extraordinary catholicity and kindliness of spirit, and his
request that you will not leave us any other token of your regard than something of little value."
5. The last excellency that I note in Henry Venn is his extraordinary catholicity and kindliness of spirit, and his rearline_ss to love and honour his brethren . Jealousy among ministers of Christ is, unhappily, a very common feeling. Nowhere, perhaps, will you find men so slow to recognize the gifts of others, and so quick to detect their faults, as in the ranks of preachers of religion. Of all the men of last century who attained eminent usefulness, I find none so free from jealousy as Henry Venn. He seems to delight in speaking well of his fellow-labourers, and to rejoice in their gifts and success.
It would be taking up too much room to quote all the expressions he uses about his contemporaries. Let it suffice to say that I find in his "Life" repeated kind words about the following men,—Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, Romaine, Walker, Conyers, Hervey, Howell Harris, Berridge, Fletcher, Robinson, Newton, Adams, Cecil, Scott, and Abraham Booth the Baptist. That list alone is enough to show the largeness and warmth of Venn's heart. To suppose that he agreed with all these good men in all things, is simply unreasonable. But he had a quick eye to see grace, and a ready mind to acknow ledge and admire it. Well would it be for the Church of Christ, if all ministers were more of his frame and spirit in this matter Envy and jealousy are too often the greatest blots on the character of great men.
It only remains for me, now, to conclude my account of Henry Venn by quoting the language used about him by three good judges, though very different men.
Let us hear what Cowper the poet thought of him. He says, in a letter to Newton, written in 1791: "I am sorry that Mr. Venn's labours below are so near to a conclusion. I have seen few men whom I could have loved more, had opportunity been given me to know him better; so at least I have thought as often as I have seen him."
Let us hear what Charles Simeon of Cambridge thought of him. He says: "I most gladly bear my testimony that not the half, nor the hundredth part, of what might have been justly said of that blessed man of God has been spoken. If any person now living, except his children, is qualified to bear this testimony, it is I, who, from my first entrance into orders to his dying hour, had most intimate access to him, and enjoyed most of his company and conversation. How great a blessing his conversation and example have been to me will never be known till the day of judgment. I dislike the language of panegyric, and therefore forbear to expatiate on a character which, in my estimation, was above all praise. Scarcely ever did I visit him but he prayed with me, at noon-day, as well as at common seasons of family-worship. Scarcely ever did I dine with him but his ardour in returning thanks, sometimes in an appropriate hymn, sometimes in prayer, has inflamed the souls of all present. In all the twenty-four years that I knew him, I never remember him to have spoken unkindly of anyone but once; and then I was struck with the humiliation he expressed for it in prayer next day."
Let us hear, lastly, what Sir James Stephen thought of Henry Venn. In his "Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography" (amidst some things I cannot subscribe to), he concludes his account of the vicar of Huddersfield and Yelling with the following passage: "With a wellstored memory, he was an independent, if not an original, thinker. With deep and even vehement attachments, he knew how to maintain, on fit occasions, even to those he loved most, a judicial gravity, and even a judicial sternness. He acted with indefatigable energy in the throng of men, and yet in solitude could meditate with unwearied perseverance. He was at once a preacher at whose voice multitudes wept and trembled, and a companion to whose privacy the wise resorted for instruction, the wretched for comfort, and all for sympathy. In all the exigencies, and in all relations of life, the firmest reliance might always be placed on his counsel, his support, and his example. Like St. Paul, he became all things to all men, and for the same reason, that he might by any means save some."
Such was the last of the seven great spiritual heroes of the last century. I have dwelt long on his history, but I feel that he deserves it. He was not the commanding preacher that either Whitefield or Rowlands was. He did not possess the polish of Romaine, or the originality of Grimshaw or Berridge. But, take hini for all in all, Henry Venn was a great man.
X. Walker Of Truro And His Ministry
. Walker Of Truro And His Ministry
Born at Exeter, 1714—Educated at Exeter College, Oxford—Ordained, 737—Curate of Truro, 1746—At First very ignorant of the Gospel— Mr. Canon's Influence—Effect of his Preaching—Opposition—Selfdenial and Holy Life—Remarkable Effect on Soldiers —Private Unity Meetings—Died, 1761—Literary Remains—Preaching.
An intelligent Christian needs not to be reminded that the Church of Christ has always recognized two classes of prophetical writers in the Old Testament.
There are -four who are called "the greater" prophets, and twelve who are called "the less." All wrote by direct and equal inspiration of God; "all spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" and yet we do not hesitate to assign a higher importance to one class than to the other.
A well-informed man knows well, that in the solar system some planets exceed others in size and glory. All are bright, and beautiful, and perfect. All proclaim to the student of the heavens that the Hand which made them was divine. Yet the glory of such bodies as Jupiter and Saturn is far greater than that of Mars, or Venus, or the Moon.
Thoughts such as these come across my mind as I turn from the seven leading champions of the revival of English religion in the last century to some of their lesser contemporaries. There were not a few eminent ministers in our country who were entirely of one mind with Whitefield and his fellow-workers, and yet never attained to their greatness. They sympathized with the great leaders in all matters of doctrine. They co-operated with them in the main, and rejoiced in their success. They cheerfully bore their share of the reproach cast on "Methodism" or evangelical religion. They shrank from no sacrifices,
and spared no pains in setting forward Christ's gospel. But they did not possess the extraordinary public gifts of their seven brethren, and did not therefore leave so deep a mark on their generation. Like Silas and Timotheus in St. Paul's days, they did good work in their own positions; but not work that attracted so much public attention as that of the mighty "masters of assemblies" whom I have described in preceding Chapters.
But we must beware that we do not undervalue men merely because they do not occupy prominent positions in the Church of Christ. Various and manifold are the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and he divides them to every man severally as he thinks fit. One minister is cabled to preach to thousands, and shake the world Like a "son of thunder;" while another is called to write hymns or compose books in an obscure corner of the earth. One man has gifts of voice, and delivery, and action, and fluency, and memory, and invention, which fit him to stand up before multitudes—like Paul on Mars' Hill, or Luther at Worms, or Whitefield in Moorfields—and to carry all before him. Another is shy, and gentle, and retiring, and can only make his mind work in solitude, quiet, and silence. Yet each may be an instrument of mighty influence in God's hand. The last day, indeed, may prove that the work of him whose voice was never "heard in the street," and who dwelt among his own people, produced more permanent effect on souls than the most brilliant open-air sermons. I fear that we are all apt to exaggerate the value of public gifts, and to depreciate gifts which make no show before the world. Yet a time may come when the last shall be found first, and the first last.
Remembering these things, I with to give some account of four men of the last century who are far less known than some of their contemporaries, and yet were eminently useful in their day and generation. The first whom I will introduce to my readers is Samuel Walker, the curate of Truro, in ComwalL
Walker was born at Exeter in 1714, and died in 1761, at the early age of forty-seven. Partly from the circumstance that his ministerial life
was entirely spent in one of the most remote corners of England, before railways were invented, and partly from his habits of mind, which made him entirely decline all public work of an aggressive and extra-parochial kind, he is a man whose name is scarcely known to many Christians. Yet he was one who, in his day, was most highly esteemed by such men as Wesley, Whitefield, Romaine, and Venn, for his eminent spirituality and soundness of judgment. Above all, he was one who cultivated his own corner of the Lord's vineyard with such singular success, that there were few places in England where such striking results could be shown from preaching the gospel as at Truro.
The facts of Walker's life of which any record remains are few, and soon told. His family resided at Exeter, and was well connected. He was lineally descended from the good Bishop Hall, who was for a time Bishop of Exeter, and whose grand-daughter married a Walker. His grandfather, Sir Thomas Walker, was member of Parliament for Exeter. John Walker, Rector of St. Mary the More, in Exeter, who wrote a well-known volume about the "Sufferings of the Ejected Clergy" under the Commonwealth, was also a relative of the subject of this Chapter; in fact, the first edition of the work was published in the very year that Samuel Walker was born.
We know little of Walker's boyhood and youth, beyond the fact that he was educated at Exeter Grammar School, and was there for ten years—from the age of eight till he was eighteen. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1732, and in due course of time took his degree of B.A. in that university. He seems to have made good use of his time while he was at college, and to have acquired much knowledge, which he found valuable in after-life. His biographer particularly mentions that "he cultivated logic with much success, and always considered his early devotion to that science as the foundation of the facility he afterwards attained in a clear and methodical arrangement of his ideas. When complimented by his fripids, who admired the lucid and argumentative mode in which he treated every subject, he always observed that logic had been his favourite pursuit in youth,