CHAPTER 1

HIS PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD

To retrace the footsteps of Adam Clarke’s early youth, we should visit some obscure hamlets in Ireland, lying on the borders of the North Channel, in a champaign country abounding in landscapes where a Ruysdael or a Paul Potter would have found many a congenial subject for his pencil. The ancestors of Adam Clarke, though of English origin, had been settled in that part of Ireland for some generations, and were possessed of good landed property in the counties of Antrim and Derry.

The family came into Ireland some time in the seventeenth century, and obtained a portion of what were called the “Debenture Lands.” The property thus acquired was afterwards increased by intermarriages with the families of Strawbridge, Courtenay, Higgison, and Boyd. Dr. Clarke’s great-great-grandfather, William Clarke, held the estates of Grange, in the county of Antrim, and was regarded with such consideration in the county, as to be appointed to receive the Prince of Orange, when, in 1690, he came to Carrickfergus. An anecdote of this interview is preserved, to the effect that Mr. Clarke, though at that time a disciple of the rigid doctrines of George Fox, mindful neither to compromise his principles as a Quaker, nor his behavior as a gentleman, left his hat behind him, and so approached the prince bareheaded. He addressed his future monarch in a few words of dignified simplicity, with which the prince seemed well content, and entered upon a conversation, at the close of which he was pleased to say, that Mr. Clarke was one of the best-bred men he had ever met with. This William Clarke had a son named John, who married a daughter of Mr.

Horseman, mayor of Carrickfergus. They had eighteen sons and one daughter. The ninth of these sons was William Clarke, the grandfather of our Adam. He formed a matrimonial connection with the Boyds, a family of Scotch extraction, who appear to have settled in Ireland about the same time with the Clarkes. Archibald Boyd was a Presbyterian clergyman, and the first Protestant who preached at Maghera aft er the Revolution. The fruit of the marriage of William Clarke with Miss Boyd were four sons, of whom the eldest, John, was the father of Adam.

These few details are sufficient to show that the family of the Clarkes held rank formerly with the most substantial and respectable in that part of the kingdom. But, like those of many other houses, their fortunes had, toward the end of the last century, undergone a disastrous change. Their lands in the neighborhoods of Larne and Glenarm, and on the pleasant banks of Lough Neagh, fell, by one loss after another, into the hands of strangers. A lawsuit deprived them of an excellent estate called “the Grange;” and, while Adam was yet a child, the last acre of their property was gone. “I well remember,” he once said, “the time when the last farm went out of the family, and our ancient boast was lost for ever. The weeping and wailing that morning upon which we were made acquainted with the fact, still live in my remembrance, though I was then scarcely seven years of age. Yet, who knows but that there was mercy in this stroke? Had that little estate remained, men would perhaps, never have heard of Adam Clarke. The Supreme Disposer often takes away one blessing, to make way for a greater.

John, the father of Adam Clarke, has been described by the latter, as “a man standing about five feet seven, with good shoulders, an excellent leg, a fine hand, and every way well proportioned, and extremely active.”

Intended by his parents for the Church, he had received a good classical education at school, which was followed up by studies for the clerical profession, at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Among his college testimonials was the name of the eminent Hebraist, Hutchinson. At Edinburgh he gained a prize of some distinction, and at Glasgow took his degree of Master of Arts. He then, with the more immediate view of qualifying for episcopal orders, entered Trinity College, Dublin, successfully competing for a sizarship, at a time when classical merit was the only passport to that privilege. Thus far all was propitious; but a severe fever prostrated his health, and, after his return to Dublin, a premature marriage with one who became the deservedly-loved partner of the joys and adversities of after-life, dissolved his connection with the university, and gave a new direction to his career. By the stress of circumstances now unknown, Mr. Clarke was induced to turn his views from the clerical to the scholastic profession. His first idea was to obtain a professorship in one of the new collegiate establishments in America; and for this adventure he turned his patrimony into money, and took a passage in a vessel bound for that continent. On the very eve of embarkation, his father, who earnestly deprecated the undertaking, succeeded in dissuading him from attempting it. With some still lingering hopes of obtaining church-preferment, the young scholar now passed an anxious interval, during which his means of support were rapidly melting away; and at length, as a kind of last resource, he applied for the customary license to act as a teacher of youth, and gave up the pulpit of the clergyman for the desk of the schoolmaster. His lot was now confirmed, and the steady, earnest, and laborious endeavors which gave a character to his remaining life, manifest an unswerving resolution to acquit himself of its responsibilities. The school appears to have been generally well attended, and by the children of all ranks in the neighborhood. The young people bent their steps in a morning to the common place of learning, alike from the cottage, the rectory, and the hall. Dr. Barnard, afterwards bishop of Killaloe, and of Limerick, was at that time rector of the parish, and confided his own son to the care of Mr. Clarke; among whose scholars there were not a few who in after-years filled the situations of clergymen, (whether Episcopal, Popish, or Presbyterian,) medical men, lawyers, and schoolmasters. Dr. Clarke used to say, that there were few priests, clergymen, surgeons, or lawyers, of those resident in the north of Ireland, who had not been educated by his father. And yet, from the extremely low charges then customary for education, the diligent labors of this able and conscientious teacher yielded but a poor return for the support of his family. The highest charge for a range of instruction which comprehended the mathematics, and the classics, both Latin and Greek, was seven shillings per quarter; while the primary elements of school-knowledge were rendered at the lowly price of fourpence, twopence, and even three halfpence per week. It may be conjectured, therefore, that the temporal concerns of the family were the reverse of affluent. The worthy schoolmaster knew all about the res angusta domi. The mind both of father and mother seems to have been shadowed by almost habitual care; and the children, as Adam once expressed it, “neither fared sumptuously every day, nor was their clothing purple and fine linen.”

Mrs. Clarke was of Scotch origin, a descendant of the M’Leans of Mull, in the Hebrides, — a hardy race, remarkable for muscular strength. A brother of Mrs. Clarke, the Rev. I. M’Lean, “could bend iron bars with a stroke of his arm; roll up large pewter dishes like a scroll with his fingers ; and, when traveling through Bovagh-wood, (a place through which his walks frequently lay,) he has been known to pull down the top of an oak-sapling, twist it into a withe by the mere strength of his arms and fingers, and, thus working it down in a spiral form to the earth, leave it with its root in the ground for the astonishment of all that might pass by.”

One day, dining at an inn with two officers, who wished to be witty at the parson’s expense, he said something which had a tendency to check their self-confidence. One of them, considering his honor affected, said, “Sir, were it not for your cloth, I would oblige you to eat the words you have spoken.” Mr. M’Lean rose up a moment, took off his coat, rolled it up, and threw it under the table with — “Divinity, lie there: and, M’Lean, do for thyself.” Saying it, he seized the foremost of the heroes by the cuff of the neck and the waistband, and threw him out of the window.

The great-grandfather of Mrs. Clarke, Laughlin M’Lean, was chief of his clan, and laird of Dowart. Dr. Clarke ever cherished a tender veneration for his mother. According to his description, she was not a beauty, but a sensible woman; something above the average height, graceful in moving, and remarkably erect even in old age. What was better, she was as upright in principle; a woman who feared God, and whom His Holy Spirit failed not, as we shall see, to lead at length into the liberty of His children. Mrs.

Clarke, at the time of her marriage, was a decided Presbyterian; her husband, with equal strength of principle, an Episcopalian. It redounds not a little to their honor, that these differences never interfered with the charm of that holy love which tempered and sanctified the hardships of their selfdenying life. Their eldest son, named Tracy, after his relative, the Rev.

John Tracy, rector of Kileronaghan, was bred to the medical profession.

Some passages in his remarkable history will be noticed further on. Of their daughters, the eldest married the Rev. W. M. Johnson, LL.D., rector of St. Perrans Uthnoe, in Cornwall; and another became the wife of Thomas Exley, Esq., M.A., of Bristol.

Adam Clarke, the subject of our memoir, was born at Moybeg, in the parish of Kileronaghan, county Londonderry. The year of his birth was either 1760 or 1762. He was always uncertain upon this point, but inclined to the first date. Though he was baptized by his uncle Tracy, no register of the baptism was preserved; and Mrs. Clarke herself could give him no decisive information, her own recollection on the matter being somewhat confused. This is not an unexampled instance of maternal forgetfulness.

The mother of Dr. Martin Luther could not certify the year of his birth.

Melancthon, who questioned her about it, records that she recollected the day and the hour perfectly, but had forgotten the year. Mrs. Clarke’s prevailing sentiment was, that her son was born in 1760. He received the Christian name of Adam at the request of his grandparents, in memory of a beloved son of their own whom they had lost in early life. The old people wished to adopt him as their own child, and his first years were passed under their charge. Adam was a remarkably hardy child; at eight months on his feet, and a month later walking about alone; at three years old sitting in the snow in winter, and in the summer wandering among the lanes and fields, and often taking his stand by a draw-well, peering curiously into its depths, as if searching to know the mysteries beneath. When, at five years, he took the smallpox, the child disdained the then customary regimen of covering up the patient in a closely-shut room, left his bed on every opportunity, and ran away naked in the open air. He had, also, uncommon strength for his age, which his father seemed proud of showing, setting the child to roll large stones when visitors came to the house.

He appears to have returned to his father’s care on the removal of the family from Moybeg to Maghera, a village in the county of Derry, sixteen miles south of Coleraine. This was when Adam was six years old. Two years later we find another removal to Garva, or Grove, a hamlet some ten miles distant. Here they resided till about his twelfth year; when their unsettled domestic history shows another exodus, to a place called Ballyaherton, in the parish of Agherton, some little space from Coleraine.

It was in the first of these transient resting-places that the future commentator on the Bible became, though with sore trials to the flesh and spirit, acquainted with the contents of the primer. Unlike his bodily powers, the mental faculties of the child were but slowly developed. He has told us that “he found it very difficult to acquire even the knowledge of the alphabet;” and that his father, who had set his heart upon his becoming a scholar, strove to awaken his intellect with harsh words and unseasonable chastisement. “But this,” says the doctor, “so far from eliciting genius, rather produced an increase of habitude; so that himself began to despair of ever being able to acquire any knowledge by means of letters. When, however, he was about eight years of age, he was led to entertain hopes of future improvement from the following circumstance: — A neighboring schoolmaster, calling at the school where Adam was then endeavoring to put vowels and consonants together, was desired by the teacher to assist in hearing a few of the lads their lessons. Adam was the last that went up, not a little ashamed of his deficiency: he, however, hobbled through his lesson, though in a very indifferent manner; and the teacher apologized to the stranger, and remarked, that that lad was a grievous dunce. The assistant, clapping young Clarke on the head, said, ‘Never fear, sir; this lad will make a good scholar yet.’ This was the first thing that checked his own despair of learning, and gave him hope. I give this in his own words, for the sake of the useful reflection which follows them: “How injudicious is the general mode of dealing with those who are called dull boys! To every child learning must be a task; and as no young person is able to comprehend the maxim, that the acquisition of learning will compensate the toil, encouragement and kind words from the teacher are indispensably necessary to induce the learner to undergo the toil of those gymnastic exercises. Willful idleness and neglect should be reprehended and punished; but where genius has not yet been unfolded, nor reason acquired its proper seat, the mildest methods are the most likely to be efficient, and the smallest progress should be watched and commended, that it may excite to further attention and diligence. With those who are called dull boys this method rarely fails. But there are few teachers who possess the happy art of developing genius. They have not sufficient penetration to find out the bent or characteristic propensity of their pupils’ minds, to give them the requisite excitement or direction. In consequence, there have been innumerable native diamonds which have never shone, because they have fallen into such hands as could not distinguish them from common pebbles; and to them neither the hand nor the art of the lapidary has ever been applied. Many children, not naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster.” The elder Mr. Clarke was a man of right honest purpose, and of resolute determination. He reigned in the school as an absolute monarch in his kingdom. His juvenile subjects knew the man and his communications, and worked with the assurance that nothing short of actual improvement would keep them right with him. He was their friend, though a severe one.

It was their welfare he had at heart. Coldsmith’s description of a similar potentate applies to him in this as in other respects — “Beside you straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom’d furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill’d to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view: I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace The day’s disasters in his morning face Full well they laugh’d, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey’d the dismal tidings when he frown’d. Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault.”

The progress of Adam Clarke’s intellectual history will have our attention more fully hereafter. The only other incident I shall mention here relates to the manner in which he made his first free outset in the path of learning.

And this, as also two or three other critical passages in his experience, we will recount in his own words: — “As soon as Adam got through the ‘Reading made easy,’ had learned to spell pretty correctly, and could read with tolerable ease in the New Testament, his father, who wished if possible to make him a scholar, put him into Lily’s Latin Grammar. This was new and painful work to little Clarke, and he was stumbled by almost the first sentence which he was ordered to get by heart, not because he could not commit it to memory, but because he could not comprehend: — ‘ In speech be these eight parts following: noun, pronoun, verb, participle, declined; adverb, conjunction, preposition, interjection, undeclined.’ He,” however, “committed this to memory, and repeated it, and many of its fellows, without understanding one tittle of the matter; and, as the understanding was not instructed, the memory was uselessly burdened.

The declensions of nouns were painful, but he overcame them; and the conjugations of verbs he got more easily through. ‘Propria quae maribus’ he got through with difficulty, at two lines each lesson. With the ‘As in praesenti’ of the same ponderous Grammar he was puzzled beyond measure: he could not understand the ‘Bo fit psi; do fit di; mo fit ui,’ &c., and could by no means proceed. Of the reason or probable utility of such things he could form no judgment ; and at last it became so intolerable, that he employed two whole days, and part of a third, in fruitless endeavors to commit to memory two lines, with their construction, of what appeared to him useless and incomprehensible jargon. His distress was indescribable, and he watered his book with his tears. At last he laid it by with a broken heart, and in utter despair of ever being able to make any progress. He took up an English Testament, sneaked into an English class, and rose with them to say a lesson. The master perceiving it said, in a terrific tone, ‘Sir, what brought you here? Where is your Latin Grammar?’ He burst into tears, and said, with a piteous voice, ‘I cannot learn it.’ He had now reason to expect all the severity of the rod: but the master, getting a little moderate, perhaps moved by his tears, contented himself with saying, ‘ Go, Sir, and take up your Grammar. If you do not speedily get that lesson, I shall pull your ears as long as Jowler’s,’ (a great dog belonging to the premises,) ‘and you shall be a beggar till the day of your death! ‘ These were terrible words, and seemed to express the sentence of a ruthless and unavoidable destiny. He retired, and sat down by the side of a young gentleman with whom he had been in class; but who, unable to lag behind with his dullness, requested to be separated, that he might advance by himself. He was received with the most bitter taunts: ‘ What, have you not learned that lesson yet? O, what a stupid ass! You and I began together; you are now only in As in praesenti, and I am in syntax;’ and then, with cruel mockery, he began to repeat the last lesson he had learned. The effect of this was astonishing. Adam was roused as from a lethargy: he felt, as he expressed himself, as if something had broken within him; his mind in a moment was all light. Though he felt indescribably mortified, he did not feel indignant. ‘What!’ said he to himself, ‘shall I ever be a dunce, and the butt of these fellows’ insults?’ He snatched up his book, in a few minutes committed the lesson to memory; got the construction speedily; went up, and said it without missing a word; took up another lesson, acquired it almost immediately, said this also without a blemish, and in the course of that day wearied the master with his so often repeated returns to say lessons, and committed to memory all the Latin verses, with their English construction, in which heavy and tedious Lily has described the four conjugations, with their exceptions, and so forth. Nothing like this had appeared in the school before. The boys were astonished; admiration took the place of mockery; and from that hour — it may be said, from that moment — he found his memory at least capable of embracing every subject that was brought before it, and his own long sorrow was turned into joy.” At Agherton a new church had been built, and the old one, which is now a ruin, was appropriated as the school for the parishioners’ children. Within those venerable walls Adam pursued his juvenile studies, and now made rapid progress in classical and mathematical learning. Waiving, however, all further references for the present to his intellectual culture, we will note a few circumstances in his physical education, which seem to have been intended by Providence to form his constitution for the toils which were destined to fill the history of his future years. The mode of living to which the family were compelled by their penurious income was severely economical. The hungry boy was made thankful for a supply of the plainest food, and learned, poor youth, to become patient under the bodily trials of hunger and thirst. In the matter of raiment also, he was but thinly clad, and, after the habits of the rustic folk in Ireland, went frequently without a covering for the head or feet. The intervals of school-lessons were filled up by such sports as boys become familiar within the country, or were spent more frequently in hard work in the garden or the fields. To eke out the scanty revenue of the school, his father rented a small farm in the neighborhood, which took up much of his spare time, and called into exercise the growing strength of his two sons. It was a pleasant reminiscence of Dr. Clarke’s, that his father, more in the spirit of a classical scholar than of a plodding matter-of-fact farmer, wished to cultivate his grounds upon the principles laid down in the Georgics of Virgil. In recording this recollection, the Doctor remarks that his father did not appear to have calculated “that the agricultural rules of that elegant work were in many respects applicable only to the soil and climate of Italy;” and that “to apply them to a widely different climate, and to a soil extremely dissimilar, lat. 55 N., was not likely to bring about the most beneficial results.” We should think not; and the worthy scholar might have gathered such a conclusion from the first lessons of his favorite pastoral: — At prius ignotum ferro quam scindimus aequor, Ventos et varium caeli praediscere morem, Cura sit, ae patrios cultusque habitusque locorum; Et quid quaeque ferat regio, et quid queque recuset. Hic segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvae: Arborei faetus alibi, atque injussa virescunt Cramina. Noune vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores, India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabaei?” “But ere we stir the yet unbroken ground, The various course of seasons must be found: The weather, and the setting of the winds, The culture suiting to the various kinds Of seeds and plants, and what will thrive and rise, And what the genius of the soil denies: This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres suits; That other loads the trees with happy fruits; A fourth with grass unbidden decks the ground. Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crown’d, India black ebon and white ivory bears, And soft Idume weeps her odorous tears. This is the’ original contract; these the laws Imposed by nature, and by nature’s Cause.”

In these labors of the mind and body all the lad’s natural powers were called into full exercise, and grew with his growth. In summer the household were all astir at four in the morning, and in winter long before daylight. Each season had its appropriate toil, each hour its duty, and the hour-glass in the cottage was turned twelve times every day before any one in the family was permitted to go to rest. Little Adam, if at seven years of age he could do no harder work, was able to take care of the cows, and bring them home at milking-time. When big enough, he took his part in sheep-shearing; and at twelve he essayed the plow, and was thrown among the horses’ feet, by the share coming into contact with a hidden rock. He was great at peat-cutting, and could keep two persons employed in piling and carrying the fuel as fast as he digged it. Nor was he a little proud of the strength of hand with which he sent the wheat-seed broadcast over the furrowed soil. I wonder whether the child had any dawning corruption a t the time, that these employments were symbolical of the labors of distant years, in which, having put his hand to another plow, he would be able, with power given from on high, to break up the fallow ground of men’s hearts, go forth to sow the seed which bears its harvests to eternal life, and, as an under shepherd, tend the flock of the Lord’s redeemed.

Here is an incident which discovers some shrewdness in a boy of ten years old: — He had been sent by his mother, near nightfall, on an errand which required him to cross a waste piece of country lying toward the sea, a great part of which was a soft marsh. Darkness came on apace, and along with it a thick fog. In the depths of this mist the boy found himself bewildered; and, to increase his uncertainty, an ignis fatuus rose up before him, and filled him with no small dismay. He retreated, but it followed him. It would not be evaded, whether he turned to the right hand or to the left.

Meanwhile, by these attempts to escape from this strange phantom, of which he had heard many an ill-omened story, he had entirely lost the bearing of the place he was so anxious to arrive at; and the bog abounded with dangerous depths, into some one of which he knew he might sink the very next step. Thus haunted without, by the fairy flame, and within, by growing terror, he suddenly heard a strong whirring sound near him in t he air. He had roused a flock of wild ducks. He could not see them, but the noise of their invisible wings supplied him with the guide he wanted. He knew their haunts by the sea; and, conjecturing that they would now make for these, resolved to follow in the direction they had flown. He was so correct in this judgment as to emerge at length from the bog, within a few yards of the house where his errand was to be done.

Among the exercises to which he was addicted, horsemanship also afforded him a vast delight. He would sometimes ride down to the shore, and, plunging with the animal through the surf, breast the waves with a long swim outward. Once swimming alone, a considerable distance from the shore, he found that he had unintentionally gone out too far, and that the tide, which swells there with great force, was opposed to his return. He recruited his exhausted strength by lying on his back, though at the expense of being carried further away to sea, and then, with the most resolute effort, was enabled by the mercy of Providence once more to touch the land.

The neighborhood of the sea afforded him also, and his father as well, the profitable pursuits of the fisherman. His father was a great lover of the sport, and Adam, whether with him or alone, fished in the Moyola and the creeks of the Bann; so that often, and especially in the salmon season, the table at home smoked with the produce of their healthy and legitimate recreations.

These hardy exercises were not, however, without their dangers. On one occasion he was thrown with such violence from a horse, as to be taken up for dead; and on another, his life was more nearly lost by drowning. In this latter case, it was always his own opinion that life had really become extinct, and that he experienced a renewal of earthly existence by a return of the soul from the world of spirits. It was one morning, when he rode a mare of his father’s into the sea, to bathe her. The sea was not rough, and the morning very fine; and he thought he might ride beyond the breakers, as the shore in that place was smooth and flat. The mare went with great reluctance, and plunged several times. He urged her forward, and at last got beyond the breakers, into the swells: one of these coming with terrible force, when it was too late to retreat, overwhelmed both rider and horse.

There was no person in sight, and no help at hand. He said afterward, that he seemed to go to the bottom with his eyes open, and then , with neither apprehension nor pain, entered on the consciousness of perfect tranquillity and happiness, — not derived, indeed, from anything around him, but from the inward state of his own mind. (An account of this singular experience was given by Dr. Clarke, long years after, in a sermon preached in aid of the Royal Humane Society; and with more minute particulars in a conversation with the late Dr. Letsom. The whole is, probably, too well known to need transcription here.) A ground-swell bore his apparently lifeless body to the shore. The first sensation, when he came to life, was as if a spear had been run through his heart. He felt this in getting the first draught of fresh air, when the lungs were merely inflated by the pressure of the atmosphere. He found himself sitting in the water, and it was by a very swelling wave that he had been put out of the way of being overwhelmed by any of the succeeding ones. The intense pain at his heart, however, still continued; but he had felt no pain from the moment he was submerged till the time when his head was brought above water, and the air once more entered into his lungs. He saw the mare at a considerable distance, walking quite leisurely along the shore. How long he was submerged, cannot be precisely affirmed; but sufficiently long, in his own ever retained opinion, to have been completely dead, never more to breathe in this world, had it not been for that Providence which, as it were, once more breathed into him the breath of life, and caused him to become once more a living soul. If Wesley in his childhood was rescued from the flame, that, as “a brand plucked from the burning,” he might glorify God in a life devoted to His service, Clarke in a yet more striking manner was delivered from the flood, that he too might in his kindred sphere magnify the same great Protector, who has said, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; n either shall the flame kindle upon thee: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”

These short recitals will suffice to indicate the manner of Adam Clarke’s outward life in the season of his youth; and how Providence was fitting him, by its discipline, for a career which demanded patience in suffering, and perseverance in toil. When far on his way, in the retrospect of this early stage of his pilgrimage he acknowledged this, and gave thanks to God for the hardy manner in which he had been brought up: “My Heavenly Father saw that I was likely to meet with many rude blasts in journeying through life, and He prepared me in infancy for the lot He destined for me; so that, through His mercy, I have been brought from childhood up to hoary hairs. He knew that I must walk alone through life, and therefore set me on my feet right early, that I might be qualified by practice for the work I was appointed to perform.”

CHAPTER 2

REGENERATE

We are admonished by St. Paul, that a work wrought in the mind by the Spirit of God can only be understood by those who are spiritually minded.

There are men enough, not only among the shallow and unlearned, but among the erudite and intellectual, to whom the statements we are to make in this chapter would seem mere foolishness; while the Christian discerns in them the sure and intelligible evidences of a Divine intervention, and the practical tokens of that great redeeming design which has brought our sininfected and perishing nature under an economy of regenerating grace. Our present task, however, is not to battle with the prejudices of the world, but to give the details of this work of mercy in such plain words of truth as may tend to edify the believer, and to light the steps of the sincere inquirer to the path of peace.

The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, dawned upon the mind of Adam Clarke with the morning hour of life, and preoccupied his heart with a disposition toward the holy and the Divine. Some of the child’s first thoughts were “Thoughts that wander through eternity.”

Let us hear him recount a reminiscence of those first days: “Near where Mr. Clarke lived was a very decent orderly family of the name of Brooks, who lived on a small farm. They had eleven children, some of whom went to Mr. Clarke’s school: one, called James, was the tenth child, a lovely lad, between whom and little Adam there subsisted a strong attachment. One day, when walking hand in hand, in a field near the house, they sat down on the bank, and began to enter into a very serious conversation. They both became much affected, and this was deepened into exquisite distress by the following observations made by little Brooks: ‘O, Addy, Addy, what a dreadful thing is ETERNITY! and how dreadful to be put into hellfire, and to be burned there for ever and ever!’ They both wept bitterly, and, as they could, begged God to forgive their sins; and they made to each other strong promises of amendment, and departed from each other with full and pensive hearts. “I was then truly and deeply convinced that I was a sinner, and liable to eternal punishment; and that nothing but the mercy of God could save me from it: though I was not so conscious of any other sin as that of disobedience to my parents, which at that time affected me most forcibly. When I left my little companion, I went home, told the whole to my mother with a full heart, expressing the hope that I should never more say any bad words, or refuse to do what she or my father might command. She was both surprised and affected, and gave me much encouragement, and prayed heartily for me. With a glad heart she communicated the information to my father, on whom I could see it did not make the same impression; for he had little opinion of pious resolutions in childish minds, though he feared God, and was a serious, conscientious Churchman. I must own that the way in which he treated it was very discouraging to my mind, and served to mingle impressions with my serious feelings that were not friendly to their permanence. Yet the impression, though it grew faint, did not wear away. It was laid deep in the consideration of eternity, and of my accountableness to God for my conduct, and the absolute necessity of enjoying His favor, that I might never taste the bitter pains of eternal death. Had I had any person to point out the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, I believe I should then have been found as capable of repentance and faith (my youth and circumstances considered) as I ever was afterwards. But I had no such helper, no ‘messenger,’ ‘one among a thousand,’ who could show man his righteousness.”

The neighborhood in which he lived had not at that time the privilege of the plain Gospel. The inhabitants were chiefly of the Protestant confession, and were pretty equally divided between the Established and Presbyterian communions. The rector of Agherton was the Rev. Mr.

Smith, “a good man, full of humanity and benevolence,” who preached the truth so far as he knew it; “but on the way in which a sinner is to be reconciled to God, he was either not very clear, or was never explicit.” On the other hand, in the Presbyterian congregation, “the trumpet gave a very uncertain sound, as both pastor and people were verging closely on Socinianism. We do not wonder, then, that “a general forgetfulness of God prevailed in the parish,” and that “there was scarcely a person in it decidedly pious, though there were several that feared God, and but few who were grossly profane.”

The religious state of the Clarkes, as a family, partook at that time of the general tone. An old friend of theirs, the Rev. Henry Moore, speaking of them as he knew them in his juvenile days, says, “The family were what is generally called good sort of people, honest people, clearing their way by sober industry. They thought they must be good in order to go to heaven, and had a wholesome fear of being found wicked. They likewise embraced the common forms of religion.” The schoolmaster of Agherton was a steady member of the Episcopal Church, but not strongly awake to the importance of vital religion, nor savingly enlightened with an experimental knowledge of its consolations and hopes. But his worthy and faithful wife, albeit a stranger (like himself) to the refined enjoyments of personal godliness, seems to have had a deeper sense than he of the need of that which they had not yet attained. Her mind was habitually serious, and her whole conduct in the training of the family betokened an earnest solicitude for their everlasting welfare. Like many other great and good men, Dr. Clarke owed an unspeakable debt to his mother for the influence she exerted over the formation of his character. Looking back on those pristine days, he said on one occasion, “For my mother’s religious teachings I shall have endless reason to bless my Maker.” She was the instrument of imprinting on his conscience those ethical convictions which in after-time germinated, by the grace of God, into great and fruitful virtues. She would garnish and fortify her instructions with pithy adages, which her children’s memories never lost. Was the conversation, for example, about the transient nature of this life’s affairs? she would conclude with, — “Thus we may say, Come weal or woe, It will not be always so:” - like the motto that the eastern legend tells us king Solomon furnished for a brother monarch, who requested of him some sentiment which, inscribed on his ring, should be suited to cheer him under misfortune, and to temper his joy in the season of prosperity, — “This also shall pass away!”

But the treasury from which our good mother drew her choicest gems to enrich the minds of the children, was the written word of God; and in the matter of discipline, and the infliction of punishment, it was often found that a text of Scripture, well applied, did infinitely better execution than the rod. Dr. Clarke says that his mother “had read the Bible with great care and much profit And if the children did wrong at any time, she had recourse to it uniformly, to strengthen her reproofs, and to deepen conviction. With the Scriptures she was so conversant and ready, that there was scarcely any delinquency for the condemnation of which she could not find a portion. She seemed to find them at the first opening, and would generally say, ‘See what God has guided my eye to in a moment.’

Her own reproofs her children could in some measure bear; but when she had recourse to the Bible, they were terrified, — such an awful sense had they of the truth of God’s word, and the majesty of the Author. Adam one day disobeyed his mother, and the disobedience was accompanied with some look or gesture that indicated an undervaluing of her authority. This was a high affront: she immediately flew to the Bible, and opened on these words, which she read and commented upon in a most awful manner: ‘ The eye that mocketh his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.’ The poor culprit was cut to the heart, believing the words had been sent immediately from heaven. He went out into the field with a troubled spirit, and was musing on this horrible denunciation of Divine displeasure, when the hoarse croak of a raven sounded to his conscience an alarm more terrible than the cry of fire at midnight. He looked up, and perceived the ominous bird, and, actually supposing it to be the raven of which the text spoke, he took to flight with the greatest perturbation.” Dr. Clarke imagines that the severe Puritanic creed, which his mother had derived from the Scotch Calvinists, led her more frequently to represent the Supreme Being as a God of justice than as the God of mercy. The consequence was, the children dreaded God, and obeyed only through fear.

Yet, perhaps, this was the way to awaken in the minds of the young a sense of responsibility and an assurance that retribution will ever track the footsteps of guilt.

To the faithful admonitions of this stern but loving instructress, her son ever attributed, under God, that fear of the Divine Majesty which prevented him from taking pleasure in sin. “My mother’s reproofs and terrors never left me, till I sought and found the salvation of God. And sin was generally so burdensome to me, that I was glad to hear of deliverance from it. She had taught me such reverence for the Bible, that if I had it in my hand, even for the purpose of studying a chapter to repeat as a lesson, and had been disposed with my class-fellows to sing, whistle a tune, or be facetious, I dared not do either while the book was open in my hands. In such cases, I always shut it, and laid it down beside me. Who will dare to lay this to the charge of superstition?” — The boy was right. Would that all men were like-minded!

No sight has a greater sacredness and beauty than that of a devout mother leading her child to God in prayer. It was Adam’s privilege to have a mother who could pray for him, and with him, and teach him to pray for himself. As soon as the children could speak, she taught them, in the Lord’s Prayer, to call God “our Father.” As they grew older, they were instructed to ask His blessing on their parents and relatives. The evening devotions of the elder ones included the Apostles’ Creed, and occasionally a versified Collect, which the Doctor remembered to his latest day: —

AT MORNING PRAYER

“Preserve me, Lord, amidst the crowd, From every thought that’s vain and proud; And raise my wandering mind to see How good it is to trust in Thee. “From all the enemies of Thy truth, Do Thou, O Lord, preserve my youth; And raise my mind from worldly cares, From youthful sins and youthful snares. “Lord, though my heart’s as hard as stone, Let seeds of early grace be sown, Still water’d by Thy heavenly love, Till they spring up in joys above.”

AT EVENING

“I go to my bed as to my grave, And pray to God my life to save; But, if I die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take. “Sweet Jesus, now to Thee I cry, To grant me mercy ere I die; To grant me mercy, and send me peace, That heaven may be my dwelling-place.”

AT CONCLUSION

“Give to the Father praise, And glory to the Son, And to the Spirit of His grace Be equal honor done.”

These compositions, it must be confessed, are homely enough; but they were made for home use, whoever wrote them. Adam Clarke always entertained a fond attachment to them. “They contain,” said he, “the first breathings of my mind towards God; and even many years after I had known His power to my salvation, I continued to repeat them as long as I could with propriety use the term youth.”

When on Sundays Mrs. Clarke held a little service with her children, in addition to a portion of Catechism she would read a chapter, sing part of a psalm, offer a prayer, and then fix their minds on some important sentence in the chapter, making them repeat the words; a method which secured their attention, and imbued their minds more thoroughly with the truth. “The world,” in the sinister import of that term, — “the flesh,” as denoting the bondage of our nature to corrupt propensions, — and “the devil,” as the name for the great tempter and accuser of mankind, — may, with the man who yields acquiescent obedience to their impulses, be regarded as words only: but he who has begun to struggle against the tide which is bearing the other to perdition unawares, and who will clean escape their corruptions, will speedily learn that these words are but the names of mighty realities, whose antagonism to his salvation he can only overcome by the mightier power of God. Now, even in the secluded part of Ireland where Adam Clarke was brought up, the world could offer him seductions, which, if yielded to, could not have failed to enlist him among her votaries, and lead him from depth to depth in sin.

One form which these temptations took was the pleasure he found in the amusement of dancing. The years of mere childhood were passed, and he was a growing youth. He had learned to play on the violin, and, becoming fond of music, joined a class who took lessons from a master. There was another in the neighborhood who gave lessons in dancing as well as music. Adam’s master, “willing to stand on equal ground with his competitor, proposed to his pupils to divide the usual hours into two parts; to teach singing in the former, and dancing in the latter. This brought him several additional scholars, and the school went on much to his advantage.

At first Adam despised this silly adjunct to what he always deemed of great importance, and for a considerable time took no part in it. At length, through much persuasion, his steadfastness was overcome. By long looking, the thing began to appear harmless; by and by, graceful; and lastly, an elegant accomplishment. It was now, ‘Cast in your lot with us.’ He did so; and, as it was always a maxim with him to do whatever he did with his might, he bent much of his attention to this, and soon became superior to most of his schoolfellows. Formerly he wen t to the school for the sake of the singing, now he went most for the sake of the dancing: leaving his understanding uninfluenced, it took fast hold of his passions. If prevented at any time from going, he felt uneasy, sometimes vexed, and often cross; his temper in such cases being rarely under his own control.” “Mald ave,” says he, “when about thirteen years of age, I learned to dance. I long resisted all solicitations to it, but at last I suffered myself to be overcome, and learnt and profited beyond most of my fellows. I grew passionately fond of it; would scarcely walk but in measured time, and was constantly tripping, moving, and shuffling, in all times and places. I began now to value myself, which, as far as I can recollect, I had never thought of before. I grew impatient of control, became fond of company, wished to mingle more than I had ever done with young people. I got, also, a passion for better clothing than that which fell to my lot in life, and was discontented when I found a neighbor’s son dressed better than myself. I lost the spirit of subordination, did not love work, imbibed a spirit of idleness, and, in short, drank in all the brain-sickening effluvia of pleasure. Dancing and company took the place of reading and study; and the authority of my parents was feared indeed, but not respected. And few serious impressions could prevail in a mind imbued now with frivolity. Yet I entered into no disreputable assembly, and in no one case ever kept any improper company.

Nevertheless, dancing was with me a perverting influence, an unmixed moral evil; for, although by the mercy of God it led me not to depravity of manners, it greatly weakened the moral principle, drowned the voice of conscience, and was the first cause of impelling me to seek my happiness in this life. Everything yielded to the disposition it had produced, and everything was absorbed by it. I have it justly in abhorrence, for the moral injury it did me; and I can testify, (as far as my own observations have extended, and they have had a pretty wide range,) I have known it to produce the same evil in others. I consider it, therefore, as a branch of that worldly education which leads from heaven to earth, from things spiritual to things sensual, and from God to Satan. Let them plead for it who will; I know it to be evil, and that only. They who bring up their children in this way, or send them to those schools where dancing is taught, are consecrating them to the service of Moloch, and cultivating the passions so as to cause them to bring forth the weeds of a fallen nature with an additional rankness, deep-rooted inveteracy, and inexhaustible fertility. Nemo sobrius saltat, ‘ No man in his senses will dance,’ wrote Cicero, a Heathen. Shame on those Christian parents who advocate a cause by which many sons have become profligate, and many daughters have been ruined.” This temptation, however, had not a lasting power; and before he was fifteen years of age, he had got entirely free from the dangerous snare. His love of mental cultivation returned with greater force; and that vigor of intellect which gave such a character to his future life began now to move him with impulses after knowledge which throbbed on with his life, and kindled that unquenchable desire that led him to separate himself to intermeddle with all wisdom. From a mere child, he had been a great reader of tales and books of imagination suited to his years; for some of which — as the History of the Seven Wise Masters, the Seven Champions of Christendom, Robinson Crusoe, the Peruvian Tales, and the Thousand and One Nights — he always maintained a kind of grateful affection, not only for the entertainment they had given him, but for the strength they had imparted to his mental instinct to seek pleasure in the region of the intellect, and the communion they had opened to him with things that lie beyond the immediate province of the senses. But now, with the enlargement of his mind, he felt the need of a higher and more congenial aliment, and a satisfying acquaintance with the realities of truth. But, for want of a proper guide, he was even here in danger of taking a wrong track at the outset. With a mind characteristically eager in investigation, he was not content to read such books as expounded the outward phenomena of nature, but longed to penetrate, also, the arcana of the spiritual world. He had a notion that it was possible to attain such a knowledge of those unseen agencies which reveal their effects in the appearances of the outward world, as would enable the possessor of it to wield those agencies according to his own will; that men once lived who had won this secret, and that some might even then be living who enjoyed it. He had heard that among the gypsies many vestiges of this precious lore were handed down from father to son; and, learning that a wandering party of that singular people had pitched their little camp at a distance of some miles, he sallied forth in quest of them. After some ingratiating talk, he told them what he had come for. The conversation which followed was highly satisfactory; for he found, to his great joy, that they had at least a great part of a book for a sight of which he had been devoured by desire, — the Occult Philosophy of Cornelius Agrippa. The gypsies were not disposed to part with these precious sibylline leaves, but gave him full permission to read them on the spot, and make whatever extracts he pleased. Adam made full proof of his opportunity; and day by day, so long as the wanderers haunted that part of the country, he might have been seen in their out-ofthe- way retreat, with ink-bottle and notebook, appropriating in unspeakable eagerness the hieratic secrets of the great master. The pleasure afforded by these excursions was enhanced by the memory of a sore disappointment he had undergone some time before, when, being informed that a certain schoolmaster who lived many miles away had a copy of Cornelius Agrippa in his library, he made a pilgrimage for the purpose of borrowing it, or, at least, of inspecting it, but met with a decisive refusal.

On that occasion, (we mention it to show the lad’s eagerness in this pursuit,) his mother had attempted to dissuade him from going, as the distance was great, and the way unknown. “Never fear, mother,” said he: “I shall find it well enough.” “But you will be so weary by the time you get there, that you will not have strength to return.” To which be answered, “Never fear, mother: if I can get there, and get the book, I hope to get as much out of it as will bring me home without touching the ground.”

On the influence which these early impulses had upon his mind in following years, we shall have to write hereafter. But, even at this inexperienced period of life, his own good sense, and a reverential fear of being guilty of what was unlawful in the sight of God, tamed in his soul the inordinate desire after a species of knowledge which is either forbidden, or injurious to him who employs it, when obtained. A paper he read in an odd volume of the Athenian Oracle, which he met with about that time, made a wholesome impression on his mind, and contributed to set it in a more profitable direction. He had quieted some misgivings on the subject of spiritual incantations by the thought, that what was done in these ways was done with reference to, and dependence on, the power of God. By His terrible name all spirits were to be invoked, employed, bound, or loosed.

But the writer in the Athenian Oracle, to the question, “Is that magic lawful whose operations are performed in the name of God, and by solemn invocations of His power?” gave, by way of answer in the negative, the quotation from the Gospel where our Lord has declared, “Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Warned off, then, from this enchanted ground, Adam betook himself, though (it must be confessed) not without some lingering and looking back, into the more open and honest fields of actual knowledge. In the excellent works of Ray, on the Wisdom of God in the Creation, and of Derham, on Astro-Theology, he found a clue to the true physico-theology, and was led by those great masters “from nature up to nature’s God.” He sought the Eternal, where, in one of His ways of revelation, He is willing to make Himself known, — namely, in His works.

Though not at that time in the language of one who became a favorite sage in other years, he could yet say with him in effect, “Waken my faculties to behold Thee, and to gaze, with the vision of the heart, on Thy grandeurs; and teach me to make known Thy wondrous acts: for I see Thy name in the works of Thy hands. The heavens are moving in lines of measure, the spheres revolve in their orbits, among them the earth has her abiding-place; she is suspended by the bands of Thy love. The sun shining in his might, the moon pouring silver streams as from a fountain, clusters of stars like flowers in a garden, the outspread pavilion of the skies, and the variegated landscapes of the world, all speak of Thy deep wisdom.” Thus the things that are seen became to him a heart-stirring memento of the everpresent Deity. The heavens at night spoke, and told him how great is God; the spheres sang; the deep down on the shore, as he stood on the rocks, was heard lifting up a voice in the great chorus. “His praise the winds, that from four quarters blew, breathed soft or loud;” and the pine-woods waved their tops, with every plant, in sign of worship. Already the future commentator was musing on that text, “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.”

But the time was at hand when he should no longer stand wondering in the outer court of the Great Unseen, but be admitted within the temple of salvation, and worship and serve Him with them who have access to the Deity Himself: for God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, was about to shine into his heart, to give him to behold His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. We have had occasion to allude to the low state of religion in the neighborhood where Adam Clarke then lived; but it was by no means so bad as that which was found in many other parts of the three kingdoms. A much deeper ignorance shrouded the myriads of the Irish Catholic population: nor were the peasantry of England more enlightened; while, in the more crowded towns and cities, vice and immorality prevailed in frightful measures. On the Continent the state of things was infinitely worse. European Christendom had reached the zero of apostasy; Voltairism had come like an evil blast upon the people; and the shadow of atheism fell, colder than death, upon the millions. But God was now revealing in our land His signal mercy. There was the voice of one crying in the desert, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The Gospel had become a freshly-uttered oracle from heaven. The sower had gone forth to sow: the Sun of righteousness, breaking through the clouds, shed healing beams; and the showers of heavenly influence gathered over his path. WESLEY was then fulfilling his course, and approaching, indeed, the consummation of that illustrious career in which he had been made the instrument of wondrous good, not only in our island-home, but across the ocean too, in the distant lands of the West. The agencies of Methodism were becoming more extensive and more potent every year; and, in the order of a merciful Providence, some of the devoted men who toiled in the great work were led to visit the hamlets and villages of the north of Ireland.

The Clarkes had hitherto known nothing of these men. A stray anecdote of one of them, which Adam met with in a newspaper, gave him the first intimation of their existence. One day it was rumored in the neighborhood that there would be preaching that evening at a farm-place, called Burnside; a barn, with a cottage attached to it. Adam went, along with a companion of his, a son of Counsellor O’Neil. It was now that he saw for the first time a Methodist preacher, — a tall thin man, with serious-looking countenance, and long hair. Adam heard the sermon with inward reasonings, and not without some feeling. His mind seemed to be drawn to the man; and, when the service was over, he lingered near him. The preacher turned, and with deep solemnity exhorted him to give himself to God. Adam was so far impressed as to wish to hear this doctrine more largely. He seized the first occasion, and heard Mr. Brettell again. The text was, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.” The effect of this sermon was to show hi m, that the consequence of slighting the call of mercy would be everlasting ruin. Meanwhile the preachers stationed at Coleraine had made arrangements for regularly visiting that neighborhood as a part of their Circuit; and Mr. Brettell was followed by Mr. Thomas Barber, a truly apostolic man, under whose ministry a multitude of people in various parts of the country had been awakened to repentance. Mrs.

Clarke herself was now induced to attend. She heard, and immediately pronounced, “This is the doctrine of the Reformers; this is true and unadulterated Christianity.” The Lord had opened her heart to receive His truth, and she forthwith opened her dwelling to its messengers, where, from time to time, they found a welcome resting-place, and brought the blessing of their Master with them; for salvation came to that house. Mrs.

Clarke now joined the newly-formed Society. As for Adam, though not violently affected, he had become seriously bent on the salvation of his soul. Anxious to hear the Gospel at every opportunity, he rose at four in the morning to complete his day’s work, so as to be able to go here and there in the evening to listen to the word; and his chief study now, in the intervals he could spare from toil, was the examination of what he heard by the test of the written word of God, — “searching the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.” In short, he had now matriculated in the school of Jesus Christ, in which alone the divine or the Christian can be formed; and he sat at the feet of a master who could make him wise to salvation. His Scripture-reading had hitherto been desultory; but he now began to read the New Testament regularly through, and that with deep attentive and earnest prayer. One consequence was, his mind became enlightened to comprehend the analogy of the faith; the great redeeming plan, so harmonious with itself and with all truth. From these oracles of the living God he learned his creed, and never changed it. Another and yet more important consequence was, he was gradually enabled to lay hold upon the truth, thus revealed, with that faith of the heart which made him a new creature. The Spirit was working his great work of mercy in his soul; convincing him of sin, righteousness, and judgment; awakening him alike to a sense of guilt, and a despair of escaping its punishment, if left to his own bankrupt resources. “All his past diligence, prayer, reading, and so forth, now appeared as nothing; multitudes of evils, which before were undiscovered, were now pointed out to his conscience as with a sunbeam.

He was filled with confusion and distress; wherever he looked, he saw nothing but himself. The light which penetrated his mind led him into all the chambers of the house of imagery; and everywhere he saw idols set up in opposition to the worship of the true God. He wished to flee from himself, and looked with envy on stocks and stones; for they had not offended a just God, and were incapable of hearing his displeasure. “The season was summer time. The fields were in their beautiful dress; the flocks and herds browsed in the pastures, and the birds caroled in the sky and in the woods; but his eyes and ears were no longer inlets to pleasure.

In point of gratification, nature was to him a universal blank, for he felt himself destitute of the image and approbation of his Maker; and besides this consciousness there seemed to be needed no other to complete his misery. He said, with one of old, ‘O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat! Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him; He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him.’” Let us not be told here anything about moody melancholy or ignorant fanaticism. There is not a vestige of fanaticism in the case. Here is a young man of education, sound in health, steady in nerves, vigorous in intellect, and, so far as outward morality is concerned, of well-regulated and virtuous habits of life; but thoughtful betimes of the great question which, sooner or later, shakes every human soul, — How can a fallen sinner be reconciled to God? The Bible is in His hand, and the light of the Holy Spirit shining in His conscience. Can we wonder, then, at his solicitude?

He had within himself a dread sense of wrongness before his Divine Judge; and the all-absorbing care of his heart was, “How can I be set right?” Was not this a rational inquiry? Who is the insane fanatic, — the man who in these circumstances, common to us all, asks the question, “What must I do to be saved?” or he who wilfully ignores it?

He who would be saved feels the need of THE SAVIOR; and whatever interferes with the clear view of the Divine majesty and power of the adorable Being who is revealed in the Gospel in that most blessed character, will interfere with that man’s salvation. With such an obstacle Adam Clarke had just now to contend, through painful doubts on the Divinity of Jesus Christ, which some Unitarian acquaintances of his had thrown upon his mind. But in his well-read New Testament he had the infallible antidote to this evil, and he overcame it. He found also some help to faith in partaking for the first time of the Holy Communion; but still he could not lay hold on the promises of God, so as to be delivered from those fears of perdition which sometimes rose within him like an agony. In after-days he saw the value and purpose of those exercises. “It was necessary that I should have hard travail. God was preparing me for an important work. I must emphatically sell all to get the pearl of great price.

If I had lightly com e by the consolations of the Gospel, I might have let them go as lightly. It was good that I bore the yoke in my youth. The experience that I learned in my long tribulation “was none of the least of my qualifications as a minister of the Gospel.”

At length, however, the day of deliverance, the “time of finding,” came.

He had been brought to that point in which, had it been longer delayed, the spirit that God had made would have failed before Him. We shall be most sure in giving the recital in his own words: — “One morning, in great distress of soul, he went out to his work in the field. He began, but could not proceed, so great was HIS mental anguish. He fell down on his knees in the earth, and prayed; but seemed to be without power or faith. He arose and endeavored to work, but could not; even his physical strength seemed to have departed from him. He again endeavored to pray; but the gates of heaven appeared as if barred against him. His faith in the atonement, so far as it concerned himself, was almost entirely gone; he could not believe that Jesus had died for him; the thickest darkness seemed to gather round and settle on his soul. He fell flat on his face on the earth, and endeavored to pray, but still there was no answer: he arose, but he was so weak that he could scarcely stand. His agonies were indescribable: he seemed to be for ever separated from God and the glory of His power. Death, in any form, he could have preferred to his present feelings, if that death could put an end to them. No fear of hell produced those terrible conflicts. He had not God’s approbation; he had not God’s image.

He felt that without a sense of His favor he could not live. Where to go, what to say, and what to do, he found not: even the words of prayer at last failed; he could neither plead nor wrestle with God It is said, the time of man’s extremity is the time of God’s opportunity. He now felt strongly in his soul, ‘Pray to Christ:’ another word for, ‘Come to the Holiest through the blood of Jesus.’ He looked up, confidently, to the Saviour of sinners. His agony subsided, his soul became calm. A glow of happiness thrilled through his frame: all guilt and condemnation were gone. He examined his conscience, and found it no longer a register of sins against God. He looked to heaven, and all was sunshine; he searched for his distress, but could not find it. He felt indescribably happy, but could not tell the cause; a change had taken place within him of a nature wholly unknown before, and for which he had no name. He sat down upon the ridge where he had been working, full of ineffable delight. He praised God. His physical strength returned, and he could bound like a roe. He had felt a sudden transition from darkness to light, from guilt and oppressive fear to confidence and peace. He could now draw nigh to God with more confidence than he could to his earthly father; he had freedom of access, and freedom of speech. He was like a person who had got into a new world, where, although every object was strange, yet each was pleasing: and now he could magnify God for his creation, a thing he never could do before. O, what a change was here! and yet, lest he should be overwhelmed with it, its name and its nature were in a great measure hidden from his eyes. Shortly after this, Mr. Barber came to his father’s house: when he departed, Adam accompanied him a little on the way. When they came in sight of the field that had witnessed the agonies of his heart, and the breaking of his chains, he told Mr. Barber what had taken place.

The man of G od took off his hat, and, with tears flowing down his cheeks, gave thanks to God. ‘O, Adam,’ said he, ‘I rejoice in this. I have been in daily expectation that God would shine upon your soul, and bless you with the adoption of His children.’ Adam stared at him, and said within himself, ‘O, he thinks, surely, that I am justified, that God has forgiven my sins, that I am now His child. O, blessed be God, I believe, I feel I am justified, through the redemption that is in Jesus.’ Now he clearly saw what God had done; and though he had felt the blessing before, and was happy in the possession of it, it was only now that he could call it by its name. Now he saw and felt, that ‘being justified by faith, he had peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom he had received the atonement.’ “He continued in peace all the week. The next Lord’s day there was a lovefeast in Coleraine: he went to it, and during the first prayer kneeled in a corner, with his face to the wall. While praying, the Lord Jesus seemed to appear to the eyes of his mind, as he is described, Revelation 1:13,14, ‘clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle; His head and His hair white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire.’ And, though in strong prayer before, he suddenly stopped, and said, though not perhaps in a voice to be heard by those who were by him, ‘ Come nearer, O Lord Jesus! ‘ Immediately he felt as if God had shone upon the work he had wrought, and called it by its own name. He fully and clearly knew that he was a child of God the Spirit bore this witness in his conscience, and he could no more have doubted of it, than he could of the reality of his own existence. ‘Meridian evidence put doubt to flight.’” Adam Clarke, having thus found the liberty of God’s children, felt a powerful instinct in his heart to enjoy communion with them of whom he could now say, “Their Father is my Father; and their God, my God.” He accordingly lost no time in becoming a member of the Methodist Society; thus, at once, giving his heart to God, and his hand to His cause and people. Some months before, he had accompanied his mother to her classmeeting, but was not at that time in such a state of mind as to render the manner in which the hour was spent sufficiently attractive to induce him to repeat the visit. Now, a great change had been wrought in this respect also; for his heart had become as theirs, and his name took its place in their registries, to abide in them for ever. This was the right procedure. Had he remained aloof from the church, as too many do in similar cases, he, as they do, would have deprived himself of a Divinely appointed means of succour for the mind in the temptations of life, and would probably have f ailed, after all, of the grace of God. But he looked at the Christian church as a Divine institution, and felt it his duty to God, to man, and to himself, to be identified with it. And to what part of it should he so naturally unite himself as to that which had been the means of his conversion? And in doing this, it was the steadfast conviction of his long life, he had done rightly. Unlike the weak-minded and worldly, he was not to be warned off from the fulfillment of a grand duty by the vain bugbear of a name. On the contrary, if there were any reproach in bearing the name of “Methodist,” he was the more willing to bear it for the love which now reigned in his heart to Him who was called the Nazarene.

I have before me an autograph memorandum inserted on the title-page of his old copy of the Minutes of Conference, in these words: “I joined Society in the year of our Lord 1778, at Mullihical, near Coleraine. Adam Clarke.” If born in 1760, he must therefore, at the time of these transactions, have been in his eighteenth year. We doubt not that the alliance he was then enabled to make with the disciples of Christ helped to preserve him from the seductions of the world, which become at that period so potent to the young, as well as to confirm his best tendencies to insure his final salvation, and meanwhile to introduce his uncertain step, into a pathway which led to a great and good career. And so long as he found pleasantness and peace in the company of them whose “fellowship” was “with the Father, and with His Son Christ Jesus,” he was led by the same Spirit, and enabled to maintain his confidence in the mercy which had forgiven him. The witness of the Divine Comforter proved not a transient but a perennial grace. He had come to abide; and the day-star had risen upon his heart with an unsetting light, to bring that knowledge of salvation through the remission of sins which became the strength, the glory, and the joy of his life; “a staff when he was weary, a spring when he was thirsty, a screen when the sun burned him, a pillow in death.”

CHAPTER 3

FIRST ESSAYS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST

The love of God, when kindled in the heart, burns into a flame which reveals itself in our life. When Christ said to His disciples, “Ye shall be My witnesses,” He pronounced the words of a moral law which has been a binding one in His people’s conscience ever since. The constraining impulses of this principle began now to move in the breast of Adam Clarke, and urged him to make known the Saviour he had found. He began with those nearest to himself, and made the circle of his own domestic life the first sphere of his evangelic efforts. Family worship, except on Sundays, had fallen among them into desuetude [disuse]. He stated to them his convictions about the necessity of observing this duty; but without avail, unless he himself would perform it. The diffidence of a modest youth rendered this a formidable task; but it had been so laid upon his conscience, that he dared not shrink. “At last he took up this, to him, tremendous cross, and prayed with his father, mother, and family. And as long as he was under their roof, he was, in this respect, their chaplain. Yet he ever felt it a cross, though God gave him power to bear it. A prayerless family has God’s curse. If the parents will not perform family prayer, if there be a converted child, it devolves on him; and should he refuse, he will soon lose the comforts of religion.”

The influence of his holy life soon began to show its effects in the more serious spirit of his relatives. The Bible was more read, and private prayer resorted to. Hannah, his fourth sister, soon joined the Society, and lived to be one of its ornaments, at Bristol, when the wife of that eminent scholar and true-hearted servant of God, the late Thomas Exley, M.A. The eldest sister soon took the same course. This lady was afterwards united in marriage with the Rev. Dr. Johnson, rector of St. Perrans Uthnoe, Cornwall. In short, most of the family became hearers of the word among the Methodists, and ultimately members of that communion.

Outside of this circle, the next objects of his solicitude were his old schoolfellows and companions. He reasoned with them in their social intercourse, and prevailed on some of them to go with him and hear the word of God. Here, too, he had some first fruits of usefulness; and among these youthful comrades, whose friendship was strengthened and purified by the sanctities of religion, was one who himself became a preacher. This was Andrew Coleman, a young man of good education and great promise, of whom Clarke had afterwards the sacred task of writing a beautiful biography, which was published in the Methodist Memorial.

These incipient efforts soon took a wider range. He now filled up his occasional hours of leisure in going from house to house, and from village to village; doing, in his simple way, and from sheer love to the souls of the people, the work of a Scripture-reader and home-missionary. The Sunday he would entirely devote to this work, and he made full proof of his opportunity. He had undertaken to lead a class at a place six miles away from home, and this at an early hour, which required him in winter to set out two hours before daylight. When this was done, he would go to a neighboring village, and, entering the first open door, say, “Peace be to this house,” and inquire if they were willing that he should hold a short religious service with them, and such of their neighbors as would like to come in. Having done so, (and he rarely met with a refusal,) he proceeded to another village, and so labored through the day. Thus, while “not slothful in business,” but more diligent than ever in the farm and the school, and in the earnest study of the classics, the French language, and the practical mathematics, he was “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” We have here, coming out more and more distinctly to our view, the types of that character which the church and the world have since looked upon with undissembled admiration. Does any young man wish to know the sure way to prosperity and greatness? He will find it if he track the footsteps of Adam Clarke.

The zeal of our young convert extended to everything in his power to help the cause of religion. A congregation having been raised at Upper Mullihical, the want of some place to meet in was greatly felt. The people, led on by Adam, resolved to build one for themselves; and in the manual labor of the undertaking he took no inconsiderable part. Many years after, when opening a chapel at Halifax, he said, — “It has been one of the most pleasurable feelings of my life, in connection with the worship of God, that I have an interest in a place reared to His honor, by having helped to build it. The good people fixed upon having a chapel, near the place where my father resided. I loved God, and rejoiced in the prosperity of His work.

My father allowed me to take his own horse and cart, and to and from the cart I carried stones nearly twice the size of what ought to have been lifted by me in proportion to my strength: but I seemed inspired on the occasion; and if any person had offered me twenty thousand pounds for every twenty pound of stone I carried, as an inducement to abandon the work, I would have rejected the proposal with contempt.”

Meanwhile the question as to his future vocation in life was becoming at home more pressing every day. His father had always a kind of presentiment that Adam would be a clergyman of some order or other. His own predilections would, of course, have chosen for his son the office to which he had himself aspired in early life, — that of the ministry of the Established Church; but the influence of his own disappointment, and the scanty resources of the family, combined to paralyze any effort to fit him for it at the University. At the same time Mr. Bennett, a relative, who carried on an extensive linen-trade in Coleraine, made him a liberal offer to receive Adam into his establishment, which, in the wavering state of Mr.

Clarke’s will, gave the casting decision to it to devote his son to the pursuits of commerce. Adam, as an obedient son, yielded his assent, though without any faith in the enterprise, as he felt no response to it in his own mind, and could not divest himself of an ever-strengthening conviction that God had designed him for a more spiritual career. However, to Coleraine he went and, though he did not become a linen-merchant, he gave proof, during the eleven months spent under Mr. Bennett’s roof, that in his young relative that gentleman had a diligent and conscientious servant; but one who, at the same time, from the peculiar habitudes of his mind, was not the best fitted for the customs and speculations of mercantile life. The employment, moreover, was not congenial with his physical constitution. Health drooped, and his memory became strangely oblivious. Everything within and without him seemed to indicate that he was not in his proper place. His religious diligence did not flag: he was earnest in reproving sin, and the Lord made him useful in the conversion of sinners, as in the case of a wicked, blaspheming domestic of his master’s, and others in the town. He sought to promote the work of God among the people in Coleraine; helping the morning preacher by going round before five o’clock with a b ell to give them a reveil [reveille — a military waking- signal] for the house of prayer; and on Sabbath-days taking his now accustomed part in the work of exhortation in the villages. The pious and intelligent Society in the town took knowledge of him, and learned to love him for his work’s sake. They considered “the end of his conversation,” Jesus Christ ever the same: they appreciated his strong native talent, and educational advantages; and expressed their conviction that his true predestined calling was not the Irish linen-trade, but the Gospel ministry.

This tended to strengthen, the latent bias of his own mind, and gave a more distinct pronunciation to the voice which was bidding him to be free from the entanglements of the world, that be might become a soldier of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Mr. Bennett’s esteem for him was shown in a kind offer, that, if he did not like his business, he would advance him money to enter upon another; at the same time recommending the trade in Irish produce (butter , hides, and tallow) to England. But the die had been virtually cast: he was to be “a merchantman” who should seek “goodly pearls,” in souls for ever saved. Equally futile was the other alternative, to become, like his father, a tiller of the ground: he was to “go forth bearing” more “precious seed,” and “gather fruit unto life eternal.” The issue of this episode of his life was, that he and Mr. Bennett parted with mutual affection and lasting respect, and Adam returned to the farm-house at Agherton.

Providence now spoke at once. The superintendent, Mr. Bredin, enlisted him as an occasional helper in the Circuit. On going forth on his first expedition, a journey of thirty miles, he tells us, that, “just before he set out, early on the Monday morning, he took up his Bible, and said, ‘Lord, direct me to some portion of Thy word that may be to me a subject of useful meditation on the way.’ “ He then opened the book, and the first words that met his eyes were these: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you.” ( John 15:16.) This word gave him great encouragement, and he went on his way rejoicing. When he came to the city, Mr. Bredin desired him to go the next night and supply his place at a village called New Buildings, about five miles from Derry. To this he agreed. “But,” says Mr. Bredin, “you must preach to the people.” “I will do th e best I can,” says Adam, “with God’s help.” “But,” says Mr.

Bredin, “you must take a text, and preach from it.” “That I cannot undertake,” said Adam. “You must and shall,” said Mr. Bredin. “I will exhort as usual, but cannot venture to take a text.” “Well, a text you must take; for the people will not be satisfied without it. A good exhortation is a sermon, and you may as well have a text as not.” To this authority he was obliged for the present to bow, though he went with rather a perplexed than a heavy heart. “I will go,” thought he to himself: “ I can only bring back the tidings that I went, tried, failed, and brought a disgrace upon Methodism.” He arrived near the place a good while before the time, and, not knowing any one, strolled on the bank of the river; so depressed and melancholy as to lie down on the grass and weep. He tried to obtain relief in prayer, and then had recourse to his Bible. While reading, he was forcibly struck with the words, “We know that we are of God,” upon which he felt his mind could fasten, as the text he wanted. Just as he had risen from the grass, a man passed, of whom he inquired for the place of preaching occupied by the Methodists. “He asked, ‘Are you the preacher? ‘ Adam answered, that he had been sent in that capacity by Mr. Bredin.

The man measured him apparently with his eye, from head to foot, and then, in a tone of despondency mingled with surprise, said, ‘You are a young one to unravel the word! ‘ It was on that evening, June 19th, 1782, that he preached his first sermon.

The text was the passage that had made the impression on his mind in the field,1 John 5:19: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness:” from which he extemporized a discourse on the following topics: — 1. That the world lies in wickedness: proved by appeals to the state of man’s nature, and the actual condition of human society. 2. That it is only by the power of God that men are saved from this state of corruption; those who are converted being converted by Him: “We are of God.” 3. Those who are converted know it; not only from its outward effects in their lives, but from the change made in their hearts: “We know that we are of God.”

When we look at this logical and striking distribution of the subject, we are not surprised to find that “the people seemed gratified, and gathered round him when he had finished, and entreated him to preach to them at five the next morning, at a place a mile or so off, where many gathered together, to whom he explained and applied 1 John 4:19: “We love Him, because He first loved us.”

After a fortnight’s work, he returned home, with a strong persuasion in his mind, that God had called him to preach His word; and that the verse to which he was directed on his outset was the evidence of a call which He had graciously given him. Whatever some persons may think of them, these convictions were sacred to the young man’s heart, and the issues of his life have abundantly proved that they were not fallacious.

Some time before this, Mr. Bredin, believing that Adam Clarke was so called of God to the ministry, had written about him to Mr. Wesley, who, in reply, offered to take him to the school he had established at Kingswood, near Bristol; where he might increase his classical knowledge, and, by occasional pulpit-exercises, become more fully prepared for the work. He had not long returned from Derry, when another letter arrived from Mr. Wesley to Mr. Bredin, appointing the latter to an English Circuit, and directing that he should bring Adam Clarke with him.

CHAPTER 4

THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET

The life which was unfolding its perspective to our young preacher could have attractions only to one who, having counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, could find no peace or honor or joy but in doing the unearthly work of turning the sinner from the error of his ways, and saving the soul from death. This was a labor which, in a worldly point of view, would bring him no return. He had, indeed, respect to a recompense of reward, but it lay beyond the horizon of time; and the life he was to live meanwhile, he could then view only as one of toil and martyrdom. But none of these things moved him, neither counted he his life dear to him, so that he might fulfil his course, and the ministry be had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God.

Such was the lofty principle which reigned in the breast of the lone young man, who, on the 17th of August, 1782, stood on the deck of a vessel bound from Londonderry to England. As to outward appearance, though something above the middle height, he was slightly made, and had the look of being worn to extreme thinness by fasting and ascetic exercises. Plain in his features, he had, nevertheless, a certain moral beauty, from the strong reflection of an intellect wakeful with high and solemn thought, and hallowed by the love of God. A by-stander would have judged that he had some relation to the ecclesiastical life, by the loose straight coat then worn by the preachers, and the broad triangular hat. In fact, the sailors of a press-gang let him pass free, from their having taken him for an Irish priest. His wardrobe was extremely light, his purse yet lighter; and his whole viaticum for the voyage to Liverpool, and the land-journey to Bristol, consisted of a little bread and cheese. Poor enough as he was, in t he career that was before him he was, to all human calculation, likely to remain so. The life of a Methodist preacher in those days was all work and no pay, or next to none. Scanty as is the remuneration which the greater number of these faithful and laborious servants of the public now receive, with the first race of the Wesleyan ministers it was unspeakably worse.

We shall see in what way Adam Clarke was destined for a time to feel this.

But the experience did not take him unawares when it came. If, according to Dean Swift, the man is blessed who expecteth nothing, our friend could lay claim to that beatitude. He was content to believe that Providence would grant him food and raiment: as to the latter, more strictly speaking, (as he himself says, when referring to this epoch,) he thought nothing about it. But there were obstacles to his entering even upon a course like this; and one arose from the difficulty which his father and mother felt with regard to it. His brother had already gone from home, and Mr. and Mrs. Clarke naturally looked to Adam to be the stay and support of their declining years; and, with all their respect for the Methodist ministers, they knew enough of their temporal affairs to be convinced that for their son to cast in his lot with theirs would be ruinous to all his interests in the present world. They gave the project therefore, at first, their most decisive refusal. Mrs. Clarke urged her objections in the most strenuous terms, and sealed them on his mind with the threatening of her curse. In this painful dilemma, Adam could only refer all to the Divine will. He took his burden to the throne of God, and by prayer and supplication commended all to His disposal. Grace was given in the time of need. He had prayed that, if it were the will of his Heavenly Father that he should go, the will of his earthly parents might be brought into harmony with it. Business called him into Coleraine for several days. On his return, he went to walk in the garden. His mother came to him, and informed him that their objections had been surmounted, and that, if his mind were still bent upon going, the way, so far as they were concerned, might be considered open. “She had got the persuasion,” says he, “that God required her to give up her son to do His work; she instantly submitted, and had began to use her influence with his father, to bring him to the same mind; nor had she exerted herself in vain. Both of them received him with a pleasing countenance; and though neither said, ‘Go,’ yet both said, ‘We submit.’ In a few days he set off for the city of Londonderry, whence he was shortly to embark for Liverpool. “On his departure, be was recommended by the pious Society of Coleraine to God. He had little money, and but a scanty wardrobe; but he was carried far above the fear of want; he would not ask his parents for any help; nor would he intimate to them that he needed any. A few of his own select friends put some money in his purse, and, having taken a dutiful and affectionate leave of his parents and friends, he walked to Derry, a journey of upwards of thirty miles, in a part of a day; found Mr. Bredin waiting, who had agreed for their passage in a Liverpool trader, which was expected to sail the first fair wind. “As he was young and inexperienced, (for he had not seen the world,) Adam was glad that he was likely to have the company and advice of his friend Mr. Bredin; but in this he was disappointed. “Just as they were about to sail, a letter came from Mr. Wesley, remanding Mr. Bredin’s appointment. There was no time to deliberate; the wind was fair, the vessel got clear out, and about to fall down the Lough: Adam got a loaf of bread, and about a pound of cheese, went instantly aboard, and the vessel sailed. By this step he had separated himself from all earthly connections and prospects in his own country, and went on what he believed to be a Divine command, not knowing whither he was going, or what God intended for him.”

In those days steam-navigation was unknown, and the voyage begun on the Saturday was not completed till the Monday afternoon. Adam would have improved the Sunday in the usual way, but was prostrate with seasickness.

He reproved the sailors for profane swearing, and they took it respectfully and refrained. He observed the captain to read a good deal at intervals, and found the author was Flavel. This opened the way for serious conversation, with which Captain Cunningham expressed himself much pleased. Off Hoylake a pilot came on board, and warned them that they would meet with “a hot press” up the river. This was soon explained by the sight of a man-of-war’s tender, which brought them to by a couple of guns. The captain could only obey, but exhorted the passengers to hide themselves as they best could below. The two steerage-passengers, the one a seafaring man, and the other a hatter, took his advice; but Clarke said to himself, “Shall such a man as I flee? I will not. I am in the hands of the Lord: if He permit me to be sent on board of a man-of-war, doubtless He has something for me to do there.” So he took a seat on the locker in the cabin, lifting up his heart in prayer. Presently the tender’s boat was alongside with six men and an officer. On boarding, the officer “with a hoarse voice summoned all below to come on deck. Adam immediately walked up, and stood, reclining against the gunwale. The lieutenant dived below, in quest of other passengers, but found only the hatter, — of whom, poor fellow, they made a capture. “And who have you got here?” said one of the gang, looking at Adam. “A priest, I’ll warrant. But we took a priest yesterday, and will let this one alone.” With that the lieutenant came, and, having scrutinized him from head to foot, took his hand and manipulated it, as if to judge whether he had been brought up to the sea, or hard labor; and, casting it from him, with an oath, gave it as his opinion that “he would not do.” Adam’s bosom swelled with indignation, not only then, but when, relating this circumstance afterwards, he used to inveigh against the tyranny of a custom, at once iniquitous and cruel in itself, and utterly at variance with the spirit and the letter of the British Constitution.

The worthy captain’s wife was the mistress of a boarding-house, and there our young traveler found a quiet and congenial sojourn during his brief stay in Liverpool. The inmates were a Scotch gentleman and a naval officer. The conversation at the tea-table gave Adam an occasion of respectfully admonishing the lady about a habit she had of asseverating [declaring solemnly] by her conscience. This led to a further discussion at supper, when the naval man avowed himself a member of the Roman Catholic Church; and, stating his belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, demanded of Adam whether be had anything to say against that. “O yes, sir,” replied he; “I have much to say against it;” and then proceeded to argue largely to prove the dogma to be unscriptural and absurd. The captain then asked him, What he had to say against the invocation of saints, and the worship of images? He gave his reasons at large against these also. Purgatory, auricular confession, and the priest’s power to forgive sins, were then considered, and confuted from Scripture and reason.

But the last topic gave him the opportunity to speak on the nature of sin, the condemned state of fallen man, and the impossibility that any one could take away guilt, but He against whose law the transgression is committed; as well as on the terrible doom that awaits the unforgiven. He then showed that reconciliation with God was impossible except through the great sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, which becomes effectual to no man who does not truly repent and implicitly confide in it. While discoursing on these subjects, God gave him uncommon power and freedom of speech. The company heard him with a fixed and solemn gaze, and at length showed by tears that the word had entered their hearts.

Hereupon he rose, and invited them to pray. They fell on their knees, and he concluded this remarkable interview with fervent supplication, which seemed to find a mighty response in every one’s mind. The effects of these well-spent hours may hereafter be unfolded in a better world.

On leaving Captain Cunningham’s the next morning, he inquired for his bill. “No, sir,” said Mrs. Cunningham: “you owe us nothing. It is we who are deeply in your debt. You have been a blessing to our house; and were you to stay longer, you would have no charges.” He departed earnestly invoking that God would remember that family for good, for the kindness they had shown to a poor stranger in a strange land.

The same good Providence was over him in the journey to Bristol, which he performed as an outside passenger of a lumbering and slow-going conveyance miscalled the Fly. A young gentleman, one of the “insides,” came outside for a change, and commenced a gay rattling conversation, interlarded with an occasional oath. Here was another task for Adam, who at once accepted it, and told the swearer what he thought of his bad custom. “What,” said the gentleman, “are you a Presbyterian?” “No, sir,” said Adam, “I am a Methodist.” This provoked his risibility [humor] to an uncommon degree, and he made it the subject of a great deal of harmless but rather foolish wit. On returning inside, he told his tale in his own way, and this excited the curiosity of his companions to see the strange creature.

A gentleman from within accordingly offered Adam to exchange places with him. Adam preferred remaining where he was. Another overture was followed by the same result. At length, when the coach stopped, a lady asked him to favor them with his company. Adam, observing the still unsettled face of his risible friend, excused himself, on the plea that he did not think his company would be agreeable. She answered, “Sir, you must come in: this young gentleman will take your place, and you will do us good.” Thus challenged, he could no longer refuse. Questioned about his religion, the purposes of his journey, &c., he gave such an account of himself as visibly won their good sympathies, and some hours were passed in cheerful and profitable conversation. Adam, finding the gentleman was a scholar, fortified some remarks he made to him about the confidence that every true servant of God has in His favor and protection, by observing that the principle was not unknown among even the heathens, though many called Christians deny that we can have any direct evidence of God’s love to us; and quoted the verse from Horace: “Integer vitae, scelerisque purus Non eget Mauir jaculis neque arcu, Nec venenatis gravida sagittis, Fusce, pharetra.” “True,” said the gentleman; “but if we take Horace as authority for one point, we may as well do it in another; and in some of your received principles you will find him against you. Witness another ode: ‘Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulsanda tellus.’” Adam acknowledged the propriety of this critique; and sometimes referring to it used to say, “We should be cautious how we appeal to heathens, even as to morality; because much may be collected from them on the other side. In like manner we must be careful how we quote the Fathers in proof of the doctrines of the Gospel; because he who knows them best, knows that on many of those subjects they blow hot and cold.”

When the coach stopped for dinner at Lichfield, they insisted on his being their guest, and would not suffer him to be at any charge; and, as they were going on to London, they urged him to go round to Bristol by the same way, with the assurance that they would defray his expenses. Anxious, however, to get to Kingswood by the most direct route, he took leave of this agreeable party with mutual good feelings.

At Birmingham Providence was equally kind, in opening to him the hearts and home of an excellent family, the relatives of Mr. Brettell, the first Methodist preacher he had heard in Ireland. He accompanied them to chapel in the evening, and heard old Parson Greenwood discourse on the words of the apostle, “I am in a strait betwixt two.” The preacher pointed out the example of many good men who have been constrained to make that confession: upon which Adam made the reflection, that, had he known the circumstances in which he himself was then found, he might safely have added him to the number.

It was well for him that he met with these kindnesses by the way; for, on coming to Bristol, he found that his little store of cash had dwindled to one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny. This was occasioned by the expense of the journey by coach, which he had designed at first to perform on foot, till he yielded to the dissuasions of Mr. Cunningham at Liverpool. On the last day of the journey, no dinner offering itself, he had subsisted on “a penny loaf and a halfpennyworth of apples.” Hungry and exhausted, he went into the kitchen of an inn in Broadmead, warmed himself at the fire, and asked for a piece of bread and cheese, and a drink of water. “Water!” said one of the servants: “had you not better have a pint of beer?” “No, I prefer water,” said he. It was brought; and for this homely supper he paid sixpence, and sixpence for his bed, before be lay down. He had now sevenpence halfpenny; sixpence of which the chambermaid charged for taking care of his box. Breakfast next morning was out of the question; so he left Bristol with his whole fortune of three-halfpence, and bent his steps up the hill towards Kingswood. He found the Wesleyan establishment, consisting of a mansion, school, and chapel, surrounded by a small grove of trees, in an open moorland country. It was seven in the morning, the hour for prayers and sermon, and several people were entering the chapel for the service. He joined them; and drank in some words of consolation which the preacher, Mr. Payne, spoke from the text, “Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” The topic was seasonable; for an unusual oppression weighed upon his mind. Mr. Brettell at Birmingham had given him some uneasiness, by expressing a strong opinion that his expectations of getting any profit at Kingswood would turn out to be fallacious; and he now suffered a presentiment of distress which he could not shake off. Immediately after the service he requested to be introduced to the head-master, Mr. Simpson, to whom he delivered Mr. Wesley’s letter. The master appeared surprise d, and told him that his coming was totally unexpected, and that, in effect, they had no room in the school for any one. He added, that Mr. Wesley, who was then in Cornwall, would not return for a fortnight; and that it would be necessary for him to go back to Bristol, and lodge there till he came. Crushed at heart with distress, poor Adam ventured to say, “I cannot return to Bristol, sir. I have expended all my money, and have nothing to subsist on.” The master said, “But why should you have come to Kingswood at all? It appears from this letter that you have been already at a classical school, and can read both Greek and Latin authors. If you are already a preacher, you had better go out into the work at large; for there is no room for you in the school, and not one spare bed in the house. At last it was decided he should have permission to occupy a room at the end of the old chapel, where the forlorn youth passed several days and nights, encountering meanwhile not a few annoyances. And when, at length, he was allowed to take a place at dinner at the family-table, all comfort was annihilated by the overbearing rigor of the hostess. It is needless to go minutely into the circumstances which embittered his transient sojourn: some of them it might be found impossible to recall with accuracy. I will be content to offer a remark which some readers may require, to obviate the scandal they might be led to attach to Kingswood School itself. The establishment at that place had been founded by Mr. Wesley with the combined object of affording an educational asylum for the sons of his preachers, and a seminary on the plan of a boarding-school for the children of Methodist parents who were desirous of giving them the benefits of a system in which the religious element formed a well-defined constituent, along with the essentials of secular learning. The design was noble and good, but it must be confessed that hitherto it had proved a failure. The staff of teachers seemed unexceptionable. Mr. Simpson himself was a Master of Arts, and, as Dr. Clarke records, “a man of learning and piety, but one too easy for his situation.” The Rev. Cornelius Bayley, afterwards Dr. Bayley, of St.

James’s church, Manchester, was English teacher; Mr. Vincent De Baudry, professor of French; and Mr. Bond, assistant teacher. “The scholars, however, were none of them remarkable for piety or learning. The boarders had spoiled the discipline of the school; very few of its rules and regulations were observed; and it by no means answered the end of its institution. Though the teachers were men of adequate learning, yet, as the school was perfectly disorganized, every one did what was right in his own eyes. The little children of the preachers suffered great indignities; the parlor-boarders had every kind of respect, and the others were shamefully neglected.” Mr. Wesley had become acquainted with this state of things; and, in an exposition of the case which he gave shortly after at the Bristol Conference, expressed his determination “either to mend it or to end it.”

It was mended. The idea of the united school was given up, and the establishment henceforward devoted to the purpose of affording a wholesome and useful education to the children of the itinerant preachers.

Another branch was subsequently located at Woodhouse-Grove, in Yorkshire. Kingswood School has been improving steadily with the lapse of time, and is now one of the best educational institutions in the country.

Its locale has been transferred to the vicinity of Bath, where, on Lansdown Hill, it forms one of the ornaments even of that neighborhood, so distinguished by fine architecture. Nor has the other design been overlooked by the present generation of the Methodist people; of which their beautiful collegiate establishments at Sheffield and Taunton are conspicuous monuments. The Methodists are now, indeed, behind no religious communion in their enterprises for the promotion of knowledge and learning. They have founded hundreds of primary schools in various parts of the kingdom, all of them in connection with a noble Training College for teachers at Westminster. Their theological faculty accomplishes an effective training of devoted young men for the service of the church, at their colleges of Richmond, Surrey, and Didsbury, near Manchester. In India, Africa, and Australia, similar institutions are rising; while, in America, some of the best universities in Canada and t he United States are conducted under the auspices of the Methodist church. All Mr. Wesley’s ideas had the imprint of a mind which combined the characteristics of the refined scholar and the Christian apostle; and, in their ever-growing development, whole myriads of families are grateful partakers of benefits which have rendered his name a sacred symbol of whatever things are pure, or lovely, or of good report, or productive of virtue and of praise.

But now to return to our poor solitary. The authorities at Kingswood made him, as we have seen, dwell apart at first; and, when admitted to the table, laid him under restraints which rendered solitude more agreeable to him than their society. He had, however, by this time got his trunk with his few books and papers from Bristol; and he filled up the intervals of study by working in the garden, and occasional essays to do good, by speaking to the people, as occasion offered. Moreover, Mr. Rankin came, the superintendent preacher, who conceived a partiality for him at once, and set him to do some work in the Circuit. In one of his excursions he preached at the village of Pensford, when “a venerable man” in the congregation came and laid his hand upon him, and said, with a look of approval and solemnity, “Christ bless the word! Christ bless the word!

Christ bless the word!” The kind feeling manifested by this aged disciple was like a gleam of sunshine on the young man’s heart.

At length Mr. Wesley arrived at Bristol; and, having received Mr.

Simpson’s statement in relation to the young stranger, expressed a wish to see him. The interview is described by Adam: — “I had this privilege for the first time on September the sixth. I went to Bristol; saw Mr. Rankin, who took me to Mr. Wesley’s study, off the great lobby of the rooms over the chapel in Broadmead. He tapped at the door, which was opened by this truly apostolic man. Mr. Rankin retired. Mr. Wesley took me kindly by the hand, and asked me how long since I had left Ireland. Our conversation was short. He said, ‘ Well, brother Clarke, do you wish to devote yourself entirely to the work of God?’ I answered, ‘Sir, I wish to do, and be, what God pleases.’ He then said, ‘We want a preacher for Bradford, in Wiltshire: hold yourself in readiness to go there. I am going into the country, and will let you know when you shall go.’ He then turned to me, laid his hands upon my head, and spent a few moments in praying to God to bless and preserve me, and to give me success in the work to which I was called. I departed, having now received, in addition to my appointment from God to preach His Gospel, the only authority I could have from man in that line in which I was to exercise the ministry of the Divine word.”

That evening he heard Mr. Wesley preach on these words, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Two days after he first saw Charles Wesley, being not a little gratified to have the opportunity of seeing “the two men whom I had long considered as the very highest diameters upon the face of the globe, and as the most favored instruments which God had employed, since the days of the twelve apostles, to revive and spread genuine Christianity in the earth.” On the twenty-sixth of the month he received final instructions to repair to his Circuit.

He obeyed at once. There were no bands of love to detain him at Kingswood an hour. That very morning he walked away to Hanham, and from thence to Bath, where he again heard Mr. Wesley; and thence again next day to Bradford, lodging that night at the house of Mr. Pearce. The day following he found his way to Trowbridge, the headquarters for the preachers of the Circuit.

Sursum corda.

CHAPTER 5

THE EVANGELIST

Though Wesleyan Methodism had not at that time risen to the massive strength in which it is now recognized as one of the established religious institutions of the country, it had nevertheless, so far back as the time of which we are now writing, unfolded the character of a vital and powerful system of Christian agency, which was exerting an enlightening, moralizing, and pacific influence over immense masses of the English people. Congregations, not on Sabbaths only, but from day to day, in all parts of the land, came in silent crowds to hear from its preachers the word of God; and hundreds of Societies, united in the faith, hope, and charity of our holy religion, walking in the comfort of the blessed Spirit, and being ever multiplied, gave proof that the word was not heard in vain. When, therefore, Mr. Adam Clarke entered on the sphere of labor assigned him under the circumstances we have recounted, he had not to feel his way with the uncertain step of a mere adventurer, but had only to make his credential s known, to secure for himself the welcomes of a numerous people prepared to receive all such as he with the benedictions of the Gospel of peace. Some of them, indeed, struck at first sight with the extreme juvenility of their new preacher, might have wished that a man of greater age and consequent experience had been appointed to them; and the pleasant tradition is yet repeated, that on his first visit to one of the chapels, as he walked with solemn step along the aisle to the pulpit, one of the seniors of the congregation was overheard giving a sort of vexed expression to his first view of the affair, with, “Tut, tut! what will Mr.

Wesley send us next?” Yet they proved themselves fully able to appreciate and ever after to love the stranger, now such no longer, who had come among them. His own musings, too, upon this difficulty, were by no means agreeable. “His youth,” he writes of himself, “was a grievous trial to him, and was the subject of many perplexing reasonings. He thought, ‘ How can I expect that me n and women, persons of forty, three score, or more years, will come out and hear a boy preach the Gospel? And is it likely that, if through curiosity they do come, they will believe what I say?

As to the young, they are too gay and giddy to attend to Divine things; and if so, among whom lies the probability of my usefulness?’ “ Time, however, with its rapid wing, would too soon leave all these complaints behind him. Meanwhile the intellectual and religious characteristics of this youth placed him on a par with “persons of forty,” ay, and with some of the sages of “fourscore.” As to the people among whom he had come, young or old, — boy as he was, he could teach them all. He was himself taught of God. “The Bible was his one book, and prayer his continual exercise: he frequently read it on his knees, and often watered it with his tears.” When he says the Bible was his one book, he records his conviction that the sacred volume is the only absolute canon of Divine truth; the sole infallible rule of doctrine, an d the grand warrant of hope to man; from which all effectual teaching must be derived, and to which all creeds must be subjected. As the sun enlightens the face of the planet, so the Bible illumines the true teachers of the church. “Hither, As to their fountain, other stars repair, And in their golden urns draw light.”

The late Thomas Marriott, Esq., had a Bible of Dr. Clarke’s, which he believed to be the identical copy he brought with him from Kingswood, or rather from Ireland, to Trowbridge. It has, in addition to his name, the date, “Trowbridge, Wiltshire, August 9th, 1783. Bene orasse est bene studuisse.” At the end of the Old Testament is the memorandum, “June 10th. Read through:” while by another, at the beginning of Genesis, we judge that he recommenced the next day: “Incepi, June 11th, 1784.” I have myself a pocket Bible of his, in a stout red morocco case. On the top of the title-page are the words in his handwriting, “God is love. Glory to His name. Adam Clarke, May 21st, 1783.” This copy, therefore, must have been in his possession at Trowbridge, as well as that obtained by Mr. Marriott.

Searching thus the Scriptures, with habitual and devout meditation, he had already acquired a deep insight into the analogy of the Christian faith, and was enabled to embrace and ever hold fast the great principles of revealed theology. It was not far from this time that he drew up the following theses, which may be considered the alpha and omega of his religious creed, no article of which, he tells us, he ever saw occasion to alter: — “I. That there is but one uncreated, unoriginated, infinite, and eternal Being; — the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things. “II. There is in this Infinite Essence a plurality of what we commonly call Persons; not separately subsisting, but essentially belonging to the Deity or Godhead; which Persons are generally termed father, Son, and Holy Ghost; or, God, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit, which are usually designated the Trinity which term, though not found in the Scriptures, seems properly enough applied; as we repeatedly read of these three, and never of more persons in the Godhead. “III. The Sacred Scriptures or Holy Books, which constitute the Old and New Testaments, contain a full revelation of the will of God in reference to man; and are alone sufficient for everything relative to the faith and practice of a Christian; and were given by the inspiration of God. “IV. Man was created in righteousness and true holiness, without any moral imperfection, or any kind of propensity to sin; but free to stand or fall according to the use of the powers and faculties he received from his Creator. “V. He fell from this state, became morally corrupt in his nature, and transmitted his moral defilement to all his posterity. “ VI. To counteract the evil principle in the heart of man, and bring him into a salvable state, God, from His infinite love, formed the purpose of redeeming him from his lost estate, by the Incarnation, in the fulness of time, of Jesus Christ; and, in the interim, sent His Holy Spirit to enlighten, strive with, and convince men of sin, righteousness, and judgment. “VII. In due time this Divine Person, called the Logos, Word, Saviour, &c., &c., did become incarnate; sojourned among men, teaching the purest truth, and working the most stupendous and beneficent miracles. “VIII. The above Person is really and properly God: was foretold as such, by the prophets; described as such, by the evangelists and apostles; and proved to be such, by His miracles; and has assigned to Him, by the inspired writers in general, every attribute essential to the Deity; being One with Him who is called God, Jehovah, Lord, &c. “IX. He is also a perfect Man, in consequence of His incarnation; and in that Man, or Manhood, dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily: so that His nature is twofold — Divine and Human, or God manifested in flesh. “X. His Human Nature was begotten of the blessed Virgin Mary, through the creative energy of the Holy Ghost; but His Divine Nature, because God, infinite and eternal, is uncreated, underived, and unbegotten; and which, were it otherwise, He could not be God in any proper sense of the word: but He is most explicitly declared to be God in the Holy Scriptures; and, therefore, the doctrine of the Eternal Sonship must necessarily be false. “XI. As He took upon Him the nature of man, and died in that nature; therefore, He died for the whole human race, without respect of persons: equally for all and every man. “ XII. On the third day after His crucifixion and burial, He rose from the dead; and, after showing Himself many days to His disciples and others, He ascended into heaven, where, as God manifested in the flesh, He is, and shall continue to be, the Mediator of the human race, till the consummation of all things. “XIII. There is no salvation but through Him; and throughout the Scriptures His Passion and Death are considered as sacrificial: pardon of sin and final salvation being obtained by the alone shedding of His blood. “XIV. No human being, since the fall, either has, or can have, merit or worthiness of, or by, himself; and, therefore, has nothing to claim from God but in the way of His mercy through Christ: therefore pardon, and every other blessing promised in the Gospel, have been purchased by His Sacrificial Death; and are given to men, not on the account of anything they have done or suffered, or can do or suffer, but for His sake, or through His meritorious passion and death alone. “XV. These blessings are received by faith; because they are not of works, nor of suffering. “XVI. The power to believe, or grace of faith, is the free gift of God, without which no man can believe: but the act of faith, or actually believing, is the act of the soul under that power. This power is withheld from no man; but, like all other gifts of God, it may be slighted, not used, or misused: in consequence of which is that declaration, ‘ He that believeth shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned. ‘ “XVII. Justification, or the pardon of sin, is an instantaneous act of God’s mercy in behalf of a penitent sinner, trusting only in the merits of Jesus Christ and this act is absolute in reference to all past sin, all being forgiven where any is forgiven: gradual pardon, or progressive justification, being unscriptural and absurd. “ XVIII. The souls of all believers may be purified from all sin in this life; and a man may live under the continual influence of the grace of Christ so as not to sin against God: all sinful tempers and evil propensities being destroyed, and his heart constantly filled with pure love both to God and man. And as love is the principle of obedience, he who loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself, is incapable of doing wrong to either. “XIX. Unless a believer live and walk in the spirit of obedience, he will fall from the grace of God, and forfeit all his Christian privileges and rights; and, although he may be restored to the favor and image of his Maker from which he has fallen, yet it is possible that he may continue under the influence of this fall, and perish everlastingly. “XX. The whole period of human life is a state of probation, in every point of which a sinner may repent, and turn to God; and in every point of it a believer may give way to sin, and fall from grace. And this possibility of rising or falling is essential to a state of trial or probation. “XXI. All the promises and threatenings of the Sacred Writings, as they regard man in reference to his being here and hereafter, are conditional; and it is on this ground alone that the Holy Scriptures can be consistently interpreted or rightly understood. “XXII. Man is a free agent, never being impelled by any necessitating influence, either to do good or evil; but has the continual power to choose the life or the death that are set before him: on which ground he is an accountable being, and answerable for his own actions; and on this ground, also, he is alone capable of being rewarded or punished. “XXIII. The free will of man is a necessary constituent of his rational soul; without which he must be a mere machine, — either the sport of blind chance, or the mere patient of an irresistible necessity; and, consequently, not accountable for any acts which were predetermined, and to which he was irresistibly compelled. “XXIV. Every human being has this freedom of will, with a sufficiency of light and power to direct its operations; but this powerful light is not inherent in any man’s nature, but is graciously bestowed by Him who is ‘the true Light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.’ “XXV. Jesus Christ has made, by His one offering upon the cross, a sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and atonement for the sins of the whole world; and His gracious Spirit strives with, and enlightens, all men; thus putting them into a salvable state: therefore, every human soul may be saved, if it be not his own fault. “XXVI. Jesus Christ has instituted, and commanded to be perpetuated in His church, two sacraments only: — 1. BAPTISM, sprinkling, washing with, or immersion in, water, in the name of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity, as a sign of the cleansing or regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit, by which influence a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness are produced; and, 2. The Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, as commemorating the sacrificial death of Christ. And He instituted the first to be once only administered to the same person for the above purpose, and as a rite of initiation into the visible church; and the second, that by its frequent administration all believers may be kept in mind of the foundation on which their salvation is built, and receive grace to enable them to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things. “XXVII. The soul is immaterial and immortal, and can subsist independently of the body. “XXVIII. There will be a general resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust; when the souls of both shall be re-united to their respective bodies; both of which will be immortal, and live eternally. “XXIX. There will be a general judgment; after which all shall be punished or rewarded, according to the deeds done in the body; and the wicked shall be sent to hell, and the righteous taken to heaven. “XXX. These states of rewards and punishments shall have no end, forasmuch as the time of trial or probation shall then be for ever terminated; and the succeeding state must necessarily be fixed and unalterable. “XXXI. The origin of human salvation is found in the infinite philanthropy of God; and, on this principle, the unconditional reprobation of any soul is absolutely impossible. “XXXII. God has no secret will, in reference to man, which is contrary to His revealed will, — as this would show Him to be an insincere Being, professing benevolence to all, while He secretly purposed that that benevolence should be extended only to a few; a doctrine which appears blasphemous as it respects God, and subversive of all moral good as it regards man, and totally at variance with the infinite rectitude of the Divine Nature.”

We do not insert these remarkable articles as setting forth an exposition of the Methodist theology, (though substantially in harmony with it, with one exception, to which we shall have occasion, though reluctantly, to refer hereafter; I mean, that numbered the tenth, the concluding inference from which varies from the faith of the catholic church,) but merely to show with what effect Mr. Clarke had even then applied his honest and vigorous mind to the close investigation of the holy Scriptures. Hardly more than a boy in years, it is plain that he had already become a man in understanding.

The good people of Trowbridge and Bradford would not find his preaching to be “yea and nay,” but the steady inculcation of fixed principles, explained with precision, and applied with power, for doctrine and reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness.

But, though he was thus confident in what he believed to be Divine truth, the disposition with which he enforced it was not that of arrogant selfsufficiency, but of humble, lowly, and prayerful dependence on the grace of God. “He never entered the pulpit but with the conviction that, if God did not help him by the influence of His Spirit, his heart must be hard, and his mind dark; and, consequently, his word be without unction and without fruit. Under this influence be besought the Lord with strong crying and tears; and he was seldom, if ever, left to himself.”

He has given an instance of the favor thus shown him from on high, in giving him seals to his ministry and souls for his hire, which I cannot help transferring to our pages. On his first visit to Road, a country village between Trowbridge and Frome, where the congregation had been very small, a report had got abroad in the neighborhood, that “a boy was going to preach in the Methodist chapel that evening, and all the young men and women in the place were determined to hear him. He came, and the place, long before the time, was crowded with young persons of both sexes: very few elderly persons could get in, the house being filled before they came.

As he preached, the attention was deep and solemn, and the place was still as death. He then gave out that affecting hymn, — “Vain, delusive world, adieu, With all thy creature good; Only Jesus I pursue, Who bought me with His blood: All thy pleasures I forego, And trample on thy wealth and pride; Only Jesus will I know, And Jesus crucified.”

The fine voices of this young company produced great effect in the singing. When the last verse was ended, he said, ‘My dear young friends, you have joined with me heartily, and I dare say sincerely, in singing this fine hymn. You know in whose presence we have been conducting this solemn service: the eyes of God, of angels, and perhaps of devils, have been upon us! And what have we been doing? We have been promising, in the sight of all these, and of each other, that we will renounce a vain, delusive world, its pleasures, pomp, and pride, and seek our happiness in God alone, and expect it through Him who shed His blood for us. And is not this the same to which we have been long previously bound by our baptismal vow? Have we not, when we were baptized, promised to renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh and that we will keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of our life? This baptismal promise is precisely the same as that contained in this affecting hymn. Now, shall we promise, and not perform? vow, and not fulfill? God has heard! Now, what do you purpose to do? Will you continue to live to the world, and forget that you owe your being to God, and have immortal souls which must spend an eternity in heaven or hell? We have no time to spare. The Judge is at the door. I have tried both lives; and find that a religious life has an infinite preference above the other. Let us, therefore, heartily forsake sin, and seek God by earnest prayer, nor rest till He has blotted out our guilt, purified our heart, and filled us with peace and righteousness. If we seek earnestly, and seek through Jesus Christ, we cannot seek in vain.’ — He thus prayed, and many were deeply affected.

That night and the next morning thirteen persons, young men and women, came to him, earnestly injuring what they should do to be saved. A religious concern became general throughout the village and neighborhood; many young persons sought and found redemption in the blood of the Lamb. The old people, seeing the earnestness and consistent walk of the young, began to reflect; and many were deeply awakened, while others, who had become indifferent, were roused to renewed diligence and a hopeful revival of religion spread through the vicinity. Thus was he shown that the very circumstance, his youth, which he thought most against his usefulness, became a principal means, in the Divine hand, of his greatest ministerial success. Methodism in Road continued to prosper during the whole time he was in the Circuit; and when he visited them several years after, he found it still in a flourishing state. In fact, half a century from that time there were persons still living in Road who had maintained a faithful conversation from those days; and when Dr. Clarke preached his last sermon at Frome, shortly before his death, one of them came to that place to meet him.”

The Circuit in which he continued to labor during the remainder of the Methodistic year, extended into three counties, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Dorset; and comprehended the towns of Bradford, Trowbridge, Shaftesbury, Shepton-Mallet, Frome, Melksham, Wells, and Devizes, with a number of villages. His colleagues were Messrs. Wrigley, Pool, and Algar. With the last Mr. Clarke found much congeniality of heart, though not a man altogether of the same type with himself as to intellect or learning. From one influential quarter, he got no help in the latter department; but, no doubt unintentionally, a sore and injurious hindrance.

One of his counselors, though a man of undoubted integrity, labored under the disadvantage of a total lack of education, and a temperament in which sternness had a marvelous resemblance to obstinacy. At Motcomb, a village near Shaftesbury, Mr. Clarke, observing one day a Latin sentence written in pencil on the wall of the preachers’ room, relating to the vicissitudes of life, wrote under it a quotation from Virgil (with a verbal change) corroborative of the sentiment: — “Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur. Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum Tendimus in coelum.” This met the eye of the stern monitor, in whose esteem “human learning “ was a sin. He read the above words, but was not wicked enough to be able to understand them. There was something, however, in the very look of them, which stirred his godly ire, to which he gave expression in the following lines, inserted as a pendant to the Virgilian metre: — “Did you write the above To show us you could write Latin? For shame! Do send pride To hell, from whence it came. O, young man, improve your Time, eternity’s at hand.”

I make no comment on this effusion, and should consider it too insignificant for mention here, but that it helps to unfold an admirable trait of character in the subject of our biography; I mean, great tenderness of conscience, and a disposition to renounce favorite, unexceptionable, and even profitable pursuits, if they became stumblingblocks in the path of the weak-minded. On coming to the room at Motcomb, in his next turn, the poor youth read these words of sanctimonious folly with great confusion and dismay. He had evidently offended some sense of propriety which reigned in another’s mind, though not in his own; and the people of the house, who would no doubt have read them as a sentence of condemnation, would henceforth have misgivings about him as a preacher of the right kind. Moreover, he saw that scholarship might engender pride; and it was too plain that, instead of provoking honorable emulation, it might have no other tendency than to excite envy. Under the influence of these temptations, he sank upon his knees, and made a premature vow “that he would never more meddle with Greek or Latin so long as he lived!”

Whatever he thought of the wisdom of the objurgation on the wall, the manner in which it was exhibited, he felt, was most unkind; and, when he next saw the writer, he told him as much. “Why,” said he, “did you not admonish me in private, or send me the reproof in a note?” “I thought what I did was the best method to CURE you,” was the reply. Mr. Clarke then told his sagacious adviser what uncomfortable feelings the writing on the wall had produced in him, and how he had vowed to study literature no more. Whereupon the other applauded his teachableness and godly diligence, assuring him that he had never known a learned preacher who was not a coxcomb!

Let no reader imagine, that he who wrote on the wall was a representative of the views of the Methodists in their estimate of learning. There have been a very few exceptions to the common rule in these matters; but no body of men can entertain a more solemn and religious love for real erudition than they.

It was not till four years after that Mr. Clarke was able to get free from the scruples with which this rash vow had trammeled him. To this point we shall have need to recur further on. Meanwhile, those philological studies, without which he could never have been the expositor of the Septuagint and the Greek Testament, were rendered impossible. Had the evil spell continued to work on Mr. Clarke’s mind, this fanaticism would have deprived the church of God of his Commentary on the Bible.

At length the year rolled round, and his labors in his first Circuit were ended. He had preached, it appears, five hundred and six sermons, many of which had been delivered at five o’clock in the morning; in addition to a great number of public exhortations, class-meetings, and religious conversations in the numerous houses where he passed the intervals of time not spent in reading or travel.

The Conference of 1783 was held in Bristol. As Mr. Clarke had no authority to be there, whatever might have been his wishes, he cherished no thought of going, till on the 1st of August he received by letter a requirement to attend. The next day, Saturday, he set off, and reached Bristol that evening. An extract from his journal will give us a glimpse of a Conference Sunday in Bristol in those days: — “Sunday, August 3rd, 1783. — At five this morning I heard a very useful sermon from Mr. Mather, at the chapel, Broadmead, on Isaiah 35:3,4. I then went to Guinea-street chapel, where I heard Mr. Bradburn preach on Christian perfection, from 1 John 4:19.

This was, without exception, the best sermon I had ever heard on the subject. When this was ended, I posted to the Drawbridge, and heard Mr. Joseph Taylor preach an excellent and affecting sermon, on Romans 5:21. This ended, I returned to my lodging and breakfasted; and then, at ten o’clock, heard Mr. Wesley preach at Broadmead, on Acts 1:5. After sermon, he, assisted by Dr. Coke, the Rev. B. B. Collins, and the Rev. Cornelius Bayley, delivered the holy sacrament to a vast concourse of people, which I also received to my comfort. When dinner was ended, I heard the Rev. B. B. Collins preach at Temple church, on Mark 16:15,16.

I next went and heard Mr. Wesley in Carolina-court, on Hebrews 6:1; after which he met the Society at the chapel, Broadmead, a nd read over a part of his journal relative to his late visit to Holland.

To conclude the whole, I then posted to Kingsdown, where I heard Mr. T. Hanby preach an awakening sermon on 1 Peter 4:18.

Thus have I in one day, by carefully redeeming time, and buying up every opportunity, heard seven sermons, three of which were delivered out of doors. Surely this has been a day in which much has been given me, and much will the Lord require. O, grant that I may be enabled to render Thee a good account!”

We need not remark here, that the rareness of the occasion only could justify this excess of hearing. No one in his senses would recommend either a young Christian or an old one to hear seven discourses in a day.

But it should be considered, that Mr. Clarke was himself a preacher who had never had an opportunity of listening to the great and good men of the time. All was new to him, and he did well to improve the season. No doubt he would also take notes of what he heard, as the material for future recollection. It was, therefore, very well for once; but, as a habit, an overplus of sermon-hearing must be pronounced unfriendly to true improvement. It bewilders the brain, and hardens the heart. Two good discourses on the Sunday, heard with attention, and retraced with one’s Bible in retirement, will yield the soul a profit it can never find in a succession of services, in which one set of ideas and impressions must be swept away by the influx of another.

The Conference were so well satisfied with the steadiness and promise of Mr. Clarke’s character, as to resolve to admit him into fall connection at the end of his first year’s itinerancy. He was by far the youngest man who had ever gone out “to travel;” and his reception into full orders was the earliest that had ever taken place. On this occasion his mind was deeply affected. “This day, Wednesday, August the sixth,” writes he, “I have promised much before God and His people: may I ever be found true to my engagements! In particular, I have solemnly promised to devote my whole strength to the work of God, and never to be triflingly employed one moment. Lord, I fear much that I shall not be found faithful; but Thou hast said, My grace shall be sufficient for thee. Even so let it be, Lord Jesus.”

When Methodist ministers are admitted into full connection with the Conference, they receive from the president a manual which is called “The Large Minutes.” The copy which was presented to Mr. Clarke at this time I have now on the table. On the blank side of the title-page stands the usual formula of reception, signed by the secretary, Dr. Coke. “To ADAM CLARKE: “As long as you freely consent to, and earnestly endeavor to walk by, these Rules, we shall rejoice to acknowledge you as a fellowlaborer. “Thomas Coke.” Underneath, in a neat handwriting, we have the following: — “O Lord, Thou knowest that of myself I am unable to do these things. Therefore give me Divine strength and wisdom: so shall I be enabled to walk by these Rules, and consequently to glorify Thee in the land of the living. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. A. C.”

The prayer was answered.

CHAPTER 6

THE EVANGELIST

Mr. Clarke was now appointed to labor in a large tract of country in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, having the city of Norwich as the head of the Circuit and for this new sphere of Gospel enterprise he lost no time in setting out, traveling the whole way in the saddle. The Methodist preachers in those days were all horsemen. The country people, all over England, used to speak of them as “the riding preachers.” The new evangelists were decidedly an equestrian order, who prolonged the days of chivalry. And among these soldiers of the cross, who went abroad through all the land to comfort the afflicted, rescue the oppressed, and save the perishing, Adam Clarke had now been finally enrolled. He wore now the armour that St. Paul describes in the Epistle to the Ephesians, — the helmet and breastplate, sword and shield; and never more laid them aside, till the day of his death. In thinking of him now, as he pursues his way with much solemn musing and frequent prayer, one is reminded of old Spenser’s emblematic picture-words in the “Faerie Queen,” where he describes “a gentle knight” who “was moving o’er the plain, clad in mighty arms and silver shield: — “And on his breast a bloody cross he bore, The dear remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living, ever Him adored. Upon his shield the like was also scored, For sovereign hope which in its help he had.

Fight faithful true was he in deed and word, And ever, as he rode, his heart did yearn To prove his puissance in battle brave Upon his foe, a dragon horrible and stern.”

The service to which Mr. Clarke was called, in his new Circuit, was one which required him to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

The people among whom he labored were ignorant and depraved, and his efforts to bring them to truth and righteousness were prosecuted in circumstances most depressing to body and mind. On arriving in the city of Norwich, he found one of the late preachers lying ill of a fever, and, unable to vacate the room which had been assigned as his own sleeping- place. In this sorrowful domicile, which he describes as “pestiferous,” he got such rest as could be obtained; and then he went out into the Circuit. It comprehended two-and-twenty towns and villages, and was traveled every month by a journey of not less than two hundred and sixty miles. Of his colleagues, the superintendent was Mr. Richard Whatcoat, who was afterwards sent to America, and there became one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Clarke describes him as “a very holy man, a good and sound preacher, diligent and orderly in his work, and a fine example of practical piety in all his conduct.” He pursued among his transatlantic brethren the same quiet and good career, seeking only the establishment of the kingdom of God, both in himself’ and others; and died at length in the faith, universally esteemed.

The other two were Messrs. Ingham and Adamson; the latter of whom was “a young man very sincere, and who had got the rudiments of a classical education; but was of such an unsteady, fickle mind, that he excelled in nothing.” The next year he retired from the work. The four preachers took each one his week in the city, and then three weeks in itinerating the Circuit. Both in town and country they fared very poorly.

In Norwich itself the preachers’ residence was tenanted also by another family, who “provided for the preachers at so much per meal;” and he was most certainly considered the best preacher who ate the fewest dinners, because his bills were the smallest. In this respect Mr. Clarke excelled. He breakfasted on milk and bread, drank no tea or coffee, and took nothing in the evening. In short, he adapted himself to these dietetic circumstances, and endeavored to make the state of things as agreeable and useful in the domestic department as he could. It was not without some allowable hilarity that he w ould afterwards tell how he mended the bellows, and repaired the coal-shovel, though the poker, worn away to the stump, defied his ingenuity. Nay, obeying the letter as well as the spirit of the “Rules of a Helper,” — “Do not affect the gentleman;” and, “Be not ashamed of cleaning your own shoes, or your neighbor’s,” — he frequently did this for his own, and those of his brethren.

Out in the Circuit things were worse. Except at a few places, the accommodations were very bad. The winter, too, was that year unusually severe. The snow began to fall on Christmas-day, and lay on the ground for more than three months, in some places from ten to fifteen feet deep.

The frost was so intense, that in riding he could seldom keep his saddle five minutes together, but was forced to alight, and walk and run, to prevent his feet from being frost-bitten. In the poor cabins where he lodged, and where there was scarcely any fire, and the clothing on the bed was very light, he suffered much, “going to bed cold, and rising cold.” In one place, I have been told, he had a wooden door laid upon him as a succedaneum for an upper blanket. He could indulge also in astronomical contemplations, as the stars shone upon him through chinks in the roof. In another place he lodged in a loft of an outhouse, where the cold was so intense, that warm water which be brought with him into this arctic region froze in a few minutes. In such circumstances, I wonder not that, like one of his brethren, who, while laboring in Herefordshire, “went to bed at night, boots and all,” Mr. Clarke should often have been “obliged to get into bed with a part of his clothes on, strip them off by degrees, as the bed got warmer, and then lie in the same position, without attempting to move his limbs, every unoccupied place in the bed which his legs touched producing the same sensation as if the parts had been brought into contact with red-hot iron.” No doubt he would henceforward understand something better those lines in Milton, — “The parched air Burns frore, and cold performs the effects of fire.” The refreshments of the table were in general keeping with the hardness of the lodging, — very homely food, and sometimes but little of it; which the poor people, nevertheless, most readily shared with him who came to their houses and their hearts with the good tidings of better things to come; since, but for such preaching, they must have been almost totally destitute of that instruction without which there was little hope of their salvation. It was by these means, and often in these conditions of privation and suffering, that the Methodist preachers spread scriptural Christianity through the land, and became the instruments of improving the moral and civil life of the great masses of the poor.

Yet not always welcome. In some parts of the Circuit, and even in Norwich itself, they had not only to bear up under the discouragements of apathy on the part of the people, but at times to face their more open opposition. “They were called,” says an historian of the times, “to meet the rude assaults of the mob, who did not wish to be disturbed in their ungodly courses; and the county of Norfolk was distinguished for this kind of conduct. Mr. Clarke did not scruple to pronounce it the most ungodly part of the British empire he knew. In Norwich the preachers scarcely ever got through the service on a Sabbath evening without having less or more disturbance, or a mob at the chapel-doors. Even Mr. Wesley himself could not escape rude treatment.” On one occasion he visited Norwich in company with Mr. John Hampson, a preacher of gigantic make, and the strongest muscular powers, nor wanting, either, in strength and grandeur of mind. When Mr. Wesley had finished, on going from the chapel he found the street crowded with a mob who were waiting to offer him some violence. As they closed in upon him, Mr. Hampson stepped forward, and fronted them in an attitude of threatening. Mr. Wesley, fearing he would really attack them, called out to him to refrain; upon which Mr. Hampson replied in a thundering voice, “Let me alone, sir. If God has not given you an arm to quell this mob, He has given me one; and the first man who molests you here, I will lay him for fall.” Mr. Wesley and his doughty [brave] acolyte [a person assisting a priest in a service or procession] passed away unmolested.

It was in the course of this year that the founder of Methodism, the grand itinerant whose circuit was the whole kingdom, and whose parish was the world, came again into that part of the country; and Mr. Clarke was greatly refreshed in hearing him preach nine sermons, on the following texts: — “We preach Christ crucified.” “Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost.” “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Put on the whole armour of God.” “The kingdom of God is at hand.” “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.” “They despised the pleasant land, they believed not His word.” “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Adam Clarke had n ow learned to love Mr. Wesley, as a son loves a father. “With him he had now the privilege of conversation concerning the state of his soul, from which he derived much edification and strength. Referring in his journal to the last of these interviews, he adds, — “Here I took leave of this precious servant of God. O Father, let Thy angels attend him wheresoever he goes; let the energetic power of Thy Spirit accompany the words he shall speak, and apply them to the hearts of all, and” [make them] “the means of conviction, conversion, comfort, and strength, as they may severally require. And let me also abundantly profit by the things I have heard.”

The heavy toil of this year produced, apparently, but little fruit. A kind of invincible ignorance and brutal depravity marked the state of the multitude of the people; and Antinomianism had perverted the minds of many who professed the faith of the Gospel. Yet, doubtless, the day of eternity will reveal bright evidences that these labors were not in vain in the Lord. His holy word does not return void. Mr. Clarke had the honor of introducing Methodism into some neighborhoods in the eastern counties, where good religious effects have been produced. The town of Diss, one of those places, has since become the head of a Circuit. The people of God in the different congregations were edified under his ministry, and the more intelligent among them discerned in him the signs of future greatness. As to cases of individual conversion, the disclosures of the future life will show more than he was permitted to ascertain in the present. But, though that unfriendly soil should have yielded no such fruit, it was not for want of earnest and persevering endeavors on the part of this good and faithful servant, whose work is with the Lord, and his labor with his God.

By the Conference of 1784 Mr. Clarke was appointed to the East Cornwall Circuit. The journey thither, about four hundred miles, he accomplished on horseback; and for the defrayment of the expenses he received a guinea. His whole salary in the Norwich Circuit had been but twelve pounds; and of this, little, I ween, was remaining when he left the ground. In fact, it appears, by an entry of his own, that he had but half-acrown beside the guinea, at the time of his setting off. He rode from forty to fifty miles a day, fasting nearly all the way, as the poor horse required nearly all the money he could command. A penny usually served for a breakfast, and a dinner too; and at nightfall, at the places where he rested, being of necessity obliged to take something, he made the repast as light as he could, from a tender regard to the infirm state of his purse. He reached London on the Saturday, (August 14th,) and, making himself known to his brethren, received their not unwelcome hospitality, and helped them in their preaching-labors on the following day. At that time Moorfields, in the neighborhood of the headquarters of the preachers at City-Road, formed an unoccupied space, in which the Methodists had open-air preaching. Mr. Clarke preached there on this Sunday. While addressing his motley congregation, his attention was arrested by the singular conduct of two men, which was explained to him many years afterward by one of them, who said, — “I was one of those men: the person with me was my brother. We both heard the truth, and hated you for telling it to us. We thought you were too young to teach others, and resolved to pull you down, and do you injury. For this purpose we made our way to the desk, taking our stand on each side of it, and encouraging each other. He beckoned me to do it, and I made signs to him: but neither of us seemed to have the power. We were secretly and unaccountably deterred. At length we began to attend to what was said, were both impressed with the force of truth, and I am now, through the mercy of God, a local preacher in the Methodist Society.”

Next day our itinerant turned his face toward the west, and on the 18th, passing through the scenes of his last year’s labors, found himself again among his old friends at Trowbridge; where, as at Bradford, Shepton- Mallet, and some other places, he spent several useful days. Once more recruited, he went on his way, and entered the town of St. Austel on Saturday, August the 28th. He here learned that the Circuit comprehended more than forty places. His colleagues were his former superintendent, Mr. Wrigley, and Mr. William Church.

In Cornwall Mr. Clarke would find, even in that day, an intellectual element which differed greatly from that in Norfolk and Suffolk. The people in this western peninsula are distinguished by a strong sentiment of respect for real religion, great reverence for learning, and a kind of natural love for metaphysical disquisition. Cornwall had in old times a strong character for devotion. The primitive British Christianity found an asylum there. In what we call “the dark ages,” the religion of the times, such as it was, exerted over the people of these coasts a lofty and powerful influence. Hence we find a great number of the parishes still called after the names of eminent saints, whose lives and labors wrought once great miracles of mercy among a not ungrateful people, and of whom a priest and poet, who loves well to trace their haunts, and commemorate their virtues, has thus sung: — “They had their lodges in the wilderness, Or built them cells beside the shadowy sea; And there they dwelt with angels like a dream! So they enclosed the volume of the Book, And fill’d the fields of the evangelist With thoughts as sweet as flowers.”

But the later Romanists, and, subsequently to the Reformation, their Protestant successors, failed to perpetuate those zealous works, while the people gradually sunk both in mind and morals; till, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of some parts of Cornwall had become little better than barbarians. It was then that Wesley came among them, and, with the still small voice of Gospel truth, charmed them to Christian civilization, and brought them back to God. The first visit of this minister of Christ inaugurated a new era in the religious history of Cornwall and from his days to our own the work of improvement has been steadily advancing.

Mr. Clarke found that though “the Circuit was exceedingly severe, the riding constant, the roads in general bad, and the accommodations in most places very indifferent;” yet, unlike his last year’s experience in Norfolk, his exhausting labors were attended by visible results. Crowded congregations received him as a messenger from the Lord. Sinners were converted, and believers edified in their holy faith. He has recorded that “there was a general spirit of hearing, and an almost universal revival of the work of God. Thousands flocked to the preaching; the chapels could not contain the crowds that came; and almost every week in the year he was obliged to preach in the open air, — even at times when the rain was descending, and when the snow lay upon the earth. But prosperity made everything pleasant; for the toil, in almost every place, was compensated by a blessed ingathering of sinners to Christ, and a general renewing of the face of the country: — “In St. Austel the heavenly flame broke out in an extraordinary manner, and great numbers were there gathered into the fold of Christ. Among those whom Mr. Clarke united to the Society, was Samuel Drew, then terminating his apprenticeship to a shoemaker, who afterwards became one of the first metaphysicians of the age; with several others since distinguished either in literature or mechanics.”

Of Mr. Drew, if space permitted, we could write many things expressive of a veneration awakened in the author’s mind while hardly more than a child, by the reading of his “Original Essay on the Immortality of the Soul;” and in later years strengthened and confirmed by occasional conversations with the great reasoner himself, in whose mental and moral character he saw much of the dialectical acumen of a Plato combined with much of the evangelic grace of a St. John. The history and example of his life have been set forth by his son. Samuel Drew’s works should not be suffered to pass into oblivion. The choicest of them at least should have the benefit of a new and uniform edition, and so be commended to future time. In them the lover of abstract meditation will always find something to please his peculiar taste, and never pervert his best principles, while “sitting apart” with one who — “In elevated thoughts will reason high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix’d fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute, But find no end.”

Mr. Clarke’s ministry was prosecuted in a great variety of circumstances.

The Methodists of Cornwall had not then the spacious temples which are now the ornaments of their towns, and where they assemble by hundreds and thousands to solemnize the worship of the Almighty. They met in those days under the roof of the cottage, in the kitchen of the farm-house, or in such humble erections, sacred to religion, as their scanty means would allow them to build; and not infrequently, when the pressure was too great, preacher and people would go forth into the great temple of God, and worship Him under the firmament of His own power. Preaching out of doors would, however, subject him at times to the opposition of such as were of the contrary side. And on one occasion Mr. Clarke was carried by the parish authorities to “the nearest magistrate,” who happened to be the Reverend Sir Harry Trelawney, who had been a field-preacher himself, and that before his ordination. From him Mr. Clarke received nothing but encouragement. Sir Harry strongly advised him to get a regular license, and so put himself more effectually under the protection of the law. But to this measure Mr. Clarke had always an objection, as, not being a Dissenter in principle, he scrupled to take the oath prescribed only for such as are. In principle, he was always a moderate Church-of-England man; and I should have mentioned, while treating of the time he spent at Kingswood, flint, a confirmation being held in Bristol just then, he availed himself of the opportunity, and received that ordinance at the hands of Bishop Bagot.

But to return: — About four months after his arrival in Cornwall, he suffered a violent fall from his horse, “which had nearly proved fatal. The horse had formerly belonged to Mr. Wesley, but turned out a most dangerous beast, from the habit of stumbling; and, although he could scarcely ride him ten miles without at least one fall, yet such was the feeling he had for the animal for his former owner’s sake, that he had not as yet been prevailed on, though strongly advised, to part with him.

On this occasion, however, the injury was too serious to warrant any further risk. There was a hard frost that evening, and, “coming over the down above Rothernbridge, the horse fell, according to custom, and pitched Mr. Clarke directly on his head. He lay some time senseless, but how long he could not tell. At length having come to himself a little, he felt as if in the agonies of death, and earnestly recommended his soul to his Redeemer. But he so far recovered as to be able, though with difficulty, to reach the house. As a congregation attended, the good people, not knowing how much injury he had sustained, entreated him to preach. He could not draw a full breath, and was scarcely able to stand. Still he endeavored to recommend to them the salvation of God. That night he spent sleepless with pain. The next day a person was sent with him to stay him up in the saddle, that he might get to Port Isaac, where he could obtain some medical help. Every step the horse took seemed like a dart run through his body .

He got at last to Port Isaac. Doctor Twentyman,” an excellent physician of the place, “was sent for, and bled him. It appeared that some of the vertebrae of the spine had been injured. He was desired to remain in the house some days, which he could not consent to do, as there were four places where he was expected to preach on the following day; and this he did, at the most serious risk of his life. From this hurt he did not fully recover for more than three years.”

With the worthy physician of Port Isaac he formed a profitable intimacy.

He was a singular character, deep in the study of alchemy. He told Mr.

Clarke he had dreamed of him before he ever saw him. He then described the school-yard at Kingswood where he met him in the dream, drawing in words a graphic picture of the spot, though he had never been there, and had never heard it described by others. He recommended alchemy as a study which brings a man nearer to the Creator. Mr. Clarke had many interviews with him, and never, as he says, without being the better for them.

To another gentleman also, Mr. Richard Mabyn, of Camelford, he ever after felt a grateful sense of obligation. At his house the young man found what he had long been a stranger to, — the comfort of a home; and in his letters written to Mr. Mabyn, long years after, he still expresses his affectionate acknowledgment of kindnesses in which that good man proved to him at once a teacher, a parent, and a friend.

He continued to be cheered in his work by tokens of the Divine benediction. In a letter to a friend at Trowbridge, he says, “Among the children there is a most blessed movement. Numbers of them, being made sensible of their need of Christ, have set their feet in the paths of the Lord, and are running with steady pace to their Heavenly Father’s kingdom; and are, contrary to the nature of things, turned fathers to the aged. You may remember that I wrote to you something concerning a Magdalene whom I admitted into Society. Her character was so bad before, that almost the whole Society opposed her admittance; some threatening to leave the class.

I withstood them all, and proclaimed from the pulpit that I would admit the most devil-like souls in the place, provided they would cast aside their sins and come to Jesus. After she had been hindered some little time, she at last got leave to meet; and, O, how wonderfully did God confound the wisdom of the prudent ever since she has walked and spoken agreeably to her profession. At St. Austel the Lord has lately laid to His hand, and there is such a revival now in it as I have never seen in any place before.

Numbers are lately joined; and our chapel, though the largest in the Circuit, is so filled, that the people are obliged to stand on the seats to make room; yet, after all, many are obliged to return home, not being able to gain admittance. Last Sunday night I preached there, and was forced to enter at the window to get to the pulpit.”

The incessant efforts of this year wore him down grievously. Five hundred and sixty-eight sermons, many of them preached out of doors in all weathers, besides the other duties of the Methodist itinerancy, had made, by the time that Conference drew nigh, a serious inroad upon the vigor of his constitution. His appetite failed, and health rapidly declined. Nature called for rest, but the necessities of the work to which he had committed himself gave him but little time for respite; for, so early as the 27th of August in the following Methodistic year, we find him entering on the duties of his new appointment at Plymouth.

Mr. Clarke’s early labors in the west established a sympathy between himself and the Methodists of Cornwall, which lasted through his life, and which, on their part, still survives in the veneration with which their children regard his very name. He was certainly enabled to set before them, both in doctrine and life, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus: “by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and yet living; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich.”

Such had been the unction and effectiveness of his popular ministry, that the people in the St. Austel Circuit were earnestly desirous of obtaining his services another year, and a request to that effect had been lodged with the Conference, to which Mr. Wesley was at first disposed to give his consent. But an unquiet state of things had latterly prevailed at Plymouth, which had just issued in the secession of a strong party from the Society; and Mr. Wesley, who knew well how to put the right man in the right place, had already formed such an estimate of the talents and piety of Mr.

Clarke, as to be assured that the pulpit he occupied would become a rallying-point to re-gather the scattered flock. The event fulfilled his expectations; and in his new sphere of labor our young evangelist was graciously blessed, and made a blessing. His colleagues were Messrs. John Mason and John King. Of the former, whose name is yet, and ever will be, much honored by the Methodist people, Mr. Clarke has in his “Letter to a P reacher” put on record the following memorial: — “Mr. Mason made it the study of his life to maintain his character as a preacher, a Christian, and a man; the latter word taken in its noblest sense: and he did this by cultivating his mind in every branch of useful knowledge within his reach; and his profiting was great. In the history of the world, and of the church, he was very extensively read. With anatomy and medicine he was well acquainted; and his knowledge of natural history, and particularly botany, was ample. In the latter science he was inferior to few. His botanical collections would do credit to the finest museums in Europe; and especially his collections of English plants, all gathered, preserved, classified, and described by himself. But this was his least praise: he laid all his attainments in the natural sciences under contribution to his theologic studies; nor could it be ever said that he neglected his duty as a Christian minister to cultivate his mind in philosophical pursuits. He was a Christian man, and in his life and spirit adorned the doctrine of God his Saviour. The propriety and dignity of his conduct were, through the whole of his life, truly exemplary; and his piety towards God, and his benevolence towards men, were as deep as they were sincere.”

Of Mr. Clarke’s own mental development and literary studies we will treat more fully in a subsequent chapter. It may be remarked, however, that, while in this Circuit, his intellectual powers seem to have made a great stride in the acquisition of positive knowledge, and in the use of the faculties by which this is combined for use, and employed for instruction.

He read much and well, and had the advantage of access to works from which his inquiring mind had hitherto been debarred.

The year passed on in peace; with his colleagues he lived in fraternal harmony, and the troubles of the Society were lulled into Christian repose.

One little ruffle only seems to have occurred, and this of a nature almost too trifling to merit notice, unless considered in connection with one of those few but strong prejudices which characterized Dr. Adam Clarke, — a kind of distaste for, or a disparagement of the use of music in the worship of God. We will give the incident at Plymouth in his own way: — “This year the Society at Dock built a new chapel at Windmill Hill, much more commodious than that which they had opposite the Gunwharf Gate; but so much had the congregations increased, that this new erection was soon found to be too small. When the seats of this chapel were in course of being let, he noticed for the first time, what he had occasion to notice with pain often after, how difficult it is to satisfy a choir of singers; of how little use they are, in general; and how dangerous they are, at all times to the peace of the church of Christ. There was here a choir, and some among them who understood music as well as most in the nation; and some who, taken individually, were both sensible and pious. These, in their collective capacity, wished to have a particular seat, with which the trustees could not conveniently accommodate them, because of their engagements with other persons. When the singers found they could not have the places they wished, they came to a private resolution not to sing in the chapel. Of this resolution the preachers knew nothing. It was Mr. Clarke’s turn to preach in the chapel at the Gunwharf the next Sabbath morning at seven, and then they intended to give the first exhibition of their dumb-show.

He gave out, as usual, the page and measure of the hymn. All was, silent. He looked to see if the singers were in their place; and, behold, the choir was full, even unusually so. He, thinking that they could not find the page, or did not know the measure, gave out both again; and then looked them all full in the face, which they returned with great steadiness of countenance. He then raised the tune himself, and the congregation continued the singing. Not knowing what the matter was, he gave out the next hymn, as he had given out the former, again and again; still they were silent. He then raised the tune, and the congregation sang as before. Afterwards he learned that, as the trustees would not indulge them with the places they wished, they were determined to avenge their quarrel on Mighty God; for He should have no praise from them, since they could not have the seats they wished. The impiety of this conduct appeared to him in a most hideous point of view They continued this ungodly farce, hoping to reduce the trustees, preachers, and Society to the necessity of capitulating at discretion but the besieged, by appointing a man to be always present to raise the tunes, cut off the whole choir at a stroke. From this time the liveliness and piety of the singing were considerably improved.”

On this question of congregational singing, Christians in general have but little difference of opinion. The God of nature has given to music its eternal laws; and the God of grace has ordained by revelation that this most beautiful provision for the solace of our spiritual life shall be consecrated to His service as a vehicle of instruction, and an expressive token of worship. So it was in the tabernacle and temple of old; so it is, by apostolic precept, in the Christian services; so it will be in the solemnities of the resurrection-life of the world to come. As to the abuses of it by frivolous or weak-minded persons, the church has it ever in her power to restrain them; but the use of it, if we read our Bibles rightly, she has not the liberty to abolish.

The Lord’s blessing so rested upon the ministry of His servants among a Society which they had found in a distracted and dwindling condition, that, at the end of the year, they had the gratification to report not only the return of many of the wanderers, but an accession of more than a hundred members. The congregations, too, had become immense. The people of the towns, and the marine population of the ships in the Hamoaze, came in crowds to hear the word of God. Among the naval men who attended Mr.

Clarke’s ministry here, he mentions Mr. Hore, afterwards purser of the “Venerable,” in which Admiral Duncan commanded when he beat the Dutch under De Winter. The friendly warrant-officer lent Mr. Clarke some good books, and among others Chambers’s Encyclopedia, which was always a favorite work of reference with him. Mr. Hore died when serving in the fleet off Egypt. Another was Cleland Kirkpatrick, who had lost an arm in an engagement with Paul Jones, the American pirate-commodore.

Kirkpatrick, who was now rated on board the “Cambridge,” was brought under the power of the Gospel, joined the Society, became an itinerant preacher, fought the good fight of Christ’s service, and finished his course with joy.

At the Conference of 1786 a new field of enterprise was opened to Mr.

Clarke. The people at Plymouth had been looking forward to the renewal of his services among them; but their wishes, as well as his own, were somewhat painfully crossed, by an unexpected appointment to the Norman Isles. In one of that beautiful group of islands Methodism had already found a promising lodgment, through the labors of Robert Carr Brackenbury, Esq., of Raithby Hall, Lincolnshire; a gentleman who, having tasted himself of the good word of God, had for some years consecrated his time and talents to the great work of making it known to his fellowmen.

He was one of the lay coadjutors of Mr. Wesley, and in fact had the status of a regular itinerant preacher. Having been led by Divine Providence to establish his residence for a time in Jersey, he had entered upon a series of evangelic operations there, which were followed with such propitious results as to induce him to apply to the Conference for the appointment of another preacher, who should extend his labors to the neighboring islands. The Conference knew that Mr. Clarke possessed already some knowledge of the French tongue; and this circumstance, combined with the admirable attributes of character which they saw unfolding themselves in him, inspired the leading men of that body with the wish that he should be intrusted with the mission. He seems himself to have yielded to this arrangement more from a submission to the will of his fathers and brethren, than from any pleasurable impulse toward it in his own mind. He was yet young in years and experience; and the anticipation of having to bear, in an isolated station, the responsibility of an important undertaking, threw the shadows of anxiety upon his mind. He was, nevertheless, prepared to encounter any difficulty, and to bear any inconvenience, which might occur in the well-marked path of duty. “I am willing,” said he in a letter to Mr. Brackenbury, “to accompany you to the islands. I desire only to receive and to do good; and i t matters little to me in what department of the vineyard I am, if these ends are accomplished. I feel God is here; and this is a powerful incentive to obedience, and renders duty delightful.” As to difficulty, privation, and opposition, he had already counted the cost, and had learned that his vocation as a laborer in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ was to do and suffer, and through that ordeal pass to the triumph and repose predestined to the faithful. He had now taken for his motto the sentence of the Grecian sage, — “Stand thou as a beaten anvil to the stroke; for it is the property of a good warrior to be flayed alive, and yet to conquer.” Nor this alone; there was another which lay yet deeper in his soul: “When I am weak, then am I strong:” “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.” He now held himself in readiness to sail with Mr. Brackenbury, who had gone down to his seat in Lincolnshire, to make such arrangements as would permit him to continue for a while longer his residence in the islands.

Some delay having occurred, Mr. Clarke took the opportunity to visit his brother Tracy, who was now settled in a medical practice at Maghull, near Liverpool; and, during the few days of this visit, preached in several places of that neighborhood. Then, repairing to Southampton, by way of Bristol, he was refreshed in body and mind by a sojourn among his friends at Trowbridge, with some of whom he had formed a religious and abiding intimacy; and among them, with her who was the destined companion of his life, and for whom friendship was now fast strengthening in his bosom into a most sacred and perpetual love.

At Southampton he load expected to find Mr. Brackenbury, but a fortnight further elapsed before he had the pleasure of meeting him. The interim was spent, partly at Southampton, and partly at Winchester, in both which places he preached several times. In the cathedral of the latter city he passed many hours with a solemn interest, and stored the pages of his journal with descriptive notes on the various antiquities of that venerable pile, and with meditations suggested by the sight of them. I select two of these entries, as giving a favorable idea of the manner in which this young man had schooled his mind to profitable thought.

ON EARTHLY GLORY

“How little is worldly grandeur worth, together with the most splendid distinctions which great and pompous titles, or even important offices, confer upon men! They vanish as a dissipated vapour, and the proprietors of them go their way, — and where are they? or of what account? Death is the common lot of all men; and the honors of the great, and the abjectness of the mean, are equally unseen in the tomb. This I saw abundantly exemplified today, while viewing the remains of several kings, Saxon and British, whose very names, much less their persons and importance, are scarcely collectible from ‘rosy damps, mouldy shrines, dust and cobwebs.’ This exhibits a proper estimate of worldly glory, and verifies the saying of the wise man, that ‘a living dog is better than a dead lion.’ The meanest living slave is preferable to all these dead potentates. Is there any true greatness but that of the soul? And has the soul itself any true nobility, unless it is begotten from above, and has the spirit and love of Chris t to actuate it? The title of servant of the Lord Jesus Christ I prefer to the glory of kings.

This will stand me in stead, when the other is eternally forgotten. “In the time of the civil wars, the tombs of several of our kings, buried in this cathedral, were broken up and rifled, and the bones thrown indiscriminately about. After the Restoration they were collected, and put into large chests, which are placed in different parts of the choir, and labeled, as containing bones of ancient kings, but which could not be distinguished.”

THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION

“Why is it that God has observed so slow a climax in bringing the knowledge of His will and of their interest to mankind? e. g., giving a little under the patriarchal, an increase under the Mosaic, and the fullness of the blessing under the Christian dispensation? It is true He could have given the whole in the beginning to Adam; but that this would not have as effectually answered the Divine purpose, may be safely asserted.

God, like His instrument nature, delights in progression; and though the works of both in semine were finished from the beginning, they are not brought forward to complete existence but by various accretions. And this appears to be done that the blessings resulting from both may he properly valued; as, in their approach, men have time to discover their necessities; and when relieved, after a thorough consciousness of their urgency, they see and feel the propriety of being grateful to their kind Benefactor.

Were God to bestow His blessings before the want of them had been truly felt, men would not be grateful. He gives His blessings so that they may be truly esteemed, and he Himself become the sole object of our trust; and this end He secures by a gradual communication of His bounties, as they are felt to be necessary. He brings forward His dispensations of mercy and love, as he sees men prepared to receive and value them; and, as one makes way for another, the soul is rendered capable of more extended views and enjoyments: so the Divine being causes every succeeding dispensation to excel that which preceded it — in light, life, power, and holiness. “We first teach our children the power of the letters, — then to combine consonants and vowels to make syllables, — to unite syllables into words, and then to assort words into regular discourse. To require them to attempt the latter before they had studied the former, would be absurd. The first step qualifies for the second, and that for the third. Thus God deals with the universe, and thus with every individual: every communication is a kind of seed, which, if cultivated, brings forth fruit. ‘Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.’” At length Mr. Brackenbury reached Southampton. They embarked in a Jersey packet; and, landing on the twenty-sixth of October in St. Aubin’s Bay, they walked to St. Helier’s, where Mr. Clarke found himself that evening an inmate in the house which Mr. Brackenbury had engaged as his residence.

CHAPTER 7

THE MISSIONARY

The Norman Isles, those beautiful spots which adorn the French waters of La Manche, were now to be the scenes of evangelic agencies whose results have made a multitude of families in them the better for time and eternity.

Some while before the arrival of Mr. Brackenbury upon those shores, several persons in Jersey had been awakened to a concern for the salvation of their souls, and had formed themselves into a kind of religious community for mutual edification. They were a little flock without a shepherd, and too feeble in their circumstances to attempt a regular churchorganization under a stated ministry. A regiment of soldiers arrived just then from England, among whom were some pious men who had heard Captain Webb preach at Southampton and Winchester. The word of truth ministered by that good servant of God and the king had been so blessed to them, as to urge them to recommend to these Jersey Christians to open a communication with Mr. Wesley, in the hope that he would be induced to supply them with on e of his preachers. They did so, through the intervention of Mr. Jasper Winscomb, one of the early Methodists of Hampshire. At the following Conference of 1783, Mr. Wesley read Mr.

Winscomb’s letter to the assembly, and asked, “Whether any preacher found it in his heart to obey the call?” It was then that Mr. Brackenbury offered his services. In him the Conference did not fail to see the man every way designated by Providence and Grace to initiate this new enterprise under the most favorable auspices. Nor were they disappointed by the events. He lost no time in fulfilling his commission. Having found his way to Jersey, he hired an old “religious house,” which happened to be vacant, near the sea, and commenced the public preaching of the Gospel. A procedure so novel excited conflicting feelings among the people of the vicinity: some were pleased and grateful; others stirred up to opposition, and that, at times, of a riotous and dangerous character. Mr. Brackenbury kept steadily to his work, and soon began to make a sound impression.

Another place was opened, at St. Mary’s, and then another. Some pious young men of good talent were raised up to exhort, and then to act as local preachers; Societies were formed; in short, the Methodist tree had struck its roots.

When Mr. Clarke joined Mr. Brackenbury as his colleague, they made no delay to extend their operations to the other islands. Accordingly, after preaching a few times in Jersey, Mr. Clarke proceeded to attempt the introduction of the good cause into Guernsey. At the present time the English language is fast superseding the French in both the greater islands; and even in those days the majority of the townspeople were conversant with both tongues; so that the missionary found no difficulty in getting an audience, though, as yet, too little accustomed to speak French to venture a sermon in it. His first preaching-place in Guernsey was a large warehouse at Les Terres, just without St. Peter-lePort; and among the congregation he found some who were willing to open their houses in different parts of the town for occasional services. Under these circumstances, he commenced those three years which have borne such ample fruit unto life eternal. In some neighborhoods, he found French indispensable; and, in conducting a service in that language, was under the necessity, to him a disagreeable one, of reading a discourse which he had previously prepared. While the good word sunk into the hearts of not a few with saving effect in both islands, it stirred up a spirit of opposition in them who were of the contrary side.

Some specimens of this we may extract from his own statements. “One Sabbath-morning, Mr. Clarke, accompanied by Captain and Lieutenant W., having gone to preach at La Valle, a low part of Guernsey, always surrounded by the sea at high water, to which at such times there is no access but by means of a sort of causeway; a multitude of unruly people, with drums, horns, and various offensive weapons, assembled at the bridge, to prevent his entering the islet. The tide being a little out, he ventured to ride across about a mile below the bridge without their perceiving him, got to the house, and had nearly finished his discourse before the mob could assemble. At last they came in full power, and with fell purpose.

The captain of a man-of-war, the naval lieutenant, and the other gentlemen who had accompanied him, mounted their horses, and rode off at full gallop, leaving him in the hands of the mob. That he might not be able to escape, they cut his bridle in pieces. Nothing intimidated, he went among them, got upon an eminence, and began to speak to them. The drums and horn s ceased, the majority became quiet, only a few from the outskirts throwing stones and dirt, from which, however, he managed to defend himself; and after about an hour they permitted him to depart in peace. On returning to St. Peter’s, he found his naval heroes in great safety. “He had a more narrow escape one evening at St. Aubin’s, in Jersey. A desperate mob of some hundreds, with almost all instruments of destruction, assembled round the house in which he was preaching, which was a wooden building with five windows.

At their first approach, the principal part of the congregation issued forth, and provided for their own safety. The Society alone, about thirteen persons, remained with their preacher. The mob, finding that all with whom they might claim brotherhood had escaped, resolved to pull down the house, and bury the preacher and his friends in the reins. Mr. Clarke exhorted the friends to trust in that God who was able to save, when one of the mob presented a pistol at him through the window opposite to the pulpit, which twice flashed in the pan. Others had got crows, and were busily employed in sapping the foundation of the house. Mr. Clarke, perceiving this, said to the people, ‘If we stay here, we shall be all destroyed. I will go out among them; they seek not you, but me.

After they have got me, they will permit you to pass unmolested.’

They besought him with tears not to leave the house, as he would infallibly be murdered. He, seeing that there was no time to be lost, as they continued to sap the foundations, said, ‘ I will instantly go out among them in the name of God.’ Je vous accompagnerai, (‘I will go with you,’) said a stout young man. As the house was assailed with showers of stones, he met a volley of these, as he opened and passed through the door. It was a clear full-moon night, after a heavy storm of hail and rain. He walked forward. The mob divided to the right and left, and made an ample passage for him and the young man who followed him to pass through. This they did to the very skirts of the hundreds who were assembled with drums, horns, spades, forks, bludgeons, to take the life of a man whose only crime was proclaiming to lost sinners redemption through the blood of the cross. During the whole time of his passing through the mob, there was a deathlike silence, nor was there any motion but what was necessary to give him a free passage. Either their eyes were holden that they could not know him; or they were so overawed by the power of God, that they could not lift a hand or utter a word against him. The poor people, finding all was quiet, came out a little after, and passed away, not one of them being either hurt or molested. In a few minutes, the mob seemed to awake as from a dream, and, finding that their prey had been plucked out of their teeth, they knew not how, attacked the house afresh, broke every square of glass in the windows, and scarcely left a whole tile upon the roof. He afterwards learned, that their design was to put him in the sluice of an overshot water-mill, by which he must have been crushed in pieces! “The next Lord’s day he went to the same place. The mob rose again; and, when they began to make a tumult, he called on them to hear him a few moments; when those who appeared to have most influence grew silent, and stilled the rest. He spoke to them to this effect: — ‘ I have never done any of you any harm; my heartiest wish was, and is, to do you good. I could tell you many things, by which you might grow wise unto salvation, would you but listen to them. Why do you persecute a man who never can be your enemy, and wishes to show that he is your friend? You cannot be Christians, who seek to destroy a man because he tells you the truth. But are you even men? Do you deserve that name? I am but an individual, and unarmed; and hundreds of you join together, to attack and destroy this single unarmed man. Is not this to act like cowards and assassins? I am a man, and a Christian. I fear you not as a man: I would not turn my back upon the best of you, and could probably put your chief under my feet. St. Paul th e apostle was assailed in like manner by the Heathens: they also were dastards and cowards. The Scripture does not call them men; but, according to the English translation, certain lewd fellows of the baser sort; or, according to your own, which you better understand, les batteurs de pave, — la canaille. O, shame on you, to come in multitudes to attack an inoffensive stranger in your island, who comes only to call you from wickedness to serve the living God, and to show you the way which will lead you to everlasting blessedness ‘ He paused — there was a shout, ‘He is a clever fellow: he shall preach, and we will hear him.’ They were as good as their word: he proceeded without any further hindrance from them, and they never after gave him any molestation.

The little preaching-house being nearly destroyed, he some Sabbaths afterward attempted to preach out of doors. The mob having given up persecution, one of the magistrates of St. Aubin took up the business; came to the place with a mob of his own, and the drummer of the regiment stationed at the place; pulled down Mr. Clarke while he was at prayer, and delivered him into the hands of the canaille he had brought with him. The drummer attended him out of the town, beating the ‘Rogues’ March’ on his drum, and beating him frequently with the drumsticks, from the strokes of which, and other misusages, he did not recover for some weeks. But he wearied out all his persecutors. There were several who heard the word gladly; and for their sakes he freely ventured himself, till at last all opposition ceased.”

From the rude encounters he had thus sometimes to meet in the discharge of his mission-work, Mr. Clarke found a grateful relief in Guernsey in the privilege of residing with the family of Mr. De Jersey, at Mon Plaisir, an old manor farm-house, about a mile from St. Peter’s. Every attribute of this favored spot, the Hesperide climate, [Hesperides, nymphs in Greek mythology who guarded a tree of golden apples] the scenery, the commodious and tranquil mansion and gardens, where the myrtle and laurels rise to the proportions of stately trees, and the orange ripens in the open air, all combined to render it a most desirable asylum for the student bent on learning, or the laborer sighing for repose. The writer of these pages can never forget the pleasure with which, during a ministerial residence in Guernsey, he has often visited this spot; where, under the leafy shade of a bower formed of the entwined boughs of a cluster of figtrees, the family used to tell him how, in that very summer-house, Dr. Adam Clarke had spent so many hours in reading his Bible and writing his sermons. The family of Mon Plaisir, of whom the Rev. Henry De Jersey, now of the French Conference, is one of the worthy representatives, embraced the cause of Methodism with their whole heart. One of the first of the many good offices which the elder Mr. De Jersey performed, for the service of the good cause among them, was to build a room on the north side of the house that should serve for a domestic chapel, to which he could invite the inhabitants round about. Mr. Clarke, as the chaplain of the place, held stated services in this room on Thursday and Saturday evenings; offering the first prayer in English, and preaching the sermon in French, with a prayer in the same language.

In these sequestered shades our friend applied himself with new vigor to those more solemn studies which were destined to give character to his after-life. He had long felt that the vow, so foolishly made four years before, to have nothing more to do with Greek and Latin, was wrong in itself, as well as unadvised, and that he could conscientiously renounce it.

In resuming those languages, he found that long cessation from classical reading rendered it necessary for him to begin again in that department with the grammars themselves. But, having by dint of effort recovered his lost ground, he brought his new acquisitions to bear upon the study of the Septuagint Bible and Greek Testament, for the purposes, and in the manner, to which we shall have occasion to refer more fully hereafter. It was now, also, that with a moderate knowledge of Hebrew he struck out into the study of Chaldee and Syriac, by the help of Bishop Walton’s “Introduction to the Oriental Languages,” the Scholia Syriaca of Leusden, and some other works to which he had access in the public library at Jersey. Before he left the islands, he obtained possession of a copy of Walton’s Polyglot Bible of his own. True to those instincts which Providence and Grace had implanted in his heart, he began even now to turn this biblical knowledge to account, by committing to paper memoranda for notes on the Gospels, which formed the first nucleus of his future Commentary.

Meantime the great objects of his mission were carried on with energy. In the course of the year he was moved to attempt the introduction of preaching into the island of Alderney. In recounting to Mr. Wesley the manner in which this was carried into effect, he says: “My design being made public, many hindrances were thrown in my way. It was reported that the governor had threatened to prohibit my landing; and that, in case he found me on the island, he would transport me to the Caskets (a rock in the sea, about three leagues W. of Alderney, on which there is a lighthouse). These threatenings, being published here, rendered it very difficult for me to procure a passage, as several of my friends were against my going, fearing bad consequences; and none of the captains who traded to the island were willing to take me, fearing to incur the displeasure of the governor; notwithstanding that I offered them anything they could reasonably demand for my passage. I thought at last I should be obliged to hire one of t he English packets, as I was determined to go, by God’s grace, at all events. “Having waited a long time, watching sometimes day and night, I at last got a vessel bound for the island, in which I embarked; and after a few hours, though not without some fatigue and sickness, we came to the S. W. side of the island, where we were obliged to cast anchor, as the tide was too far spent to carry us round to the harbor. The captain put me and some others to shore with the boat.

I climbed the rocks, and got to the top of the island, thanking God for my passage. But now I had some new difficulties to encounter.

I knew not where to go: I had no acquaintance in the place, nor had any one invited me thither. For some time I was perplexed, till that word of the God of missionaries came powerfully to me, ‘ Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give.’ From this I took courage, and proceeded to the town, which is about a mile distant from the harbor. After having walked some way into it, I took particular notice of a very poor cottage, into which I felt a strong inclination to enter. I did so, with a ‘Peace be unto this house,’ and found in it an old man and woman, who, having understood my business, bade me welcome to the best food they had, to a little chamber where I might sleep, and (what was still more acceptable) to their house to preach in. On hearing this, I saw plainly that the hand of the Lord was upon me for good; and I thanked Him, and took courage. “Being unwilling to lose any time, I told them I would preach that evening, if they could procure me a congregation. This strange news spread rapidly through the town; and long before the appointed hour a multitude of people flocked together, to whom I spoke of the kingdom of God. It was with difficulty I could persuade them to go away, after promising to preach to them again the next evening. “I then retired to my little apartment, where I had scarcely rested twenty minutes, when the good woman of the house came and entreated me to come down and preach again, as several of the gentry, among whom was one of the justices, were come to hear what I had to say. I stepped down immediately, and found the house once more quite fall. Deep attention sat on every face, while I showed the great need they stood in of a Saviour, and exhorted them to turn at once from their iniquities to the Living God. I continued in this good work about an hour, having received peculiar assistance from on high; and concluded with informing them what my design was in visiting the island, and the motives which had induced me. Having ended, the justice stepped forward, exchanged a few very civil words with me, and desired to see the book out of which I had been speaking. I gave it into his hand: he looked over it with attention, and asked me several questions, all which I answered apparently to his satisfaction. Having bestowed a few more hearty advices on him and the congregation, they all quietly departed; and the concern evident on many of their countenances fully proved that God had added His testimony to that of His feeble servant. The next evening I preached again to a large attentive company, to whom, I trust, the word of the Lord came not in vain. “But a singular thing took place the next day. While I sat at dinner, a constable, from a person in authority, came to solicit my immediate appearance at a place called the Bray, (where several respectable families live, and where the governor’s stores are kept,) to preach to a company of gentlemen and ladies, who were waiting, and at whose desire one of the large store-rooms was prepared for that purpose. I went without delay, and was brought by the lictor [an officer attending the consul or other magistrate] to his master’s apartment, who behaved with much civility, told me the reason of his sending for me, and begged I would preach without delay. I willingly consented, and in a quarter of an hour a large company was assembled. The gentry were not so partial to themselves as to exclude several sailors, smugglers, and laborers, from hearing with them. The Lord was with me, and enabled me to explain, from Prov. xii. 26, the character and conduct of the righteous, and to prove that such an one was beyond al l comparison more excellent than his ungodly neighbor, however great, rich, wise, or important he might be in the eyes of men. All heard with deep attention, save an English gentleman, so called, who walked out about the middle of the discourse. “The next Sabbath morning, being invited to preach in the English church, I gladly accepted it; and in the evening preached in the large warehouse at the Bray, to a much larger congregation, composed of the principal gentry of the island, together with justices, jurats, constables, &c. The Lord was again with me, and enabled me to declare His sacred counsel without fear. “The next day, being the time appointed for my return, many were unwilling that I should go; saying, ‘We have much need of such preaching, and such a preacher: we wish you would abide in the island, and go back no more.’ The tide serving at about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, I attended at the beach, in order to embark; but the utmost of the flood did not set the vessel afloat. I then returned to the town: the people were glad of my detention, and earnestly hoped that the vessel might set fast, at least till the next spring-tides. Many came together in the evening, to whom I again preached with uncommon liberty; and God appeared to be more eminently present than before. This induced me to believe that my detention was of the Lord, and that I had not before fully delivered His counsel. The vessel being got off the same night about twelve o clock, I recommended them to God, promised them a preacher shortly, and setting sail arrived in Guernsey in about twenty-one hours. Glory be to God for ever! Amen.”

But this uninterrupted tension of mind, and extraordinary labor of body, began to make serious inroads on his constitution, and in the spring of this year reduced Mr. Clarke to the brink of the grave. A complication of disorders seemed to have fastened on him. He had been declining for some weeks, till at length he sank in utter prostration. We have a memorandum of this illness from himself, written shortly after to a friend in England: — “Being attacked,” says he, “from so many quarters, there was little prospect of my lingering long, especially as I had been slowly wasting for some months. The people were greatly alarmed, and proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer, to snatch their poor preacher from the grave. Their sorrow caused me to feel: for myself I could neither weep nor repine; but I could hardly forbear the former on their account. The doctor on his second visit found that I was severely attacked by jaundice, and so took the cure of that first in hand; but withal observed, that I should not regain my health properly till I resumed my former habit of riding. Through much mercy, I am now greatly mended; my cough is almost entirely removed. I am yet confined to my room, and am very much enfeebled. Indeed, considered abstractedly from my spirit, I am little else than a quantity of bones and sinews, wrapt up in none of the best-colored skin When almost at the worst, I opened my Septuagint on the ninety-first Psalm, and on the last three verses, which are much more emphatical than the English, particularly the middle clause of the fifteenth verse, — ‘ I am with him in affliction.’ Blessed be my God and Saviour, I have found it to be so.

A voyage across the Channel, and a visit to some loved friends in England, contributed to restore his wasted strength. Two or three incidents on the passage back are worthy of preservation, as unfolding some personal characteristics. At Southampton, having a few hours to spare before embarking. He preached by special request to a miscellaneous congregation. who heard with great seriousness, and some of whom escorted him to the boat, “wishing him more blessedness than their tongues could express.” Among the passengers were a party of military officers, a lieutenant in the navy, and some gentlemen, so called.” With these he had several altercations, in consequence of his reproving them for blasphemous language. On the Sunday their profanity seemed purposely augmented, he remonstrated, but only to find that a transient cessation was followed by still more objectionable conduct. The preacher, however, was not to be daunted. Acting on the maxim, “Ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,” he went among them again, and insisted on their putting a stop to such wickedness. They demanded by what authority he bore himself in this manner. He replied, “I am a servant of Jesus Christ, and the authority by which I denounce your wickedness I have from God.” It ought to be mentioned, in justice to the officers, as well as to the credit of their reprover, that they acceded to his wishes.

In the month of May he resumed his labors in the islands, and in the following September had the great gratification of receiving a visit from Mr. Wesley, who was accompanied by Dr. Coke and Mr. Bradford. In Jersey they lodged at Mr. Brackenbury’s, and in Guernsey at Mon Plaisir.

Immense crowds heard Mr. Wesley in both islands, and the memory of his visit has become a tradition among the people.

Obliged at length by in appointment at Bristol on a particular day to leave Guernsey whatever wind was blowing, Mr. Wesley availed himself of an English brig touching at the island on her way from France to Penzance.

Mr. Clarke had obtained liberty to return with the party for a few days’ visit to England. The wind blew fairly for their course to Penzance as they sailed out of Guernsey road, but soon slackened till it died away, and then, rising in the opposite quarter, freshened into a stiff contrary breeze; and much time was spent in frequent tacking before they could well clear the island. I will now recount what followed in Mr. Clarke’s own words: “Mr.

Wesley was sitting reading in the cabin, and, hearing the noise and bustle occasioned by putting the vessel about to stand on her different tacks, he put his head above, and inquired what was the matter? Being told the wind was become contrary, and the ship was obliged thus to tack, he said, ‘ Then let us go to prayer.’ His own company who were upon deck walked down, and at his request Dr. Coke, Mr. Bradford, and Mr. Clarke went to prayer. After the latter had ended, Mr. Wesley broke out into fervent supplication, which seemed to be more the offspring of strong faith than of mere desire, in words remarkable as well as the spirit, feeling, and manner in which they were uttered. Some of them were to the following effect: — ‘Almighty and everlasting God, Thou hast Thy way everywhere, and all things serve the purposes of Thy will: Thou holdest the winds in Thy fists, and sittest upon the waterfloods, and reignest King for ever.

Command these winds and these waves that they obey THEE, and take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would be.” The power of his petition was felt by all. He rose from his knees, made no kind of remark, but took up his book, and continued his reading. Mr. Clarke went upon deck, and what was his surprise when he found the vessel standing on her right course with a steady breeze, which slackened not, till, carrying them at the rate of nine or ten knots an hour, they anchored safely near St.

Michael’s Mount in Penzance Bay! On the sudden and favorable change of the wind Mr. Wesley made no remark: so fully did he expect to be heard, that he took it for granted he was heard. Such answers to prayer he was in the habit of receiving, and therefore to him the occurrence was not strange.

Of such a circumstance how many of those who did not enter into his views would have descanted [sung] at large, had it happened in favor of themselves! Yet all the notice he takes of this singular circumstance is contained in the following entry in his Journal: — ‘ In the morning, Thursday, (September 6th, 1787,) we went on board with a fair moderate wind. But we had but just entered the ship when the wind died away. We cried to God for help; and it presently sprung up exactly, fair, and did not cease till it brought us into Penzance Bay.’

On landing, Mr. Clarke volunteered to become the avant-courier of the party, and, riding on, preached at Redruth, St. Austel, and Plymouth; in each place announcing for Mr. Wesley on the following evening, till at Bath Mr. Wesley proceeded to Bristol, and Mr. Clarke to Trowbridge.

This latter place had long had an attraction for him, which had now become too strong to be surmounted. In fact, ever since his residence in that Circuit, he had cherished a deep attachment to a lady who was the object of his first and everlasting love. She was the eldest of several sisters who resided at Trowbridge with their mother, the widow of Mr. John Cooke, formally a substantial clothier of that town. These ladies had been frequently hearers of Mr. Wesley, Mr. Brackenbury, and others of the Methodist preachers; and the two younger sisters had been so moved by the word as to give themselves to the Lord, and to His people according to His will. Mrs. Cooke also found much pleasure in extending to Mr.

Wesley, and some of the other ministers, the hospitalities of her house on their occasional visits. Miss Cooke, who, with much feminine delicacy, was distinguished, nevertheless, by much coolness of thought and firmness of character, did not at first accede to these Methodistic tendencies; but, struck with the beautiful effects of the new faith in the life of her sisters, she was induced to accompany them to the humble preaching-room, and was herself gradually brought under the converting power of the Gospel.

Made a partaker of this great benefit, she consecrated heart and life to her Saviour’s cause, and became a helper of the faith of others,in inviting them to the house of prayer, and, as a leader of a class, in watching over the incipient piety of some who had obeyed the heavenly call they heard there. It was in those sweet days that Adam Clarke and Mary Cooke learned to love each other with a pure friendship, which, hallowed by all the sanctities of religion, endured with their years, and proved itself at last more strong than death.

At this period, however, there were obstacles to their union too formidable to be overcome. Mrs. Cooke, while she entertained a high esteem for Mr.

Clarke as a young man of learning, piety, and promise in the Christian ministry, was yet too well aware of the rough experiences of a Methodist preacher’s life not to feel an almost invincible reluctance to a marriage which would, to all human appearance, identify her beloved daughter’s life with penury and discomfort. Nor did Mr. Wesley himself, who had been led to entertain a personal affection for the young people, (who, on their part. looked up to him with a true filial reverence as their father in Christ,) regard the question of their union without serious misgiving. At first, coinciding with the wishes of Mrs. Cooke, he gave the thing his entire disapproval, and threatened Mr. Clarke with his heaviest displeasure, “if he married Miss Cooke without her mother’s consent.” Subsequently, his opinion was somewhat modified; and, in reply to a letter written by Adam Clarke in urging a favorable consideration of the marriage, he tells him, — “While your health is so indifferent, you have no business to marry: therefore my consent, at present, would do you no good. Wait patiently, at least till your health be restored; then strange revolutions may happen, and things unexpected take place to make your way more easy.

In October, after a most stormy passage, we find him again at work in the islands. In the Stations of the July Conference, Robert Carr Brackenbury and Adam Clarke stand for Jersey, and two other preachers for Guernsey, — William Stephens for the English congregations. and John De Queteville for the French work. In consequence of this arrangement, Mr. Clarke spent the greater portion of his time in Jersey, alternating with the other islands.

Mr. Brackenbury continued his zealous labors, and supplemented them with pecuniary help toward the support of the rising cause; an instance of which I find in a letter of Mr. Clarke, addressed to him in the month of November in this year, in which he acknowledges the receipt of 80, seventy of which were for public purposes, and the remaining ten for himself. This eminent Christian gentleman and eloquent preacher of the word of God thus labored in all ways to promote the interests of a cause to which he had consecrated his existence; and he has left for himself an imperishable name in the annals of early Methodism. He died in 1818, beloved and regretted by the thousands to whom in word and deed he had been as an angel of God. The sentiment of the Methodist Connection at large on the bereavement occasioned by his decease is well expressed in the Magazine of that year: — “As this revered and lamented friend of religion and virtue, and eminent servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, had adorned and preached the Gospel among us, with great approbation and success, for upwards of forty years, we exceedingly regret not being allowed to give a sketch of his exemplary life and great usefulness; which we are prevented from doing by his own particular request, ‘that nothing should be said or written concerning him.’ We much question. However, whether such a request, dictated, doubtless, by his extreme and, we think, mistaken modesty, ought to be so strictly observed as to deprive the church and the world for ever hereafter of the edification, encouragement, and comfort which even an imperfect narrative of his life, and delineation of his character, would certainly have afforded them; and much more such a biographical account of him as we know his bereaved and mourning partner would be well able to lay before the public.”

In the Rev. John De Queteville, Mr. Clarke had a zealous and effective colleague. He was a native of Jersey, and one of the first-fruits of the Methodist ministry in that island. A short time after he had begun to preach the Gospel to the French-speaking population, he was ordained by Dr. Coke, whom he accompanied to Paris for the purpose of founding, if possible, an evangelical mission in that capital. The project at that time failed. The atheistic frenzy of the Revolution had not sufficiently subsided in the public mind to induce the Parisians so much as to listen to the word of God. Dr. Coke purchased one of the confiscated churches, and opened it for public preaching. They found none willing to hear, but many to revile the truth which they had rejected; and, in walking the streets, the preachers were threatened with the exaltation of the lamp-post. A rabble surrounded them, not once nor twice, with the old terror-time cry of A la Lanterne!

Dr. Coke saw that the enterprise was as yet a hopeless one; and , by the kind offices of a friend, who negotiated for him with the public minister, he was released from his bargain for the church, and returned to England. Mr.

De Queteville resumed his labors in the islands, and spent a long and honorable life in building up the cause of God among them. A man naturally of impetuous temper, he became, by the sanctifying grace of God, a pattern of holiness and active benevolence. I knew him in the evening of his days, at his quiet little parsonage at St. Jacques’, waiting, with the venerable and amiable partner of his life, to be called into the presence of the Saviour, “All praise, all meekness, and all love.”

The funeral rites at the grave of this aged saint were performed by the Rev.

John Hawtrey. This distinguished servant of Christ was originally an officer in the army, and had served in the Peninsula under Lord Wellington.

Converted to God, he became a Methodist minister, and labored many years in connection with the Conference, honored and admired, wherever he was known, as a man of noble exterior, a Christian gentleman, and an eloquent and powerful expositor of the Gospel. He was subsequently induced to enter the ministry of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Hawtrey held the incumbency of St. James’s church, in Guernsey for some years; but removed, towards the close of his life, to a parish near Windsor. At his decease, the officers of the garrison at Windsor testified their veneration for his memory, by solemnizing his funeral with military honors. Although separated from his former brethren in the mere matter of church ceremonies, Mr. Hawtrey, as I knew from personal intercourse with him in Guernsey, never lost his love for the cause of Methodism. His affections were ever true to it, and his devout wishes attended its progress. As already stated, he buried good old Jean De Queteville; and I shall never forget how, when standing by his side at the aged laborer’s grave, beneath the serene and cloudless heaven, and surrounded by the grand panorama of island-landscapes and unruffled seas, with uplifted eyes. and a face illuminated with faith and hope. He gave us to hear again “a voice from heaven, saying, Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”

Reverting to Mr. Clarke’s days in the islands, we find that, as health returned, he resumed all his former pursuits, preaching “before day and after nightfall,” and diligently improving the intervening hours by close study, or personal intercourse with his flock. Among these were some who had long known the Lord, and whose steadfast piety made a sacred impression on his own mind. With these “deeply experienced Christians,” as he describes them in a letter to Miss Cooke, he felt it a privilege to be permitted to have any communion. Compared with them, he speaks of himself as being “a very little child.” The most remarkable were two females, one elderly, the other young. “The former,” says he, “seems to possess all the solemnity and majesty of Christianity: she has gone, and is going, through acute bodily sufferings; but these add to her apparent dignity: her eyes, every feature of her face, together with all her words, are uncommonly expressive of ETERNITY. To her I put myself frequently to school during my short abode in the island, and could not avoid learning much, unless I had been invincibly ignorant or diabolically proud. The latter seems possessed of all that cheerful happiness and pure love which so abundantly characterize the Gospel of Christ. Peace, meekness, and joy, judiciously immingled by the sagacious economy of the Holy Spirit, constitute a glorious something, affectingly evident in all her deportment, which I find myself quite at a loss to describe. Two such I know not that I have before found: they are indeed the rare and excellent of the earth; the one ‘not grave with sternness,’ nor the other ‘ with lightness free.’ “ Among the converts whom the Lord gave him as the seals of his ministry was a soldier, whose case merits a record. Writing at the time he was confined by illness, Mr. Clarke says: “Yesterday a soldier belonging to the Train, whom the Lord gave, together with his wife, some time ago to my feeble labors, came to see me. I have seldom seen more affection, commixed with as much of childlike simplicity as you can conceive, evidenced before.

He looked in my face pitifully, and saying, ‘I heard you were sick,’ sat down in a chair, and melted into tears. Yes; and yet he is a soldier. It is amazing, this man was a very great slave to drunkenness. One morning last summer, having got drunk before five o’clock, (!) he some way or other strolled out to Les Terres, and heard me preach. and was deeply affected. ‘ What, and he drunk?’ Yes. After preaching he took me by the hand, and with the tears streaming down his cheeks, betwixt drunkenness’ and distress, he was only capable of saying a very few words: ‘O sir, I know you are a man possessed by the Spirit of God.’ He went home, and, after three days’ agonies, God in tender mercy set his soul at liberty. His wife also set out for the same heaven in good earnest, and shortly found peace.

Both joined the Society, and have walked ever since most steadfastly in faith and good works.”

The congregations at St. Peter’s were not without their fluctuations. “It is strange to see how times change. Last winter I had in general a congregation made up of several of the most reputable persons in the island: — to keep me among them, they offered to provide handsomely for me, which kind offer I again and again rejected. However, they continued to hear, believing I spoke the words of truth and soberness, and, as they phrased it, ‘ in the best manner they had ever heard.’ ‘Pity it was that I could not be permitted to preach in the church at least every Sunday.’ However, this, like all things under the sun, must have an end. By and by, one of these gentry stayed away, another attended less frequently, then he dropt off; such and such did not come, and therefore I lost some more; and so on, till hardly a soul of them came either on Sabbaths or other days. I was then as a person who had been in honor and continued not; and my ministry was at last confined to the poor, the best friends of my God. These cleaved closely to me, and praised God that the candlestick was yet in its place.

With these I endeavored to keep on my way, and the dropping in of one now and then to the Society held up my hands. Persecutions arose, and evil reports were liberally spread abroad: this made it rather dangerous for any of my quondam [former] friends to take any notice of me. Then I was obliged fully to walk alone; but through the strength of God I was enabled to weather every trying circumstance. Finally, as things cannot be long at a stay under the sun, the time for a revolution must again take place; and the honor that I sought not, had, and lost, would, as unsought for, again return.

One — another — and another have ventured back, heard, were pleased and profited once more, brought others along with them, till at last I have all back again, with an accession of several new ones; and now I am an honorable man, and surely a great many good things would not be too good for me now, would I accept them. Thus you see, my dear Mary, there is but as one day between a poor man and a rich. It is well, it is ineffably well, to have a happiness that is not affected by the change to which external things are incident. What a blessing to be able to sit calm on the wheel of fortune, and to prosper in the midst of adversity!”

Nor did the mercy of God withhold from him this inwardly satisfying beatitude. “Blessed be the Lord, it has been a time of much good both to my body and mind. Since I wrote last, the Lord has opened His heaven most benignly in my soul; and, with that, has given me to discover Him, as one uniform, uninterrupted, eternal Goodwill towards all His creatures.

When I look into myself, I am astonished that He condescends to pay me the smallest visit; but when I contemplate Him in the above attribute, my astonishment ceases, though I cannot forget myself Were I like Mohammed’s feigned angel, having ‘seventy thousand heads, each actuated by as many tongues, and each uttering seventy thousand voices,’ I should think their eternal utterance of His praise an almost no tribute to a God so immeasurably good. And yet where am I going? I have but one tongue, and that speaks very inexpressively. The choicest blessings of heaven are given to me; and how seldom, comparatively, is it used in showing forth His excellency, or acknowledging how deeply His debtor I am! O my God, what reason have I to be ashamed and confounded! But Thou wilt have mercy!”

The spring of the year 1788 became a memorable epoch in his life. The opposition to his marriage with Miss Cooke had so far given way at Trowbridge, partly by the kind offices of Mr. Wesley, and partly by the strengthening influence of Mr. Clarke’s character on the minds of the opponents of that measure, that his way was considered to be now sufficiently plain to admit of the fulfillment of the vows the two parties had so long held sacred. Accordingly, Mr. Clarke and Miss Cooke were married in Trowbridge church, on the seventeenth of April. Upon this event I cannot do better than give the doctor’s own reflection, written many years after: — “Few connections of this kind were ever more opposed; and few, if any, were ever more happy. The steadiness of the parties during this opposition endeared them to each other: they believed that God had joined them together, and no storm or difficulty in life was able to put them asunder Mrs. Cooke, many years before her death, saw that this marriage was one of the most happy in her family, in which there were some of the most respectable connections; one daughter having married that most excellent man, Joseph Butterworth, Esq., M. P., a pattern of real Christianity, a true friend of the church of God, and a pillar of the state; and another having married the Rev. Mr. Thomas, rector of Begelly, in South Wales, an amiable and truly pious man.”

Eleven days after their wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Clarke embarked at Southampton for the islands. The steam-packet had not then appeared on our seas, and a voyage which can now be made in as many hours took them on this occasion not fewer than eight days to accomplish. The reception which awaited Mrs. Clarke in Guernsey was all that herself or her husband could desire. The worthy family at Mon Plaisir had sent over a trusty domestic to attend on Mrs. Clarke, and on their arrival welcomed them with true family hospitality. From Madame De Saumarez, (the mother of Sir James De Saumarez, who commanded the “Ocean” at Trafalgar,) Miss Lempriere, (whose brother wrote the once much-used “Classical Dictionary,”) and other ladies of Guernsey, she also received most kind attentions. As to Mr. Clarke, his marriage not only conduced to his own personal comfort, but greatly increased his influence among the people. Henceforward with an undivided mind he toiled for their edification. His labors were still distributed between Jersey and Guernsey, his headquarters being in the former island. At Les Terres he had continued to preach in English twice on Sundays, on the Wednesday evening, and Friday morning. The place was so crowded as to render the erection of a large chapel, if possible, highly expedient; and already measures were taken for such a purpose, with a decision and liberality which gave every promise of success.

These operations were sustained, during the following year, by a new appointment from the Conference of 1788; in the “Minutes” of which the stations for the islands are, — Jersey, Messrs. Brackenbury and Clarke; and Guernsey, Messrs. Bredin and De Queteville. Mr. Clarke appears to have worked alternately in the islands, a quarter in each. The winter of this year was unusually severe, and one night in the month of January he had a narrow escape from perishing by the cold. In going to preach at St. Aubin, the snow lying in great depth inland, he was obliged to follow the sea-mark along the bay. Accompanied by a young man, the same who had stood by him at the time when the house was beset, (as before recounted,) they arrived at the town wet through, and benumbed with the wind and sleet.

Mr. Clarke preached, though exhausted, and then set out with his companion to retrace their way, between four and five miles, to St.

Helier’s. Meanwhile a heavy snow had set in, and the night grew worse and worse. He set out, having taken no kind of refreshment, and began to plod his way, with faint and unsteady steps. “At last a drowsiness, often the effect of intense cold when the principle of heat is almost entirely abstracted, fell upon him. ‘Frank,’ said he to the young man, ‘I can go no farther till I get a little sleep: let me lie down a few minutes on one of these snow-drifts, and then I shall get strength to go on.’ Frank expostulated, ‘O sir, you must not: were you to lie down but one minute, you would never rise more. Do not fear: hold by me; I will drag you on, and we shall soon get to St. Helier’s.’ He answered, ‘ Frank, I cannot proceed: I am only sleepy, and even two minutes will refresh me;’ and he attempted to throw himself upon a snow-drift, which appeared to him with higher charms than the finest bed of down. Francis was then obliged to interpose the authority of his strength. — pulled him up, and continued dragging and encouraging him, till, with great labor and difficulty, he brought him to St. Helier’s.” Th ere can be no doubt that, but for the providential company of Frank Bisson, he would have that night perished on the snow; and he ever after entertained a lively sense of obligation to him, of which he had the opportunity of giving a practical evidence more than once.

To the erection of the chapel in Guernsey many difficulties had risen, and all the more formidable from the determined opposition of the bailiff, the chief magistrate of the island. Several letters on these matters passed between our missionary and Mr. Wesley, whose counsels, inculcative of gentleness in words and conduct, perseverance, and fervent prayer, were followed by Mr. Clarke and his friends with entire success. The disinclination of the bailiff suddenly gave way. Mr. Wesley himself was surprised at the genial change of mind in this gentleman; and he says, “I really think the temper and behaviour of the bailiff are little less than miraculous.” In fact, he sold them a piece of ground from his own property, promised to subscribe fifty pounds himself, before the building was begun added ten pounds more, and engaged a pew for himself and family. Among the other subscribers we find the name of Mr. Walker for a hundred pounds, and that of Mr. De Jersey for a hundred. The latter tried friend lent them al so three hundred, with — “Pay it as you can; or, if I never receive a farthing of it, I shall be well contented.” He was about to build a house for his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. De Queteville; but declared that not a stone of it should be laid till the chapel was finished.

We set this down because such an example of hearty devotion to the cause of Jesus merits a record. Servant of God, well done!

Some difficulty was encountered about the legal settlement of the chapel according to what is called “the Conference plan;” the jurisdiction of the English Court of Chancery, in which the Wesleyan chapels are enrolled, not extending to the Norman Isles. But even this obstacle was overcome, and Mr. Clarke had the satisfaction of being able to write: “We have a large chapel built here. It is astonishing to think how this handful of people have done it; but God was with us. What is nearly as wonderful is, that, notwithstanding the English laws are not admitted here, yet I have got it settled on the Conference plan by a public Act of the Royal Court. I am about, therefore, to leave this people on a good footing, prospering in the ways of God, and well established in spiritual and temporal matters.”

In Jersey, too, a similar movement took place for the erection of a chapel at St. Helier’s; and, along with these efforts to promote the material consolidation of the good cause, the preachers had the unspeakable joy of witnessing the manifestation of the Divine power in the upbuilding and beautifying of the spiritual temple of the church. I will conclude these annals of Mr. Clarke’s missionary life, by transcribing a manuscript letter, which gives some remarkable details on this subject. It is addressed to Mr.

Wesley, and was probably the last he wrote to him from the islands. The date is “Jersey, July 15th, 1789.” “My Reverend Father In Christ, “In my last I gave you a short account of the prosperity of the work of God among us, and the prospect we had of an increase.

Since that time the Lord has indeed wrought wonderfully. You perhaps remember the account I gave you of the select prayermeeting I had just then established for those only who had either attained, or were groaning after, full redemption. I thought that, as we were all with one accord in the same place, we had reason to expect a glorious descent of the purifying flame. It was even so.

Soon five or six were able to testify that God had cleansed their souls from all sin. This coming abroad, for it could not be long hid, (the change being so palpable in those who professed it,) several others were stirred up to seek the same blessing, and many were literally provoked to jealousy, among whom one of the principal was Mr. De Queteville. He questioned me at large concerning our little meeting, and the good done. I satisfied him in every particular; and, being much affected, he said, ‘‘ ‘ T is a lamentable thing that those who began to seek God since I did should have left me so far behind. Through the grace of Christ, I will begin to seek the same blessing more earnestly, and never rest till I overtake and outstrip them, if possible.’ For two or three days he wrestled with God almost incessantly. On the 30th of June he came into my room with great apparent depression of spirit, with the earnest inquiry, ‘ How shall I receive the blessing, and what are its evidences?’ I gave him all the directions I could, exhorted him to look for it in the present moment, and assured him of his nearness to the kingdom of God. He returned to his room, and after a few minutes, spent in wrestling faith, his soul was fully and gloriously delivered. He set off for the country, and like a flame of fire went over all the Societies in the island, carrying the glorious news wherever he went. God accompanied him by the mightily demonstrative power of His Spirit, and numbers were stirred up to seek, and several soon entered into, the promised rest. I now appointed a lovefeast on the 5th inst. Such a heaven opened on earth my soul never felt before. Several were filled with pure love; and some then and since have, together with a clean heart, found the removal of inveterate bodily disorders under which they had labored for a long time. This is an absolute fact, of which I have had every proof which rationality can demand. One thing was remarkable, there was no false fire; no, not a spark that I would not wish to have lighted up in my own soul to all eternity; and, though God wrought both in bodies and souls, yet everything was under the regulation of His own Spirit, and fully proclaimed His operation alone. To speak within compass, there are not less than fifty or sixty souls who, in the space of less than a fortnight, have entered into the good land, and many of them established, strengthened. and settled in it; and still the blessed work goes daily on. “This speedy work has given a severe blow to the squalid doctrine of sanctification through suffering, which was before received by many, to the great prejudice of their souls. Several of your particular acquaintances, my dear sir, have had a large ‘share in this blessing; and, among others, Mrs. Guilliaume, Madame De Saumarez, and Miss Lempriere. The former is one of the greatest monuments of God’s power to sanctify that I have seen. The latter are blessedly brought out of [their former] dreary state. Several, who had long been adepts in making Procrustes’ bed, are now redeemed from every particle of sour godliness.”

The Divine blessing on the labors of Brackenbury, Clarke, and their colleagues in the islands, was seen in the numerical and moral strength which the cause had thus already attained. Mr. Clarke left 248 members in Jersey, and 105 in Guernsey. At the present time, chapels of the French and English Methodists are found in all parts of the islands. There are more than three thousand members in Society; who, beside sustaining thirteen ministers, English and French, in their own service, contribute some seven hundred pounds per annum to the cause of foreign missions.

CHAPTER 8

THE CIRCUIT MINISTER

A new and noble field of labor was now opening to Mr. Clarke.

Henceforward his ministry will be exercised in large and thickly-peopled cities, and thousands be enriched from those stores of saving truth which had been incessantly accumulating in his soul. The character of the times was assuming an unprecedented grandeur. Europe was beginning to heave with the throes of that political earthquake in which the feudalism of the past was doomed to give way before another development of society. The trumpets of Providence were sounding the advent of a new era in the history of the world. Revolution and change had become the order of the day; and, in the desired abolition of many unquestionable corruptions, there was a danger that the sacred institutes of legitimate authority and rule, the safeguards of the true rights of mankind, might also be swept away by the swelling tides. The demon of infidelity had come forth into this storm, and was pervading the popular mind with imaginations of rapine and murder. Nor wa s England without her peril of being drawn into this vortex of ruin. Among the masses of the people there were too many who, without consideration, were disposed to feel and act with the atheists and democrats of bewildered France. In those days, then, the voice of the evangelist was more than ever needed; and the Gospel of order and peace, which from his lips went straight to the hearts of the people, contributed more to the security of the altar and the throne than the worldly wisdom of Parliaments, or the whetted sword of the secular law. It was in the opening time of this national ordeal that Mr. Clarke began to appear as a prominent member of an order of men whose self-denying endeavors have not only saved multitudes of souls for all eternity, but contributed also, in a most honorable degree, to the temporal safety and well-being of their country.

Our preacher quitted the Norman Isles in July, 1789, and proceeded to the Conference at Leeds, leaving Mrs. Clarke and their infant at Trowbridge on his way. The trustees of the Leeds Circuit had already petitioned Mr.

Wesley that Mr. Clarke should be appointed there the ensuing year, — a measure that was frustrated by a circumstance which seems sufficiently ludicrous. Mr. Clarke preached twice in Leeds on the Conference Sunday.

In the morning prayer he casually omitted to pray for the king. Reminded of the failure, he endeavored to repair it in the evening, when, among other supplications for His Majesty, he devoutly implored that God would bless him with His pardoning and sanctifying grace. Some of the “chief women” of the congregation took umbrage at this style of petition, as implying “that the king was a sinner!” So deeply was their sense of loyalty wounded, that a remonstrance against the appointment was signed by these ladies, and sent into the Conference, with the understanding that “the dangerously democratic principles” implied in such a prayer sufficiently unfitted the person who could utter it for ministering among the people of Leeds. Mr. Wesley, who wished to keep peace so far as possible, and who had a sincere respect for the simple-hearted, steadfast piety of the petitioners, acceded to the request, and appointed Mr. Clarke to Halifax. The leading men of the Society, however, were not so well satisfied with this decision, and an overture was made to reverse it. But Mr. Clarke was unprepared to listen to anything of the kind, and hastily pronounced the resolve never to enter Leeds in the way of an appointment as a traveling preacher; because he would not recognize any church, nor minister in any, in which the supreme rule was not with his Divine Master!

Just at that time he seems to have been incapable of propitiating the good graces of the Methodist ladies of Yorkshire; for, at Halifax, when his appointment there was notified, a remonstrance from the female members was sent forthwith, objecting to him, as being “dull, though learned.” So once more he was displaced. The same process followed as at Leeds. The men at Halifax wished him to come, and wrote a letter of explanation to that effect, which drew forth a reply from Mr. Clarke, reiterating the sentiment he had already pronounced: “The same principle must guide his movements on this as on the former occasion; his call, he conceived, not extending to any place in which women were the governors, because he was certain that Christ had not truly the rule where the women held the reins!” These little annoyances were, however, controlled for the best; and at the close of the Conference he held a confirmed appointment to the city of Bristol.

This sphere of duty was one of the most important that could have been assigned him, next to London. The Circuit held the preeminence in Methodism, and numbered, even at that time, the city and outlying places included, more than two thousand members. The necessities of the Circuit would admit of but a very short vacation, and with the opening of the year Mr. Clarke was at his post. As in imagination we see him enter the pulpit at Broadmead, on the first Sabbath morning, amid the silence, the prayer, and devout expectations of the crowded congregation, we insensibly call to mind the time when be first visited Bristol. The hungry, ill-clad youth, who had eaten his frugal supper of bread and water in the kitchen of the inn just opposite, and whose apparition had so disturbed the powers who reigned at Kingswood, now reappears, a man in all the majesty of intellect, a husband and father, alive to the most sacred affections of our nature, and a minister of Jesus Christ, with the full seal of spiritual power, in the evidences with which Heaven had attested his vocation, as well as the solemn concurrence and approbation of him who held the office of scriptural bishop in that communion of the church. Every young man should see in this example a type and pledge of the success which awaits him in whatever condition of life Divine Providence may have cast his lot, if, with the subject of our memoir, he will live and act in the spirit of the prayer, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on Thee.”

But the duties of the Bristol Circuit were so extensive and heavy as to tax Mr. Clarke’s physical powers to the utmost. Unhappily, he entered on this new stage with enfeebled and shattered health. His life in the Norman Isles had been too sedentary for a constitution habituated to violent outof- door exercise. To almost unremitted study were added the wasting effects of a cough which had harassed him for years, ever since sleeping in a damp bed in the Trowbridge Circuit. This complaint had now become so heavy as to threaten his life. Mr. Wesley, who came to Bristol in an early part of the year, was struck with the change in his appearance, and intimated, in one of his addresses to the Society, his apprehensions that they would not long have the benefit of their minister’s services. Some hope was entertained that the waters of the Hotwells, which at that time were in high medical repute, would tend to restore him; but this benefit was seriously interfered with by the severity of his labors, and the disadvantage of living in the rooms appropriated to the preachers over the chapel, which, pervaded with the effluvium [an unpleasant or noxious odour or exhaled substance] from the crowded congregations, were altogether unwholesome as a place of residence. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, he nevertheless struggled on, though life with him was all that year little better than a protracted martyrdom. He had two colleagues, Messrs. Wadsworth and Hodgson; and to these three men were allotted the working of a Circuit comprising a large number of congregations, and the pastoral care of more than two thousand members. The quarterly visitation of the classes, carried on simultaneously with the pulpit and other duties of the Circuit, drained their strength to the uttermost. In a note to his friend Brackenbury, in January, Mr. Clarke says: “For a month I have been employed in visiting the classes. This close work has proved more than I could well sustain. I need not say, that preaching three or four times a day, and giving tickets to two or three hundred people, regulating the concerns of the Society, &c., is more than any common strength is able to perform. From what I now feel, and the increase of the work, I have every reason to believe that I shall either be in eternity before Conference, or be fully invalided. In visiting the classes, I have diligently endeavored to root out all apparent offences and offenders; and, as the foundation is clearer than it has been for some time, I expect a more durable building. I see such fruit of my labor as causes me almost to rejoice in the martyred body which the most merciful God has in His condescension made an honored instrument in helping forward so good a work.”

So, in the June quarter: “I am now so exceedingly busied, that I have not time to take my necessary food. We are visiting the classes, in which I am employed from six o’clock in the morning to five in the evening:” all this, followed by preaching either in the city or the country. Mr. Wesley, on a visit to Bristol, gave him all the help he could. Thus in his Journal at this time we read the entry, — “On Monday, and the three following days, I visited the classes at Bristol.” Mr. Clarke mentions that he took one class, and Mr. Wesley another, alternately; thus proceeding during four successive days. As to his Circuit-work, we take the following specimens of its fidelity and heartiness: — “I set out for Westbury, walked thither, and preached with great liberty to a large, attentive congregation. At five I preached at the Room; and the Lord gave me an hour’s work of very convincing speech. I felt in my soul that much good was done. I may not know to what extent; but this the Lord has favored me with, that a notorious sinner was thoroughly convinced, and has since been earnestly wrestling with God, that he may escape eternal fire.

Glory be to Thee, O God! I then met the Society, and spoke all my mind; the lazy rich I did not spare. On Monday morning, I had at five o’clock such a congregation as I think I never saw in Bristol: several of the great folks, too, were hearing for life. These things are tokens for good. Our friends tell me there is a great stir all round Bristol. In such a large place it cannot be so palpable [readily perceived] as in a smaller; but, thank God, this is no matter. Glory, glory to God and to the Lamb!” The next Sunday: “I preached at Donkerton, to a very simple, pleasing people; and God was in the midst: at noon and night, in Bath. He gave me liberty, and I have no doubt much good was done. I had one soul for my hire at the last preaching: such a power from on high rested on all as I have seldom seen. God seemed to have given the people into my hand.” “Yesterday rode from Bath to Bristol, and back again this morning.

Met five classes, and preached once: have yet to meet six classes, and preach twice. Tomorrow morning return to Bristol, as we begin to meet classes at six in the morning, and continue with short intervals the whole of the day, to the end of the week. I feel willing, but am almost (completely done in). “Went last Sunday to Kingswood, preached twice, gave an exhortation, and met nine classes. Thence to Guinea-street, where preached, met Society, and gave tickets to one class.” Again: “At seven A.M. met the Bridge-street Society; preached at Guineastreet, thence to Westbury, preached at two o’clock, and gave tickets; then back to Bristol, fatigued and wet; preached at five, and met the Society. Next morning at five preached again; and then rode to the Marsh, where, scarcely able to speak, I preached again, and gave tickets. From Marsh the next morning back to Pensford; from thence to Clutton, through a severe tempest, wet to the skin.

Thursday to Kingswood; preached at five, and returned home to assist Mr. Hodgson to hold a watchnight, but was scarcely able to move for more than an hour after I got home. At length I went to lend some aid, and brother Hodgson and I held on till about eleven o’clock, when we made an apology for retiring Just as I was passing to my bed-room, I thought I would go to the lobbywindow, and take a last view of them, at which moment one of the singers was giving out a hymn. I thought, ‘The meeting will close for lack of persons to pray. I will go down.’ Mr. H. at that moment joined me, and advised me not. I hesitated a moment; but, finding my soul drawn out in pity to the multitudes, I said, ‘I will go down in the name of the Lord.’ Mr. H. would not be left behind. I had before felt much of the power of God, but now it was doubled. We continued singing, praying, and exhorting until half-past twelve; during which time strong prayers, cries, and tears bore testimony to the present power of God. How excellent the Lord is in working! How wondrous are His ways of mercy! ‘ I am Thine, save me.’ I am willing to breathe my last in Thy work.”

Thus his personal intercourse with the Methodist people of Bristol, Mr. Clarke now formed friendships which were life-long; and those friendships were cherished for the poor of Christ’s flock, as well as the rich. Among the former class was an eminent Christian named Summerhill; and we mention her case on account of its extraordinary character. Dame Summerhill was at that time a hundred and four years old. Relating her experience one day to Mr.

Clarke, she said that Mr. Wesley was her father in the Gospel. “When he first came to Bristol, I went to hear him preach; and, having heard him, I said, ‘ This is the truth.’ I inquired of those around, who and what he was. I was told that he was a man who went about everywhere preaching the Gospel. I further inquired, ‘Is he to preach here again?’ The reply was, ‘ Not at present.’ ‘Where is he going to next?’ I asked. ‘To Plymouth,’ was the answer. ‘And will he preach there?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then I will go and hear him. What is the distance?’ ‘One hundred and twenty-five miles.’ I went, walked it, heard him, and walked back again!”

When a hundred and six years old, she was accustomed to read the churchprayers daily, “as a substitute for the public means of grace,” which she was no longer able to attend; reading the small print both of Bible and Prayer-Book without spectacles.

In Bristol Mr. Clarke sat for his portrait, at the request of several of his friends. The painter was Mr. Holloway, who distinguished himself some years after by his engravings of the cartoons of Raffaelle. From several preceding failures, Mr. Clarke had come to the conclusion that his face was not an auspicious one for the pencil; and he complied only on two conditions: “First, that you do not make me appear better than I am; for that will reflect on my Maker, as though He had not made me good enough: and, secondly, that you do not make me appear worse than I am; for that will be to burlesque me.” The request of the artist was supported by Mr. Wesley, who wanted to have an engraving of it for the Magazine.

The likeness is correct enough, though the engraving is but indifferent.

Underneath, after the manner of the old portraits in the Magazine, is the inscription, “Mr. Adam Clarke, Aetatis [at the age of] 27.” Mr. Clarke’s father, whom he now had the pleasure of once more seeing in Bristol, objected to the age, as being two years too young. But upon this point, as we have already noticed, neither father, mother, nor son was ever quite free from uncertainty.

Though the incessant demand on his time by public and pastoral engagements left him but few hours for books, the unslaked and evergrowing thirst of his soul for knowledge made Mr. Clarke still a diligent student to the extent of his opportunities. He read hard, and thought deeply; and the advantages he found in access to large collections of books in the city were diligently improved. His scanty means, also, were taxed to the utmost in acquisitions to his own library, which even now began to be considerable, both as to the number and the value of the works of which it was composed.

This year in Bristol, which was passed in one continued series of exertions, was crowned by the assembly of the Conference there; a circumstance which always gives additional anxiety to the preachers stationed on the spot, from the task it devolves on them of furnishing so large a number of strangers with domestic accommodation. This Conference (of 1790) was distinguished as being the last over which Mr.

Wesley presided in person. It was the forty-seventh of its annual assemblies, in which this truly apostolic bishop had gathered around him his sons and fellow-laborers in the Gospel, for counsel and prayer. But his long and luminous career was now about to end. It was the sunset of his day, and the evening was without a cloud. The preachers had a presentiment that they were to see his face no more. His latest counsels sank into their hearts, and the last accents of his voice became a prophecy to them of benediction and peace. On reviewing the state of the Connection, it was found that in Great Britain and America the numbers in Society amounted to 120,000: thus graciously had the word preached been attested and blessed by the converting Spirit of God. At the present time, the numerical strength of the Methodist body, under the care of the British and affiliated Conferences, exceeds 420,000 members; under the care of the Methodist Episcopal Churches of the United States, more than double that sum: not to speak of the various offsets from the parent stock, — the New Connection, the Primitive Methodists, &c., &c.; or of the immense multitudes who habitually hear the Gospel in the congregations, or of the myriads of children who are educated in the schools. Meanwhile, in the years gone by, hundreds of thousands who have passed into eternity found in the sanctuaries of Methodism the gate of heaven. It may be seen that Adam Clarke had devoted the energies of his wasting life to a work worthy of the sacrifice.

One of the last subjects of anxiety with Mr. Wesley at this Conference was, so to arrange the work of the preachers that, if possible, no man should preach more than twice on the Sunday. The case of Mr. Clarke, and a multitude of others like it, convinced him that these men were exceeding the limits of their natural strength, and running a career of self-destruction.

At the sight of so many useful servants of God thus shortening their lives, it was his earnest desire to adopt some plan which, by diminishing the Sunday labor, would give a greater effect to their services, as well as prolong their duration. Accordingly, (to use Mr. Clarke’s memorandum,) “in a private meeting with some of the principal and senior preachers, which was held in Mr. Wesley’s study, to prepare matters for the Conference, he proposed that a rule should be made that no preacher should preach thrice on the same day. Messrs.. Mather, Pawson, Thompson, and others, said this would be impracticable, as it was absolutely necessary in most cases Mr. W. replied, ‘ It must be given up: we shall lose our preachers by such excessive labor.’ They answered, ‘ We have all done so; and you even, at an advanced age, have continued to do so.’ ‘ What I have done,’ said he, ‘ is out of the question: my life and strength have been under an especial providence. Besides, I know better than they how to preach without injuring myself; and no man can preach thrice a day without killing himself sooner or later, and the custom shall not be continued.’ They pressed the point no farther, finding that he was determined: but, after all, the Minute went to the press, — ‘ No preacher shall any more preach three times in the same day (to the same congregation).’ By this clause the Minute was entirely neutralized. He who preaches the Gospel as he ought, must do it with his whole strength of body and soul; and he who undertakes a labor of this kind thrice every Lord’s day, will infallibly shorten his life by it. He who, instead of preaching, talks to the people, mere ly speaks about good things, or tells a religious story, will never injure himself by such an employment. Such a person does not labor in the word and doctrine: he tells his tale, and, as he preaches, his congregation believes, and sinners are left as he found them.”

At the Bristol Conference Mr. Clarke was appointed to Dublin, and he reached that capital in the following month. This was a trust which reflected great honor on him, and showed the strong confidence entertained by Mr. Wesley and the preachers in his talents, prudence, and fidelity; for the English preacher who held that station, was looked up to as “the general assistant;” that is, Mr. Wesley’s representative or commissary over all the Irish Circuits. The critical state of the Society, moreover, required a man of ability and sagacity. There were two parties among them; one for an entire subjection to the Established Church; another, with tendencies more free. “Dr. Coke, with the approbation of Mr. Wesley, had introduced the use of the Liturgy into the chapel at Whitefriar-street. This measure was opposed by some of the leading members, as tending to what they called a separation from the Church; when, in truth, it was the most effectual way to keep the Society attached to its spirit and doctrines; who, be cause they were without divine service in church-hours, were scattered throughout the city, some at church, and many more at different places of Dissenting worship, where they heard doctrines that tended greatly to unsettle their religious opinions; and in the end most were lost to the Society. In consequence of the introduction of the Liturgy, a very good congregation assembled at Whitefriar-street; and much good might have been done, if the rich members had not continued hostile to the measure, by withdrawing their countenance and support, which many of them did.

At last both sides agreed to desire the British Conference, for the sake of peace, to restore matters to their original state, and abolish the morning service. Mr. Clarke, who at that time labored under the same kind of prejudice, gave his voice against the continuance of the Prayers; and at his recommendation the Conference annulled the service. “This,” he affirms, “was the greatest ecclesiastical error he ever committed; and one which he deeply deplored for many years; and he was thankful when, in the course of Divine Providence, he was enabled afterward to restore that service in the newly-erected chapel in Abbey-street, which he had formerly been the instrument of putting down in Whitefriar-street; — that very same party, to please whom it was done, having separated from the Methodists’ body, and set up a spurious and factious Connection of their own, under the name of Primitive Methodism; a principal object of which was to deprive the original Connection of its chapels, divide its Societies, in every way to injure its finances, and traduce both its spiritual and loyal character. “It may be asked, ‘Why did Mr. Clarke in 1790 espouse the side of this party?’ It is but justice to say, that to that class of men he was under no kind of obligation: they had neglected him, though he was on their side of the question, as much as they did those who were opposed to them. He and his family had nothing but affliction and distress while they remained in Dublin, and that party neither ministered to his necessities nor sympathized with him in his afflictions. What he did was from an illgrounded fear that the introduction of the Church service might lead to a separation from the Church, (which the prejudice of education could alone have suggested,) and he thought the different Societies might be induced to attend at their parish-churches, and so all kinds of dissent be prevented.

But multitudes of those, by whatever name they had been called, had never belonged to any Church, and felt no religious attachment to any but those who had been the means of their salvation. When, therefore, they did not find among the Methodists religious service on the proper times of the Lord’s day, they often wandered heedlessly about, and became unhinged and distracted with the strange doctrines they heard. Of this Mr. Clarke was afterwards fully convinced, and saw the folly of endeavoring to force the people to attend a ministry from which they had never received any spiritual advantage, and the danger of not endeavoring to cultivate the soil which had been with great pain and difficulty enclosed, broken up, and sown with the good seed, the word of the kingdom.”

Notwithstanding these differences, the work of God had not been without some measure of prosperity among the Methodists of Dublin. Mr. Clarke found that, some weeks before his coming, a remarkable revival had taken place, the effects of which were still felt, though retarded by the injudicious conduct of some who, though mistaken, intended well. I refer to this, and give some portions from a manuscript letter of Mr. Clarke to Mr. Wesley, for the purpose of recording the opinion of the latter on a matter of abiding importance, — the desirableness of prolonging the good influence of a revival by avoiding the exhaustive consequences of meetings protracted to an unusual length. This letter is dated from Dublin in September. After mentioning his arrival, and how he had found his colleague Mr. Rutherford but slowly recovering from a dangerous illness, which had left the people somewhat in confusion through their deprival of the stated services, he thus goes on: — “The work which was so remarkable about the tim e of Conference was hardly discernible when I came, owing, as I am informed, to the extravagance and irregularity in the conduct of those who took the management during Mr. Rutherford’s indisposition. The times of the prayer-meetings were and are continued, but to an unwarrantable length; hardly ever breaking up before ten or eleven o’clock, and frequently continued till twelve or one. And in those meetings some have taken on themselves to give exhortations of half an hour or forty-five minutes in length. This has a tendency to wear out the people. I have advised them to shorten their prayer-meetings at Whitefriars on Sabbath evenings after preaching, as I find the families of many are shockingly neglected; for how can there be family religion, especially on the Lord’s day, which you know is filled up with ordinances, if prayermeetings are continued till ten or eleven at night?”

He proceeds to observe that he finds it very difficult to interfere, as the more zealous persons in the movement have already accused him of opposing the good work. “We can hardly expect a revival without irregularities and stumblingblocks: but my heart joins fully with one of the last prayers I heard my reverend father offer in Bristol: ‘ Lord, if possible, give us this work without the stumblingblocks; but, if this cannot be, give us stumblingblocks and all, rather than not have Thy work.’ To this my whole soul says, Amen.”

Mr. Wesley replies in a letter which has been printed in his Works: — “You will have need of all the courage and prudence which God has given you Very gently and very steadily you should proceed between the rocks on either hand. In the great revival in London, my first difficulty was to bring into temper those who opposed the work; and my next, to check and regulate the extravagances of those who promoted it. And this was far the harder, for many of them would bear no check at all. But I followed one rule, though with all calmness: ‘ You must either bend or break.’

Meantime, while you act exactly right, expect to be blamed by both sides.

I will give you a few directions: 1. See that no prayer-meetings continue later than nine at night, particularly on Sunday. Let the house be emptied before the clock strikes nine. 2. Let there be no exhortation at any prayer-meeting. 3. Beware of jealousy, or judging one another. 4. Never think a man is an enemy to the work because he reproves irregularities.

Peace be with you and yours!”

These precepts merit consideration at all times; and so do some observations which Mr. Clarke once made on the topic to which they relate. One day, (as he observed,) having inquired of a pious couple who had discontinued their attendance at the meeting for prayer, “How it was they had ceased to come, as usual?” he was told, “We cannot without standing during prayer, which we think is unbecoming; and the prayers are so long that we cannot kneel all the time sometimes, too, a verse is given out while the people are on their knees, and two or three pray; we cannot kneel so long, and therefore we are obliged to keep away.” He could not but assent to the gravity of the objection. In fact, he had himself suffered much inconvenience from the same cause. “On one occasion,” said he, “a good brother at a meeting went to prayer. I kneeled on the floor, having nothing to support me. He prayed forty minutes. I was unwilling to rise, and several times was near fainting. What I suffered I cannot describe.

After the meeting I ventured to expostulate with him, when, in addition to the injury sustained by the unmerciful prayer, I had the following reproof: ‘ My brother, if your mind had been more spiritual, you would not have felt the prayer too long.’ I mention these circumstances,” added Dr. Clarke, “not to excuse the careless multitude, but in vindication of such sufferers; and to show the necessity of being short in our prayers, if we expect others to join us.”

In some rules for the conducting of prayer-meetings, drawn up by a man of great experience, the late Rev. David Stoner, we find it prescribed, — “Let no individual pray long: in general, the utmost limit ought to be about two minutes. It will be found much better for one person to pray twice or thrice in the course of the meeting, than to pray once a long time. Long praying is commonly both a symptom and a cause of spiritual deadness.”

The unusual brevity here recommended will appear to many of us as the opposite extreme to the dreary length of exercise deplored by Mr. Clarke.

But of the two Mr. Stoner’s is, undoubtedly, the preferable. Wesley himself had a strong repugnance to long prayers. He insists somewhere that the preachers in the pulpit should not exceed ten minutes in that part of the service.

The winter was ushered in with heavy domestic affliction, which seriously interfered with the ministerial efficiency of the year spent in Dublin. The trustees had been building a new house for the minister, which was to serve at once for a school and a parsonage. The minister’s family were to reside in the apartments on the ground-floor, the school-room stretching over all, above. Mr. Clarke was obliged to take possession of these premises before they were dry. This was done at the expense of his own health, and that of his family. In a fortnight the afflicted parents wept over the grave of their child; and some time after Mr. Clarke himself, whose cough had not abated its severity, and whose general health was already so delicate, was attacked with serious illness, and laid utterly prostrate. On the 20th of January he writes these few lines to his sister-in-law: — “I have requested the writing-materials to be brought to my bed-side, and use them, in order to prove to you that, because the Lord liveth, I still exist.

But a short time ago there was no probability that you would ever receive a line from my hand. My beyond all comparison excellent Mary continued my close attendant in the time of unutterable distress. It added to my affliction to see the part she took in it night and day. This is my nineteenth day, and I begin, though slowly, to gather a little strength; but have had hardly my sleep since I was first seized .. You will, perhaps, wish to know in what stead my profession stood me in the time of sore trouble. I cannot enumerate particulars: suffice it to say, God did not leave my soul one moment. I was kept, through the whole, in such a state of perfect resignation, that not a single desire that the Lord would either remove or lessen the pain took place in my mind from the beginning until now. I could speak of nothing but mercy. Jesus was my all and in all. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Blessed, blessed for ever, be the Name of the Lord!”

Mrs. Clarke’s assiduity [one meaning is: constant attentions to another person] was maintained under the pressure of personal infirmity, before which she herself had at length to succumb; and for three weeks husband and wife were confined each to a sick room. Toward the close of these trying days he had a letter of consolation from Mr. Wesley, a few lines of which I extract, as it was the last Mr. Clarke received from his venerable friend, then on the verge of eternity: — “You have great reason, dear Adam, to bless God for giving you strength according to your day. He has indeed supported you in a wonderful manner under these complicated afflictions; and you may well say, ‘ I will put my trust in Thee as long as I live.’ I will desire Dr. Whitehead to consider your case, and give you his thoughts upon it. I am not afraid of your doing too little, but too much. Do a little at a time, that you may do the more.”

With some degree of convalescence, our preacher now applied himself to his work, and followed up the energetic ministration of the word with works of beneficence and piety in restraining evil and doing good, which could not but commend him to all who, with the poet, could “venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.”

With a heart naturally tender, and refined by the compassions of the Gospel, he strove, according to his ability, to soothe the troubles of the afflicted, to heal the sick, and lead the blind. To do this more effectually, he sought to secure the united and organized efforts of such as he could find like-minded with himself, and succeeded in founding an important institution, which, not in Dublin only, but in all our great towns, has been the means of doing a wonderful amount of good to the bodies and souls of the perishing; namely, “The Strangers’ Friend Society.” The year before, at Bristol, with the concurrence of Mr. Wesley, he had made an essay of the same kind, which was supported on a small scale by penny-a-week subscriptions. In Dublin, he attempted something in a greater way; and in the different towns in which he was afterwards stationed, he followed the same design. In promoting these benevolent movements, he was not only found in the chair of the committee-room, but as a visitor of the Society he went about among the miserable multitudes of the Irish metropolis, contributing, according to the means thus providentially intrusted to him, as well to the wants of the body as to those of the soul.

The people among whom he moved took knowledge of him as a man of God. His own flock revered him as one who was pointing them to a better life, and, by example as well as precept, leading the way. Though in the world, and living actively for its service and benefit, he was not of it. His very appearance indicated that he lived in a mental region of his own.

Wasted in form, wan with illness and labor, rapt in intellectual abstraction, he looked as if he did not belong to the everyday world of flesh and blood.

As he passed along the crowded streets, he appeared to see no one, but pursued his way as if measuring the ground, or counting the strides necessary to be taken from chapel to chapel.

As a University city, Dublin possessed a peculiar charm for Mr. Clarke; and, with his eager tendencies after knowledge, we wonder not that he seized the earliest opportunity to enter himself of Trinity College. The multifarious engagements of his life, however, and the inroads which illness made on his time, did not allow him to avail himself of the general curriculum of study followed there. He therefore restricted himself to attendance on the medical and anatomical courses, and to a diligent appropriation of material for his own future literary undertakings which he found in the college library. He now, too, became acquainted with several learned and accomplished persons, with whom he continued to have improving intercourse in after-life. Among them were the Rev. Dr. Barrett, the librarian of Trinity; Mrs. Tighe, the authoress of “Psyche,” a poem long admired for its pure sentiment and delicate felicity of style; and an alchemist named Hands, to whose friendship with Mr. Clarke we may revert on a future page. We should also mention one of Mr. Clarke’s Oriental friends, with whom he became acquainted in Dublin, — Ibrahim ibn Ali, who had formerly held a captain’s commission in the army of the Sultan. Brought up in the religion of his father, a Mohammedan, his mind had nevertheless been influenced by the secret instructions of his mother, who was a Greek and a Christian. Imprisoned on suspicion of a murder, which was afterwards fully cleared up by the surrender of the real assassins, he had been in imminent danger of losing his life, and in the time of peril had been deeply moved by the exhortations of an old Spaniard to renounce all faith in the false prophet, and confide in the true Saviour of