesterday to address my new hearers."

Trying, however, as the change was to Henry Venn's mind, there can be little doubt that it was exceedingly beneficial to his body. The comparative rest and entire change of his new position in all probability saved his life. Little by little his constitution rallied and recovered his tone, until he was able to get through the work of his small parish with comparative ease. In short, after going away from Huddersfield, apparently to die, he lived on no less than twenty-six years, to the great joy of his friends, the great advantage of his family, and the great benefit of the Church of Christ. How little man knows what is best for his fellow-creatures! If the Vicar of Huddersfield had remained at his post, and died in harness, his children would have lost the best training that children perhaps ever had, and the world would have lost a quantity of most valuable correspondence.

Venn's life at Yelling was singularly quiet and uneventful. His second marriage, soon after his settlement there, appears to have added much to his happiness. The lady whom he married was the widow of Mr. Smith of Kensington, and daughter of the Revelation James Ascough, Vicar of Highworth, Wilts. In her he had the comfort of finding a thorough help, and a most wise and affectionate stepmother to his children. She lived with him twentpone years, and was buried at Yelling. The domestic arrangements and employments at his country home were truly simple and edifying. The following sketch, drawn out by himself for a Huddersfield friend, gives a pleasing impression of the way in which his life went on: "You tell me you have no idea how we go on. Take the following sketch. I am up one of the first in the house, soon after five o'clock; and when prayer and reading the blessed Word is done my daughters make their appearance, and I teach them till Mrs. Venn comes down at half-past

eight. Then family prayer begins, which is often very sweet, as my own servants are all, I believe, born of God. The children begin to sing prettily; and our praises, I trust, are heard on high. From breakfast we are all employed till we ride out, in fine weather, two hours for health, and after dinner employed again. At six, I have always one hour for solemn meditation and walking in my house till seven. We have then sometimes twenty, and sometimes more, of the people, to whom I expound God's Word. Several appear much affected; and sometimes Jesus stands in the midst, and says, 'Peace be unto you!' Our devotions end at eight, we sup and go to rest at ten. On Sundays I am still enabled to speak six hours, at three different times, to my own great surprise. Oh the goodness of God in raising me up!"

Quiet, however, as Henry Venn's life was at Yelling, we must not suppose that he had no opportunities of being useful to souls. Far from it. He was within reach of good old John Berridge, and the two fellow-labourers often met and strengthened one another's hands, Though he seldom came before the public as he did in his Huddersfield days, he still found many ways of doing his Master's business, and proclaiming the gospel which he loved. The value of his preaching was soon discovered even in his secluded neighbourhood, and he had the comfort of seeing fruit of his ministry in Huntingdonshire as real and true, if not so abundant, as in Yorkshire. Occasionally he preached out of his own parish, though not perhaps so often as his friend and neighbour Berridge could have wished him. He delighted in the society of the good Vicar of Ever-ton whenever he could have it. "Just such a Calvinist as Mr. Berridge is," he used to say, "I wish all ministers of Christ to be." Sometimes he preached in London, and was not ashamed to appear in the pulpit of Surrey Chapel so late as 1786. His vicinity to Ctrnbridge gave him many opportunities of seeing members of the University who valued evangelical truth, and men like Simeon, Jowett, Robinson, and Farish, long testified their deep sense of the advantage they derived from his society and conversation. Above all, the leisure that he enjoyed at Yelling enabled him to keep up a very extensive

correspondence. He lived in the good old time when letters were realty well thought over and worth reading, and the letters that left Yelling parsonage are a proof to this day how wisely and well he used his pen.

On the whole, the evening of Henry Venn's life seems to have been a singularly happy one. He had the immense comfort of seeing his four children walking in their father's footsteps, clinging firmly to the doctrines he had loved. and preached, and steadily serving their father's God. Not least, he had the joy of seeing his son John an able minister of the New Testament, and of leaving him rector of Clapham, and a man honoured by all who knew him. Indeed, it is recorded that there were few texts so frequently on Henry Venn's lips, in his latter years, as the saying of Solomon, "A wise son maketh a glad father."

At the age of sixty-eight, he withdrew almost entirely from the public work of the ministry. His constitution had never entirely recovered from the effect of his work at Huddersfield, and old age came prematurely upon him. Yet even then he was never idle. In fact, he knew not what it was to have a tedious or a vacant hour.

His last days are so beautifully described by his grandson, in his admirable biography, that I shall give the account just as he has set it down. He tells us that "he found constant employment in reading and writing, and in the exercise of prayer and meditation. He often declared that he never felt more fervency of devotion than whilst imploring spiritual blessings for his children and friends, and especially for the success of those who were still engaged in the ministry of the blessed gospel, from which he was himself laid aside. For himself, his prayer was, that he might die to the glory of Christ. There are some moments,' he once said, when I am afraid of what is to come in the last agonies; but I trust in the Lord to hold me up. I have a great work before me, to suffer and to die to his glory.' But the spread of his Redeemer's kingdom lay nearer to his heart than any earthly or personal concerns. Even when the decay of strength

produced occasional torpor, this subject would rouse him to a degree of fervency and joy, from which his bodily frame would afterwards suffer. I have understood that nothing so powerfully excited his spirits as the presence of young ministers whose hearts he believed to be devoted to Christ.

About six months before his death he finally left Yelling, and settled at Clapham, near his son. His health from this time rapidly failed, and he was often on the brink of the grave. A medical friend, named Pearson, who often visited him, observed that the near prospect of death so elated his mind with joy, that it actually proved a stimulus to life. On one occasion Mr. Venn remarked some fatal appearances, and said, 'Surely these are good symptoms.' Mr. Pearson replied, 'Sir, in this state of joyous excitement you cannot die!'

"At length, on the 24th of June 1797, his happy spirit was released, and, at the age of seventy-three, Henry Venn entered into the long anticipated joy of his Lord."

I have yet more to say about this good man. His preaching, his literary remains, his correspondence, and the leading features of his character, all seem to deserve further notice. But I must reserve all to another Chapter.

Chapter 3

His Preaching Analysed—His Literary Remains examined— Extraordinary Power as a Letter-writer—Soundness of judgment about Doctrine—Wisdom and Goad Sense about Duties—Prudent Management of his Children—Unworldliness and Cheerful mess— Catholicity and Kindliness of Spirit—Testimony of Cowper, Simeon, and Sir James Stephen.

It is no easy matter, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, to form a correct estimate of Henry Venn's gifts and character. In fact,

the materials for forming it arc singularly scanty. He was peculiarly a man of one thing, absorbed in the direct work of his calling, always about his Master's business, and regardless of the verdict of posterity. He spent the greater part of his life in Yorkshire and Bedfordshire, in days when the public press was in its infancy, and there was but little communication between county and county. The only trustworthy biography of the man is a short account begun by his son, but not completed, and finished by a grandson who never saw him. As a specimen of biography, Venn's "Life" is beyond all praise; but still it is the work of a loving relative, and not of a bystander. Under these circumstances I feel unusual difficulty in handling the subject of this Chapter. I cannot help thinking that the famous Vicar of Huddersfield was a man who is scarcely understood by the present generation. However, I must throw myself on the indulgence of my readers, and do the best I can.

There are two things which I propose to do in this Chapter, I will first give some account of my hero, as a preacher, a writer, and a correspondent. I will then point out certain prominent features in his character, which appear to me of such rare beauty and excellence that they deserve the special notice of Christians.

As a preacher , I venture to think we know next to nothing of what Venn was. His sermons still extant, consisting of fourteen preached at Clapham, before he removed to Huddersfield, and eight single discourses preached on various special occasions between 1758 and 1785, most certainly fail to give us any idea of his pulpit powers. Perhaps the best of them are his funeral sermons for Grimshaw and Whitefield. In doctrine they are all, no doubt, sound, scriptural, and evangelical. But it is useless to deny that, at this day, they seem, as you read them, rather tame and commonplace. There is nothing striking, brilliant, or powerful about them. There is nothing that appears likely to lay hold of men's minds, to arrest or to keep up attention. In short, you find it hard to believe that the man who preached these sermons could ever have been considered a great preacher.

Yet it is clear as daylight that Henry Venn was a great preacher. The extraordinary effects that his sermons produced at Huddersfield—his undeniable popularity with congregations accustomed to hear such mighty orators as Whitefield—the high opinion entertained of his powers by Lady Huntingdon and other good judges—all these are facts that cannot possibly be explained away. The Vicar of Huddersfield may not have possessed the glowing eloquence of Rowlands or Whitefield, but for all that he must evidently have been a man of great pulpit powers.

The truth of the matter, I suspect, is simply this. Venn's sermons were precisely of that sort which are excellent to hear, but not excellent to read. Listened to, they are clear, satisfying, interesting, and instructive. Written down, they seem poor, and ungrammatical, and diffuse, and commonplace. Whether men will believe it or not, it is a fact that English for hearing, and English for reading, are almost two different languages, and that speeches and sermons which sound admirable when you listen to them, seem curiously flat and lifeless when you sit down to read them in cold blood. Of all the illustrations of this principle in rhetoric, I venture the conjecture that there seldom was a more remarkable one than Venn. To read his sermons over, there seems no more fife or fire in them than there is in an empty stove in July. And yet the Vicar of Huddersfield, by the universal testimony of all his contemporaries, was a mighty preacher.

Let us add to all this that Venn's action and delivery, by all accounts, were singularly lively and forcible. The witness of his hearers at Huddersfield, on this point, was unanimous. His face, his voice, his hands, his eyes, his whole manner in preaching, arrested attention, and clothed all that he said with power. Who can deny the immense effect of good delivery? The ancients went so far as to call it the first, second, and third qualification of a good orator. Who can fail to see, from the traditional account, already quoted, that Venn had a peculiar gift of delivery? The sermons of a man who "looked as if he would jump out of the pulpit," may contain nothing that is original or

remarkable, but they are just the sermons that often turn the world upside down. Printed sermons can show us a preacher's matter, but they cannot show us his manner as delivered. Second-rate matter, if only well delivered, will never fail io beat first-rate matter badly delivered, as long as the world stands.

After all, we must never forget that we know nothing of the nature of Venn's sermons in the days of his greatest power: They were extempore sermons, or sermons preached from notes; and that fact alone speaks volumes. Not one of these sermons, I believe, was taken down shorthand, as most of White-field's were, and the consequence is that we have not an idea what they were like. But every intelligent hearer of the present day knows well that a man may be a most powerful extempore preacher, who is a very dull and uninteresting writer. There are scores of men whom it is very pleasant to heart but very wearying to read. Perhaps if we possessed good shorthand reports of some of Venn's best Huddersfield sermons, we should see at a glance the secrets of his popularity as a preacher. As matters stand, I must frankly confess it is a subject which is now wrapped in some obscurity. I have done my best to throw some conjectural light upon it, and must leave it here. I only wish to remind my readers, in passing on, that there are few things so little understood in the world as the true causes of pulpit power.

As a writer , Venn's reputation rests almost entirely on two works, which are pretty well known,— "The Complete Duty of Man," and "Mistakes in Religion." The first of them is a "System of doctrinal and practical Christianity," and was intended to supply something better than that mischievous and defective volume, the "Whole Duty of Man." The second of them is a collection of essays on the prophecy of Zacharias (the father of John Baptist), in which the erroneousness of many common views of religion is faithfully and scripturally exposed. Besides these, Venn published two or three smaller pamphlets, which are but little known.

The two works above-named were undoubtedly very useful in their day, and are still to be found on the shelves of most collectors of religious literature. They are sound, scriptural, and evangelical. But I strongly suspect that they stick to the shelves on which they stand, and are books which most people know better by name than by reading. The plain truth is, that every age has its own peculiar style of writing. Popular as the "Spectator," and "Tatler," and "Rambler," were in their times, it may well be doubted whether they would be much read if published now. Even the pens of Addison, Johnson, and Steele, would not command success. The same remark applies to the sound and scriptural writings of Henry Venn. They did good service in their day, when men loved a somewhat stiff and classical style, and would have turned with disdain from any other sort of English composition as unworthy of an educated person. But like the jawbone of an ass, which Samson once used so effectively, they are now laid aside. Their work is done. Like the famous long-bows which our forefathers used at Cressy and Agincourt, we still view them with respect, and are proud of the victories which they won. But we do not use them ourselves. Rifled artillery and breechloaders have superseded them. The fashion of our weapons is changed.

After all, a close examination of Venn's two volumes will soon show an intelligent reader why they are no longer popular. The composition is of that stately anti somewhat high-flown style which was thought the standard of excellence in the last century. The sentences are often very long, and somewhat involved. The words are frequently of Latin or French origin. There is a curious absence of that rich fund of ready, happy illustration, which Whitefield and Rowlands had at their finger ends. The appeals to the imagination are few, and come in stiffly and awkwardly when they do come, like men dressed in new or borrowed clothes. In short, the style of the books is neither Saxon, nor sparkling, nor racy, nor pithy, nor anecdotal, nor pictorial. We must not wonder that they are no longer popular. Let us thank God for them. They were read in their day and generation by hundreds, who would probably have read no other evangelical literature. They may still do good to good men, and be

liked by those who are really hungering for spiritual food. But we must not insist on everybody admiring them, or call people graceless and ungodly because they do not take pleasure in reading them. We must not count it a strange thing if many call them heavy, and dry, and cold.

As a correspondent and letter-writer , Henry Venn deserves the highest admiration. Nothing gives me such a high idea of his mental and spiritual stature, as the collection of letters which accompanies his biography: I never wonder at his reputation when I read these letters. I consider them above all praise, and commend them to the special attention of all who want to form a just estimate of the seventh great evangelist of England a hundred years ago. The true measure of the Vicar of Huddersfield and Yelling is to be found in his letters much more than his books or printed sermons.

Letter-writing, we must never forget, was a much more important business in the last century than it is at the present day. The daily newspaper was a very different affair from what it is now. Periodicals and cheap publications had a very limited circulation. The result was, that letters became most powerful instruments either for good or evil. Men of the world, like Lord Hervey, Lord Chesterfield, or Horace Walpole, were not ashamed to throw their whole minds into their correspondence.

Religious men entered so fully into doctrinal, practical, and experimental questions with their correspondents, that their letters were almost as useful as their sermons. John Newton's well-known volume of letters, called "Carcliphonia," has perhaps done as much good to Christ's cause as anything that ever came from his pen. In days like those, it is no mean praise to say that Henry Venn was second to none as a letter-writer. Compare the letters that he wrote after settling down in Huntingdonshire, with the very best that Newton published, and I venture to say boldly that no impartial judge would hesitate to pronounce that the epistolary mine at Yelling yielded quite as rich metal as that at Olney.

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