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but very zealous Methodist shoemaker, who had once beaten him for indecorous behaviour in chapel; and, further, it was his principal delight to stand on one side of the canal, with graceless companions like himself, and to pelt the Methodist congregation, on their way to and from the chapel, on the other side, Mr. Jackson, however, is laudably anxious to assure us, that Richard was prompted to this sort of persecution, not by " a direct and systematic hostility to religion," but rather by a childish propensity for sport. He adds, however, that, in Richard's own opinion, he must have become one of the most wicked of his companions, had he not been "arrested by an unseen hand, and made a remarkable instance of the freeness and power of Divine Grace."

The history of his deliverance and conversion is curious enough. He accidentally got acquainted with an intelligent watch-maker, who assisted him in his mathematical studies, to which he was then considerably addicted. The wife of the artist was a talkative and pugnacious Calvinist; and she almost worried Richard to death with the mysteries of the five points. At length his patience was exhausted. He was resolved to be no longer a helpless and passive hearer. And, accordingly, he went to attend a Wesleyan preacher, purely with the view of arming himself for the quinquarticular conflict, against the loquacious female theologian. But "the word," says Mr. Jackson, "came with power to the young man's heart, and he was deeply convinced of sin." He went to the chapel as a sort of polemical catechumen. He returned a serious and broken hearted penitent. He rushed out,-not to seek his companions in brutal mischief, nor to put the She-Calvinist to silence,-but to meditate, and pray, and to commune with his own heart. The result of all this, Mr. Jackson tells us, was, that "his midnight was turned into the light of day; that guilty fear, in his breast, gave place to filial love; and that the Holy Ghost bore a distinct and indubitable witness with his spirit, that he was a child of God:" and that "not many days had elapsed after he was convinced of sin, before he was made a happy partaker of the pardoning grace of God." Such was the impetuosity of his newly awakened conviction, that " at two different times, when running to the chapel, in his eagerness to join his Christian friends in divine worship, he fell and broke his arm."*

He began calling sinners to repentance" before he had quite completed his fifteenth year! The occasion was the decease of his grandmother; on which solemn event he delivered an

* Are we to understand that a fractured limb was the consequence of each fall?

address at the evening prayer-meeting in the chapel: and this, his biographer informs us, was," the commencement of his public ministry. On the 23d February, 1796, the day after he was fifteen years of age, he preached his first sermon, at a village called Boothby, a few miles from Lincoln." Some time after this, his master, with singular disinterestedness, cancelled his indentures; and Richard became a local preacher, and prosecuted his labours in various circuits: and the general remark among those who heard him, was, that "he preached like one who had been many years in the work." On one occasion, indeed, his presence of mind forsook him. He was proceeding in his discourse with much "fluency and enlargement," when, suddenly, he lost all recollection of his subject, and was compelled to bring the sermon to an abrupt conclusion. All this while, his understanding was left without any regular discipline.

"Like the greater part of his brethren," says Mr. Jackson," he had been thrust into the ministry without much of that scholastic training which is so desirable and advantageous. It is painful," he adds, “to see a mind of the first order left to luxuriate without any of the salutary restraints and directions which a just discipline and experience would supply. To this day, it is a serious defect in the system of Wesleyan Methodism, that it makes no adequate provision for the education of its ministers. A few of them, by the force of their own talents and application, have arisen to considerable eminence as scholars and preachers. But the usefulness of the greater part of them has been retarded, through life, by the want of a sound literary and theological training."

But whatever might be the defects of his education, there was no deficiency of zeal or vigilance. He had his eye upon every prevalent aberration from the faith and, stripling as he was, he stepped forth against the attempt of Mr. Winchester to revive the theory of Origen, who contended that hell itself is altogether purgatorial; that not only impious men, but the apostate spirits themselves, should be saved, after they should be sufficiently purified in the fire; and that mercy would finally be extended to every lapsed intelligence without exception. A sermon preached by Richard against this doctrine, at Barrow, commanded great attention at the time, and led to a correspondence with the preacher, of which, however, no traces are now remaining. When he was only nineteen years of age, his spirit was stirred within him by a pamphlet circulated by a clergyman of Derby, with the somewhat contemptuous title of "An Address to the People called Methodists." If the substance of this production be here justly represented, it was weak and injudicious enough. But even had the author been a Goliah of theology, the youthful

champion would probably have gone forth to hurl defiance at the godless giant! It was on this occasion that he first put forth "his maiden publication," entitled, An Apology for the Methodists, by Richard Watson, Preacher of the Gospel. Whether the Philistine fell before him, we do not find recorded. In the midst of his engagements he found leisure for unbounded but very desultory reading. Among other books, he stumbled upon Watts's treatise on the glorified humanity of Christ. We are told that his faith was not shaken by the adventure; but that he was betrayed by it into habits of incautious and controversial talk, which exposed him to a suspicion of heresy. The knowledge of this imputation burst upon him in a manner which overwhelmed him with consternation. "When he went to one of the villages to preach, the house where he had been cordially entertained was closed against him. He was refused permission to address the congregation. He was denied even a night's lodging, where he had often been received as an Angel of God!" This outrageous eruption of orthodoxy against one who had never been publicly accused or tried, was too much for the spirit of the almost beardless preacher. And he did, what many a bearded man might have been tempted to do, under similar provocation; he instantly withdrew from his work as an itinerant preacher.

The commentary of Mr. Jackson upon this affair, is, that Richard Watson, "by this act, was disobedient to the Divine Call, which he unquestionably had received, and, like another Jonah, fled from the presence of the Lord!" To us, who know nothing of any call to the ministry except that which receives the episcopal sanction, and which maintains the ministerial succession, all this sounds exceedingly odd and strange. But, as our object is not controversy, we shall content ourselves with saying, that, whether the call, in this instance, were divine or not, it is clear that the call of Richard Watson's elder brethren in the ministry must have had as good a title as his own to that character; and that, if he felt himself aggrieved, he might have appealed to their authority, and demanded investigation of the charge against him. At this time, however, his historian confesses, he knew and cared little about the principles of church government. He nevertheless felt, when he had time for reflection, that if, at first, he did well to be angry, he did very ill to yield so hastily to the impulse. On his retirement from the ministry, he entered on some line of secular business. Nothing, however, seemed to go well with him, except that he married very much to his satisfaction. The upbraidings of his conscience were incesHis inaptitude for mere worldly occupation was incurable. He could find no rest, under the suspension of his customary spiritual labours; and, at last, found refuge from his miseries in

sant.

the Methodist New Connexion; a society which differed, in certain peculiarities of constitution, from the original body, but held precisely the same theological doctrines: and as they embarrassed him by no puzzling questions touching matters of discipline, he transferred himself to their communion without any misgiving or perplexity.

His association with these people was, in one respect, extremely fortunate. His duties, with them, were sufficiently easy to allow him leisure for the cultivation and enrichment of his mind. At last, however, he became dissatisfied with the system of his new friends; tendered his resignation to the authorities of the circuit; returned as a private member to the old Wesleyan connection; and in 1812 was re-admitted as an itinerant preacher, being then about thirty-one years of age.

It is from this period that the character of Richard Watson becomes chiefly important. And it is precisely at this point, too, that it becomes impossible to represent, succinctly, the course of his life and occupations, by any artifice of condensation or abridgment. From henceforward, his biography is neither more nor less than the history of his removals from circuit to circuit, after the manner of the Wesleyans,-of his incessant labours of body and mind, in the exercise of his ministry,-of his constantly advancing influence over the community with which he was connected, of the perpetually expanding space which he occupied in the eye of what is sometimes called the religious world,-and, more especially, of his vast and often splendid exertions in the missionary cause. These are the materials out of which the remainder of the volume is principally composed. We have already hinted that economy of space or patience, has by no means entered into the calculations of the biographer, in the execution of his task. He seems to have written and compiled with an unbounded reliance on the insatiable appetite of a certain very numerous class of his readers; and we have no reason to suppose that he has overrated their capacities of digestion. For ourselves, we must be content to avow,-at the hazard of being stigmatised as a degenerate and puny race, that we could have been well satisfied if the entertainment provided for us had been upon a much less heroic scale.

Richard Watson died on the 8th of January, 1833, partly exhausted by unmitigated toil, partly torn to pieces by bodily suffering. In one respect he resembled Robert Hall. His corporeal frame was, for many years of his life," an apparatus of torture." In a former number we recorded the result of the post mortem examination of Hall's remains. We have now an opportunity of doing the same thing with reference to Richard Watson.

The subjoined description of the appearances was furnished by James Hunter, Esq.

"On making an examination after death, the gall-bladder and adjoining portion of the liver were found adhering to the neighbouring viscera. The gall-duct was completely obliterated, a case of very rare Occurrence. The gall-bladder was much altered in structure, and contained, instead of bile, a clear fluid like water. The changes in the liver, gall-bladder, and ducts, were evidently of long standing; and were sufficient to account for the distressing symptoms under which Mr. Watson had been labouring for years."

It is possible that some of our readers may be disposed to turn away from these anatomical expositions. For our own part, we are in the habit of regarding them as inexpressibly important. Every thing is important, which illustrates the predominance of the spiritual over the carnal and material nature. Every thing is important, which affords an impressive commentary on the exclamation, O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? We apprehend that nothing can bring home more forcibly to our hearts the sovereignty of faith, and hope, and love, than intellectual and moral wonders achieved in the midst of a protracted martyrdom. Stoicism, we know, has done much to exalt the power of mind above that of sense; whether it be the stoicism of an Attic school, or the stoicism of a North American wilderness. Ambition, too, and Pride, and Egotism in all its various types and disguises, have likewise done much to show that the dust and ashes are but the poor and beggarly elements of our nature. But the grand triumph is, when the spirit can stretch onward, not seeking great things for itself in this world; but impelled only by the celestial motive of glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and good-will towards men; and this, too, while the flesh is not merely lusting against the spirit, but fighting against it, and striving, as it were, to lacerate the wings of the spirit, in the madness of its anguish. This is the spectacle which was exhibited to the world, in perfection, upon the Cross. And this is the victory of the mind which was in Christ Jesus, which has since, in humbler measure and proportion, been exhibited to the world by many of Christ's faithful servants. And deeply should we have reason to despise ourselves, if we denied this praise to such men as Robert Hall and Richard Watson. We may lament that they should have lived as aliens from what we cannot but regard as the Apostolic Church of Christ. But shame upon us, if we were to question, that they died, as every disciple of Christ must wish to die,-as conquerors, and more than conquerors, through His might, over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Shall we be pardoned, here, for a moment's digression? It has

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