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ÆTAT. 23] ON ORNATE-PREACHING.

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circuit, for the superintendent. This will be a trial of my strength.

"A gentleman from Liverpool has given me a pressing invitation to pay him a visit. The journey might do me good, but I know not how to leave at present. I wish in all things to be guided by God, and never move until I see my way clear. I find the most important consequences are often suspended upon apparently trivial events."

The little company that formed themselves into a class amounted to twelve. They were the first Methodists in that village, though several attempts to introduce Methodism had previously been made. A Wesleyan Chapel was speedily erected, and such was the liberality of the people that it was soon out of debt.

In a letter I received from him while on a visit in York

shire, he says: "Perhaps you will have heard I am on the Plan. The people have made a proposal that I should stay a year, and labour in the circuit as I am able. Things are going on well in Ravenstonedale. The place is far too small. Last Sunday night nearly all remained at the prayer meeting.

"I have heard Mr.

The sermon was very fine but I fear will do little good. I now see the vast superiority of the naked truth without any adornment. They have got a poor employment who labour to be eloquent. How important to choose the highest end, and to seek its attainment by the shortest way!"—" The more refined our taste, the more it revolts against a load of ornament," says a vigorous writer. "In children it is only the entire absence

of affectation that makes us love to talk with them. And so it would be in men, if they would only profit so far as to strip themselves of their disguises. And, indeed, simplicity in a man is incomparably more lovely than in a child, for this plain reason, that by its very contrast it commends

most powerfully, and sets off most delightfully, the excellencies of an active, strong, energetic, and richly endowed intellect. The character of Gay,

'In wit a man—simplicity a child,'

endears him to our affections more than all the fables that he ever wrote." One characteristic of every sermon should unquestionably be this: that the messenger loses himself in the absorbing importance of his message. Whatever diverts attention from the message to the man, whatever prevents it from absorbing the attention, and from coming with directness and power to the conscience and heart, is mischievous. It does not follow however that pulpit-truth should be without adornment. "The masters of language do not protrude the idea meagre and bald, but introduce it, vigorous in itself, surrounded by a company of kindred thoughts. Every word has a power to evoke, from the shadows where they have slumbered, a host of images and dim recollections; and by all this host attended the main idea moves on. Knowledge is vain; of little avail profound investigation; the soundest judgment; the most subtle logic, if there be wanting a power to vivify the cumbrous mass of knowledge, to give a present reality to the past, and to abstractions a body and a shape."

The following extract will show how rapidly disease was doing its fatal work: Aug. 9th. "Have risen by three, before the sweat has come on. My soul has been drawn out in prayer. I long for entire consecration. I want to be fully delivered from the fear of death."

"I am this day twenty-four years of age," he wrote on the 16th. "I may truly say that goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. God has conferred peculiar favours upon me. I am ashamed that I have so little improved them. O! if I had hearkened to His voice how much more holy, happy, and useful I should have

ETAT. 24] HIS LAST SERMON AT RAVENSTONEDALE.

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been."-Reader! do not dismiss this record with a cursory perusal. It comes from one who stood on the verge of eternity. No doubt he felt he had great cause to be ashamed that he had so little to exhibit as the result of twenty-four years existence. How much more, proportionately, can you show? Happy are you if you have less cause for selfreproach!

18th. "The tongue may be a powerful instrument in promoting our personal welfare. I have lately found great advantage in expressing my feelings aloud when I have been walking, or alone in the house. I have begun with some sentiment which has been suggested, and in proceeding my soul has been raised and a heavenly fire been kindled."

Increasing weakness at length compelled him to desist from stated labour, and he resolved therefore to hasten home. On the 19th he closed his labours at Ravenstonedale. He took for the text of his last sermon those solemn words of the Apostle Paul in Romans xiv. 12, "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." He delivered a highly impressive discourse, and so numerous were the hearers that he had to quit the pulpit and stand at the door. The many sorrowful countenances and weeping eyes made the occasion deeply mournful. Never, perhaps, was minister more beloved. There was scarcely any thing that many of them would not have sacrificed or done to prolong his stay, and now, that he is no more, his name is embalmed in their memories, and will be handed from father to son, as identified with the revival of practical godliness in that village.

He preached from the same text at Kirkby-Stephen on the following evening. The chapel was crowded. I was privileged to be one of his hearers. Never shall I forget that night. I believe there was not a tearless eye. And yet I have heard him preach much more impressively. In

fact his strength was not equal to the occasion. His prostration was such that he had to rest in the middle of the discourse. No doubt his appearance contributed largely to the effect. It seemed as if Death himself had become personified, and come to speak to mortals on the awful account they would soon have to render. No one could resist the impression that that voice was being heard there for the last time. He left Kirkby-Stephen next day, and reached home on the day following.

On the 26th he writes: "I feel it my duty to do what I can to prop this crazy tabernacle, and put forth my strength in labouring for God and the souls of men. Above all I must live in the spirit of prayer. I have proved that this is good, not only for the soul, but for the body. It strengthens the action of the heart, and quickens the stagnating fluids. Let me then give my brain and heart, as well as my limbs and body, as much labour as they can bear. Mental as well as bodily labour prepares for sleep, although in my case it must not be prolonged too near bed time."

Sep. 1st. "I want a clearer and brighter faith. I am like a man walking in a mist, or in twilight. I do not see spiritual things clearly and distinctly. Especially I have no vivid apprehension of the real state of the wicked. Hence I feel but little for them. I see them travelling to ruin without shedding a tear. It is impossible I should be useful so long as I remain in this state. The scales must fall from my eyes, and I must awake to the solemn realities of the scenes around me. This is indispensable as a preparation either for life or death."-To physical causes, beyond doubt, this state of mind was chiefly to be attributed.

On Sunday the 2nd he preached twice at Copmanthorpe, a village a few miles distant. In the morning his text was Rom. viii. 32, "He that spared not his own Son," &c. In

ETAT. 24]

APPROACHING DISSOLUTION.

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the evening, Heb. ii. part of v. 3, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" With this momentous

inquiry he closed his public labours.

On the 5th he writes: "I have been very weak to-day, but think myself better in some respects. I still come far short of complete devotion to God and my work, and am sadly entangled with bodily sense. My weakness furnishes a pretext for spending little time in prayer. Well-but I rise again. Amid all these failures I am determined to cleave to the Lord. I feel this moment strong desires for an entire consecration. I think I am willing to give up all. But O! I want to feel more for souls. Until my heart is melted with compassion for them I shall do but little good."

At the request of my brother and sister who paid him a visit, he consented to accompany them to Morley. On asking my sister to take charge of his Hymn-Book he said: "That is a precious book to me. Were I to be banished to some solitary island where I must be allowed but two books, my Bible should be one, and Wesley's Hymns the other." He then repeated these lines:

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"Spirit of faith come down,

Reveal the things of God;

And make to us the Godhead known.'

"Did you ever read anything like that?" added he. He had been at Morley but a few days when another indication of speedy dissolution presented itself in the failure of his voice. He returned home early in October. On the 28th or 29th he commenced a letter to me which I believe was the last occasion on which he used the pen. "I dare say you will think me a very negligent correspondent, but if you knew the state of my health you would freely excuse me. Any kind of mental effort has been extremely painful, and I have felt a reluctance to write which I cannot

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