a clergyman can adopt to extend his usefulness amongst the more
ignorant and debased of his parishioners, who will not come to
church unless some influence be employed to induce them. I recollect
a decent woman, the wife of a very rude and profane forester, was
persuaded, by one of my pious members, to come to church, soon
after I was inducted to the living; and it pleased God to convert
her, which so greatly enraged her husband, that he threatened to
kill her if she did not leave off coming; but she braved all his
menaces, and has been ever since one of my most constant hearers.
Happening one day to be near his cottage, I ventured to make a
call; he was eating his dinner; and as I passed him to take a seat
in the chimney-corner, he cast a sullen look at me, but spoke not
a word. After a few common-place observations, I referred in terms
of commendation to a fine plantation of fir and beech trees which I
had been admiring, and to the neatness of the quickset hedge which
encircled it, which so much gratified him that his dogged sternness
of look and manner relaxed into free and easy good humour, and he
became quite chatty, and asked me if I would take a glass of ale. I
thanked him for his hospitality, but said I preferred water to any
other beverage. He rose, took a jug from the dresser, and stepped
out as nimbly as he would step to wait on his master; his wife
expressing her astonishment at what she heard and saw. 'There, and
please your reverence, is a glass of pure spring water, as clear
as crystal, and about as cold as ice.' I sat some time longer, and
having accomplished my object by talking him into a good humour, I
arose to depart, shook hands with him, and left him, and I had the
pleasure of seeing him at church on the following Sabbath morning;
he is now one of the most pious, and, I may add, one of the most
polite members of my spiritual cure. We should imitate the example
of Jesus Christ, who came to _seek_, as well as to save them that
are lost."
_Miss Roscoe._--"I know him quite well. When riding by his cottage
last autumn, my horse plunged, and threw me, but providentially
there was no accident beyond the bursting of the girths of my
saddle, which he repaired with the dexterity of a proficient. Had
I been a duchess, and had he been a young nobleman, I am sure more
promptness and delicate kindness could not have been shown me;
and his wife was equally attentive and obliging. This occurrence
has led to a little intimacy, and I have since spent some happy
moments in his cottage; and I have seen the big tear fall on his
sun-burned face when we have been talking of the love of Christ. He
is more like the gentle lamb than the savage bear. He is fond of
reading; and, in addition to some historical works, and books on
horticulture, he has a copy of Henry's _Commentary on the Bible_,
Bunyan's _Pilgrim_, Scott's _Force of Truth_, Andrew Fuller's
_Gospel its own Witness_, and John Newton's Works. I don't think any
infidel would venture an attack on his faith."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I suppose, Sir, you heard the Curate preach?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Yes, several times. He has a sonorous and clear
voice, and his action when in the pulpit is good, because natural;
he excels most ministers I have heard in the ease and facility of
his style of address; he narrates an anecdote with great skill
and force of impression; his appeals to the conscience are very
close and searching; he dwells much on the love and compassion of
Jesus Christ for sinners ready to perish, and on his ability and
willingness to save them; but it is when he is warning them to flee
from the wrath to come--and sketching the dying of an impenitent
sinner, and his passing alone into the eternal world, to endure the
anguish and self-reproach which are consequent on being lost and
_doomed for ever_--that he evinces the most feeling, and discovers
the extent of his mental resources to supply him with novel imagery
of illustration, and terms of alarm and vivid description. Then it
is that the eyes of all the people are fastened on him; and at times
they seem to be awe-struck."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"The introduction of the gospel of the grace
of God into a parish, which has been long sitting in spiritual
darkness, is an event of immense importance; it is the beginning
of a new epoch in its history; it is the depositing of the mystic
leaven amongst the people, which effects wonderful changes and
transformations in their souls and social habits. I can supply out
of my own parish examples illustrative and confirmatory of what John
Foster says in his _Treatise on Popular Ignorance_. 'We cannot,' he
remarks, 'close this subject without adverting to a phenomenon as
admirable as, unhappily, it is rare, and for which the observers
may, if they choose, go round the whole circle of their philosophy,
and begin again, to find any adequate cause other than the most
immediate agency of the Almighty Spirit. Here and there an instance
occurs, to the delight of the Christian philanthropist, of a person
brought up in utter ignorance and barbarian rudeness, and so
continuing till late--sometimes very late in life--and then at last,
after such a length of time and habit has completed its petrifying
effect, suddenly seized upon by a mysterious power, and taken with
an irresistible force out of the dark hold in which the spirit has
lain imprisoned and torpid, into the sphere of thought and feeling.
"'We have known instances in which the change, the intellectual
change, has been so conspicuous within a brief space of time, that
an infidel observer must have forfeited all claim to be esteemed
even a man of sense, if he would not acknowledge--This that you call
Divine grace, whatever it may really be, is the strongest awakener
of the faculties after all. And, to a devout man, it is a spectacle
of most enchanting beauty, thus to see the immortal plant, which
has been under a malignant blast while sixty or seventy years have
passed over it, coming out at length in the bloom of life.'"
_Mr. Lewellin._--"Yes, and we are all living witnesses of the
amazing efficacy of Divine grace in effecting our spiritual
transformation, which, like that of the apostle Paul, has been
produced in us without any efforts of our own, or any anticipation
of such an unlikely thing being done. That it is a reality we
cannot doubt, because, in addition to the evidence arising from our
consciousness, we have the evidence of our senses. Now, suppose
by an action of our imagination we step back a few years in our
moral history, and re-assume our original characters, what a
contrast should we, in that case, exhibit to our present selves!
You, Sir, and your brother would move amongst us as two haughty
Tractarians, magnifying the form and ceremonies of Christianity,
and depreciating its doctrines and precepts. Mrs. Roscoe would be a
stereotyped formalist, sitting in her easy-chair, with her week's
preparation before her on her card-table, looking forward with some
undefined emotions of superstitious reverence to the sacrament
Sunday. Miss Roscoe would be moving, the principal figure in a
ball-room, exciting the envy or the jealousy of her gay associates.
My uncle and aunt would be living at Fairmount, the chief priest
and priestess in the temple of fashion; routs, and dances, and gala
nights--coursing-matches, and the prosecution of poachers, and
the gains and the losses of the turf, supplying the poor rustics
with topics for their table-talk. And, as for myself, I should be
prowling about the streets and resorts of London, with some profane
sceptics or accomplished gamesters, humming, in an under-tone of
grave or jocular levity--'_Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die_.' This is a sketch of what we should have been at this moment
if Divine grace had not come to impress on us another likeness, and
infuse within us another spirit. These moral changes in us are not
shams and delusions, but positive realities."
_Mrs. Roscoe._--"I should not like to become my former self again,
without religious thought, and without any religious emotions. I
lived without reflection or anticipation; and when any particular
circumstances compelled me to advert to the certainty of my death, I
felt an awful recoiling of spirit against it."
_Mr. Stevens._--"If our conversation were overheard by some of
our fashionable Christians, how strange would it appear to them!
They would imagine, if they did not know us, that we were a set of
incurables; and if they actually knew us, they would speak of us as
a group of fanatics."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"This reminds me of an admirable discourse I heard my
brother's Curate preach on the words of the apostle John: 'Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like
him; for we shall see him as he is' (1 John iii. 2). 'You are now
living,' he said, when addressing the pious part of his audience,
'in a world of sin and sorrow; and you are living in disguise, and
are not known to the persons amongst whom you live, and with whom
you are engaged in the commerce of life. They may know your person,
your name, your residence, your relative connections, and your
distinctive religious denomination, but they have no knowledge, or
even conception, of your elevated rank in relation to the wondrous
beings of the great unknown world. This should neither astonish
nor mortify you; for when Jesus Christ sojourned on earth, even
though he was the brightness of his Father's glory--even though
stormy winds and raging waves, disease, and death, and infernal
spirits acknowledged the absolute supremacy of his dominion over
them--yet the men of the world knew him not. They knew him as Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of the carpenter; they knew him as a madman,
an impostor, and a blasphemer; but they knew him not as the Son of
God in the human form, come to seek and to save them that are lost.
If, then, they knew him not who presented such luminous signs of his
celestial dignity and glory, how can you expect the world over to
look on you as the sons of God, living through the period of your
minority in disguise, soon to have your relative dignity chronicled
in the records of immortality?'"
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"That passage proves that our identity is
preserved amidst all the changes we have undergone, or may yet
undergo--identically the same persons after our conversion as we
were before our conversion, though vastly different; and, in a
glorified state, we shall be identically the same persons we are
now, but then we shall be made exactly like the Son of God. Our
Lord, when administering consolation to Martha of Bethany, said:
'And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest
thou this?' (John xi. 26). There is nothing in this passage which
requires its restriction to the singular occasion of its utterance;
it announces an absolute fact, universally applicable to our Lord's
disciples. There may be a momentary suspension of life, attended
by a sudden yet momentary collapse of the self-conscious faculty,
when the great spirit is in the act of removing from her material
tabernacle, to enter the house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens: but it is only the suspension, it is not the extinction of
life; and the self-conscious faculty will soon awake, and bear an
undisputed testimony to the personal identity of the soul. Yes, and
there is to me a sublime and thrilling interest in the belief, that
I shall be myself again when I awake in the Divine likeness, with
my own intellect, with my own imagination, with my own heart, and
with my own memory laden with its varied accumulations--identically
the same person, yet transformed into a pure and spotless being--and
that, after the lapse of millions of ages, I shall be identically
the same being I am now; the same being I was in the days of
childhood and of youth, of early and of later manhood; the same as
I was when living amidst the attractions of home and the charms of
more extended social intimacies; the same as when I was enduring
the privations and sorrows of earth, encountering its conflicts and
its trials; and the same as when I stood trembling on the narrow
isthmus of time, fearing to slip the cable of life, and launch into
eternity."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"But while identity is preserved, we shall exist
in some new form, as we shall then be disembodied; shall _see_
ourselves and each other; and be endowed also with some new
faculties to fit us for our high destiny, its felicities and
employments."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"We shall, undoubtedly, be as fitted to engage in
all the exercises of the celestial world, and to intermingle, with
graceful ease, in all its varied associations and enjoyments, as we
should be if we had sprung up into being there, like the angels of
God. But yet I do not think it necessarily follows that we shall
have any new mental facilities communicated to us; the faculties
which we shall then require may even now be lying dormant in the
soul, waiting merely for the act of disembodiment to come forth in
full development and activity."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"That's an idea I have long entertained,
for experience proves that the spirit of man, even now, when it
makes its escape from the control of the senses, as in dreaming,
does occasionally give palpable indications of the possession of
faculties far more active and vigorous than is ordinarily displayed
when under their dominion; doing, in fact, when asleep, what cannot
be done when awake. I know an intelligent man, on whose testimony I
can place absolute dependence, who has told me more than once, that
though unable, when awake, to construct a stanza, yet, after reading
Milton, or Thomson, or Pope, he has when asleep composed poetical
pieces with great ease and rapidity. And I am quite sure that many
of the sermons I have preached when asleep have far surpassed
anything I could produce when awake. These facts, and I could
increase their number, are to me satisfactory indications that there
are latent faculties in embryo, lying dormant in the wondrous spirit
of man, which, when fully developed and brought into action (as they
will be when the spirit is disembodied), will be found admirably
adapted to the exercises of our future economy of existence. Without
requiring any new mental creation, we shall feel as much at ease and
at home in heaven as though we had never lived elsewhere."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Does the apostle, by this expression, '_When he
shall appear_,' refer to the appearance of Jesus Christ on the
morning of the general resurrection, preparatory to the final
judgment."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"Some think he does, but I doubt it. When he
makes his grand appearance, preparatory to the final judgment, he
will be seen coming in the clouds, and all the holy angels with
him; and at the blast of the archangel's trumpet, the pious dead
will spring up into life, and, together with the pious who may
be living at this great crisis, will undergo a change in their
physical formation and appearance; the natural body will become a
spiritual body, bearing the image of the heavenly, as distinctly
as they bore, when living on earth, the image of the earthy. But
_this_ wonderful process of coming up into newness of life, issuing
in a physical transformation from a natural to a spiritual body,
is effected by the action of _power_. 'For our conversation is in
heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is
able even to subdue all things unto himself' (Phil. iii. 20, 21).
What a sublimely grand spectacle! every one of the august family
of God will be arrayed in a body resembling the glorified body of
Jesus Christ! But the assimilation to which the words of John refer,
is produced by vision. We shall be _like_ him when we _see_ him; and
the assimilation will take place immediately on seeing him, and in
consequence of seeing him; and we shall see him the moment we die,
for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."
_Mrs. Stevens._--"There is something so strange and appalling in
death and in dying, and in having to pass, and pass alone, into the
great world of spirits, that I am not surprised by the shuddering
dread which some feel when anticipating it; and nothing can allay
this fearful commotion, but a firm belief in the watchful eye and
ever-active presence of our kind and compassionate Saviour. 'I will
come again and receive you to myself,' is the sweet promise which
reduces agitation to calmness, and inspires confidence and joy in
the moment of the final departure from earth."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"We cannot tell on what living being here
on earth any of us will cast the last look of recognition and
affection; but the first Being we shall see on entering the great
unknown world will be Jesus Christ, waiting to receive us to himself
as his own, that we may be glorified together. This we believe, and
this we know; and therefore we may rejoice with joy unspeakable."
_Miss Roscoe._--"Then it would be more in harmony with the spirit of
our faith, to cherish a desire to depart to see our Lord, than to
wish to live here always away from him."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I was very much pleased with the following paragraph
of the discourse which I heard the Curate deliver, from the text
on which you have just been speaking:--'You are following, my
brethren, no cunningly-devised fable, as infidelity asserts, when
you enter the mystic inclosure of Divine revelation, and look
with the piercing eye of faith on the glory to be revealed in
you, because the objects of your belief are not inventions, but
realities within the range of your actual knowledge. You know in
whom you believe; and you know that he has effected in you the
preparatory spiritual change which is to issue in the grand result
of your eternal salvation. You know he has convinced you, by his
Holy Spirit, of the evil of sin; that he has produced in you the
feeling of deep self-humiliation and contrition; that he has drawn
you to himself, to believe and trust in him; and that he has at
times manifested himself to you as he does not unto the world,
giving you peace and joy in believing. These emotions of contrition
and self-humiliation, of peace and of joy, you know are genuine
emotions; not self-originated, nor yet produced by the action of any
mere human agency; and you know that they are the first spiritual
operations in the new formation of your soul, which is to terminate
in a perfect likeness to Jesus Christ, when you see him as he is.'"
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I have in my congregation a very
simple-hearted, godly man, who is in the service of an avowed
sceptic; and one day, when he was at work, his master said to him,
'John, you don't know that what you believe about another world
is true.'--'And you, master, don't know that it is untrue.'--'I
believe, John, that the visions of future glory which now flit
so vividly before your imagination, will turn out at last to be
deceptions--mere fancy pictures; for when you are dead you will go
out of existence.'--'I have heard you say that before, master; and
if it should be so, I shall never know it; but there is _one thing_
which I think I know.'--'And what's that, John?'--'Why, master, it
is just this. If you were dying--and die you must--you would rather
have the bright visions of immortality and eternal life flitting
before your imagination, than die as infidels generally do, in dread
uncertainty, or in the agony of self-reproach for neglecting the
great salvation. I am safe against both these terrible evils, but
you stand exposed to them; and it will very soon be decided which is
right and which is wrong--you or I. We are both near our journey's
end; I am seventy-two, and I believe, master, you are a few years
older. We shall soon know what our end is to be. I have no fear,
except for you, master.'"
_Mr. Stevens._--"These plain godly people very often, by their
homespun arguments and their shrewd remarks, stagger and confound
even the most subtile and scornful infidels."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"They often silence them."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I don't think we have many avowed infidels
in Broadhurst, though, alas! we have too many who are theoretical
believers, but practical unbelievers."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"There are a great many in my brother's parish, and
yet they generally attend church once on the Sabbath. They are very
free in their remarks on his conversion, which, they say, is passing
from one theological absurdity to another; the Curate, in their
estimation, is a very amiable and zealous fanatic. At the conclusion
of the sermon from which I have given you one extract, he made this
striking appeal to them, and he was kind enough to give me a copy of
it:--
"'I will now admit, for the sake of the question I have to propose,
that what we believe is fictitious; that there is, in fact, no
future state of existence for man; no such visions of glory for us
to behold when we pass out of life; and no such scenes of bliss
for us to enjoy as I have now been endeavouring to portray. But
suppose we really believe that there are, I appeal to you whether
our faith does not tend to sustain our spirits when suffering under
the ills of life; and whether we have not something in prospect,
which is an adequate compensation for the anticipated loss of life
and all its possessions. Is it nothing to _a noble mind_, rich in
the stores of knowledge, and still richer in the anticipations of
hope--endowed with faculties too valuable to be annihilated without
a pang of regret keener than ever pierced the heart of sorrow--to
believe that he is superior in the duration of his being to the
beasts of the field and the creeping things of the earth; that he
is superior to the trees of the wood, the shrubs of the lawn, and
the flowers of the garden; ordained to live after they have outlived
their life, and to live on for ever in dignity and in happiness?
Take the case of a _poor believer_, who has to sustain the hardships
and privations of life, often not knowing how to get the next meal
for himself and family, or where to get the means of protecting his
scanty household property against the distraints of his landlord.
Is it nothing to him to be able to look forward to the coming
of a period when he shall be in the possession of an inheritance
uncorrupted, undefiled, and that will never fade away? Take the
case of one who has had to weather all through life the storms of
adversity; to stand exposed to the blasts of calumny, reproach, and
wrongful testimony; who has had to suffer, like the apostle of the
Gentiles, the peril of the deep, the peril of the wilderness, and
the more galling peril of false brethren. Is it nothing for such
a man of accumulative trials, to be able to believe that, after a
few more storms have agitated the waters of life, and after a few
more reproaches have assailed his reputation, he shall enter into
the port of eternal safety, where the wicked cease from troubling,
and the weary are for ever at rest? Or take the case of one who has
been a _living martyr_ to physical afflictions and sufferings; who
has scarcely ever breathed the breath of uncontaminated health,
though she has wandered from one salubrious place to another, to
catch its invigorating inhaling; whose food has been tasteless, and
to whom restless nights and days of weariness and pain have been
appointed; and whose ethereal spirit has been held in a state of
langour and depression by the mysterious action of disease on her
nervous sensibilities. Is it nothing to such a sufferer to believe
that, after a few more months or years of agonizing and torturous
endurance, the dark night of her mourning will pass away in the dawn
of the bright and serene morning of immortality, whose sun will rise
without a cloud, never to go down or pass under a momentary eclipse?