/ ^

 
 

 
 C'
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 REV. ADAM CLARKE, LL.D., 
 
 F.A.S., M.R.I.A., ETC., ETC. 
 
 BY J. W. ETHEKIDGE, M.A., 
 
 DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBEEO, AND 
 MEMBEB OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF PAKIS. 
 
 Amabat vehementer quod docebat, docebat argute quod amabat ; utrumque gignit 
 in eo qui scriptls illius propius iutendit animum. ERASMUS. 
 
 <X~ t ro T)ork: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
 
 200 MtTLBEEKY-STREET. 
 1859.
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 DIVERSITY OF CALIFORNU 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 No name in the history ofMethodism, after John Wesley's, 
 is more widely and honorably known than that of ADAM 
 CLARKE. His "Commentary on the Bible" has been more 
 generally circulated, both in the British Islands and in 
 America, within the last thirty years, than any other expo- 
 sition of the sacred writings. The Biblical culture of many 
 a Methodist minister is due chiefly to that great work. And 
 although it is now to some extent behind the present state 
 of science, especially in the geography and topography of 
 the Holy Land, its multifarious learning, and its excellent 
 practical observations and reflections make it of great value, 
 and keep it in circulation. 
 
 But those who know Adam Clarke only from his Com- 
 mentary know little of the man. His mental characteristics, 
 it is true, are broadly stamped on that vast work : his 
 simplicity, industry, self-reliance, boldness, even credulity, 
 are obvious enough to the careful reader of the Commentary. 
 But the nobleness of his nature, his thorough devotion to 
 the cause of God, his spirit of self-sacrifice, his unfaltering 
 loyalty to Methodism these traits are chiefly displayed in 
 other fields of his activity. To exhibit and illustrate them 
 is the task of his biographer. A copious life of Dr. Clarke, 
 by his son, including a curious and characteristic autobiog- 
 raphy, appeared in London in 1834, (3 vols. 8vo,) and was 
 afterward republished in this country. But it never sup- 
 plied the wants of the general public as a life of Dr. Clarke. 
 Too bulky for general and cheap circulation, and too minute 
 and prolix for easy reading, it affords a repository of facts
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for the biographer, rather than a biography itself. The want 
 of a portable volume, portraying the man as he was, for the 
 people, has long been felt. 
 
 Dr. Etheridge has supplied this want in the volume 
 now offered to the public. He evinces that first requi- 
 site of a biographer, a true and hearty sympathy with 
 the subject of his work, in a high degree. He dis- 
 criminates well amid the vast mass of extant material, 
 selecting the salient points of Dr. Clarke's varied career, 
 and presenting them clearly and boldly. If he fails at all, 
 it is in the grouping of his facts ; pictorial skill is not among 
 his most striking. endowments. But even the naked facts 
 are enough ; the plain, unvarnished tale of the rise of Adam 
 Clarke from the hut of the humble schoolmaster in Ireland, 
 to be the companion of princes and of the intellectual mon- 
 archs who are far higher than princes, is a record of sur- 
 passing interest. Most of all is the work valuable as the 
 history of a true and earnest Christian life ; simple and 
 modest in its profession, but manly and robust, to the highest 
 degree, in its realities. 
 
 Besides the attractiveness of this volume, as the record of 
 a life full of rapid changes, and touching human society at 
 many points, it has an ethical value for all classes of readers. 
 To the young student it will afford th stimulus and example 
 of unparalleled devotion to the pursuit of knowledge under 
 difficulties, and of grand success in the pursuit. For the 
 Methodist minister it portrays a career of itinerancy in 
 which the most minute attention to the details of that ardu- 
 ous life were made compatible with continued and system- 
 atic culture. For the Christian reader it depicts a life of 
 earnest, simple, childlike piety, growing, from the beginning 
 to the end, in richness of experience, and fullness of sancti- 
 fication, throughout a career of unexampled labors, cares, 
 and temptations. 
 
 The book is welcome to its place among that repository 
 of true and noble names, that genuine Acta Sanctorum of 
 modern times, the list of " Methodist Biographies."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It has long been felt that the communion of which the 
 eminent person to whose memory these pages are dedicated 
 was a devoted minister, should have its own record of his 
 exemplary life ; and the Committee charged with the literary 
 affairs of the Methodist Connection have the happiness of 
 stating that, by an arrangement with his surviving repre- 
 sentatives, by which the copyright of many inedited papers 
 has come into their possession, they are enabled to meet 
 such a demand. Several years have passed since the pub- 
 lication of any biography of Dr. Clarke; and we believe 
 that the time is now come when a new volume on the sub- 
 ject, written on a plan altogether different from any already 
 pursued, may be offered without disparagement to the inter- 
 ests of preceding authors. 
 
 The ample materials placed at our disposal are sufficient 
 for the creation of a work as voluminous as some of our 
 largest English biographies ; those, for example, of Chalmers 
 or of Wilberforce ; but the object of the Committee, to offer 
 a memoir which shall be accessible to readers in general, 
 would thereby have been defeated. A book of such dimen- 
 sions, like the Leviathan ship, is not always easily launched. 
 As it is, we have the satisfaction of believing that the pres- 
 ent work will be found to present the memorabilia of Dr. 
 Adam Clarke's life and character in such a clear and truo
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 light as shall render it an acceptable gift to those who knew 
 and loved him, and a means of pleasure and profit to many 
 others, who, now becoming acquainted with his excellences, 
 will begin to love him too. 
 
 It will not be deemed at all disrespectful to the Doctor's 
 name, that we have recounted the annals of his life without 
 overloading our recital with a cumbrous mass of particulars, 
 which, important as they may have been in their own hour, 
 do not extend a sufficient influence on after time to demand a 
 record on the page of history. This principle has been 
 adopted as the right one in all the ages of literature ; and 
 therefore some of the choicest and most classic biographies, 
 both ancient and modern, are distinguished by their com- 
 parative brevity. 
 
 We have to express our respectful sense of obligation to 
 Mrs. Richard Smith, the daughter and first biographer of 
 Dr. Clarke, for the kindness with which she has afforded 
 every facility for the completion of this new Life of her 
 honored father ; and, also, our best thanks to Messrs. 
 W. Tegg and Co., the proprietors of the Doctor's volumin- 
 ous works, for their permission to republish the excellent 
 portrait which gives an embellishment to the present volume. 
 
 March, 1858.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE MORNING OF LIFE. 
 
 PAGC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. His PAEENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 13 
 
 II. REGENERATE 29 
 
 III. FIRST ESSAYS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. ... 50 
 
 IV. THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. . . 57" 
 V. THE EVANGELIST 70 
 
 VI. THE EVANGELIST 85 
 
 VII. THE MISSIONARY 106 
 
 VIII. THE CIRCUIT MINISTER 133 
 
 IX. THE CIRCUIT MINISTER 153 
 
 / 
 
 BOOK H. 
 
 MERIDIAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE PREACHER 171 
 
 II. THE PASTOR 187 
 
 HI. THE PREACHER AND PASTOR CONTINUED . . . 201 
 IV. THE PREACHER AND PASTOR CONTINUED. . . 223 
 
 V. THE PRESIDENT , 237 
 
 VI. ITTNERANOY. . , 257
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAf. K. 
 
 VII. ITINERANCY 266 
 
 VIII. THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR 281 
 
 IX. THE STUDENT CONTINUED 307 
 
 X. THE AUTHOR 322 
 
 XL THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE 340 
 
 XII. THE COADJUTOR OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY 348 
 
 XIII. THE COMMENTATOR 351 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH '373 
 
 II. HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD 389 
 
 III. THE PHILANTHROPIST 401 
 
 IV. THE FRIEND 413 
 
 V. THE HUSBAND 431 
 
 VI. THE FATHER 438 
 
 VII. THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH 446 
 
 SUPPLEMENT OF ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES FROM DR. 
 
 CLARKE'S CORRESPONDENCE . . . 461
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE most ancient book in the possession of mankind, the 
 Genesis of Moses, has enregistered for all time a series of 
 biographical memoirs. The Spirit of God, in dictating those 
 recitals by his own inspiration, has thus given a Divine and 
 eternal signature to the lawfulness and utility of a descrip- 
 tion of writing which perpetuates the names of the great 
 and good, re-echoes the words of the silent dead, and pre- 
 serves, in imperishable fragrance, the sanctities of their ended 
 life. The same principle is inculcated throughout the Bible. 
 " The memory of the just is blessed." " The righteous shall 
 be in everlasting remembrance." Upon the Christian Church 
 the duty is enjoined by an express command, to " remember 
 them who have spoken to us the word of God," and to imi- 
 tate their faith. May he then who now writes, and they 
 who shall read, the words of this record, be stirred up to 
 follow the high example of him to whose memory these 
 pages are consecrated ; remembering " the end of his con- 
 versation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever." 
 
 A quarter of a century has already passed since this emi- 
 nent servant of God descended to the grave ; yet, not for a 
 day in this long interval has he ceased to preach among the
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 living the truths which it was the labor of his life to illus- 
 trate and practice. And while some of his contemporaries, 
 who, in their day, made a considerable figure, have already 
 disappeared in oblivion, time, the great prover of all things, 
 has, for the name of Adam Clarke, authenticated a title to 
 immortality. The worth of his character, his massive and 
 consecrated learning, the high motives of his laborious life, 
 and the enduring beneficence of its results, have all been 
 verified by a scrutinizing world. 
 
 The retrospect of such a career will strengthen the best 
 aspirations of the heart, and show us the way to attain their 
 objects. Adam Clarke uplifts his eyes, at the outset, to the 
 true standard of human effort the glory and approval of 
 the Most High God. With this great ideal he holds such 
 habitual converse, as greatly to think, and feel, and live, till 
 at length his character brightens into a deathless grandeur, 
 and he " stands in his lot" with those nobles of the universe 
 who are " a kind of first-fruits " of the creatures of God. 
 
 Few ministers of the Gospel in the present age, by the 
 integrity of their character, the splendor of their learning, 
 and the sterling merit of their works, have acquired more 
 largely the veneration of enlightened and impartial men in 
 all parts of Christendom, than Dr. Clarke; and, if so many 
 of the good and great in every branch of the Catholic Church 
 have learned to esteem his memory, it well becomes that 
 particular communion of which he was a conspicuous orna- 
 ment, and in the most intimate fellowship with which he 
 lived and died, to enshrine his name in her heart, and to 
 teach it to her children. " He was a burning and shining 
 light ;" and we, who, while he was yet personally with us, 
 rejoiced in the benefit of his luminous ministration, should 
 give some worthy attestation of our grateful estimate of his
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 labors and his love, and of our desire that those who follow 
 us may profit, to distant ages, by the unfading reflections of 
 his wisdom, and the inspirations of his great example. 
 
 Nor is there any need that this sacred tribute should be 
 spoiled of its moral effect by the use of exaggerated eulogy, 
 or the pompous imbecilities of laborious panegyric. No 
 man requires this at our hand. We do not ask that the 
 name of Adam Clarke should be canonized, nor seek for 
 him a niche in the pantheon of imaginary saints, around 
 whose heads a paganized Romanism has traced the aureole 
 of unearthly perfection. It is our aim to fulfill the far more 
 difficult but more fruitful task of portraying the actual life 
 of a sincere Christian, a diligent inquirer after truth, and a 
 hard-working and effective servant of God, and of man, in 
 the diffusion of it clad, all the while, in the every-day habili- 
 ments of suffering humanity. 
 
 And if the most sun-like of characters have had their 
 spots, and no mere man, however great, has ever appeared 
 without some imperfections and littlenesses, the subject of 
 our memoir will not be depreciated, if we find that in opinion 
 he was sometimes in error, or that in any of the partialities 
 or prejudices of the heart he gave evidence of being a fellow- 
 creature, of like passions with ourselves. But, after all, it 
 will, I believe, be a common conclusion, that he was more 
 free from these inevitable blemishes than most men ; while, 
 on the other hand, few instances may be adduced in which 
 a nobler model has been offered to the study and imitation 
 of the aspirant after real excellence. The lessons of his life 
 teach those who are asking after the way of salvation, the 
 secret of attaining true repose for the conscience, and purifi- 
 cation for the heart ; the heroic enterprises of his intellect 
 animate the student to press into those regions of knowledge
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 into which he went as a pioneer, and where there remains 
 so much land to be possessed ; the evangelist will be stirred 
 up to seek the needed and promised gifts of the Spirit, with 
 whose uncreated flame this great doctor of the Church was 
 so richly baptized ; and, even with regard to secular inter- 
 ests, in his advancement from the humblest circumstances 
 to an elevation in which he became the recognized teacher 
 of teachers, and the familiar friend of the prelate and the 
 prince, young men may learn how, in a country and age like 
 ours, integrity and diligence in one's allotted sphere will not 
 fail of their recompense of reward. In a word, in the prog- 
 ress of his career, the living may learn how to live ; and in 
 its consummation, the dying, how to die. 
 
 The providence and grace of God have, from age to age, 
 raised up men whose lives should be a beacon of hope to 
 them who come after. "A true intellect stands like a watch- 
 tower upon the shore." The waves thunder against it, and 
 vanish in spray. Its clear and steady lamp burns in the 
 storm ; a consolation and a guide, over the dark sea, to the 
 haven of glory.
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 KEY. ADAM CLARKE, LL.D. 
 
 BOOK I. -THE MORNING OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HIS PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 
 
 To retrace the foosteps 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 Pot- 
 ter would have found many a congenial subject for his pen- 
 cil. 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 afterward 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,
 
 14 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 con- 
 nection 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 clergy- 
 man, and the first Protestant who preached at Maghera 
 after 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 de- 
 prived them of an excellent estate called "the Grange;" 
 and, while Adam was yet a child, the last acre of their prop- 
 erty was gone. " I well remember," ho once said, " the 
 time when the last farm went out of the family, and our 
 ;innmt boast was lost forever. The weeping and wailing 
 that morning upon which we were made acquainted with 
 the fact, still live in my rememberance, though I was then
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 15 
 
 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 ed- 
 ucation 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 immedi- 
 ate 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 pre- 
 mature 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 this 
 continent. On the very eve of embarkation, his father, who 
 earnestly deprecated the undertaking, succeeded in dissuad- 
 ing 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
 
 16 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 en- 
 deavors which gave a character to his remaining life, mani- 
 fest an unswerving resolution to acquit himself of its re- 
 sponsibilities. The school appears to have been generally 
 well attended, and by the children of all ranks in the neigh- 
 borhood. 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, afterward 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 school- 
 masters. 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 cus- 
 tomary for education, the diligent labors of this able and 
 conscientious teacher yielded but a poor return for the sup- 
 port of his family. The highest charge for a range of in- 
 struction 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, remarka- 
 ble for muscular strength. A brother of Mrs. Clarke, the
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 17 
 
 Rev. I. M'Lean, " could bend iron bars with a stroke of his 
 arm ; roll up large pewter dishes like a scroll with his fin- 
 gers ; 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 in a moment, took oft* his 
 coat, rolled it up, and threw it under the table with " Di- 
 vinity, 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 self-denying 
 life. Their eldest son, named Tracy, after his relative, the 
 Rev. John Tracy, rector of Kilcronaghan, was bred to the 
 medical profession, Some passages in his remarkable 
 
 * Autobiography,
 
 18 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 Kilcronaghan, county London- 
 derry. 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 his baptism was preserved ; and Mrs. Clarke 
 herself could give no decisive information, her own recollec- 
 tion 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 hearty 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 small-pox, the child dis- 
 dained 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, uncom- 
 mon strength for his age, which his father seemed proud of 
 showing, setting the child to roll large stones when visitors 
 came to the house. 
 
 * Audin, " Histoire de Luther."
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 19 
 
 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 of 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 hebetude ; 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 im- 
 provement 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 reflec- 
 tion which follows them : " How injudicious Is the general
 
 20 - LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 mode of dealing with those who are called dull boys ! To 
 every child learning must be a task ; and as no young per- 
 son 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 repre- 
 hended 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 small- 
 est 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 that possess the happy art of devel- 
 oping 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 dia- 
 monds which have never shone, because they have fallen into 
 such hands as could not distinguish them from common peb 
 bles ; 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. 
 Goldsmith's description of a similar potentate applies to 
 him in this as in other respects : 
 
 " Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
 With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skill' d to rule, 
 The village ruaster taught his little school. 
 
 * Autob'ography.
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 21 
 
 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 expe- 
 rience, 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 mem- 
 ory, but because he could not comprehend : ' In speech be 
 these eight parts following : noun, pronoun, verb, participle, 
 declined ; adverb, conjunction, preposition, interjection, un- 
 declined.' 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 quce maribus" 1 he got through with difficulty, at two 
 lines each lesson. With the 'As in prcesenti' 1 of the same 
 ponderous Grammar he was puzzled beyond measure ; he 
 could not understand the 'Bo^bi; do/rfdi ; mo/*ui,'etc., 
 and could by no means proceed. Of the reason or proba- 
 ble utility of such things he could form no judgment; and at 
 last it became so intolerable, that he employed two whole
 
 22 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 days and part of a third, in fruitless endeavors to commit 
 to memory two lines, with their construction, of what ap- 
 peared 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 ofever 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, m a terrific tone, ' Sir, what brought you 
 here? Where is your Latin Grammar 1 ?' 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 belong- 
 ing 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 prcesenti, 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 mo- 
 ment 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, and 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
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 23 
 
 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 excep- 
 tions, 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 penu- 
 rious 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 with in 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 exer- 
 cise the growing strength of his two sons. It was a pleas- 
 ant reminiscence of Dr. Clarke's, that his father, more in 
 
 * Autobiography.
 
 24 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 the spirit of a classical scholar than of a plodding matter-of- 
 lact iarmer, wished to cultivate his grounds upon the princi- 
 ples laid down in the Georgics of Virgil. In recording this 
 recollection, the Doctor remarks that his father did not ap- 
 pear 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 ignotumforro qudm scindimus cequor, 
 Ventos et iiarium cceli prcediscere morem, 
 Cura sit, ac patrios cultusque habitusqve locorwn ; 
 Et quid quwqueferat regio, et quid qu&que recuset. 
 Hie segretes, illic veniunt felicius utiae, : 
 Arborei foetus alibi, atque injussa, viresevnt 
 Gramina. Nonne aides, eroceos ut Tmolns odores, 
 India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabcei ?" GEORG. i. 
 
 " 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.
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 25 
 
 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 conception at 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 the 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
 
 26 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 cor- 
 rect 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, horse- 
 manship also afforded him a vast delight. He would some- 
 times 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 be- 
 come 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
 
 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 27 
 
 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 apprehen- 
 sion nor pain, entered on the consciousness of perfect tran- 
 quillity 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 infla- 
 ted 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 com- 
 pletely dead, never more to breathe in this world, had it not 
 been for that Providence which, as it were, once more 
 breathed into him that breath of life, and caused him to be- 
 come 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 mag
 
 28 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 nify 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 ; neither 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 ca- 
 reer 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."
 
 REGENERATE. 29 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 BEGEISTEKATE. 
 
 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 evi- 
 dences of a Divine intervention, and the practical tokens of 
 that great redeeming design which has brought our sin-in- 
 fected 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 heat 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
 
 30 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 ETER- 
 NITY ! and how dreadful to be put into hell-fire, 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 sin- 
 ner, 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 com 
 municated 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 per- 
 manence. Yet the impression, though it grew faint, did not 
 wear away. It was deep laid in the consideration of eter- 
 nity, 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 circum- 
 stances considered) as I ever was afterward. But I hud no
 
 EEGENERATE. 31 
 
 such helper, no ' messenger,' ' one among a thousand,' who 
 could show man his righteousness." 
 
 The neighborhood in which he lived had not at the 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 commun- 
 ions. The rector of Agherton was the Kev. Mr. Smith, " a 
 good man, full of humanity and benevolence," who preach- 
 ed 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 verg- 
 ing closely on Socinianisin." 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 
 *;hat time of the general tone. An old friend of theirs, the 
 Rev. Henry Moore, speaking of them as he knew them in 
 nis juvenile days, says : " The family were what is gener- 
 ally called a 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 consola- 
 tions and hopes. But his worthy and faithful wife, albeit a 
 stranger (like himself) to the refined enjoy n.ents of personal 
 godliness, seems to have had a deeper sen se than he of the 
 need of that which they had not yet attained. Her mind 
 was habitually serious, and her whole conduct in the train- 
 ing of the family betokened an earnest solicitude for their 
 everlasting welfare. Like many other great and good men,
 
 32 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Dr. Clarke owed an unspeakable debt to his mother for the 
 influence she exerted over the formation of his character. 
 Looking back on these pristine days, he said on one occa- 
 sion, " For my mother's religious teachings, I shall have 
 endless reason to bless my Maker." She was the instru- 
 ment of imprinting on his conscience those ethical convic- 
 tions which in aftertime germinated, by the grace of God, 
 into great and fruitful virtues. She would garnish and 
 fortify her instructions with pithy adages, which her chil- 
 dren'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 wo, 
 It will not be always so :" 
 
 like the motto that the eastern legend tells us king Solo 
 mon 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 the 
 conviction. With the Scriptures she was so conversant and 
 ready, that there was scarcely any delinquency for the con- 
 demnation of which she could not find a portion. She 
 seemed to find them at the first opening, and would gener- 
 ally 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
 
 REGENERATE. 33 
 
 day disobeyed his mother, and the disobedience was accom- 
 panied with some look or gesture that indicated an under- 
 valuing 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 man- 
 ner: '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 imme- 
 diately from heaven. He went out into the field with a 
 troubled spirit, and was musing on this horrible denuncia^ 
 tion 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 
 uf 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 assur- 
 ance that retribution will ever track the footsteps of guilt. 
 
 To the faithful admonitions of this stern but loving in- 
 structress, 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 rever- 
 ence 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 
 * Autobiography. 
 
 3
 
 34: LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 versi- 
 fied Collect, which the doctor remembered to his latest day : 
 
 AT MORNING PRAYER. 
 " Preserve ine, Lord, amid 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, 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, 
 jjct 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 theo I cry, 
 
 To grant me mercy ere I die ; 
 
 To grunt me mercy, and send me peace, 
 
 That heaven may be my dwelling-place." 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 " Give to the Father praise, 
 
 And glory to the Son, 
 And to the Spirit of his grace 
 
 Be equal honor don* 1 ."
 
 REGENERATE. 35 
 
 These compositions, it must be confessed, are homely 
 enough ; but they were made for home use, whoever wrote 
 them. Adam Clarke always entertained a fund attachment 
 to them. " They contain," said he, " the first breathings of 
 my mind toward 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 imbned 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 
 ^ciuded 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 amuse- 
 ment 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
 
 36 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 stead- 
 fastness 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 went 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." 
 
 "Mala uve" 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 learned 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, nd shuffling, in all times 
 and places. I began now to value myself, which, as far as I 
 n\r\ "eoollect. I had never thought of before. 1 grew impa- 
 tient 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 subordina- 
 tion, 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 stuJy ; 
 and the authority of my parents was feared indeed, but not 
 ivs|>ccted. And few serious impressions could prevail in a 
 mind imbued now with frivolity. Yet I entered into no
 
 REGENERATE. 37 
 
 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 observa- 
 tions 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 ad- 
 ditional 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 011 
 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 
 
 * Autobiography. See, too, a paper written on this subject by Dr. 
 Clarke, in the Arminian Magazine for 1792 ; reprinted in his Miscellane- 
 ous "Works.
 
 38 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 main- 
 tained a kind of grateful affection, not only for the enter- 
 tainment 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 charac- 
 teristically 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 enjoy- 
 ed it. He had heard that among the gipsies 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, ho told them what he had come for. The conversa- 
 tion 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 gipsies 
 were not disposed to part with these precious sybilline 
 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
 
 REGENERATE. 39 
 
 the wanderers haunted that part of the country, he might 
 have been seen in their out-of-the-way retreat, with ink- 
 bottle and note-book, appropriating in unspeakable eager- 
 ness 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 dis- 
 suade 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 he 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 here- 
 after. 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 Athe- 
 nian 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. Pie had quieted some 
 misgivings on the subject of spiritual incantations by the 
 thought, that what was done in these ways was done ^ith 
 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 invoca-
 
 40 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Jions of his power ?" gave, by way of answer in the nega- 
 tive, the quotation from the Gospel where our Lord has de- 
 clared, " 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 ; de- 
 part 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 look- 
 ing 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 reve- 
 lation, 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 or- 
 bits ; among them the earth has 4ier 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 fount- 
 ain, 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 ever-present 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 lift- 
 
 *ABKN ESBA, Sephardim Machasor. Compare the beautiful words 
 of Schiller : " His mime ought to lie in secret behind every one of our 
 thoughts, and speak to 'us from every object of nature ; for us this bright 
 majestic universe itself should be but us the shining jewel on which his 
 image, nnd only his, should stand engraved."
 
 REGENERATE. 41 
 
 ing 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 crea- 
 tion 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 him- 
 self; for God, who commanded light to shine out of dark- 
 ness, was about to shine into his heart, to give him to be- 
 hold his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. We have had 
 occasion to allude to the low state of religion in the neigh- 
 borhood 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 ora- 
 cle 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 gath- 
 ered over his path. WESLEY was then fulfilling his course, 
 and approaching, indeed, the consummation of that illus- 
 trious 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
 
 42 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of Methodism were becoming more extensive and more 
 potent every year ; and, in the order of a merciful Provi- 
 dence, 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 exist- 
 ence. 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 Counselor 
 O'Neil. It was now that he saw for the first time a Method- 
 ist preacher, (John Brettell,) a tall thin man, with serious- 
 looking countenance, and long hair. Adam heard the ser- 
 mon 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 him- 
 self to God. Adam was so far impressed as to wish to 
 hear this doctrine more largely. He seized the first occa- 
 sion, and heard Mr. Brettell again. The text was, " Behold, 
 I stand at the door, and knock." The effect of this sermon 
 was to show him that the consequence of slighting the call 
 of mercy would be everlasting ruin. Meanwhile the preach- 
 ers stationed at Coleraine had made arrangements for regu- 
 larly 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 at- 
 tend. She heard, and immediately pronounced, " This is 
 the doctrine of the Reformers; this is true and unadul- 
 terated 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 wel- 
 come resting-place, and brought the blessing of their Master
 
 REGENERATE. 43 
 
 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 com- 
 plete 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 ex- 
 amination 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 attention 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 ; awak- 
 ening 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 ap- 
 peared 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
 
 44 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 stones ; for they had not offended a just God, and were 
 incapable of bearing his displeasure. 
 
 " The season was summer time. The fields were in their 
 beautiful dress ; the flocks and herds browsed in the pas- 
 tures, 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 melan- 
 choly 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 willfully ignores it ? 
 
 He who would be saved feels the need of THE SAVIOUR ; 
 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 
 
 * Autobiography.
 
 REGENERATE. 46 
 
 had just now to contend, through painful doubts on the Di- 
 vinity 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 sonle 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 pur- 
 pose 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 1 had lightly come 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 
 on 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 atone- 
 ment, so far as it concerned himself, was almost entirel v 
 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 fiat on his face on the earth, and endeav- 
 ored to pray, but still there was no answer ; he arose, but 
 he was so weak that he could scarcely stand. His agonies 
 
 * Psalm xxxii, 6, margin.
 
 46 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 were indescribable; he seemed to be forever separated from 
 God and the glory of his power. Death, in any form, he 
 could have preferred to his present feelings, if that death 
 coutd 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 opportuni- 
 ty. 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 sin- 
 ners. His agony subsided, his soul became calm. A glow 
 of happiness thrilled through his frame ; all guilt and con- 
 demnation were gone. He examined his conscience, and 
 found it no longer a register of sins against God. He look- 
 ed to heaven, and all was sunshine ; he searched for his dis- 
 tress, but could not find it. He felt indescribably happy, 
 but could not tell the cause ; a change had taken place with- 
 in 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 n 
 'IM>. 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. what .1 
 change was here ! and yet, lest he should be overwhelmed 
 with it, its name and its nature were in a great measure 
 hiiMc.n 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
 
 HKGENERATE. 47 
 
 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 God 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, ' 0, he thinks, surely, that I am justi- 
 fied, 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 love-feast 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, (Rev. i, 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, ne suddenly stopped and said, though 
 not pernaps 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 wit- 
 ness in his conscience, and he could no more have doubted 
 of it than he could 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 com- 
 munion with them of whom he could now say, " Their 
 
 * Autobiography.
 
 48 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 class-meeting, but 
 was not at that time in such a state of mind as to render 
 the manner in which the hour was spent sufficiently attract- 
 ive 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 regis- 
 tries, to abide in them forever.* This was the right pro- 
 cedure. Had he remained aloof from v ^he Church, as too 
 many do in similar cases, he, as they do, would have 
 deprived himself of a divinely appointed means of succor 
 for the mind in the temptations of life, and would probably 
 have failed, 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 1 ? And in doing this, it was the steadfast con- 
 viction 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 
 U> 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 trans- 
 
 * lie gives an important testimony, in one of hia letters, to the value 
 of class-meetings.: " When I met in class, I learned more in a week than 
 1 had learned before in a month. I understood the preaching better; 
 and getting acquaintance with my own heart, and hearing the experience 
 of God's people, I soon got acquainted with God himself."
 
 REGENERATE. 49 
 
 actions, have been in his eighteenth year. We doubt not 
 that the alliance he was then enabled to make with the dis- 
 ciples 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 
 steps 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." 
 
 4
 
 50 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 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. He stated to them* his convic- 
 tions 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 boon so laid upon his conscience that he dared not shrink. 
 " At Inst 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 (rod'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 tin- wife, of that eminent
 
 FIRST ESSAYS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. 51 
 
 scholar and true-hearted servant of God, the late Thomas 
 Exley, M. A. The eldest sister soon took the same course. 
 This lady was afterward 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 com- 
 munion. 
 
 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 him- 
 self became a preacher. This was Andrew Coleman, a 
 young man of good education and great promise, of whom 
 Clarke had afterward 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 hts 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 a.way 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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 mathe-
 
 52 LIFE OF ADAM CLAEKE. 
 
 matics 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 predi- 
 lections would, of course, have chosen for his son the office to 
 which he had himself aspired in early life that of the min- 
 istry of the Established Church ; but the influence of his 
 own disappointment, and the scanty resources of the family, 
 combined to paralyze any effort to fif him for it at the Uni- 
 versity. At the same time Mr. Bennett, a relative, who
 
 FIRST ESSAYS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. 53 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 with- 
 out 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 con- 
 version 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 bell to give them a reveil for the 
 house of prayer ; and on Sabbath days taking his now ac- 
 customed part in the work of exhortation in the villages. 
 The pious and intelligent Society in the town took knowl- 
 edge 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 pro- 
 nunciation to the voice which was bidding him to be free
 
 54 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 from the entanglements of the world, that he 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 
 pioduce (butter, hides, and tallow) to England. But the 
 die had been virtually cast ; he was to be " a merchant- 
 man," who should seek " goodly pearls," in souls forever 
 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, di- 
 rect 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 or- 
 dained 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 xv, 16. 
 This word gave him great encouragement, and he went on his 
 way rejoicing. When he came to the city, Mr. Bredin de- 
 sired him to go the next night and supply his place at a vil- 
 lage called New Buildings, about five miles from Dcrry. 
 To this he agreed. " But," says Mr. Bredin, "you must 
 jjreach to the people." " I will do the best I can," says Adam, 
 " with God's help." " But," says Mr. Bredin, " you must take 
 atext,and preach from it." "That I ciuuiol undertake," said 
 Adam. " You must and shall," said Mr. Bredin. " I will 
 exhort as usual, but cannot venture to take a text." " Well,
 
 FIRST ESSAYS IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. 55 
 
 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; " 1 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 re- 
 course 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 Meth- 
 odists. "He asked, 'Are you the preacher?' Adam an- 
 swered, 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 min- 
 gled with surprise, said. ' You are a young one to unravel the 
 word !' " 
 
 It was on that evening, June 19, 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 v, 19 : "We 
 know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wick- 
 edness ;" 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 cor- 
 ruption ; 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
 
 56 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the subject, we are not surprised to find that "the people 
 seemed gratified, and gathered round him when he had fin- 
 ished, 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 iv, 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 gracious- 
 ly 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 beVore 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 pro- 
 pared 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 di- 
 recting that he should bring Adanl Clarke with him.
 
 THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. 57 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE OPENED KOAD BOUGH 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 recom- 
 pense 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 fulfill his course, and the ministry he 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 intel- 
 lect wakeful with high and solemn thought, and hallowed by 
 the love of God. A bystander 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 tri- 
 angular hat. In fact, the sailors of the press-gang let him 
 pass free, from their having taken him for an Irish priest.
 
 58 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 the career that was be- 
 fore 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 remuner- 
 ation 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 beati- 
 tude. 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 inter- 
 ests 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
 
 THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. 59 
 
 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 begun to use her in- 
 fluence 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 botTi 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, he 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 arid affectionate leave of his parents and 
 friends, he walked to Derry, a journey of upward 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 him- 
 self from all earthly connections and prospects in his own 
 country, and went on what he believed to be a Divine com-
 
 60. LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 mand, not knowing whither he was going, or what God in- 
 tended for him." 
 
 In those days steam navigation was unknown, and the 
 voyage begun on Saturday was not completed till the 
 Monday afternoon. Adam would have improved the 
 Sunday in his usual way, but was prostrate with sea-sick- 
 ness. 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 con- 
 versation, 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 best they could below. The two steer- 
 age 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 im- 
 mediately walked up, and stood reclining against the gun- 
 wale. The lieutenant dived below in quest of 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 in-
 
 THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE- OUTSET. 61 
 
 dignation, not only then, but when relating this circumstance 
 afterward, he used to inveigh against the tyranny of a cus- 
 tom at once iniquitous and cruel in itself, and utterly at 
 variance with the spirit and the letter of the British Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The worthy captain's wife was the mistress of a boarding- 
 house, and there our young traveler found a quiet and con- 
 genial sojourn during his brief stay in Liverpool. The inmates 
 were a Scotch gentleman and a naval officer. The conversa- 
 tion at the tea-table gave Adam an occasion of respectfully 
 admonishing the lady about a habit she had of asseverating 
 by her conscience. This led to a further discussion at sup- 
 per, 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 
 he 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 1 
 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 com- 
 mitted, as well as on the terrible doom that awaits the un- 
 forgiven. 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 free- 
 dom 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
 
 62 -LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 un- 
 folded 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 inter- 
 larded 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 to an uncommon 
 degree, and he made it the subject of a great deal of harm- 
 loss but rather foolish wit. On returning inside he told his 
 tali- 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 pica that he did not 
 think liis company would be agreeable. She answered, 
 Sir. you must come in ; this young gentleman will take 
 your |ilacc, and yon will do us good." Thus challenge,], he 
 could no longer refuse. Questioned about his religion, the 
 purposes of his journey, etc., he gave such an account of
 
 THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. 63 
 
 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 ser- 
 vant 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 for us, and quoted the verse 
 from Horace : 
 
 ' Integer vita, scelerisque purus 
 Non eget Mauri jaculus neque arcu, 
 Nee venenatis gravidd sagittis, 
 Fusee, 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, nuncpede 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 sub- 
 jects they blow hot and cold." 
 
 When the coach stopped for dinner at Lichfield they in- 
 sisted upon his being their guest, and would not suffer him 
 to be at any charge ; and as they were going on to London, 
 
 * Odar. i, 22. " The man that knows not guilty fear, 
 Nor wants the bow, nor pointed spear ; 
 Nor needs, while innocent of heart, 
 The quiver teeming with the poison'd dart." 
 
 t Odar. i, 37. " Now let the bowl with wine be crown'd, 
 Now lightly dance the mazy round."
 
 64 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 subsisted on "a penny loaf and a halfpenny 
 worth 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 he lay down. He 
 had now sevenpence halfpenny, sixpence of which the 
 chambermaid charged him 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 toward Kingswood. He found the 
 Wesleyan establishment, consisting of a mansion, school,
 
 THE OPENED KOAL> ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. (x> 
 
 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 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 weigh- 
 ed 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 presenti- 
 ment 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 surprised, 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 can- 
 not 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 already been 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 din- 
 ner at the family bible, all comfort was annihilated by the 
 overbearing rigor of the hostess. It is needless to go mi- 
 nutely into the circumstances which embittered his transient 
 sojourn ; some of them it might be found impossible to 
 
 5
 
 DO LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 Mas- 
 ter of Arts, and, as Dr. Clarke records, " a man of learning 
 and piety, but one too easy for his situation." The Rev. 
 Cornelius Bayley, afterward 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 insti- 
 tution. Though the teachers were men of adequate learning, 
 yet as .the school was perfectly disorganized, every one did 
 what wsis right in his own eye. 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 pur- 
 pose 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
 
 THE OPENED ROAD ROUGH AT THE OUTSET. 67 
 
 lapse of time, and is now one of the best educational institu- 
 tions 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 over- 
 looked 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 en- 
 terprises 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 theo- 
 logical faculty accomplishes an effective training of devoted 
 young men for the service of the Church, at their colleges of 
 Richmond, in 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 the 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 grate- 
 ful 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, f 
 
 *A pocket Bible, a Greek Testament, Prideaux's Connection, and 
 Young's Night Thoughts. 
 
 t In digging there one day, he lit upon a half-guinea. Having laid this 
 golden discovery before the gentlemen of the house, and found that none
 
 68 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 and occasional essays to do good, by speaking to the peo- 
 ple, 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 into 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 V 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 ad- 
 dition 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." 
 
 of them claimed it, he entered his name as a subscriber to a Hebrew 
 Grammar which Mr. Bayley was then preparing for publication, and 
 which gave him afterward his first lessons in the study of the holy 
 tongue.
 
 THE OPENED KOAD BOUGH AT THE OUTSET. 69 
 
 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 Wes- 
 ley, being not a little gratified to have the opportunity of 
 seeing " the two men whom I had long considered as the 
 very highest characters 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 de- 
 tain 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 Trowbridg, the 
 head-quarters for the preachers of the circuit. 
 Sursum corda.
 
 70 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 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 sys- 
 tem 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 cir- 
 cumstances we have recounted, he had not to feel his way 
 with the uncertain step of a mere adventurer, but had only 
 to make his credentials 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 juve- 
 nility 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 expres- 
 sion to his first view of the affair, with, " Tut, tut ! what
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 71 
 
 will Mr. Wesley send us next ?" Yet they proved them- 
 selves 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 per- 
 plexing reasonings. He thought, 'How can I expect that 
 men and women, persons of forty, threescore, 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 1 ?'" Time, however, 
 with its rapid wing, would too soon leave all these com- 
 plaints behind him. Meanwhile the intellectual and relig- 
 ious characteristics of this youth placed him on a par with 
 " persons of forty," ay, and with some of the sages of " four- 
 score." 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, and the grand 
 warrant of hope to man ; from which all effectual teaching 
 must be denied, and to which all creed 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 9, 1783. Bene orcisse est
 
 72 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 bene studuisse." At the end of the Old Testament is 
 the memorandum, "June 10. Bead through;" while by 
 another, at the beginning of Genesis, we judge that he re- 
 commenced the next day : "Incepi, June 11, 1784." I have 
 myself a pocket Bible of his, in a stout red morocco case. 
 < )n the top of the title-page are the words in his hand- writ- 
 ing, " God is love. Glory to his name ! Adam Clarke, 
 May 21, 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 per- 
 sons 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 re- 
 peatedly read of these three, and never of more persons in 
 the Godhead. 
 
 "III. The Sacred Scriptures or Holy Books, which con- 
 stitute the Old and New Testaments, contain a full revela- 
 tion 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,
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 73 
 
 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 in- 
 finite love, formed the purpose of redeeming him from his 
 lost estate by the incarnation, in the fullness of time, of 
 Jesus Christ; and, in the interim, sent his Holy Spirit to 
 enlighten, strive with, and convince men of sin, righteous- 
 ness, and judgment. 
 
 " VII. In due time this Divine person, called the Logos, 
 Word, Saviour, etc., etc., 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 ; 
 bebig one with him who is called God, Jehovah, Lord, etc. 
 
 " IX. He is also a perfect man, in consequence of his 
 incarnation ; and in that man, or manhood, dwelt all the 
 fullness of the Godhead bodily : so that his nature is two- 
 fold divine and human, or God manifested in the flesh. 
 
 " X. His Unman 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,
 
 74 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 con- 
 tinue to be, the Mediator of the human race till the con- 
 summation of all things. 
 
 " XIII. There is no salvation but through him ; and 
 throughout the Scriptures his passion and death are consid- 
 ered as sacrificial: pardon of sin and final salvation being 
 obtained by the alone shedding of his blood. 
 
 " XIV. No human being, since the/aZZ, 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 sacri- 
 ficial 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 instantane- 
 ous 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 justifica- 
 tion, being un scriptural and absurd.
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 75 
 
 " 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 to both 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 f hereafter, are conditional ; and it is on this ground 
 alone that the Holy Scriptures can be consistently inter- 
 preted 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 accounta- 
 ble for any acts which were predetermined, and to which he 
 was irresistibly compelled. 
 
 " XXIV. Every human being has this freedom of will,
 
 76 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 salva- 
 ble 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 un- 
 to 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 admin- 
 istered 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 cnable'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 reunited 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
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 77 
 
 shall then be forever terminated, and the succeeding state 
 must necessarily be fixed and unalterable. 
 
 " XXXI. The origin of human salvation is found in the in- 
 finite philanthropy of God ; and on this principle the uncon- 
 ditional 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 blasphe- 
 mous 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 sub- 
 stantially in harmony with it, with one exception, to which 
 we shall have occasion, though reluctantly, to refer here- 
 after ; I mean that numbered the tenth, the concluding infer- 
 ence 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, explain- 
 ed 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 self-sufficiency, 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. For this influ-
 
 78 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ence he 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 Trow- 
 bridge 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 even- 
 ing, and all the young men and women in the place were 
 determined to hear him. He came, and the place, long be- 
 fore 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 atten- 
 tion was deep and solemn, and the place was still as death. 
 He then gave out that affecting hymn : 
 
 ' Vain, delusive world, adieu, 
 
 "With all of creature good ; 
 Only Jesus I pursue, 
 
 Who bought me with his blood : 
 All thy pleasures I forego, 
 
 I 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 pre- 
 viously bound by our baptismal vow ? Have we not, when 
 we were baptized, promised to renounce the devil and all
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 79 
 
 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 pre- 
 cisely 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 then prayed, 
 and many were deeply affected. That night and the next 
 morning thirteen persons, young men and women, came to 
 him earnestly inquiring what they should do to be saved. A 
 religious concern became general throughout the village and 
 neighborhood ; many young persons sought and found re- 
 demption 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 dili- 
 gence ; 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 great- 
 est 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,
 
 80 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 shortly before his death, one of them came to that place 
 to meet him." 
 
 The circuit in which he continued to labor during the re- 
 mainder of the Methodistic year, extended into three coun- 
 ties, 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 depart 
 ment ; but, no doubt unintentionally, a sore and injurious 
 hinderance. One of his counselors, though a man of un- 
 doubted 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 preach- 
 ers' room, relating to the vicissitude of life, wrote under it 
 a quotation from Virgil (with a verbal change) corrobora- 
 tive of the sentiment : 
 
 "Quo fata trdhunt retrahuntque sequamur. 
 Per varies casuf, per tot discrinvina rerum 
 Tendimus in C<KLUM." JSneid, v, 709 ; with i, 204, 205. 
 
 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 
 
 meter : 
 
 " Did you write the above 
 To show us you could write Latin t 
 For shame 1 
 Do send pride 
 
 To hell, from whence it oauie. 
 O, young man, improve your 
 Time, eternity's at hand."
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 81 
 
 I make no comment on this effusion, and should consider 
 it too insignificant for mention here, but that it helps to un- 
 fold an admirable trait of character in the subject of our biog- 
 raphy : I mean, great tenderness of conscience, and a dis- 
 position to renounce favorite, unexceptionable, and even 
 profitable pursuits, if they became stumbling-blocks in the 
 path of the weak-minded. On coming to the room at Mot- 
 comb, 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 misgiv- 
 ings 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 !" What- 
 ever 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 ad- 
 viser what uncomfortable feeling 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 esti- 
 mate of learning. There have been a very few exceptions 
 to the common rule in those matters ; but no body of men 
 

 
 82 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 Septua- 
 gint 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 num- 
 ber of public exhortations, class-meetings, and religious con- 
 versations in the numerous houses where he passed the in- 
 tervals 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 3, 1783. At five this morning I heard 
 a very useful sermon from Mr. Mather, at the chapel, 
 Broadmead, on Isaiah xxxv, 3, 4. I then went to Guinea- 
 street chapel, where I heard Mr. Bradburn preach on Chris- 
 tian perfection, from 1 John iv, 19. This was, without ex- 
 ception, 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 Rom. v, 21. This ended, I returned to my 
 lodging and breakfasted ; and then, at ten o'clock, heard Mr. 
 Wesley preach .at Broadmead, on Acts i, 5. After sermon, 
 h". assisted by Dr. Coke, the Rev. B. B. Collins, and the
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 83 
 
 Eev. Cornelius Bayley, delivered the holy sacrament to a 
 vast concourse of people, which I also received to my com- 
 fort. When dinner was ended, I heard the Rev. B. B. Col- 
 lins preach at Temple church, on Mark xvi, 15, 16. I next 
 went and heard Mr. Wesley in Carolina-court, on Heb. vi. 
 1 ; after which he met the Society at the chapel, Broadmead, 
 and 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 awaken- 
 ning sermon on 1 Peter iv, 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 occa- 
 sion 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 over- 
 plus 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 at- 
 tention, 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 full connection at the end of his first year's 
 itinerancy. He was by far the youngest man who had ever 
 gone out " to travel ;" aiid his reception into full orders was
 
 84 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 engage- 
 ments ! 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 connec- 
 tion 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 fellow-laborer. THOMAS COKE." 
 
 Underneath, in a neat handwriting, we have the follow- 
 ing : " 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.
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 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 day 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 op- 
 pressed, and save the perishing, Adam Clarke had now been 
 finally enrolled. He wore now the armor that St. Paul 
 describes in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the helm 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, yclad iu 
 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. 
 
 Right 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."
 
 86 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 The service to Avhich 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 col- 
 leagues, the superintendent was Mr. Richard Whatcoat, 
 who was afterward 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 preach- 
 ers 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' resi- 
 dence 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,
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 87 
 
 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 would afterward 
 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 in- 
 dulge 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 he brought with him into 
 this arctic region froze in a few minutes. In such circum- 
 stances, 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 
 
 * I knew an old preacher who had composed a long poein, which he 
 entitled "Night Thoughts," descriptive of similar experiences.
 
 88 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 position, without attempting to move his limbs, every unoc- 
 cupied 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 heneefor- 
 Avard 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 Meth- 
 odist preachers spread Scriptural Christianity through the 
 land, and became the instruments of improving the morai 
 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 peo- 
 ple, 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 Nor- 
 folk 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. Wes- 
 ley had finished, on going from the chapel he found tho
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 89 
 
 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 threat- 
 ening. Mr. Wesley, fearing he would really attack them, 
 called out to him to refrain ; upon which Mr. Hampson re- 
 plied 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 DEAD." Mr. Wesley and his doughty acolyte 
 passed away unmolested. 
 
 It was in the course of this year that the founder of Meth- 
 odism, 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 re- 
 freshed in hearing him preach nine sermons, on the follow- 
 ing texts : " We preach Christ crucified." " Wherefore He 
 is able to save to the uttermost." " Except your righteous- 
 ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Phari- 
 sees, 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 salva- 
 tion, 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 tem- 
 poral; but the things which are not seen are eternal." 
 Adam Clarke had now learned to love Mr. Wesley, as a son 
 loves a father. With him he had now the privilege of con- 
 versation 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 ener- 
 getic power of thy Spirit accompany the words he shall 
 speak, and apply them to the hearts of all, and " [make
 
 90 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 lit- 
 tle fruit. A kind of invincible ignorance and brutal de- 
 pravity 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 re- 
 turn void. Mr. Clarke had the honor of introducing Meth- 
 odism 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 congrega- 
 tions were edified under his ministry, and the more intelli- 
 gent among them discerned in him the signs of future great- 
 ness. 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-a-crown besides 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 
 
 * In the Norwich Circuit he preached 450 sermons, besides exhorta- 
 tion.s innumerable.
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 91 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 neighbor- 
 hood of the headquarters of the preachers at City Koad, 
 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 Trow- 
 bridge ; where, as at Bradford, Shepton-Mallet, and some 
 other places, he spent several useful days. Once more re- 
 cruited, he went on his way, and entered the town of St. 
 Austell 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
 
 92 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 intellectual element which differed greatly from that in Nor- 
 folk and Suffolk. The people in this western peninsula are 
 distinguished by a strong sentiment of respect for real re- 
 ligion, 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 Brit- 
 ish 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 unclosed the volume of the Book, 
 And fill'd the fields of the evangelist 
 With thoughts as sweet as flowers." 
 
 But the latter Romanists, and, subsequently to the Refor- 
 mation, 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 in- 
 augurated 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 exceed- 
 
 * The Rev. R. S. Hawker, vicar of MorwenRtow. The termination of 
 this latter name has a religious indication. Like Padstow, Michaelatow, 
 etc., it points out a station for prayer.
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 93 
 
 ingly 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 exhaust- 
 ing labors were attended by visible results. Crowded con- 
 gregations 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 compen- 
 sated by a blessed ingathering of sinners to Christ, and a 
 general renewing of the face of the country. 
 
 " In St. Austell the heavenly flame broke out in an extra- 
 ordinary 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 afterward 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, when 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 con- 
 versations 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 
 
 * Drew's earliest work was a Refutation of Paine's "Age of Reason." 
 It attracted the attention of the Rev. John Whittaker, the vicar of Ruan 
 Langhorne, (some miles between St. Austell and St. Mawes,) who became 
 Bincerely attached to him, and afforded him some invaluable aids in his 
 literary enterprises. Whittaker himself was a man of massive erudition
 
 94 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 ab- 
 stract 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, free-will, 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 re- 
 ligion, as their scanty means would allow them to build ; 
 and not unfrequently, 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 con- 
 trary side. And on one occasion- Mr. Clarke was carried 
 by the parish authorities to " the nearest magistrate," who 
 happened to be the Rev. 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 
 
 and resplendent eloquence. His " Introduction to the Holy Scriptures," 
 prefixed to Findel's edition of the Bible, has a wonderful grandeur. His 
 antiquarian works are classical. I once made a little pilgrimage to Euan 
 Langhornc, to see the place where he lived and died a delightful rural 
 spot on the banks of the Fal, in Roseland. The great scholar reposes 
 in his church, beneath a plain gray stone within the comtnunion-rails, 
 with the simple inscription, "John Whittakcr, B.D., Vicar, died 1808, 
 nged 73."
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 95 
 
 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, that, 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 ani- 
 mal, 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 even- 
 ing, and, " coming over the down above Rothenbridge, the 
 horse fell, according to custom, and pitched Mr. Clarke di- 
 rectly 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 re- 
 covered 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
 
 96 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 
 man nearer to the Creator. Mr. Clarke had many inter- 
 views with him, and never, as he says, without being the 
 better for them. 
 
 To another gentleman also, Mr. Richard Mabyn, of Cam- 
 elford, he ever after felt a grateful sense of obligation. At his 
 house the young man found what he had long been a stran- 
 ger to the comfort of a home ; and in his letters written 
 to Mr. Mabyn, long years after, he still expresses his affec- 
 tionate 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 threaten- 
 ing to leave the class. I withstood them all, and proclaimed 
 from the pulpit that I would admit the most devil-like souls
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 97 
 
 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 wonder- 
 fully did God confound the wisdom of the prudent ! ever 
 since she has walked and spoken agreeably to her profes- 
 sion. At St. Austell 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 griev- 
 ously. 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 lit- 
 tle time for respite ; for, so early as the 27th of August in 
 the following Methodistic year, we find him entering upon 
 the duties of his new appointment at Plymouth. 
 
 Mr. Clarke's early labors in the West established a sym- 
 pathy 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 suffer- 
 ing, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by 
 the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of 
 righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and 
 dishonor, by evil report and good report ; as unknown, and 
 v.-t well known ; as dving. and yet living ; as chastened,
 
 98 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, 
 yet making many rich." 
 
 Such had been the unction and effectiveness of his popu- 
 lar ministry, that the people in the St. Austell circuit were 
 earnestly desirous of obtaining his services another year, 
 and a request to that effect had been lodged with the Con- 
 ference, 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 seces- 
 sion 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 regather 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 Preacher," put on rec- 
 ord 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 profit- 
 ing 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 collec- 
 tions would do credit to the first 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 nat- 
 ural 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
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 99 
 
 pursuits. He was a Christian man, and in his life and 
 spirit adorned the doctrine of God his Saviour. The propri- 
 ety and dignity of his conduct were, through the whole of 
 his life, truly exemplary ; and his piety toward God, and 
 his benevolence toward 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 facul- 
 ties by which this is combined for use, and employed for in- 
 struction. He read much and well, and had the advantage 
 of access to works from which his inquiring mind had hith- 
 erto been debarred. 
 
 The year passed on in poace ; 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. 
 Adum 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 hi 
 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,
 
 100 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 resolu- 
 tion 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 there 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 con- 
 tinued 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. Afterward he 
 learned that, as the trustees would not indulge them with 
 the places they wished, they were determined to avenge 
 themselves on Almighty 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 hid- 
 eous 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 im- 
 proved." 
 
 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 const*-
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 101 
 
 crated to his service as a vehicle of instruction, and an ex- 
 pressive token of worship. So it was in the tabernacle and 
 temple of old ; so it is, by apostolic precept, in the Chris- 
 tian services ; so it will be in the solemnities of the resur- 
 rection-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 dis- 
 tracted 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 popu- 
 lation 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, afterward 
 purser of the "Venerable," in which Admiral Duncan com- 
 manded when he beat the Dutch under De Winter. The 
 friendly warrantxjfficer lent Mr. Clarke some good books, 
 and among others Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 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 privateer commodore. Kirk- 
 patrick, 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 pain- 
 fully 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
 
 102 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of Robert Carr Brackenbury, Esq., of Raithby Hall, Lin- 
 colnshire ; 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 fel- 
 low-men. 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 resi- 
 dence 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 Confer- 
 ence for the appointment of another preacher, who should 
 extend his labors to the neighboring islands. The Confer- 
 ence knew that Mr. Clarke possessed already some knowl- 
 edge of the French tongue ; and this circumstance, com- 
 bined 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 under- 
 taking, 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 it 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 delight- 
 ful." 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
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 103 
 
 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 strength- 
 eneth me." He now held himself in readiness to sail with 
 Mr. Brackenbury, who had gone down to his seat in Lin- 
 colnshire 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 he 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 had expected to find Mr. Bracken- 
 bury, but a fortnight further elapsed before he had the pleas- 
 ure of meeting him. The interim was spent partly at 
 Southampton and partly at Winchester, in both of 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 medi- 
 tations 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
 
 104 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 as a dissipated vapor, and the proprietors of them go their 
 way and where are they 1 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 to-day, 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, moldy shrines, dust and cob- 
 webs.' 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 pref- 
 erable 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 Christ 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 eter- 
 nally 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 man- 
 kind? for example, giving a little under the patriarchal, an in- 
 crease under the Mosaic, and the fullness of the blessing un- 
 der 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 progres- 
 sion ; and though the works of both in semine were finished
 
 THE EVANGELIST. 105 
 
 from the beginning, they are not brought forward to com- 
 plete existence but by various accretions. And this appears 
 to be done that the blessings resulting from both may be 
 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 indi- 
 vidual ; every communication is a kind of seed, which, if 
 cultivated, brings forth fruit. ' Light is sown for the right- 
 eous, 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. Au bin'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.
 
 106 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER YH. 
 
 THE MISSIONAKY. 
 
 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 
 church organization 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 min- 
 istered 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. Wes- 
 ley, in the hope that he would be induced to supply them 
 with one of his preachers. They did so, through the inter- 
 vention of Mr. Jasper Winscomb, one of the early Method- 
 ists 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
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 107 
 
 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 ex- 
 cited conflicting feelings among the people of the vicinity ; 
 some were pleased and grateful ; others stirred up to oppo- 
 sition, and that, at times, of a riotous and dangerous charac- 
 ter. 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 col- 
 league, 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-le- 
 Port; 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 com- 
 menced 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 pre- 
 pared. 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
 
 108 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 accom 
 panied him, mounted their horses, and rode off at full gal- 
 lop, leaving him in the hands of the mob. That he might 
 not be able to escape, they cut his bridle in pieces. Noth- 
 ing intimidated, he went among them, got upon an eminence, 
 and began to speak to them. The drums and horns 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. Au- 
 bin'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 per- 
 sons, 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 ruins. Mr. Clarke exhorted the friends to 
 trust in that God who was able to save, when one of the 
 mob presenfed 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 foun-
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 109 
 
 dation 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 foundation, 
 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 sho%vers 
 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 pass- 
 age 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, blud- 
 geons, etc., 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 death-like 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 overaw r ed 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 mo- 
 lested. 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 afterward 
 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,
 
 110 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 be- 
 cause he tells you the truth. But are you even men ? Do 
 you deserve that name 1 ? I am but an individual, and un- 
 armed ; 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 the 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 hinderance 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 giving up persecution, one of the magis- 
 trates 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
 
 THE MISSIONARY. Ill 
 
 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 recov- 
 er 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 oppo- 
 sition 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, 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 fig-trees, 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, 
 
 * I speak of Mon Plaisir as I knew it some years ago, and as, I pre- 
 sume, it still is. In writing about the fertility of the islands, Dr. Clarke 
 said that he had seen cabbages in Jersey seven feet high. In Mr. De 
 Jersey's garden there were gathered daily, Sundays excepted, for nearlj 
 six weeks, from fifty to one hundred pounds' weight of strawberries 
 All other fruit in proportion, both in quantity and flavor. In Mr. Brack 
 eubury's garden, at St. Heller's, he cut down a bunch of grapes 
 weighed about twenty pounds.
 
 112 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 even- 
 ings ; 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 cessa- 
 tion from classical reading rendered it necessary for him to 
 begin again in that department with the grammars them- 
 selves. 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 occa- 
 sion 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 Wal- 
 ton'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 Gos- 
 pels, 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 be-
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 113 
 
 ing made public, many hiiiderances 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 west of Alderuey, on which there is a 
 light-house.) These threatenings, being published here, ren- 
 dered it very difficult for me to procure a passage, as sev- 
 eral of my friends were against my going, fearing bad con- 
 sequences ; 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 the English pack- 
 ets, 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 south-west 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 on 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 acquaint- 
 ance 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 cham- 
 ber where I might sleep, and (what was still more accept-
 
 114 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 able) 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 would procure me a congrega- 
 tion. 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. 1 stepped 
 down immediately, and found the house once more quite 
 full. 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 con- 
 tinued in this good work about an hour, having received 
 peculiar assistance from on high; and concluded with in- 
 forming 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 
 1 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
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 115 
 
 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 de- 
 sire one of the large store-rooms was prepared for that pur- 
 pose. I went without delay, and was brought by the lictor 
 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 quar- 
 ter of an hour a large company was assembled. The gentry 
 were not so partial to themselves as to exclude several sail- 
 ors, 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 a one was beyond all 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 at- 
 tended 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 earn- 
 estly 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
 
 116 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 twen- 
 ty-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 consti- 
 tution, 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 sunk 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 pro- 
 claimed 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 jaun- 
 dice, 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, 
 [ am now greatly mended ; my cough is almost entirely re- 
 moved. 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 emphati- 
 cal than the English, particularly the middle clause of the 
 fifteenth verse, " / 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.
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 117 
 
 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 em- 
 barking, 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 bless- 
 edness than their tongues could express." Among the passen- 
 gers 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 pro- 
 fanity 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, "JVe cede malis, 
 sed contra audentior ito" he went among them again, and 
 insisted on their putting a stop to such wickedness. They de- 
 manded by what authority he bore himself in this manner. 
 He replied, " I am a servant of Jesus Christ, and the author- 
 ity 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. Im- 
 mense crowds heard Mr. Wesley in both islands, and the 
 memory of his visit has become a tradition among the 
 people. 
 
 Obliged at length, by an appointment at Bristol on a par- 
 ticular 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
 
 118 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 course to Penzarice, 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 read- 
 ing 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 1 
 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 a 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 fol- 
 lowing 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 forever. Command 
 these winds and these waves that they obey THEE, and take 
 us speedily and safely to the hav^n 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 stand- 
 ing on her right course with a steady breeze, which slack- 
 ened 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 there- 
 fore to him the occurrence was not strange. Of such a cir- 
 cumstance how many of those who did not enter into his
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 119 
 
 views would have descanted at large, had it happened in 
 favor of themselves ! yet all the notice he takes of this sin- 
 gular 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. 
 Austell, 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, formerly 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 youngest 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 pleas- 
 ure 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 con- 
 secrated heart and life to her Saviour's cause, and became 
 a helper of the faith of others, in inviting them to the house
 
 120 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 re- 
 ligion, 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 minis- 
 try, was yet too well aware of the rough experiences of a 
 Methodist preacher's life not to feel an almost invincible re- 
 luctance to a marriage which would, to all human appearance, 
 identify her beloved daughter's life with penury and dis- 
 comfort. 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 disap- 
 proval, and threatened Mr. Clarke with his heaviest dis- 
 pleasure, " if he married Miss Cooke without her mothei-'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, fn consequence of
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 121 
 
 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 in- 
 terests 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 de- 
 cease 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 upward 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 forever 
 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 zeal- 
 ous and effective colleague. He was a native of Jersey, and 
 one of the first-fruits of the Methodist ministrv in that
 
 122 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 island. A short time after he had begun to preach the Gos- 
 pel 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 capi- 
 tal. The project at that time failed. The atheistic frenzy 
 of the Eevolution 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 natur- 
 ally 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 per- 
 formed 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. Con- 
 verted 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, 
 ft 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
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 123 
 
 some years ; but removed, toward 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 mem- 
 ory by solemnizing his funeral with military honors. Al- 
 though 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 him- 
 self 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 dig- 
 nity : 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, un-
 
 124 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 less 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 imrningled 
 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 sel- 
 dom seen more affection, commixed with as much of child- 
 like 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 T Yes. After 
 preaching he took me by the hand, and with the tears 
 streaming down his cheeks, betwixt drunkenness and dis- 
 tress, he was only capable of saying a very few words : ' O 
 sir, I know you are a 7Tan possessed by the Spirit of God.' 
 He went home, and after three days' agonies, God in ten- 
 der 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." 
 
 * Ho refers here, I believe, to Mademoiselle Jcannie Bisson. A fur- 
 ther notice of this remarkable young woman may be found in Mr. Wes- 
 ley's Journal.
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 125 
 
 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 permit- 
 ted to preach in the church at least every Sunday.' How- 
 ever, 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 dropped 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 quon- 
 dam 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 re- 
 turn. 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
 
 126 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 adver- 
 sity !" 
 
 Nor did the mercy of God withhold from him this in- 
 wardly 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 dis- 
 cover him as one uniform, uninterrupted, eternal Good-will 
 toward all his creatures. When I look into myself, I am 
 astonished that he condescends to pay 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 eter- 
 nal utterances of his praise an almost no tribute to a God 
 so immeasurably good. And yet where am I going 1 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 excel- 
 lency, or acknowledging how deeply his debtor I am ! O 
 my God, what reason have I to be v 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 in- 
 fluence of Mr. Clarke's character on the minds of the oppo- 
 nents 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
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 127 
 
 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, saAv that this marriage was one of the most happy in 
 her family, in which there were some of the most respecta- 
 ble 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 the 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 re- 
 ception 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 Lempricre, (whose brother 
 wrote the once much-used " Classical Dictionary,") and 
 other ladies of Guernsey, she also received most kind atten- 
 tions. As to Mr. Clarke, his marriage not only conduced 
 to his own personal comfort, but greatly increased his influ- 
 ence among the people. Henceforward with an undivided 
 mind he toiled for their edification. His labors were still 
 distributed between Jersey and Guernsey, his head-quarters 
 being in the former island. At Les Terres he had contin- 
 ued to preach in English twice on Sundays, on the Wednes- 
 day evening and Friday morning. The place was so crowd- 
 ed as to render the erection o'f a large chapel, if possible, 
 highly expedient ; and already measures were taken for such
 
 128 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 per- 
 ishing 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 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 ex- 
 postulated : ' 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. He- 
 lier's.' He answered, ' Frank, I cannot proceed ; I am only 
 sleepy, and even two minutes will refresh me ;' and he at- 
 tempted 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 encour- 
 aging him, till, with great labor and difficulty, he brought
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 129 
 
 him to St. Heller's." There 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 enter- 
 tained 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 difficul- 
 ties had risen, and all the more formidable from the deter- 
 mined opposition of the bailiff, the chief magistrate of the 
 island. Several letters on the matters passed between our 
 missionary and Mr. Wesley, whose counsels, iuculcative 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 behavior 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 also 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 
 f< >r his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. De Queteville ; but de- 
 clared 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 settle- 
 ment of the chapel according to what is called " the Confer- 
 ence plan ;" the jurisdiction of the English Court of Chan- 
 cery, in which the Wesleyan chapels are enrolled, not ex- 
 tending to the Norman Isles. But even this obstacle was 
 
 overcome, and Mr. Clarke had the-satisfaction of being able 
 

 
 130 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 to write : " We have a large chapel built here. It is as 
 tonishing 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 thfc 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 remark- 
 able details on this subject. It is addressed to Mr. Wes- 
 ley, and was probably the last he wrote to "him from the 
 islands. The date is "Jersey, July 15, 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 prayer-meet- 
 ing 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 liter- 
 ally provoked to jealousy, among whom one of the principal 
 was Mr, De Queteville. He questioned me at large con-
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 131 
 
 earning our little meeting, and the good done. I satisfied 
 him in every particular ; and, being much affected, he said, 
 * 'Tis 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 as- 
 sured him of his nearness to the kingdom of God. He re- 
 turned to his room, and after a few minutes, spent in wrest- 
 ling 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 wher- 
 ever he went. God accompanied him by the mightily dem- 
 onstrative power of his Spirit, and numbers were stirred up 
 to seek, and several soon entered into, the promised rest. I 
 now appointed a love-feast 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, to- 
 gether 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 re- 
 markable 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, 
 mid 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
 
 132 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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, Madam 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 has thus already attained. 
 Mr. Clarke left two hundred and forty-eight members in 
 Jersey, and one hundred and five 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, besides sustaining 
 thirteen ministers, English and French, in their own service, 
 contribute some seven hundred pounds per annum to the 
 cause of foreign missions.
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 133 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINTSTEK. 
 
 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 begin- 
 ning to heave with the throes of that political earthquake in 
 which the feudalism of the past was doomed to give way be- 
 fore 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 safe- 
 guards 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 was 
 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, con- 
 tributed 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 na- 
 tional ordeal that Mr. Clarke began to appear as a promin-
 
 134: LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 ent 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 at Leeds 
 on the Conference Sunday. In the morning prayer he casu- 
 ally 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 princi- 
 ples" 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, stead- 
 fast 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 seerns to have been incapable of pro- 
 pitiating the good graces of the Methodist ladies of York-
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 135 
 
 shire ; for, at Halifax, when his appointment there was noti- 
 fied, 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 ap- 
 pointment 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 pre-eminence 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 Sab- 
 bath morning, amid the silence, the prayer, and devout ex- 
 pectations of the crowded congregation, we insensibly call 
 to mind the time when he 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 ap- 
 parition had so disturbed the powers who reigned at Kings- 
 wood, 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
 
 13(5 LIFE OK ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 awaits him in whatever condition of lite 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 integ- 
 rity 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 en- 
 feebled and shattered health. His life in the Norman Isles 
 had been too sedentary for a constitution habituated to vio- 
 lent out-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 Avould 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 from the crowded congregations, 
 were altogether unwholesome as a place of residence. Not- 
 withstanding those 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 
 lasses. This close work has proved more than I could well
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 137 
 
 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, etc., 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 Confer- 
 ence, or be fully invalided. In visiting the classes I have 
 diligently endeavored to root out all apparent offenses 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 mar- 
 tyred body which the most merciful God has in his conde- 
 scension 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 Bris- 
 tol." 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 fol- 
 lowing specimens of its fidelity and heartiness : " I set out 
 for Westbury, walked thither, and preached with great lib- 
 erty 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 espape eternal fire. Glory be to thee, O God ! 
 
 * He must mean Sundays, when, with heavy pulpit duty, the neces- 
 sity of meeting several classes is most painfully oppressive. Superin- 
 tendents should avoid it, if any other arrangements ire possible.
 
 138 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 Bris- 
 tol ; 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 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 sim- 
 ple, 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. To-morrow 
 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 knocked up. 
 
 " 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 Guinea-street, 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 Glutton, 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
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 139 
 
 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 bedroom, I thought I would go to 
 the lobby-window, 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. Hodgson 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. Hodgson would not be 
 left behind. 1 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." 
 
 In his personal intercourse with the Methodist people of 
 Bristol, Mr. Clarke now formed friendships which were life- 
 long ; and those friendships Avere 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 men- 
 tion 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 Gos- 
 pel. I further inquired, ' Is he to preach here again V The 
 reply was, ' Not at present.' ' Where is he going to next ]' 
 I asked. ' To Plymouth,' was the answer. ' And will he 
 preach there V ' Yes.' ' Then I will go and hear him. What 
 is the distance 1 ?' '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
 
 140 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 to read the Church prayers 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 engrav- 
 ings 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 engrav- 
 ing 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 in- 
 scription, "Mr. Adam Clarke, ^Etatis 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 ever-growing 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 num- 
 ber 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 ad-
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 141 
 
 ditional anxiety to the preachers stationed on the spot, from 
 the task it devolves on them of furnishing so large a num- 
 ber of strangers with domestic accommodation. This Con- 
 ference (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 apos- 
 tolic 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 affili- 
 ated Conferences, exceeds 420,000 members ; under the care 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Churches of the United States, 
 more than double that sum ;f not to speak of the various off- 
 sets from the parent stock the New Connection, the Primi- 
 tive Methodists, etc., etc., 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. Mean- 
 while, in the years gone by, hundreds of thousands who 
 have passed into eternity found in the sanctuaries of Meth- 
 odism the gate of heaven. It may be seen that Adam 
 
 * " At this Conference I parted with Mr. Wesley, to see him no more 
 till the resurrection of the just. He appeared very feeble. His sight 
 had failed so much, that he could not see to give out the hymns. And 
 yet his voice was strong, his spirit remarkably lively ; and the powers of 
 his mind, and his love toward his fellow-creatures, were as bright as 
 ever." Jfr. Atmore's Journal. 
 
 t In 1858 the Methodist Episcopal Church numbered 956,555 ; in the 
 M. E. Church, South, 648,986; total, 1,605,491. AM. ED.
 
 142 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 pro- 
 long 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. Wes- 
 ley's study, to prepare matters for the Conference, he prv 
 posed 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. Wes- 
 ley replied, ' It must be given up : we shall lose our preach- 
 ers by such excessive labor.' They answered, ' We have 
 all done so ; and you even, at an advanced age, have con- 
 tinued 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 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
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 143 
 
 people, merely 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 ; foi 
 the English preacher who held that station, was looked up 
 to as " the general assistant ;" that is, Mr. Wesley's repre- 
 sentative 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 at- 
 tached to its spirit and doctrines ; who, because they were 
 without divine service in church hours, were scattered 
 throughout the city, some at church, and many more at dif- 
 ferent places of Dissenting worship, where they heard doc- 
 trines that tended greatly to unsettle their religious opinions ; 
 and in the end many were lost to the society. In conse- 
 quence of the introduction of the Liturgy, a very good con- 
 gregation assembled at Whitefriar-street ; and much good 
 might have been done, if the rich members had not con- 
 tinued hostile to the measure, by withdrawing their coun- 
 tenance 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
 
 1-14 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 separ- 
 ated from the Methodist's body, and set up a spurious and 
 factious connection of their own, under the name of Primi- 
 tive 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 spirit- 
 ual 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 ill-grounded fear that the intro- 
 duction 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 
 bfirvice on the proper times of the Lord's day, they often 
 wandered heedlessly about, and became unhinged and dis- 
 tracted with the strange doctrines they heard. Of this Mr. 
 < 'larke was afterwards fully convinced, and saw the folly of
 
 T1IE CIRCUIT M1NISTEK. 145 
 
 endeavouring to force the people to attend a ministry from 
 which they had never received any spiritual advantage, and 
 the danger of not endeavouring to cultivate the soil which 
 had been with great pain and difficulty inclosed, bro- 
 ken 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 inju- 
 dicious conduct of some who, though mistaken, intended well. 
 I refer to this, and give some portions of 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 revi- 
 val 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 peo- 
 ple somewhat in confusion through their deprival of the 
 stated services, he thus goes on : " The work which was so 
 remarkable about the time of Conference was hardly dis- 
 cernible when I came, owing, as I am informed, to the ex- 
 travagance 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 
 then- be family religion, especially on the Lord's day, which 
 
 !Q
 
 146 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 you know is filled up with ordinances, if prayer-meetings 
 are continued till ten or eleven at night ?" 
 
 He proceeds to observe that he finds it very difficult to in- 
 terfere, 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 stumbling- 
 blocks ; 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 stumbling-blocks ; 
 but, if this cannot be, give us stumbling-blocks 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, iny first diffi- 
 culty 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 >vill give you a few direc- 
 tions : 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.) hav- 
 ing inquired of a pious couple who had discontinued their 
 attendance at the meeting for prayer, " How it was they had 
 
 * Letter S21, Works, vol. vii.
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 147 
 
 ceased to come as usual ?" he was told, " "We cannot with- 
 out 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 sup- 
 port me. He prayed forty minutes. I was unwilling to rise, 
 and several times was near fainting. What I suffered I can- 
 not 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 circum- 
 stances," 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 min- 
 utes. 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 symp- 
 tom and a cause of spiritual deadness." The unusual brev- 
 ity here recommended will appear to many of us as the op- 
 posite 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. 
 
 * See his beautiful biography, by Dr. Hannah and Mr. Dawson.
 
 148 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 him- 
 self, 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 
 bedside, 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 con- 
 tinued 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 any 
 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 resigna- 
 tion, that not a single desire that the Lord would either re- 
 move 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 forever, be the name of the 
 Lord !" 
 
 Mrs. Clarke's assiduity was maintained under the pres- 
 sure of personal infirmity, before which she herself had at
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 149 
 
 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 
 
 f. 
 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 compas- 
 sions 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 afterward stationed he followed the
 
 150 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 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 Avorld, 
 and living actively for its service and benefit, he was not of 
 it. His very appearance indicated that he lived in a men- 
 tal 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 every-day 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 knowl- 
 edge, we wonder not that he seized the earliest opportunity 
 to enter himself of Trinity College. The multifarious en- 
 gagements 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 anatom- 
 ical 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 sev- 
 eral learned and accomplished persons, with whom he con- 
 tinued 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. 
 Garke we may revert on a future page. We should also
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 151 
 
 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 Moham- 
 medan, 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 
 afterward fully cleared up by the surrender of the real as- 
 sassins, he had been in imminent danger of losing his life, 
 and in the time of peril had been deeply moved by the ex- 
 hortations of an old Spaniard to renounce all faith in the 
 false prophet, and confide in the true Saviour of mankind. 
 In this state of mind he left his native country, and came to 
 England. From Liverpool he proceeded to Dublin, where, 
 inquiring for a person who knew Spanish or Arabic, he was 
 directed to Mr. Clarke, who treated him with all the kind- 
 ness in his power. Ibrahim became a sincere inquirer after 
 the truth, and found in Mr. Clarke a guide who led him 
 to Jesus. After due and cautious probation he was at 
 length admitted to baptism, Mr. Rutherford performing 
 the sacred rite, and Mr. Clarke translating into Spanish the 
 words in which it was administered. The subsequent career 
 of the convert justified the hopes of his friends. He accom- 
 panied Mr. Clarke to England, and thence went to America 
 in a mercantile capacity, where he married a lady of the 
 Baptist communion, and died at last steadfast in the faith. 
 
 The year in Dublin drew to a close, and Mr. Clarke felt 
 it his duty to terminate, for the present, his connection with 
 the circuit. His feeble health unfitted him to cope with 
 some of the peculiar difficulties of a station so responsible ; 
 and the party spirit which reigned so strongly at that time 
 in Dublin compelled him to decide on returning to En- 
 gland. The Conference was to be held in Manchester, and 
 the Dublin preachers prepared to go. Mrs. Clarke, also, 
 and the little ones, were to accompany them, thus making 
 but one voyage for the family. But this arrangement was 
 not carried out. From some letters of this excellent lady,
 
 152 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 which have been confided to me, I take the liberty to extract 
 a few sentences : 
 
 " When I wrote last I thought it would have been my 
 last letter from Dublin ; but I wrote doubtfully, because I 
 well know the uncertainty of all things here below. And 
 sd it has been in reference to my going to England. We 
 had our chests packed, and all ready for embarkation, when 
 John was seized with the measles. I could not think of 
 taking the child to sea in that condition, and gave up the 
 thought of accompanying Mr. Clarke, who could not be de- 
 tained. The people were glad, as they thought it would 
 secure Mr. Clarke's return for me. The time was set for 
 the preachers to sail, but no packet came into port. Day 
 by day they waited; still no vessel came. Meanwhile 
 John grew better apace ; and no vessel arriving till Satur- 
 day, fearing to be too late for the Conference, they set sail. 
 Mr. Clarke and Mr. Rutherford wished to stay behind till 
 Monday, when John might with safety have gone too ; but 
 they feared a second detention, and overruled that all the 
 preachers should go together. Accordingly they sailed, and 
 after encountering some sore weather at sea, arrived safe in 
 Liverpool after a forty-eight hours' passage. Thus much 
 concerning our going to England. Where we shall be the 
 corning year, I know no more than an utter stranger. I 
 should fear to choose. Wherever we are, I trust it will be 
 for God's glory, and the good of many souls."
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 153 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTEK. 
 
 THE Conference assembled at Manchester. It was the 
 forty-eighth, and for the first time they met without the 
 presence of him who had been their earthly head. The 
 apostle of England had finished his glorious course on the 
 second of March, revered by an innumerable multitude of 
 good men. Serious fears had been entertained by many 
 true friends of the Methodist cause, that this event would 
 prove fatal to its unity, and even endanger its existence. 
 Soon, however, these apprehensions were shown to be 
 groundless. Methodism, a visible work of God, abides and 
 prospers, when individual men, however honored in having 
 been employed by him as the agents of his great purposes 
 of mercy, are called from the labors of this life to their 
 eternal repose. The preachers were brought more than 
 ever to feel their dependence on the adorable Head of the 
 Church, who liveth evermore. Such being their frame of 
 mind, they were now cheered in their sorrow by tokens of 
 his presence who has said, " Fear not for I am with you." 
 In a brief memorial prefixed to the Minutes of this Confer- 
 ence, while they confess to the societies their inability to 
 represent adequately their feelings on account of their " great 
 loss," they express their solemn purpose and hope that they 
 " shall give the most substantial proofs of their veneration 
 for the memory of their most esteemed father and friend, by 
 endeavoring with great humility and diffidence, to follow and 
 imitate him in doctrine, discipline, and life." 
 
 The cause for which Wesley lived and labored thus sur- 
 vived him. His wise provision had secured for the minis- 
 ters as a body, by the Deed of Declaration, a legal status
 
 154 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in the country ; and had consolidated and insured the ecclesi- 
 astical property of the Connection for the sole purposes for 
 which it had been created the existence and sustentation of 
 simple, pure, and evangelic agencies for the salvation of the 
 people. Among the preachers, too, there were many who 
 had grown old with him in the work ; and to them their 
 brethren looked up with ingenuous and open-hearted confi- 
 dence. From among these one was now selected as the 
 presidential head of the Connection for the current year, and 
 this honor fell upon the Rev. William Thompson, a man 
 venerable for piety, wisdom, and ability. The office of sec- 
 retary was conferred on the Rev. Dr. Coke. All the acts 
 of the Conference were distinguished by a single-minded 
 purpose to do all to the supreme glory of God. " I have 
 been," said Mr. Clarke, " at several Conferences ; but have 
 never seen one in which the spirit of unity, love, and a sound 
 mind so generally prevailed. I would have this intelligence 
 transmitted from Dan to Beersheba, and let the earth know 
 that the dying words of our revered father have their ac- 
 complishment 'The Lord is with us.'" 
 
 Mr. Clarke's new station was Manchester. The favor had 
 been offered him of making his own choice of a circuit ; but 
 this he declined, anxious, as he said, that God should station 
 him. Having his lot providentially fixed at Manchester, he 
 was enabled in the two following years to avail himself re- 
 peatedly of the benefit of the waters at Buxton, which con- 
 tributed in a good degree to the reinstatement of his health. 
 Of the great utility of those waters, especially in rheumatic 
 affections, he ever after expressed a high opinion. 
 
 Mrs. Clarke and her little ones arrived in Liverpool after 
 a long passage, through a stormy sea, which had caused no 
 small anxiety to her husband, who was waiting daily for 
 them " in great misery," to use his own words, " in conse- 
 quence of the prolonged voyage of my wife and children, 
 who, I had reason to fear, were swallowed up in the great 
 deep. Twice every day for a week I went down to the dock 
 to look out for the Dublin packet, which contrary winds had
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 155 
 
 detained at sea. At length, while standing on the quay one 
 evening, the vessel, to my inexpressible joy, hove in sight : 
 I beheld my Mary and the children upon deck, and hailed 
 them as from the dead. I got on board as soon as possible, 
 and found the little ones almost starved ; for, owing to the 
 tediousness of the voyage, being several days on the water, 
 all provision had been for some time expended. I instantly 
 took Adam (I had an Adam then) on one arm, and John 
 on the other ; and, running with them into a baker's shop, 
 gave to each a twopenny loaf, and in an instant their little 
 faces were almost buried in them. I then hastened with 
 something to my wife ; and we walked to a home, no longer 
 desolate to me, blessing the God of all mercy for the protec- 
 tion he had extended while in the midst of peril and distress." 
 
 At the custom-house he had much annoyance from the 
 reckless exorbitance of the officials, who turned his boxes of 
 books inside out, charged him threepence per pound for the 
 classical works, and five pounds for a philosophical instru- 
 ment ! At length, however, the re-united family found them- 
 selves settled in their new abode ; and Mr. Clarke, with 
 such strength as he had, addressed himself to the duties of 
 the opening year. 
 
 Hitherto he had traveled with men who, though pious and 
 faithful preachers of the Gospel, do not appear to have been 
 distinguished by extraordinary ability. It was now Mr. 
 Clarke's lot to be associated with two colleagues whose 
 names have a well-deserved renown in the Methodist world, 
 for the splendor of their talents and the importance of their 
 services to the cause to which they were consecrated. Mr. 
 Bradburn was, confessedly, one of the most accomplished 
 orators of the day, a man of expansive mind and generous 
 impulses of heart, though not free from the eccentricities 
 which often reveal themselves in persons of genius. On the 
 other hand, in Mr. Benson the Church possessed a minister 
 remarkable not only for great fervency of spirit, but also for 
 an almost imperturbable correctness of judgment, and an 
 affluence of theological learning which placed him in the
 
 156 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 highest order of divines. Very few men have been better 
 read in the Greek Testament, and few commentators have 
 given so clear an exposition of it. But it was in the pulpit 
 that he brought those gifts and graces to bear, with the 
 most signal effect, upon the great end of all, the salvation 
 of souls. His ministry was transcendently apostolic. With 
 many disadvantages of person and voice, he exercised a like 
 lofty sway over assemblages comprising intellects of every 
 grade. While Benson preached, the scholar and the peasant 
 bowed in common before the majesty of truth, which, in 
 plain, unadorned English phrases, awoke them as with the 
 thunder-storms of Sinai, or melted them as with the voice 
 from the cross.* With fellow-laborers like these, whose 
 names were in the book of life, Mr. Clarke would no doubt 
 find all the soul that was within him roused into lawful emu- 
 lation and holy sympathy. 
 
 Yet there appears to have been one drawback. He could 
 not feel free to coincide with them as to the line he considered 
 they were taking in respect to the grand political question 
 of the times. The bloody drama of the French Revolution 
 was then unfolding scene after scene of horror. Two classes 
 of opinions on this great crisis held sway on the British side 
 of the Channel. One school of political men, represented 
 by Fox, seemed to hear in the groans of wholesale murders, 
 which the winds wafted to our snores, only the death-pangs of 
 tyranny, and the transient throes that were destined to usher 
 in an era of permanent liberty and repose; while men of an- 
 other class, represented by Burke, horror-struck at the ghastly 
 realities of the present, were incapable of gathering any augury 
 
 * We have been told that his sermons were sometimes attended not 
 only by the common clergy, but by bishops of the Church. That great 
 and good man, the Rev. Richard Cecil, greatly delighted to hear him. 
 He said that Mr. Benson seemed like a messenger sent from the other 
 world, to call men to account. "Mr. Benson," said Robert Hall, "is ir- 
 resistible, perfectly irresistible 1" Memoirs of his life have been written 
 by Macdonald and Treffry ; and a masterly delineation of his character, 
 from the pen of Dr. Bunting, appears in the Wesleyan Methodist Maga- 
 zine for 1822.
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 157 
 
 of good for the future from a seed-time so portentuously evil. 
 The riots at Birmingham, caused by the Gallo-mania of Dr. 
 Priestley and his adherents, and the general tendency among 
 the masses to be led away by the dogmas of Paine, as the 
 French had been by those of Voltaire, served to bring the 
 threatening evil home to our very thresholds. While society 
 was thus perturbed to its foundations, with " distress of na- 
 tions " and " perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men's 
 hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things 
 that were coming on the earth," it seems to have been im- 
 possible, nay, it would have been a guilty breach of duty, 
 for the watchman in the pulpit to hold his peace. But then 
 uniformity of doctrine could not be well expected on matters 
 like these, and the counsels delivered from the sacred desk 
 took a tinge from the sentiments, antagonistic to each other, 
 which through the long hours of many a night were then 
 reasoned out in the Senate. Messrs. Benson and Bradburn 
 differed, undoubtedly, in their modes of treating this grave 
 problem ; but certainly not to that extent which might be 
 inferred from the hastily written terms in Dr. Clarke's state- 
 ment of the matter : " It was the lot of Mr. Clarke to be as- 
 sociated at this time with two eminent men, who unfortun- 
 ately took opposite sides of this great political question ; 
 one pleading for the lowest republicanism, while the other 
 exhausted himself in maintaining the divine right of kings 
 and regular governments to do what might seem right in 
 their own eyes, the people at large having nothing to do with 
 the laws but to obey them. His soul was grieved at this 
 state of things ; but he went calmly on his way, preaching 
 Christ crucified for the redemption of a lost world ; and, 
 though his abilities were greatly inferior to those of his col- 
 leagues, his congregations were equal to theirs, and his word 
 more abundantly useful. Political preachers neither convert 
 souls nor build up believers on their most holy faith. One 
 may pique himself on his loyalty, and another on his liber- 
 ality ; but, in the sight of the Great Head of the Church, the 
 first is a sounding brass, the second a tinkling cymbal. . . .
 
 158 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 When preachers of the Gospel become parties in party pol- 
 itics, religion mourns ; the Church is unedified, and political 
 disputes agitate even the faithful of the land. Such preach- 
 ers, no matter which side they take, are no longer the mes- 
 sengers of glad tidings, but the seedsmen of confusion, and 
 wasters of the heritage of Christ. Though Mr. Clarke had 
 fully made up his mind on the politics of the day, and never 
 swerved from his Whig principles, yet in the pulpit there 
 was nothing heard from him but Christ crucified, and the 
 salvation procured by his blood." 
 
 It must be confessed there is a tone of unkindness about 
 this paragraph, very unlike the magnanimity of Dr. Clarke, 
 which indicates that his mind at this time was under some 
 influence, to us unknown, which, in regard to this particular 
 subject, beclouded his usually clear judgment. In the opin- 
 ion he has expressed on the conduct of his colleagues, he was 
 undoubtedly mistaken ; or, to use the words of a former 
 biographer, " he was not sufficiently guarded in his expres- 
 sions. It may be true that Messrs. Bradburn and Benson 
 ranged themselves on opposite sides ; that Mr. Bradburn 
 took his stand on the side of Liberty, and Mr. Benson on 
 that of Order ; but there is no evidence to prove that the 
 one was so violent a champion of ' legitimacy,' or the other 
 so determined ' an advocate of the iowest republicanism,' as 
 Dr. Clarke represents them to have been. Both these cele- 
 brated ministers may have been betrayed by a well-meant 
 zeal into the occasional introduction of their political specu- 
 lations into the pulpit ; but it is monstrous to suppose that 
 from Sabbath to Sabbath they carried on a systematic war- 
 fare. Mr. Clarke must have been misled by the reports of 
 ignorant or designing men, who, being themselves, perhaps, 
 violent partisans, tinged everything with the deep hue of 
 their own excitement; for while discharging his own duties 
 with the zeal with which he always did discharge them, he 
 could not be engaged in collecting the evidence upon which 
 he founded his statement. Mr. Bradburn, indeed, published 
 a sermon on ' Equality,' in which his prime end was to
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 159 
 
 show, ' that a firm adherence to the principles of unlimited 
 religious liberty was perfectly consistent with a steadfast 
 attachment to the king, whom he earnestly prayed God to 
 bless, and to the civil constitution, which in itself was excel- 
 lent, and of which he highly approved.' ' If there had been 
 no such scripture,' he remarks, 'as that which commands us 
 to honor the king, we,' the Methodists, 'as a people, have 
 reason to love King George, and to be pleased with the civil 
 government.' To such an extent, indeed, did Mr. Bradburn 
 carry his views of loyalty, that he maintained it to be thu 
 duty of the Methodists ' to be loyal, were a Pagan upon the 
 throne ;' for he adds, ' what with some is mere policy, is 
 with us a case of conscience.' The whole scope of the dis- 
 course is to expose the leveling politics which were then so 
 warmly advocated." * 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Benson found himself moving in 
 a population among which infidelity and republicanism were 
 making victims of the same men in increasing numbers 
 every week. Paine and Voltaire had indoctrinated them 
 not only with hatred to King George, but with hatred to 
 Jesus Christ. In these circumstances he surely did not de- 
 part from his duty, but fulfilled it, in warning his hearers 
 against the horrid contamination to which they were exposed, 
 and in reasoning with those who were too likely to be mis- 
 guided, in order to show them the better way. Mr. Ben- 
 son's ministry was one of almost matchless power, as the 
 day of revelation will declare. There is little hazard in 
 affirming that he was incapable of mixing up party politics 
 with the momentous matters proper to the pulpit a course 
 which would have merited all the severe reprehension con- 
 veyed in the foregoing extract. 
 
 Mr. Clarke's health had not yet become sufficiently con- 
 firmed to prevent occasional relapses of illness. After one 
 of those seasons, he writes to his friend Mr. Mather, that 
 December and January had been trying months : " I 
 dreaded the time of meeting the classes, as this always ex- 
 
 * Hare's Life and Lahore of Adam Clarke, LL.D.
 
 160 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ceedingly hurts me, and cried to God for support. Glory 
 be to God ! that work is now done ; and I have been heard 
 in that I feared. There is a good work among the people. 
 Many are stirred up to seek purity of heart, and two men 
 at our last public bands gave a clear, rational account of a 
 complete deliverance from all evil tempers and desires, in 
 consequence of which they have constant communion with 
 the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy 
 Spirit dwelling in them. They have enjoyed this glorious 
 liberty about two months. As the Lord has condescended 
 to make me the instrument of their happy deliverance from 
 an evil heart, it is a great encouragement for me to proceed 
 in my work. There are some here who ridicule the mention 
 of a work of this kind. They know best from whom they 
 have learned to do so ; but God enables me to bear down 
 prejudice by a number of arguments, deduced from his na- 
 ture and promises. I look on this doctrine as the greatest 
 honor of Methodism, and the glory of Christ. The 
 Almighty forbid it should ever cease among us !" 
 
 In the absorbing duties of the circuit two years passed 
 rapidly away. Notwithstanding the turbulent character of 
 the times, and the differences which prevailed in the Soci- 
 eties on the question of service in church hours, and others 
 arising from the anomalous position which Methodism then 
 held with regard to the Establishment, the interests of reli- 
 gion were sustained and promoted in the circuit ; and among 
 other good enterprises, a Stangers' Friend Society was set 
 in active operation. " Mr. Clarke and I," writes Mr. Brad- 
 burn, "have instituted a new charity, called the Strangers' 
 Friend Society. It succeeds beyond our most sanguine ex- 
 pectations. We have many pounds in hand. It is certainly 
 very affecting to hear of the good done every week by it." 
 These two servants of the same Master, the longer they 
 lived together, liked one another the better. " Mr. Clarke," 
 says Bradburn, " is a choice companion, when known ; he is 
 all in all as my own soul." On the other side, Clarke had 
 the greatest admiration for his colleague's talents. " Put
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 161 
 
 them all together," said he, referring to several distinguished 
 men, " he was not like any of them ; they would not all of 
 them make such a man. He was like no man but himself. 
 I never knew one with so great a command of language." 
 
 In the house in which Mr. Clarke lived in Manchester he 
 left a memorial of his veneration for Mr. Wesley, in an in- 
 scription written with a diamond's point on a pane of glass 
 in his study window : " Good men need not marble ; I dare 
 trust glass with the memory of John Wesley, A. M., late 
 Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford ; who, with, indefatigable 
 zeal and perseverance, traveled through these kingdoms 
 preaching Jesus for more than half a century. By his un- 
 paralleled labors and writings he revived and spread Scrip- 
 tural Christianity wherever he went; for God was with 
 him. But, having finished his work, by keeping, preaching, 
 and defending the faith, he ceased to live among mortals, 
 March ii, MDCCXCI, in the eighty -eighth year of his age. 
 As a small token of continued filial respect, this inscription 
 is humbly dedicated to the memory of the above, by his 
 affectionate son in the Gospel, Adam Clarke." 
 
 Upon the same window in the house in Dale-street some 
 other inscriptions were recorded by the same hand, consist- 
 ing of three Greek quotations from the works of St. Clement 
 of Alexandria. 
 
 The term of the Manchester appointment expired in July, 
 1 703 ; and a new scene of labor opened to him in the Liver- 
 pool Circuit. As in Dublin, so in Manchester, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Clarke had to leave one of their children a tenant of 
 the grave. Their little son, Adam, was taken from them 
 by a disease of the throat. The loss of this favorite child 
 was always a tender grief in Dr. Clarke's mind, nor could 
 he be persuaded to give his own Christian name again to 
 either of the sons who were afterward added to his family. 
 
 At Liverpool he enjoyed the advantage of having for his 
 colleague the Rev. John Pawson, a man of saintly life, and 
 greatly revered in the Methodist communion, both by 
 preachers and people. With this much-loved and devoted 
 
 II
 
 162 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 servant of Christ he worked in perfect harmony, and the 
 pleasure of the Lord prospered in their hands. Comfort- 
 ably renovated in health, and with the dew of the Divine 
 Spirit descending daily upon his soul, he gave himself to 
 earnest study, the visitation of the afflicted, and unremitted 
 preaching in town and country ; his days now glided serene- 
 ly on. The circuit at that time was more extensive than at 
 present, and many of the places were at great distances. 
 The traveling Mr. Clarke accomplished in general on foot ; 
 and on that account preferring always, if possible, to return 
 home, his journeys after preaching were often late at night. 
 On one occasion, in returning from Aintree in company 
 with his brother Tracy, two Roman Catholics, who had 
 heard him preach, lay in wait for him. One of them from 
 behind the hedge threw a stone of more than a pound 
 weight at his head, with such force that it cut through his 
 hat and inflicted a deep wound. His brother lifted him 
 from the ground, and carried him to a cottage hard by, 
 bleeding profusely. He dressed the wound, and then went 
 in pursuit of the men, whom he found in a public-house. 
 Upon being charged with the offense, each accused the 
 other. Mr. Tracy Clarke succeeded in having them appre- 
 hended, and returned to his brother. Here he found that 
 the people of the cottage were R&manists themselves, and 
 that, on learning the facts of the case, they had expressed 
 their strong approval of the outrage, and their wishes that 
 it had proved fatal to the preacher. In these circumstances 
 it was judged best, ill as he was, that he should be removed 
 from so inhospitable a refuge, and taken to his brother's 
 house at Maghull, from whence, the next day, " the picture 
 of death, with his hair and clothes still covered with blood," 
 he was brought home to his alarmed wife. The illness 
 caused by this affair consumed more than a month of his 
 valuable time, and even threatened for a while to terminate 
 in death. On recovei'ing he refused to prosecute, the men 
 binding themselves to refrain from similar conduct. He 
 learned, however, in after days, that both of them, by pro-
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 163 
 
 gressive breaches of the law, had ultimately come to an 
 evil end. 
 
 Mr. Clarke's place of residence in Liverpool was badly 
 situated on a clay soil, where in those days extensive opera- 
 tions in brick-making were carried on. The house was also 
 in a confined situation, and surrounded by that description 
 of small habitations which, from want of cleanliness in 
 their inmates, create a perpetual annoyance. His own 
 description was very forcible : " The house is small, the 
 street in which it stands miserable, the neighborhood 
 wretchedly poor and wicked ; the rest I leave." A gentle- 
 man desirous of paying his respects demanded, " Pray 
 where do you reside, sir ?" " Neither in hell, nor purgatory, 
 yet in a place of torment," was the reply. " Well, but 
 where is it 1" was the reiterated question. He answered, 
 " You must go down Dale-street, then along East-street, 
 and when you are up to the middle in clay and mud, call 
 out lustily for Adam Clarke." The society, however, it 
 must be said to their honor, afterward released him from 
 that locality, and removed his home to one of the best parts 
 of the town. 
 
 In the second year of the Liverpool appointment Mr. 
 Clarke's father and mother came to reside in that part of 
 England ; his father having undertaken to conduct a classi- 
 cal school at Manchester. They were thus brought into the ' 
 vicinity of their two excellent sons, the one a healer of the. 
 body, and the other an increasingly honored minister of 
 Him who can save the soul ; each of them in his depart- 
 ment a hard-working man, and each of them blessed in his 
 deed. 
 
 At the close of the year Mr. Clarke attended the Con- 
 ference which was held at Bristol. The great Methodist 
 question of that time involved the celebration of service in 
 church hours, and the administration of the sacraments in 
 the chapels. Some few of the preachers, and more of the 
 1 -ading trustees in the principal circuits, were adverse to 
 these measures; but the majority of the preachars and the
 
 164 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 great body of the people were in favor of them. The more 
 formal secession of Methodism, as an ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization, from the Established Church, indicated by such 
 movements, had been from year to year becoming a neces- 
 sary consequence of the circumstances which compose its 
 early history. We should recollect that what may be 
 called the first generation of Methodists did not by any 
 means consist of members of the Church of England. A 
 minority of them were such ; others had been accustomed 
 to hear the Gospel among the Nonconformists ; but the 
 greater mass of them were persons who had belonged to no 
 Church, and many of them had not even been baptized. 
 They had been saved from ruin by being gathered out of 
 the world, and brought into the fellowship of the people of 
 God. Now, the duty of the parochial clergy was to cherish 
 this hopeful movement among the lower orders of the people, 
 to cheer on their adventurous brethren who had gone out 
 into the waste places to bring the wanderers home to Christ, 
 and to receive into the fold of the Church these newly 
 awakened souls ; but, by a marvelous infatuation, they re- 
 pelled them. From the primate, Archbishop Potter, who 
 hinted excommunication to the Wesleys, and the bishops 
 Warburton and Lavington, who assailed them and their 
 people with reproaches and sarcasms, down to the most ob- 
 scure country parson who raised the rabble of his parish to 
 disturb their worship and maltreat their preachers, perse- 
 cution of the Methodists on the part of the Church was the 
 order of the day. " Now it was," says Mr. Wesley, in a 
 paper addressed to the clergy themselves, " that the bishops 
 began to speak against us, either in conversation or in pub- 
 lic; and, on this encouragement, the clergy stirred up the 
 people to treat us as outlaws or mad dogs. The people did 
 so, both in Staffordshire, Cornwall, and many other places ; 
 and they still do so, wherever they are not restrained by 
 their fear of the secular magistrate." 
 
 We have said that many of the people gathered in by 
 tin- preachers were not even baptized; they were brought
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 165 
 
 to the parish church, therefore, that they might then be num- 
 bered among the legitimate communicants. They were re- 
 fused a welcome. On what ground ? Because there were 
 too many of them ! " October 13th, I waited," says Mr. 
 Charles Wesley, " with my brother, upon a minister, about 
 baptizing some of his parish. He complained heavily of 
 the multitude of our communicants, and produced the canon 
 against strangers. Pie could not admit that as a reason for 
 their coming to his church, that they had no sacrament at 
 their own. I offered my assistance to lessen his trouble, 
 but he declined it. There were a hundred of new communi- 
 cants, he told us, last Sunday ; some of whom, he said, came 
 out of spite to him. We bless God for this cause of offense, 
 and pray it may never be removed !" * 
 
 So, when such multitudes had been converted in the city 
 and neighborhood of Bristol, " the brothers pressed the peo- 
 ple to attend the religious services of the national Church, 
 and set the example themselves. The clergy in Bristol at 
 first complained of the increase of their labor in the admin- 
 istration of the Lord's Supper. When they found that 
 complaints addressed to the ' intruders ' were of no avail, 
 and that the inconvenience rather increased than diminished, 
 they entered into an agreement among themselves to repel 
 from the Lord's table both the Wesleys and the people whom 
 they brought to church.' 1 ' 1 * 
 
 Who, then, can wonder that the Methodist people were 
 constrained to seek the consolations of Christ's sacraments 
 from the hands of the men to whom, under God, they owed 
 the salvation of their souls ? But while the mass of the 
 people thus wished for the holy rites to be administered in 
 their own chapels, a considerable number of persons in the 
 societies were for retaining inviolate the original ideal of 
 union and communion with the Church. Among these lat- 
 ter were many of the trustees, who now, at this Conference 
 
 * Jackson's Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley. That the clergy of our 
 day would not act in this manner, we firmly believe ; but the clergy of 
 that day did, and the consequences are abiding.
 
 166 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of 1794, assembled in imposing strength, to bring the 
 preachers to decide that the practice of administering the 
 sacraments should be abrogated. The latter, however, de- 
 clined to do violence to the consciences of the multitude of 
 the members who were in favor of it. In this view Mr. 
 Clarke, Churchman as he was, perfectly coincided. And, 
 from what appears in some letters of his, written from the 
 Conference, the spirit and conduct of the trustees were not 
 marked by irrational or unchristian obstinacy ; and though 
 great fears had been entertained about a schismatic rupture 
 in the Connection, the question was so far amicably adjusted 
 that the societies who requested the privilege of the sacra- 
 ments were set at full liberty to enjoy them. On August 
 2d, he writes : " We have this morning an answer from the 
 trustees to our answer to their address. They rise in their 
 demands. A committee appointed to treat with them to- 
 day at four o'clock. Mr. Pawson and I are of it. 
 
 "August 3. We met yesterday at three, and continued 
 till near eight. We settled matters wonderfully well, and 
 are in a fair train for restoring peace, even in London. The 
 privilege granted last year of receiving the sacrament where 
 the people are unanimous, will, I believe, be very little ex- 
 tended this year. 
 
 " August 5. We are still in peace, but the sacramental 
 and ordination matters are not yet finally adjusted. The 
 sacrament will be allowed this year where the people are 
 unanimous in asking for it, and where it would be impossi- 
 ble to preserve a great majority of the society without it. 
 
 "August 7. All is peace and harmony, and will be so. In 
 a much better sense than the Frenchmen can, we may say, 
 The Methodist preachers are 'One and Indivisible.' No 
 thanks to the devil and his partisans; for they have done 
 all they could to disunite us." 
 
 " The Lichfield business has been brought forward, and a 
 vote passed that none of its propositions should be brought 
 forward or noticed. As things go, I am well satisfied." 
 
 This last sentence refers to a private synod of some of
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 167 
 
 the ministers held in the city of Lichfield, in the preceding 
 April, on the invitation of Dr. Coke, to consult on the best 
 means of meeting the growing wishes of the societies for 
 the full ordinances of the Christian Church, after the manner 
 most in accordance with the apostolic constitutions delivered 
 in the New Testament. The doctor, who had already offi- 
 ciated hi America as one of the first bishops of the Method- 
 ist Episcopal Church, made a proposition to this meeting, as 
 a preliminary to a similar overture to the coming Confer- 
 ence, that the Methodist ministry should henceforward com- 
 prise the three orders of superintendents, (bishops,) pres- 
 byters, and deacons : a proposition which was afterward in 
 some good degree carried out, though under another nomen- 
 clature. At that time, as already intimated, it fell to the 
 ground. 
 
 As many exaggerated and erroneous accounts have been 
 given of this Lichfield meeting, I will here give Mr. Clarke's 
 own notes of it, taken on the spot. I have transcribed them 
 from his autograph made in the room at the time. 
 
 "MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD AT LICHFIELD, 
 APRIL I'D, 1794. 
 
 " 1. A PROMISE of secresy. 
 
 "2. All the company except Mr. M. promise to abide 
 by the decisions of the majority, except where he believes 
 the Bible is against it, or his conscience cannot approve of it. 
 
 " 3. We will make no avowed separation from the Church 
 of England. 
 
 " 4. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper shall be admin- 
 istered wherever there is a majority of the society who 
 desire it : but the preachers must not canvass for votes, or 
 do anything to obtain a majority which may lead to a divi- 
 sion or strife ; nor should the Lord's Supper be administered 
 in any chapel where a majority of the trustees are against 
 it, except a fair and full indemnification be afforded them for 
 all the debt for which they are responsible, supposing they 
 require such indemnity.
 
 168 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 " 5. That there be an order of superintendents, appointed 
 by the Conference. 
 
 " 6. That all the preachers who shall be appointed by 
 the Conference shall from time to time be ordained elders. 
 
 "7. That the preachers when admitted into full connec- 
 tion shall receive their admission by being ordained deacons 
 by the superintendents appointed by the Conference : pro- 
 vided, (1.) That no preacher at present on probation, or in 
 full connection, shall be under an obligation to submit to 
 ordination ; (2.) That no preacher shall receive letters of 
 orders till he have been ordained an elder. 
 
 " 8. That the superintendents appointed among us by the 
 Conference be annually changed, if it see good. 
 
 "9. That the Connection be formed into seven or eight 
 divisions. 
 
 " 10. That each superintendent shall visit the principal 
 societies in his division, at least once a year. That he shall 
 have authority to execute, or see executed, all the branches 
 of the Methodist discipline ; and to determine, after having 
 consulted the preachers who are with him, in all cases of 
 difficulty, till the Conference. 
 
 "11. That the superintendent of any division, where he 
 judges himself inadequate to determine in any given case, 
 shall have authority to call in the president to his assist- 
 ance ; in which case the president shall, if possible, attend, 
 and shall have the ultimate determination of the case till 
 the next Conference. 
 
 " 12. The divisions for the present: 
 
 "LONDON: Sussex, Canterbury, Godalming, Norwich, Yar- 
 mouth, Diss, St. Ives, Bury, Colchester, Lynn, Walsing- 
 
 ham, Bedford, Higham Ferrers. 
 " (2.) BRISTOL : Bath, Portsmouth, Sarurn, Isles, Bradford, 
 
 Gloucester, Taunton, Collumpton, Plymouth, St. Austell, 
 
 Redruth, Pen/an <. 
 
 "(3.) BIRMINGHAM: Oxford, Worcester, Pembroke, Gla- 
 morgan, Brecon, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Burslem. 
 "(4.) MANCHESTER: Macclesfield, Leek, Stock port, etc.
 
 THE CIRCUIT MINISTER. 169 
 
 " (5.) SHEFFIELD : Nottingham, Northampton, Banbury, etc. 
 "(6.) LEEDS. (7.) NEWCASTLE. (8.) SCOTLAND, IRELAND, 
 
 the NORMAN ISLES. 
 
 "Proposed Superintendents: Dr. Coke, Dr. Mather, 
 Dr. Pawson, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Moore, Mr. Hanby, Mr. 
 Bradburn. 
 
 " Persons present : T. Coke, Alex. Mather, Thos. Taylor, 
 John Pawson, Saml. Bradburn, Jas. Rogers, Henry Moore, 
 Adam Clarke. 
 
 " The whole of the above plan to be laid before the en- 
 suing Conference, to be adopted or rejected as they may 
 think proper ; but those present agree to recommend and 
 support it as a thing greatly wanted, and likely to be of 
 much advantage to the work of God." 
 
 To return to more personal and private matters : With 
 his superintendent, Mr. Pawson, Mr. Clarke had spent two 
 happy years at Liverpool ; and he had formed for that ex- 
 cellent man an esteem which endured with his life, and sur- 
 vived his decease. In the letters written to Mrs. Clarke 
 from the Bristol Conference, he repeatedly refers to their 
 venerable superintendent, his preaching, and his health : for 
 example, " Mr. Pawson is pretty well. I am just returned 
 from hearing him at Portland Chapel. He preached an ex- 
 cellent sermon indeed. Most of the preachers think him 
 the best in the Conference. I keep him to his bark, and 
 hope the swelling of his feet will not increase." 
 
 In another : " I take care twice a day to give Mr. Paw- 
 son wine and bark. Let Mrs. P. trust him to me." 
 
 And again : " I keep him to his bark and wine, twice a 
 day ; and though he growls at me for it, I never mind him. 
 Tell Mrs. Pawson she has nothing to fear." These expres- 
 sions show the friendly terms on which these two good 
 men lived, who were now to part. Of Mr. Pawson, as the 
 friend of Clarke, we shall have to speak again. 
 
 In the review of his residence at Liverpool, Mr. Clarke's 
 mind was filled with tender gratitude to the Lord and giver
 
 170 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of life, " from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and 
 all just works do proceed," for the mercy shown him in 
 being enabled thus to employ his days in a work so holy. 
 " Upon the very commencement of my preaching in Liver- 
 pool," says he, "the Lord began to work. Crowds at- 
 tended. Such times of refreshing from his presence I never 
 saw. Should I die to-morrow, I shall praise God to all 
 eternity that I have lived to the present time. The labor 
 is severe ; nine or ten times a week we have to preach. 
 But God carries on his own work, and this is enough. My 
 soul lies at his feet. He has graciously renewed and en 
 larged my commission. All is happiness and prosperity. 
 We have a most blessed worl^; numbers are added, and 
 multitudes built up in our most holy faith. Such a year as 
 this I never knew ; all ranks and conditions come to hear 
 us. The presence of God is with us ; his glory dwells in 
 our land, and the shout of a king is in our camp."
 
 BOOK II.-MERIDIAJST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PREACHER. 
 
 " THE path of the justis as the shining light, which shineth 
 more and more unto the perfect day." This beautiful rep- 
 resentation receives one example of its truth in the career of 
 the subject of our memoir. He arose at the call of God, 
 and went forth on a pathway of progressive brightness. We 
 have seen how from his youth he looked and toiled upward ; 
 and now, the discouragements of early years left behind, 
 like the sun surmounting the morning clouds which had 
 threatened to obscure its light, and pouring its benefic rays 
 on all around, the man of God comes forth to the view of 
 the Church and the world, completely furnished for his 
 work, to shed the healing beams of truth upon myriads of 
 minds. Mr. Clarke's appointment to London, in 1795, 
 opens a new era in his life, in which each successive year 
 unfolded attributes of heart and intellect which rendered 
 him an object of confidence and admiration. As a public 
 instructor, we shall find him both from the pulpit and the 
 press serving his own and coming generations, according to 
 the will of God. If ever a man followed out a course in- 
 tended for him by Providence, it was Adam Clarke. " You 
 will find," says Lord Bolingbroke, (and here for once he 
 wrote the truth,) " you will find there are superior spirits 
 who can show even from their infancy, though it be not
 
 172 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 always fully perceived by others, perhaps not always felt 
 by themselves, that they were born for something more and 
 better ; their talents denote their general designation; and 
 the opportunities of conforming themselves to it,' that arise 
 in the course of things, or that are presented to them by 
 any circumstances of rank or situation in the society to 
 which they belong, denote the particular vocation which it 
 is not lawful for them to resist, nor even to neglect." And 
 that is most emphatically true of a vocation to the work of 
 the evangelist. A man who receives it, and disobeys it, 
 never prospers. Woe is unto him if he preach not the 
 Gospel ! But Clarke was faithful to the heavenly calling. 
 Through toil, and storm, and want, as well as sunshine and 
 competence, like John the Baptist he " fulfilled his course," 
 and, like Paul, " kept the faith," and won the crown. 
 
 As a preacher, Mr. Clarke was distinguished by his origi- 
 nality. With a mind always inclining to the dialectical, he 
 thought clearly, and on most subjects reasoned with a con- 
 clusive force which the most obtuse could apprehend, and 
 the most sophisticated was constrained to acknowledge. But 
 though a thinker on his own account, by his extensive read- 
 ing he availed himself largely of the thoughts of other men, 
 only making them in a manner his own by processes of the 
 mental laboratory, and always reproducing them with the 
 mint-mark of his own intellect, and in combinations which 
 genius only is able to form. His mind thus gave back an 
 affluent return of interest upon the principal for which, in 
 any amount, he was indebted to others ; and that, not only 
 in the ratio of quantity, but of quality as well. He im- 
 proved on what he read, and worked within the deep re- 
 cesses of his mind, by the secret of an alchemy which could 
 transmute baser metals into gold. Exercising thus the fa- 
 culties with which heaven had endowed him, he did not de- 
 pend on factitious aids, but gained even at the outset a 
 standing among those nobler intellects who think for them- 
 selves, and for others too. He remarks, in one of his let- 
 ters to Mr. Brackenbury : " To reduce preaching to the rules
 
 THE PREACHER. 173 
 
 of science, and to learn the art of it, is something of which 
 my soul cannot form too horrid an idea. I bless Jesus 
 Christ I have never learned to preach, but through his eter- 
 nal mercy I am taught by him from time to time as I need 
 instruction. I cannot make a sermon before I go into the 
 pulpit ; therefore I am obliged to hang upon the arm and 
 the wisdom of the Lord. I read a great deal, write very 
 little, but strive to study." 
 
 All the way through his long career he was, more than 
 most men of the pulpit, an extempore preacher. In the 
 course of his life he wrote many sermons, which are now 
 extant in his works ; but the greater number of these give 
 but an inadequate idea of his style and manner of preaching. 
 Some of them were written designedly for the press, and 
 may be considered more as theological treaiises than pulpit 
 orations. He wrote as a divine, but preached as an apostle. 
 Many of his most effective pulpit efforts were achieved with 
 no previous aid from the pen. The Rev. J. B. B. Clarke, 
 in the retrospect he has published of his father's life, says : 
 " He hardly ever wrote a line as a preparation for preaching. 
 I have now in my possession a slip of paper, about three 
 inches long by one wide, containing the first words of a num- 
 ber of texts ; and this was the sole list of memoranda on 
 which he preached several occasional sermons in various 
 parts of the country." 
 
 Once, when on a visit at Plymouth, he preached for two 
 hours on the great question in Acts xvi, 30, " What must I 
 do to be saved ?" Several of the clergy of the place were 
 present, and united afterward in requesting him to publish 
 the discourse ; one offering to take a hundred copies for his 
 congregation, another two hundred and fifty, and another five 
 hundred. Yet he had to tell them, in reply, that he had 
 "neither outline nor notes of the subject, nor any time to 
 commit the discourse to writing." 
 
 Such a habit of extempore speaking can be recommended 
 to the imitation of but few; and these men in whom more 
 than common power of ready and correct speech is added
 
 174 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 to more than common stores of knowledge. But it enabled 
 Dr. Clarke to seize upon any passing incident and turn it to 
 advantage, or to shift the topic of discourse, if some import- 
 ant object required it, without inconvenience to himself. 
 On one occasion, after he had preached at City Road Chapel, 
 a friend remarked to him : " I could not but observe that in 
 the sermon you seemed suddenly to quit the subject in 
 hand, and fly off to a series of arguments in proof of the Di- 
 vinity of our Saviour, with which your previous subject was 
 not connected. Had you any reason for so doing ?" "Yes," 
 said he ; "I observed Dr. K." (a celebrated Unitarian) 
 " steal into the back part of the chapel, and, after a few 
 minutes, plant his stick firmly, as if he intended to hear me 
 out. So, by God's help I determined to bear my testimony 
 to the Divinity of our Lord, trusting that he would touch his 
 heart, and give him another opportunity of hearing and 
 receiving the truth." 
 
 From time to time these free outgoings of his soul were 
 attended by an uncommon influence, " the demonstration 
 and power of the Spirit." In his letters to Mrs. Clarke he 
 mentions such occasions, not in a temper of egotistic boast- 
 ing, but with a devout and wondering acknowledgment of 
 the condescending goodness of God in so employing him. 
 For example : 
 
 " I was obliged to preach this morning at Oldham-street. 
 The congregation was really awful. Perhaps I never 
 preached as I did this morning. O Mary, I had the king- 
 dom of God opened to me, and the glory of the Lord filled 
 the whole place. Toward the conclusion the cries were 
 great. It was with great difficulty that I could get the peo- 
 ple persuaded to leave the chapel. Though the press was 
 immense, yet scarcely one seemed willing to go away, and 
 those who were in distress were unable to go. Some of the 
 preachers went and prayed with them, nor rested till they 
 \v ere healed. God has done a mighty work." 
 
 .\L';iin, from Bristol : "I am this instant returned from 
 King-street. The chapel crowded crowded ! And God in
 
 THE PREACHER. 175 
 
 a most especial manner enabled me to deliver such a testi- 
 mony, from 1 Thess. i, 3, as I think I never before delivered. 
 I did feel as in the eternal world, having all things beneath 
 me, with such expansions of mind as the power of God 
 alone could give. I was about an hour and a half, and am 
 torn up for the day." 
 
 Mr. Clarke's pulpit ministrations were substantially Bib- 
 lical. He preached the word. Here was the secret of his 
 power. He brought a rule to bear upon the conscience 
 against which there was no appeal. His congregations were 
 summoned to the obedience of faith, not in the formulas of 
 creeds, the decrees of councils, or the sentences of the fathers, 
 but in the Scripture which cannot be broken. He " read in 
 the book in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, 
 and caused them to understand the reading." In the " true 
 sayings" penned by the inspired prophets and apostles, he 
 recognized and demonstrated a revelation from God to 
 man, and, as such, the sole canon of faith and morals. 
 " There is nothing certain," he used to say, " in the things 
 which belong to salvation, but the plain word of God ; no 
 safe teacher but the Spirit of Jesus Christ ; and that Spirit 
 teaches the heart what the word teaches the understanding." 
 His habits of study in elaborating his Commentary had ren- 
 dered him master of the entire scope and contents of the 
 sacred volume, and contributed to give his ordinary pulpit 
 discourses a rich expository character. All his learning was 
 brought to bear on this blessed duty to explain the words 
 of God. that he might bring the people to the knowledge of 
 the things of God. What was said respecting a prelate of 
 former days might be affirmed of this eminent preacher : 
 " He unfolded the grandeur of a prophecy, or the comfort of 
 an Epistle : and alarmed the conscience, or bound up the 
 wounded heart. He brought tidings of foreign learning to 
 the scholar, of discoveries to the naturalist, and of manners 
 to the people." Thus he won the ears of the idle, gave 
 matter for reflection to the thoughtful, and satisfaction to 
 the inquisitive. He " taught in Judah, and had the book of
 
 176 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the law of the Lord with him, and went about throughout 
 all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.'' 
 
 One consequence of this method was an inexhaustible va- 
 riety in his preaching. The Bible contains a universe of 
 truth ; and the longest life of man becomes momentary 
 when brought to the task of unfolding it. We have heard 
 of a German professor who spent years in a course of lec- 
 tures on the first chapter of Isaiah, and died without com- 
 pleting it ; and we can easily conceive, that such expository 
 preachers as Owen and Matthew Henry would review their 
 labors with dissatisfaction, as having been employed too 
 much., to their feeling, on the surface, without having pene- 
 trated the mysterious depths of the solemn, solitary volume 
 which riveted the gaze of their lives. Mr. Clarke, even in 
 the earlier years of his ministry, adopted a method which 
 insured a wide range of Bible subjects for the pulpifc, in 
 preaching from the Lesson, Epistle, or Gospel for the day : 
 all which portions of the holy book he carefully examined, 
 marking in a large text-book the verses which drew his 
 special attention as likely to afford topics of public address. 
 
 A preacher commanding such an amplitude of topics 
 would always have something new. And therefore it was 
 that Mr. Clarke's hearers, to whatever chapel they followed 
 him, very seldom listened to the .same discourse. The late 
 Mr. Buttress, who always accompanied him when Mr. 
 Clarke was stationed in London, affirmed, that he never 
 heard him preach the same sermon twi^e. Reflecting thus 
 the present exercises of his intellect, his discourses had a 
 perpetual freshness ; they came warm from the living heart, 
 and brought life and warmth to the heart of the hearer. 
 And that, especially, because they brought the GOSPEL. 
 We have said he was a Biblical preacher, in the truest 
 sense, ever holding forth the grand evangelism which per- 
 vades the Bible, as its soul and spirit; namely, that "God 
 so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life." In making known this truth in all its sol-
 
 THE PREACHER. 177 
 
 emn bearings and consequences, he was remarkable among 
 the ministers of his day. In the constellation of eminent 
 preachers who moved at that time in the intellectual sky, 
 but who have now nearly all disappeared from our sight, 
 Mr. Clarke was in this respect a star of the first magnitude. 
 From his rising to his setting hour, unnumbered multitudes 
 rejoiced in his light as a witness and guide to the mercy 
 which could save them. In his ministry Christ was all in 
 all ; the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. He 
 essayed to unfold the entire evangelic revelation, the whole 
 counsel of God with respect to the way of salvation by 
 Jesus Christ. He showed the sinner his mighty need of 
 such a Saviour, and led him in repentance to his feet. By 
 him 
 
 " The violated law spoke out its thunders ; 
 And by him, in strains as sweet as angels use, 
 The Gospel whisper'd peace." 
 
 "The only preaching," he said once, in a letter to a 
 brother minister, (and the maxim had its embodiment in 
 his own practice,) "the only preaching worth anything in 
 God's account, and which the fire will not burn up, is that 
 which labors to convert and convince the sinner of his sin ; 
 to bring him into contrition for it ; to lead him to the blood 
 of the covenant, that his conscience may be purged from its 
 guilt ; to the Spirit of judgment and burning, that he may 
 be purified from its infection ; and then to build him up on 
 this most holy faith, by causing him to pray in the Holy 
 Ghost, and keep himself in the love of God, looking for the 
 mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. This is 
 the system pursued by the apostles, and it is that alone 
 which God will own to the conversion of sinners. I speak 
 from experience. This is the most likely mode to produce 
 the active soul of divinity, while the body is little else than 
 the preacher's creed. Labor to bring sinners to God, 
 should you by it bring yourself to the grave." 
 
 Again to another : " These are not only the first rudi- 
 ments of heavenly teaching, but the fullness of Divine truth
 
 178 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in reference to salvation: 1. Thou art a sinner, and conse- 
 quently wretched. 2. God is an eternal, unfailing Foun- 
 tain of love. 3. He has given his Son Jesus Christ to die 
 for THEE. 4. Believe on him, and thou shalt be saved from 
 thy sins. 5. When saved, continue incessantly dependent 
 upon him ; so shalt thou continually receive out of his full- 
 ness grace upon grace, and be ever fitted for, ever ready to, 
 and ever active in, every good word and every good work. 
 This is the sum and substance of the revelation of God ; 
 and O how worthy it is of his infinite goodness, and how 
 suitable to the nature and state of man! These are the 
 simple lessons which I am endeavoring to learn and teach. 
 This is the science in which I should be willing to spend the 
 longest life. O God ! simplify my heart." 
 
 No man, since the apostle St. John, seems to have had 
 more large and soul-stirring views of the love of God than 
 Adam Clarke. Here and there in his Commentary the 
 reader will find some bursts of feeling on this grand topic, 
 which will give an idea of the spirit and manner of the man 
 when in the pulpit. When this mighty truth began to 
 move in his soul he became irresistible. The first time I 
 had the privilege of hearing him the text was, " God was 
 in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. . . . Now 
 then we are embassadors for Christ, as though God did 
 beseech you by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye 
 reconciled to God." " Behold, now is the accepted time ; 
 behold, now is the day of salvation." It was then that I 
 witnessed, and felt too, how this man could master and con- 
 trol the entire intellect and heart of a great congregation by 
 the simple, honest, and earnest exhibition of the faith once 
 delivered to the saints. 
 
 Ille reyit dictis animos, etpectora, mulcet. 
 
 No wonder that, with this victorious scepter of truth, the 
 first preachers vanquished the world. We were all sub- 
 dued ; the tears of repentance, the uplifted eyes of prayer, 
 the swelling emotion of triumphal joy, which longed to give 
 itself utterance in one loud thunder of thanksgiving, all
 
 THE PREACHER. 179 
 
 showed how powerful is the uncorrupted Gospel when 
 preached aright. What I then witnessed helps me to un- 
 derstand hfe meaning, when on one occasion he said, after 
 preaching : " I would not have missed coming to this place 
 for five hundred pounds. I got my own soul blessed, and 
 God blessed the people. I felt," (stretching out his arms, 
 and folding them to his breast,) " I felt that I was drawing 
 the whole congregation to me closer and closer, and pulling 
 them away from the world to God." 
 
 In expatiating on that Divine mercy " whose height, whose 
 depth unfathomed, no man knows," Mr. Clarke found end- 
 less resources for the conversion and comfort of the soul 
 and heart. " The love of God," he was wont to say, " will 
 convert more sinners than all the fire of hell." His confi- 
 dence in the efficacy of the glad tidings, that GOD is LOVE, 
 was unlimited, and lasting as his life. Thus toward the end 
 of his days, in conversation with his dear son Joseph, he 
 said : " After having now labored with a clear conscience for 
 the space of fifty years, in preaching the salvation of God 
 through Christ to thousands of souls, I can say, that is the 
 most successful kind of preaching which exhibits and up- 
 holds in the clearest and strongest light the Divine perfection 
 and mercy of the infinitely compassionate and holy God to 
 fallen man, and which represents him alike compassionate 
 and just. Tell then your hearers, not only that the con- 
 science must be sprinkled, but that it was God himself who 
 provided the Lamb." 
 
 In the same spirit he delighted to illustrate the pleasures 
 and advantages of a life devoted to the service of a recon- 
 ciled God. The Rev. Joseph Clarke has given a good de- 
 scription of his father in the pulpit, which, though it takes 
 us to a later period of life, we quote here, to render our idea 
 of Mr. Clarke as a preacher as complete as we can : " The 
 appearance of my father, and his effect while in the pulpit 
 upon a stranger, would probably be something like this : 
 He [the stranger] would see a person of no particular 
 mark, except that time had turned his hair to silver, and tho
 
 180 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 calmness of fixed devotion gave solemnity to his appearance. 
 He spreads his Bible before him, and, opening his hymn- 
 book, reads forth in a clear distinct voice a few verses, after 
 singing of which he offers up a short prayer, which is im- 
 mediately felt to be addressed to the Majesty of Heaven. 
 The text is proclaimed, and the discourse is begun. In 
 simple yet forcible language he gives some general infor- 
 mation connected with his subject, or lays down some gen- 
 eral positions drawn from either the text or its dependen- 
 cies. On these he speaks for a short time, fixing the atten- 
 tion by gaining the interest. The understanding feels that 
 it is concerned. A clear and comprehensive exposition 
 gives the hearer to perceive that his attention will be re- 
 warded by an increase of knowledge, or by new views of 
 old truths, or previously unknown uses of ascertained 
 points. He views with some astonishment the perfect col- 
 lectedness with which knowledge is brought from far, and 
 the natural yet extensive excursions which the preacher 
 makes to present his object in all its bearings, laying heaven 
 and earth, nature and art, science and reason, under contri- 
 bution to sustain his cause. Now his interest becomes 
 deeper ; for he sees that the minister is beginning to con- 
 dense his strength, that he is calling in every detached sen- 
 tence, and that every apparently miscellaneous remark was 
 far from casual, but had its position to maintain, and its 
 work to perform ; and he continues to hear with that rooted 
 attention which is created by the importance and clearness 
 of the truths delivered, by the increasing energy of the 
 speaker, and by the assurance in the hearer's own mind 
 that what is spoken is believed to the utmost and felt in its 
 power. The discourse proceeds with a deeper current of 
 fervor ; the action becomes more animated ; the certainty 
 of the preacher's own mind, and the feelings of his heart, are 
 shown by the firm confidence of the tone, and a certain full- 
 ness of the voice and emphasis of manner ; the whole truth 
 of God seems laid open before him ; and the soul, thus in- 
 formed, feels as in the immediate presence of the Lord."
 
 THE PKEACHER. 181 
 
 To this account may be appended a few lines by Mrs. 
 Pawson, all the more appropriate as they relate to the time 
 already reached in our biography. This lady, the wife of 
 his venerable colleague at Liverpool, has the following 
 memorandum in her journal : " Brother Clarke is, in my 
 estimation, an extraordinary preacher ; and his learning con- 
 fers great luster on his talents. He makes it subservient to 
 grace. His discourses are highly evangelical. He never 
 loses sight of Christ. In regard of pardon and holiness, he 
 offers a present salvation. His address is lively, animated, 
 and very encouraging to the seekers of salvation. In 
 respect to the unawakened, it may indeed be said that he 
 obeys that precept, ' Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice 
 like a trumpet.' His words flow spontaneously from the 
 heart ; his views enlarge as he proceeds ; and he brings to 
 the mind a torrent of things new and old. While he is 
 preaching one can seldom cast an eye on the audience with- 
 out perceiving a melting unction resting upon them. His 
 speech ' distills as the dew,' and ' as the small rain upon the 
 tender herb.' He generally preaches from some part of 
 the lesson for the day, and on the Sabbath morning from 
 the Gospel for the day. This method confers an abundant 
 variety on his ministry." 
 
 The end and aim of every sermon with him was to do 
 good there and then. One day, as he entered the vestry 
 at City Road after preaching, a friend remarked, " What an 
 admirable sermon you have preached to us this morning, 
 sir!" "Brother," he replied, "Satan whispered that to me 
 as I left the pulpit. But I told him that by the mischief 
 alone which it did to his kingdom God would judge it. I 
 am afraid of any other good sermons than those. It is 
 solemn work to stand up between the living and the 
 dead !" 
 
 In style and manner, Mr. Clarke's discourses derived no 
 advantage from artificial rhetoric, the mellifluous charms of 
 elocution, or the little embellishments on which the artist 
 in public speaking depends so much for his popularity.
 
 182 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 The harmony of cadences or the aesthetic grace with which 
 the orator loves to group his thoughts and words so as to 
 win the ear, and charm the sense of music in the soul, were 
 things quite out of his line. We are not sure whether he 
 was endowed with that kind of talent more than in a medi- 
 ocre degree ; but we know that he cared nothing about 
 using it. Yet the absence of these circumstantials in no 
 way interfered with the universally acknowledged grandeur ' 
 of his ministry. The Divine Spirit has endowed the teach- 
 ers of the world with a variety of gifts. He who wrought 
 powerfully in St. Peter to convince the Jew, conferred on 
 St. Paul the ability to persuade the Greek. Among the 
 great preachers of the early Church, the men whose minis- 
 try shed sunlight on the ages in which they lived, we see 
 gifts many, but all emanating from one Spirit. It was 
 grace that sanctified their natural endowments, and made 
 itself visible in " the serious and careful perspicuity of 
 Athanasius," in Basil's refined and graceful sweetness, in the 
 eloquence which flowed from the lips of Chrysostom like 
 streams of liquid gold, in the self-possessed dignity of 
 Cyprian, the power with which Hilary could drape his 
 thoughts in tragic pomp and glory, or the vivid meditations 
 with which Ambrosius could pierce the soul, " as with 
 arrows dipped in honey-dew." So", in more modern times, 
 the thunder-storm of Luther, and the placid vigor of 
 Melancthon, and (why not say it?) the ornate clarity of 
 Massillon, the penetrating unction of Fenelon, and the im- 
 posing grandeur of Bossuet, all betoken his still merciful 
 presence. In the mighty bursts of truth from Whitefield's 
 lips, or the tranquil, sincere, and soul-commanding evangel- 
 isms of Wesley, we hear his awakening voice. Did not 
 he who clothes the lilies with their beauty, and spans the 
 heavens with the rainbow, give to Chalmers the imagina- 
 tion by which he brought visions of truth before men's 
 minds like a gorgeous panorama; and enable Robert Hall 
 to show us the river of water of life, clear as crystal, pro- 
 ceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb 1 Thus,
 
 THE PREACHER. 183 
 
 too, in the pulpits of Methodism, the exuberant pathos of 
 Bradburn, the searching fire of Benson, Richard Watson's 
 majesty of mind, Robert Newton's bland and evangelic 
 grace, and Jabez Bunting's unaffected but beautiful and 
 potent oratory, all display the operations of that same 
 Spirit who, 
 
 "Plenteous of grace, descends from high, 
 Rich in his sevenfold energy," 
 
 to distribute his celestial gifts according to the counsel of 
 his own will. 
 
 The servants of God, having these faculties differing one 
 from another, cannot be expected every one to resemble his 
 fellow ; and though Adam Clarke may not be said to have 
 possessed the peculiar character of any of the men we have 
 named, yet was his pulpit-ministry distinguished by attri- 
 butes which set him, in point of effectiveness, on a level 
 with any of them, the apostles excepted. As an able critic* 
 says of Augustine, in comparison with some other of the 
 fathers, " he had less of beauty, but more of power, than 
 they." In Dr. Clarke's preaching there was such a breadth 
 and depth of information, such strength of feeling and fixed- 
 ness of solemn purpose to save men's souls from death, 
 that all who heard him knew within themselves that they 
 were face to face with a messenger from God ; and while 
 the learned and the illiterate were alike brought under the 
 same spell, and earnestly attended to the words spoken by 
 him, he so rightly divided and faithfully applied the word 
 of the Lord, that the conscience of the sinner was awakened, 
 and the contrite heart comforted, by its efficacy working in 
 the soul. 
 
 His preaching had all the more heart in it from the ex- 
 perience which he himself enjoyed of the saving power of 
 the truth. Why did the hearers feel so ? It was because 
 the preacher had felt first. He came before them full- 
 dressed in the mantle of salvation, with his lamp burning. 
 He told them of a mercy which he had found, and which 
 * British Quarterly Review.
 
 184 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 they must seek, or perish. He told them of a Saviour 
 who would be presently their Judge. 
 
 " Before Mm came, in dread array, 
 The pomp of that tremendous day 
 When Christ with clouds shall come ;" 
 
 and, with the awful light of these revelations on his soul, 
 he persuaded men as well by the terrors as by the compas- 
 sions of the Lord. He delighted, as we have said, to set 
 forth the mercy of God; but it was done in such a way 
 that the whole sermon was at once a warning to the wicked, 
 and a voice of consolation to the repentant. And preaching 
 as he did under the conviction that this life is the only span 
 of opportunity for the evil and hell-condemned to obtain re- 
 mission and renewal that, in respect to some of his hear- 
 ers, life was verging on its latest hour, and that on the very 
 moment then present hung eternity itself he so preached 
 that the truth came from his own to the hearer's heart ; that 
 attention was arrested, feeling excited ; the dreamer awoke 
 from his abstractions, the worldling felt the power of 
 another life, the infidel insensibly believed ; of the reprobate, 
 hovering angels said: "Behold, he prayeth;" at Christ's 
 omniscient glance, poor backsliding Peter again wept bit- 
 terly ; and, ravished at the sight of a Saviour who was 
 dead and is alive again, another Thomas exclaimed, " My 
 Lord and my God !" Thus the Gospel came not in word 
 only, but in power and assurance, and with signs of salva- 
 tion. Moses struck the rock. 
 
 In presence of these substantial and heart-satisfying pow- 
 ers, the auditors of Clarke forgot the want of artistic accom- 
 plishments which have contributed to make the modern 
 pulpit sometimes attractive. A comparatively homely 
 manner, and a voice not tuned at all times to melodious 
 cadences, were not once thought of. He was not a mere 
 orator. Ho brought strong thoughts, and clothed them in 
 honest words, as a means to an end. He had a purpose, 
 and one in which you, as his hearer, had an everlasting in- 
 terest. He wanted to make you a better man ; he wanted
 
 THE PREACHER. 185 
 
 to save your soul ; and to do this, he sought to lay hold on 
 you by the conscience. The ear with him was only the avenue 
 to the heart. Unless a man has this purpose and aim, it is 
 in vain that he draws the bow. The arrow from his hand 
 will never find its way to the mark ; or, should it chance to 
 do so, will fall without effect, like the shaft that Homer 
 tells of, so uselessly launched by Priam against the shield 
 of the Grecian hero : 
 
 " This said, his feeble hand a javelin threw, 
 Which, fluttering, seeni'd to loiter as it flew ; 
 Just, and but barely, to the mark it held, 
 And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield." 
 
 But Clarke drew not the bow at a venture, and seldom 
 without success, in one degree or another. A multitude of 
 sinners were converted under his ministry ; and among 
 them not a few who have themselves been made instru- 
 ments of salvation to others. 
 
 And these works and services were sustained by him for 
 half a century of time, and over a great extent of area in 
 the social world. Some excellent ministers are all their 
 lives restricted to a circumscribed and narrow locality. 
 They pass their days, by the ordination of Providence, in 
 comparative obscurity, witnessing the truth but to a few 
 persons, and shining as lights in dark and unthought of 
 places. But this man's career was more like that of the 
 sun when he comes forth in his strength to bathe a hemi- 
 sphere in light. He went literally through the length and 
 breadth of the land. From the Norman Isles to the ultima 
 Thule of the storm-beaten Zetlands, he revealed the glori- 
 ous Gospel of the grace of God. The English nation, one 
 might say, knew and revered him. Men in high places, and 
 men of low degree, in crowded cities and sequestered ham- 
 lets, alike waited for his coming, and welcomed the sound 
 of his voice. "How beautiful upon the mountains were 
 the feet of him that brought good tidings, that published 
 peace ; that brought good tidings of good, that published 
 salvation ; that said unto Zion, Thy God reigneth !"
 
 186 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 One great charm, that rendered his ministry so attractive, 
 was found in the well-known qualities of his own upright 
 and holy life. It gives one a sacred and edifying satisfac- 
 tion, to remember how finely the precepts of the Gospel 
 which he preached harmonized with his personal character. 
 He lived the Gospel. His doctrine and life, coincident, 
 proved him to be at once a great and good man. His life 
 recommended religion ; and was itself a ceaseless homily 
 of things profitable to man, and pleasing unto God. It was 
 a life not only unblemished by glaring inconsistencies, but 
 adorned by practical excellence ; and I believe that no man 
 could have used the words of St. Paul with less of impro- 
 priety than he : " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if 
 there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, 
 which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and 
 seen in me, do ; and the God of peace shall be with you." 
 In this respect it will be our wisdom to imitate him, consid- 
 ering the end of his conversation, Jesus the First and the 
 Last. Christum pectore, Christum ore, Christum opere, 
 spirabat.
 
 THE PASTOR. 187 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 I 
 
 THE PASTOR. 
 
 THE vocation of the Christian minister binds him not 
 only to labor to win souls by preaching, but also to watch 
 over them in the services of that pastoral office which the 
 Lord by an everlasting ordinance has established in his 
 Church. In the discharge of this solemn duty it was Mr. 
 Clarke's earnest endeavor to approve himself faithful. His 
 care was to feed the Church of God, to build up believers 
 in their holy faith, to strengthen such as did stand, to com- 
 fort and help the weak-hearted, to raise up the fallen, and 
 to restore the wanderer. As a Methodist pastor, he 
 conscientiously administered the discipline of which both 
 himself and the members of his flock had alike pledged their 
 acceptance. He considered that discipline to be perfectly 
 Scriptural in its character, and directly conducive to the edi- 
 fication and perpetuity of the Church. In the circuits in 
 which he presided as superintendent, the peculiar institu- 
 tions of Methodism were upheld in their vigor and integrity. 
 Class-meeting, for example, which has afforded to so many 
 myriads of Christ's disciples a delightful means of brotherly 
 fellowship, mutual improvement, comfort in trouble, and 
 timely help in necessity, he would never see neglected with- 
 out inquiry, and, if needful, remonstrance or exhortation. 
 The value he set on this means of grace appears in the fact, 
 that in several of the places in which he was stationed, in 
 addition to those official visitations of the classes which 
 devolved on him as a minister, he would have his name on 
 some class-book as a private member, and meet as such, as 
 often as opportunity served. He urged the Methodist peo- 
 ple to make much of this peculiar advantage of their com-
 
 188 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 munion. and sometimes in writing a letter to a friend would 
 throw in a memento bearing on the duty, if it were only in 
 the simple words appended as a postscript : " Mind your 
 class." So, in a letter to a captain in the navy, a Methodist, 
 with whom he had formed an intimacy at Liverpool, as a 
 member of the Philological Society in that town, he says : 
 u May I ask how you get on in your CLASs-ical, philological, 
 and princely connections 1 Do not neglect the two former, 
 by any means ; and let the first have the first claim. We 
 live, my friend, in a miserable world ; but we may live well 
 in it, if we look to God. I know you will be faithful to the 
 trust reposed in you by his majesty ; but O ! be also faith- 
 ful to the light and influence of the Spirit of God. Use 
 every means of grace, and glorify God in all things. I 
 long after my class, and doubt whether any one will let me 
 in here. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the people 
 yet to raise one like that in Liverpool." This last remark 
 refers to his success in forming a class in Liverpool of en- 
 tirely new members. At the close of the first meeting, he 
 laid down his penny (the weekly contribution) on the table 
 with, " There, thank God, I am once more in class." 
 
 Thus, to another friend : " What a mercy it is that you 
 and I are now in his fold ! May God keep us both steady ! 
 Abide in him, my dear friend, that when he shall appear 
 you may see him as he is. Pray much in private. No soul 
 that prays much in private ever falls. Read the blessed 
 Book ; let his testimonies be your counselors, and the sub- 
 ject of them be your song in the night. Keep closely united 
 to God's people. Do not omit one class-meeting even in the 
 year, if you can possibly avoid it. I have been now a trav- 
 eling preacher upward of twenty-four years, and yet I feel 
 class-meeting as necessary now as I did when I began. You 
 may think it strange to hear that I meet regularly once a 
 week, and have done so for years. I find it a great privi- 
 lege to forget that I am a preacher, and come with a simple 
 heart to receive instruction from my leader." 
 
 Again, further on in life, to a brother minister : " From
 
 THE PASTOR. 189 
 
 long experience I know the propriety of Mr. "Wesley's ad- 
 vice : ' Establish class-meetings and form societies wherever 
 you preach and have attentive hearers ; for, wherever we 
 have preached without doing so, the word has been like seed 
 by the way-side.' It was by this means we have been 
 enabled to establish permanent and holy Churches over the 
 world. Mr. Wesley saw the necessity of this from the be- 
 ginning. Mr. Whitefield, when he separated from Mr. 
 Wesley, did not follow it. What was the consequence 1 ? 
 The fruit of Mr. Whitefield's labor died with himself. Mr. 
 Wesley's remains and multiplies. Did Mr. Whitefield see 
 his error ? He did, but not till it was too late ; his people, 
 being long unused to it, would not come under this disci- 
 pline. Have I authority to say so 1 I have ; and you shall 
 have it. Forty years ago I traveled in the Bradford (Wilts.) 
 circuit, with Mr. John Pool. Himself told me this. Mr. 
 P. was well known to Mr. Whitefield, who, having met him 
 one day, accosted him in the following manner : 
 
 " Whitefield. Well, John, art thou still a Wesleyan ? 
 
 "Pool. Yes, sir. I thank God I have the privilege of being 
 in connection with Mr. Wesley, and one of his preachers. 
 
 " W. John, thou art in thy right place. My brother Wes- 
 ley acted wisely ; the souls that were awakened under his min- 
 istry he joined in class, and thus preserved the fruits of his 
 labor. This I neglected, and my people are a rope of sand." 
 
 In cases of habitual neglect of meeting in class, Mr. Clarke 
 hesitated at the quarterly visitation to give the accustomed 
 ticket as the token of membership. During his residence 
 in Manchester he met a class one day, when a wealthy mem- 
 ber who never came sent a guinea as his quarterly contribu- 
 tion. Mr. Clarke, on looking over the class-paper, and see- 
 ing how the case stood, refused the money, desiring the 
 leader to take it back again, and requested the gentleman to 
 give him, Mr. Clarke, an interview. 
 
 As a superintendent, he superintended. In a family, a 
 church, a kingdom, there must be a head. The proper ad- 
 ministration of the aftairs of the circuit he considered a moral
 
 190 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 duty on his part ; and a cheerful, enlightened acquiescence in 
 every constitutional arrangement of the Church, the moral 
 duty of members, leaders, local preachers, and the other 
 members of the official staff of a circuit. In one place the 
 local preachers demurred to his exclusive authority to make 
 the plan, and fix their appointments. To show them by a 
 practical experiment that it was best for the superintendent 
 to have that power, he even let them for a time or two ar- 
 range their own appointments. " Take and make out a plan 
 for yourselves," said he, " and bring it to me, and I will in- 
 corporate the traveling preachers with it." They did so, 
 after much altercation among themselves ; for they could 
 not agree. " We soon had loud complaints from different 
 parts of the circuit ; for those who were the least fit for cer- 
 tain places would go there. The next plan I gave them as 
 before, and with great difficulty they planned themselves 
 again ; and then the complaints from the circuit became 
 louder and louder. The most pious and sensible of the 
 local preachers saw and heard this. With the third plan 
 they refused to have anything to do, and confidence was 
 restored." 
 
 Mr. Clarke wished to see the various offices of the Church 
 filled by men whose religious qualifications would uphold 
 their moral influence, and effectively carry out the purposes 
 for which they had been established. A steward in a certain 
 town had a commercial partner, who had acted in a dishonor 
 able manner. This conduct became a topic of conversation 
 at the leaders' meeting, at which Mr. Clarke presided. The 
 officer, by some remarks, intimated that he sided with his 
 partner in what he had done. " Then," said Mr. Clarke, 
 "give up thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer 
 steward." Reflection led this gentleman to see that he had 
 been wrong, and that his pastor had acted rightly. He had 
 greatness of mind enough to acknowledge it, and was at 
 once reinstated. 
 
 Our worthy pastor inculcated the most inflexible principles 
 on the subject of commercial integrity. In preaching one
 
 THE PASTOR. 191 
 
 Sunday morning at the old chapel at Spitalfields, on the 
 fifteenth Psalm, he laid great stress on the relative duties 
 there laid down for the guidance of men of business. An 
 eminent merchant who had heard the sermon overtook him 
 on the way home, and observed : " Mr. Clarke, if what you 
 have said to-day in the pulpit be necessary between man 
 and man, I fear few commercial men will be saved." " I 
 cannot help that, sir," replied he ; "I may not bring down 
 the requirements of infinite justice to suit the selfish chicanery 
 of any set of men whatever. It is God's law, and by it he 
 will himself judge man at the last day." 
 
 But while thus resolute and unbending in maintaining the 
 high moralities of Christian discipline in the Church, he was 
 full of tenderness for the weak and afflicted, whether in body 
 or mind, and knew how to blend the gravity of the pastor 
 with the gentle love of a father and a friend. Here is a 
 glimpse of him in the class-room, as given us by his daughter 
 in one of her piously recorded recollections : " My father 
 had been preaching at Chandler-street, (now Hinde-street,) 
 and after service had a class to meet. I accompanied him 
 on that occasion, and was permitted to sit by him. Address- 
 ing one present, he said : ' You, my sister, can speak good of 
 the Lord. You have long known that he is gracious.' She 
 burst into tears, and said, ' O yes, sir ; but I have been most 
 unfaithful, and my mind has been brought into great heavi- 
 ness ; during my daughter's late illness, I would not give 
 her up.' ' And did your daughter die V ' No, sir ; she was 
 spared to me.' ' Look up, my sister, and learn this lesson : 
 God never wastes his grace by giving more than is needed. 
 Had he purposed to take your daughter, he would have be- 
 stowed upon you the gift of resignation to meet the trial.' "* 
 
 To another, who was in affliction, he said : " The cloud will 
 be dispersed by and by ; though affliction endureth for a 
 night, joy cometh in the morning. God will not always 
 afflict : remember his son Jesus Christ, and fear not. In all 
 your afflictions he was afflicted ; and he still sympathizes 
 * MS. inciuoraiidutn bv Mrs. R. Smith.
 
 192 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 with you. Often have I preached this doctrine to you ; and 
 now that you need it most, receive it heartily. He is the 
 same God, willing to help, mighty to save. Put his friend- 
 ship to the test, and you will find him all you want, and all 
 you wish." 
 
 In the department of pastoral duty which relates to visit- 
 ing from house to house, Mr. Clarke could not fully gratify 
 the wishes of his heart. This, indeed, is true of the great 
 majority of his brethren. There may be from a thousand 
 to two thousand members under the care of two or three 
 ministers, who are constantly engaged in the public duties 
 they owe to a number of congregations spread over an area 
 of many miles. Then, again, the connectional interests of 
 the body make large demands on their time, involving, in 
 cities and large towns, frequent attendance on committees, 
 whose activity is necessary to the effective working, and 
 even the existence, of several institutions of charity and re- 
 ligion.; while the pecuniary support of those institutions 
 frequently requires them to give up two or three days to- 
 gether in journeys to other circuits to preach and speak at 
 public meetings. There is also a necessity, in order to keep 
 pace with the enlightenment of the age, and to maintain the 
 confidence and respect of the public in the office of a teacher, 
 that the minister should spend some few hours a day in his 
 own study. Then it must be remembered, that social visits 
 are to be accomplished either by day or in the evening. 
 But in the hours of the day, while the people are engaged 
 in their business or labor, a visit becomes an intrusion ; and, 
 on the other hand, in the evening, when families have more 
 l"isure to receive visits, the minister is at work in his cir- 
 cuit ; for most of us preach or hold meetings every evening 
 in the week. It is not with us, as with the parochial clergy- 
 man or the Dissenting minister, that, time being secured for 
 the Sunday sermons and the one week-day lecture, several 
 evenings in the week may be made available for visiting. 
 We are so employed that it becomes physically impossible 
 for us to gratify, according to our earnest desire, the social
 
 THE PASTOR. 193 
 
 tendencies. Yet it must not be supposed, on these grounds, 
 that the Methodist people are without pastoral care ; on the 
 contrary, no religious communion is so richly supplied with 
 the means for the enjoyment of that privilege. Not to speak 
 of society meetings, in which the flock and the shepherd 
 unite for intercourse and prayer or of the weekly class- 
 meeting, in which the concerns of the soul occupy the solemn 
 transactions of the hour in the visitation of the classes by 
 the ministers at the renewal of the tickets, we believe there 
 is more direct communication between the pastor and the 
 member on the interests of the spiritual life, than would be 
 had in twenty occasions in which, from the presence of other 
 persons, (some of whom it may be, are opposed or indiffer- 
 ent to religious things,) the conversation takes a more gen- 
 eral character. In a word, so far as mere gossiping visits 
 are concerned, the preachers have, or ought to have, but 
 very little time. Some of them very properly avail them- 
 selves of the hour of" tea-time " to exchange words of friend- 
 ship with a family, and to offer such instruction as the oppor- 
 tunity may afford ; but Mr. Clarke had (as we think, unfor- 
 tunately) disqualified himself for this social enjoyment, by 
 renouncing the use of tea, partly from a notion that the leaf 
 itself was injurious to health, but more especially for the 
 sake of employing the time which others spent at the tea- 
 table in the prosecution of his studies.* 
 
 * But here let him speak for himself. In his well-known "Letter to a 
 Preacher" he thus writes : " Shun tea-drinking parties ; these in general 
 murder time, and can answer no good purpose, either to your body or 
 soul. If yon go out in this way at any time, let it be only where yon 
 have reason to believe your visit is likely to be useful to the souls of the 
 people ; but it is not very likely to be so where there is a large party. 
 Several years ago I met with Mr. Wesley's Letter on Tea, read it, and 
 resolved from that hour to drink no more of the juice of that herb, till I 
 oould answer his arguments and objections. I have seen the tract but 
 once since, yet from that day till now I have not taken a cup of tea or 
 coffee ; for these things I have mostly found a substitute at the breakfast 
 table, and in the afternoon I take nothing. By this line of conduct I can 
 demonstrate that I have actually saved several years of time, which other- 
 wise must have been irrecoverably lost." 
 
 Not altogether lost. We cannot admit that. It may be remarked that 
 13
 
 194: LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 And this reminds us that, in Mr. Clarke's case, it must 
 be taken into account that he was called of God to a life at 
 once more public, and yet more sequestered in many of its 
 hours, than that of many of his brethren. It was his voca- 
 tion not only to teach with the living voice, but through the 
 medium of the press ; and the hours spent by him in earn- 
 est, laborious, and life-consuming studies, have given forth 
 their results in those voluminous and imperishable works 
 by which, though dead, he yet speaks, and will continue to 
 be the instructor of distant generations. When we survey 
 the massive labors of his pen, and call to mind the active 
 and energetic character of his oral ministry, the wonder is 
 how he could accomplish all this ; and that wonder increases 
 when we see that in the general routine of pastoral business 
 he would not permit himself to be behind his colleagues. 
 
 Though he had no relish for gossip, and was intolerant of 
 the waste of time, yet in visiting the sick and afflicted of his 
 flock he was among the foremost. He adhered to the letter 
 of the "Twelve Rules" to which, as a preacher, he had 
 pledged his obedience, desiring " never to be unemployed," 
 and " always to go to those who wanted him most." Had 
 he then time for some visits ? He would hasten to the 
 house of mourning rather than to that of festivity, and with 
 the poor and the needy he would share his last sixpence. It 
 was his care to do good as well to the body as to the soul. 
 His knowledge of medicine enabled him to give gratuitous 
 relief to many a sufferer. While in Dublin he attended 
 the lectures on Anatomy and Materia Medica, which supple- 
 mented a large amount of knowledge he had acquired of 
 the healing art by extensive reading and observation ; and 
 all this he turned to account in many a chamber where dis- 
 ease and poverty were the joint inmates. In cases, how- 
 ever, of a critical nature, he sought aid for the sick poor 
 from professional men, of whom there were many in the cir- 
 
 Mr. Wesley saw the nullity of his own scruples, and returned to the use 
 of tea. But Mr. Clarke, implicit disciple as he was of Mr. Wesley, did 
 not follow his example here.
 
 THE PASTOR. 195 
 
 cle of his own friends. At Manchester and other places he 
 became acquainted in this way with most of the faculty. In 
 the former city Dr. Eason was much attached to him. He 
 told Mr. Clarke that he liked to attend the Methodist peo- 
 ple in their last hours ; " they died so peacefully." From 
 what I have read in manuscript letters, written in later 
 years by the subject of our memoir, that eminent physician 
 himself found unspeakable benefit to his own soul from the 
 intercourse to which allusion has just been made. 
 
 Mr. Clarke was once sent for by a person in dying cir- 
 cumstances, who proved to be a gentleman who had been 
 awakened under a sermon of his some time before, and who, 
 though then in much penitential trouble, had not yet found 
 rest for his soul. The minister heard the recital of his 
 anxieties, and formed so good an opinion of his case as to 
 wonder that he had not already received some comforting 
 token of the Lord's forgiving grace. In giving such coun- 
 sel as he thought to be required, he intimated to the gentle- 
 man a surmise that there was some important act of duty 
 from him to God or man which he was knowingly neglect- 
 ing. Whereupon the dying man related that, in sailing 
 some years before from a foreign port to England, he had 
 by way of frolic secreted a small bag of dollars which had 
 been committed to the captain's care, but which had been 
 carelessly allowed to lie day after day upon the locker. At 
 the end of the voyage, the captain making no inquiries for 
 the bag, it was still detained, and several months elapsed 
 before anything was heard concerning it. At length the 
 parties for whom the money was designed, having received 
 notice of the fact, applied to the captain, who candidly 
 acknowledged that he took it on board, but added that he 
 could give no further account of it. By this time the person 
 in whose hands it was became alarmed, and was ashamed 
 ijo confess, lest his character should suffer ; and so he hid 
 the property. The poor captain was sued for the amount, 
 and, having nothing to pay, was thrown into prison, where, 
 after languishing for two years, he died. The guilty person
 
 196 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 now strove to banish all thought of the misery which he had 
 occasioned, and to drown the voice of conscience by busi- 
 ness and amusement. But it was all in vain ; and, espe- 
 cially from the time when he heard Mr. Clarke preach, he 
 had suffered great disquietude of mind. He had agonized 
 at the throne of mercy for pardon, but he could obtain no 
 answer, and he feared he must go down to the grave unpar- 
 doned, unsaved. The minister inculcated the necessity of 
 restitution. The sum, with compound interest, was paid to 
 the widow of the captain. The poor man thereupon found 
 tranquility of mind, and expired at length in the enjoyment 
 of the mercy of God. 
 
 Wherever Mr. Clarke found genuine piety, it had an at- 
 tractive charm, which drew his steps again and again to the 
 humblest abode. He had, in fact, some of his chief favor- 
 ites among the truly religious poor. In visiting the simple- 
 hearted members of his flock Mr. Clarke made himself at 
 home with them, entered into their affairs, and showed them 
 that he could not only understand their joys and sorrows, 
 but feel with them. He liked also to eat a mouthful of 
 their food, as a token of friendship. " I always eat with 
 people," said he, " either breaking a piece from off a biscuit 
 or cutting a crust from a loaf, to show them that I am dis- 
 posed to feel at home among them ; for, even if they are 
 very poor, there are many ways of returning the kindness 
 without wounding the feelings of the party by whom the 
 hospitable disposition is manifested." So he has been 
 known to eat two or three potatoes in a cottage, and give a 
 shilling pleasantly for each one of them. His visits were 
 designedly short. He was aware that a lengthened stay 
 might inconvenience the family, and spoil the good effect of 
 the interview. He did not, therefore, as he once termed it, 
 " make a dose of himself where he went," or turn what 
 he wished to be an agreeable visit into a disagreeable 
 visitation. 
 
 But in the genial friend he never forgot the pastor, but 
 reproved, exhorted, gave counsel, and offered consolation, as
 
 THE PASTOR. 197 
 
 the case demanded ; while among intelligent young people 
 he would bring out of the stores of his classical and east- 
 ern reading an example, an anecdote, or an illustration, 
 which gave additional interest and force to the precept he 
 wished to inculcate. Thus : 
 
 THE DIVINE MEECY OUK ONLY REFUGE. 
 IT was once demanded of the fourth calif, Aalee : " If 
 the canopy of heaven were a bow, and the earth were the 
 cord thereof; if calamities were arrows, and mankind were 
 the mark for them ; and if Almighty God, the tremendous 
 and glorious, were the unerring archer ; to whom could the 
 sons of Adam flee for protection?" The calif answered 
 saying, " The sons of Adam must flee unto the Lord." 
 
 THE HASTY SHOULD GIVE THEMSELVES TIME. 
 
 THE philosopher Athenodorus, who had long resided in 
 the court of Augustus, petitioned the emperor to allow him 
 at length to retire to some quiet retreat, where he might 
 end his days in solitude and peace. The request was 
 granted, and on taking leave of the emperor he ventured 
 to give his sovereign the following precept : " Caesar ! I 
 have an advice to give thee : Whensoever thou art angry, 
 take heed that thou never say or do anything until thou 
 hast distinctly repeated to thyself the twenty-five letters 
 of the alphabet." " Athenodorus !" exclaimed the emperor, 
 seizing his hand, " thou must not leave me ; I have still 
 need of thee." 
 
 CORRUPTING BOOKS. 
 
 REFERENCE being made to a work, the general tendency 
 of which was bad, though it contained many well written 
 and brilliant passages, and one of these being quoted with 
 admiration, Mr. Clarke said : " The Persian poet Hafiz bor- 
 rowed the first couplet of his Divan from an Arabic poet 
 of disreputable morals. His friends wondered at it, and 
 some remonstrated. Hafiz vindicated himself by saying 
 that the lines contained a fine sentiment; to which one of
 
 198 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the objectors replied: 'The lion would disgrace himself 
 were he to snatch a bone from the mouth of a dog !' " 
 
 Mr. Clarke urged upon his people the necessity of a 
 thorough conversion, and a constant effort for moral im- 
 provement ; of all that is implied in working out our sal- 
 vation, while God works within to will and to do. " Re- 
 member," he would say, " that the power that cleanses is 
 needed to keep us clean. It is by Christ dwelling in our 
 hearts by faith that we are preserved in holiness ; and he 
 dwells in the heart of those only who are lovingly obedient 
 to his voice. Obedience to the will of God is the very 
 element in which the Christian should live. Seek out his 
 commandments till you find none left ; seek to do them at 
 all times, and in all places. How blessed to do this !" 
 " You tell me," said he to one, " that God has opened your 
 eyes ; can you tell me that he is keeping them open ?" So, 
 not only as when present, but when absent also, he bore in 
 mind those whom he had once served in the Gospel. Some 
 of his letters are thoroughly pastoral. Here is an extract 
 from one, written to a lady who was mourning the loss of 
 her husband : 
 
 " I am well aware that grief like yours can be alleviated 
 by God alone ; but it must increase the distress of your 
 situation to find a former friend careless or unaffected. 
 God condescended to make me a messenger of peace to 
 your dear husband ; and how much I loved him, you, and 
 every branch of your family, it is impossible for me to tell. 
 My love was such that your joys overjoyed me, and all 
 your troubles deeply affected me. ... If it be now impossi- 
 ble for me to comfort you, it is as much so for me not to 
 sympathize with you. . . . But the good, the merciful God 
 needs no entreaty to come in to your assistance. He is 
 the Fountain of endless love. He knows what he has 
 called you to pass through ; and, as he has ordained the 
 trial, so has he the measure of strength necessary to sup- 
 port you under it. Yes, my dear sister, he loves you, and
 
 THE PASTOR. 199 
 
 will never leave you, no, never forsake you. . . . He spared 
 your dear husband, that he might know his name and re- 
 ceive his salvation ; and then, perceiving the evil that was 
 in his way, and perhaps would have proved his ruin, he 
 has taken him to himself from the evil to come. This we 
 are always authorized to say in such cases, as we are fully 
 assured God does all things well, and never willingly af- 
 flicts the children of men. . . . And what a wonderful and 
 encouraging saying is this : ' Thy Maker is thy husband !' 
 and he is thy husband's God. Then, my sister, if you can- 
 not as yet rejoice, you can submit to his will, and confide 
 in his mercy, knowing that this also, distressing as it is, 
 will work for your good.. . . . 
 
 " A few days ago I was called to visit a family in distress. 
 One child was dead, the father was just put into his coffin, 
 and the mother expired a few moments after I went in. 
 Things are never so ill, but they might be worse. May 
 your father's God, and the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, be your comfort and support, and save you 
 and yours unto eternal life !" 
 
 In his Commentary on the New Testament, we often 
 meet with sentiments and precepts relating to the pastoral 
 office, which were evidently transcribed from an imprint 
 which the Divine hand made on his own heart, and which 
 it was the study of his life to carry out into practice. 
 " Here," writes he, " is the difference between the hireling 
 and the good shepherd. The hireling counts the sheep his 
 own no longer than they are profitable to him ; the good 
 shepherd looks upon them as his, so long as he can be pro- 
 fitable to them." " A good shepherd conducts his flock 
 where good pasturage is to be found, watches over them 
 while there, brings them back again, and secures them in 
 the fold. So he that is called and taught of God feeds the 
 flock of Christ with those truths of his words which nourish 
 them unto eternal life, and God blesses together both the 
 shepherd and the flock ; so that, going out and coming in, 
 they find pasture."
 
 200 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 We will now resume our narrative. Mr. Clarke was 
 about to enter upon a vast field of ministerial labor in the 
 metropolis. He went into it trusting alone in God, whose 
 present Spirit could be his only sufficiency. To save one 
 soul from hell, or to guide one man from earth to heaven, 
 is a task to which no mere human wisdom or work is ade- 
 quate. But he who hears the voice which says, " Lo, I am, 
 with you alway, even to the end of the world," will go 
 about it in the strength of the Lord, making mention of his 
 righteousness, even his only. Such was the frame of mind 
 in which this single-hearted and faithful servant of the Lord 
 endeavored to discharge the trust conferred by Him who in 
 his providence had led him to the. work, and by his grace 
 had endowed him with those heavenly gifts which qualified 
 him to do it 
 
 " A prophet's inspiration from above, 
 A teacher's knowledge, and a Saviour's love."
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 201 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR CONTINUED. 
 
 AT the present time the Methodist communion has nine 
 metropolitan circuits ; but in the year 1795, when Mr. 
 Clarke received his appointment from the Manchester Con- 
 ference, the whole of London, and much of the surrounding 
 country, formed but one vast circuit. It extended, in fact, 
 from Woolwich to Twickenham, and from Edmonton to 
 Dorking, with occasional visits to various outlying places, 
 as Barking, St. Alban's, etc. There were about four thou- 
 sand members in society. The Superintendent was Mr. 
 Pawson; and Mr. Clarke's other colleagues were Messrs. 
 Wrigley, West, Griffith, and Keece. His residence in John- 
 street, Spitalfields, adjoined the chapel. Here he resumed, 
 with greater intenseness than ever, the labors of his devoted 
 life; for, in addition to the great physical and intellectual 
 efforts demanded by his pulpit and pastoral work, his mind 
 was now beginning to put forth its strength in those literary 
 toils which in their results have given him an abiding 
 name. All his past studies had been but preparatory, and 
 from the stores he had been accumulating, he felt it a law of 
 God in his conscience to " bring forth out of his treasury 
 things new and old," for the increase of learning, and the 
 promotion of truth and piety among men. And more 
 especially were his energies concentrated, in the study, on 
 the elaboration of a Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, to 
 which he applied all the leisure time he could command ; 
 and this, from the very nature of his public engagements, 
 could be only found in the early part of the day. One of 
 Mendelssohn's works has the title of " Morning Hours ;" * 
 and we are sure that Adam Clarke might have given a sim- 
 *Morgcnstunden.
 
 202 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ilar designation to the goodly array of volumes with which 
 he has enriched our religious literature. We have in them 
 the first fresh thinkings of his mind dew-drops glittering 
 in the orient sun, or manna gathered in the prime. He 
 knew that, unless the early time of the day were redeemed, 
 his life would yield but little fruit in the field of literature. 
 He became, therefore, a companion of the morning star. 
 Later in the day he had to meet the calls of one duty after 
 another, till it was time to take his accustomed journey for 
 the pulpit and class work of the evening. His duties in 
 this last respect took him to various parts of the town, and 
 places in the suburbs lying miles away from home. He 
 either could not or would not avail himself of any means 
 of conveyance ; but usually performed his journeys on 
 foot, except when appointed to Dorking. In this way, 
 during his three years' stay in the circuit, he walked more 
 than seven thousand miles. In these perambulations, he 
 had an almost constant companion in Mr. Buttress, one of 
 the leading Methodists of the Spitalfields chapel, whose 
 name, as maintained by his descendants to the present day, 
 is honorably cherished in the communion to which they 
 have been steadfast. Wherever Mr. Clarke was seen in the 
 pulpit, Mr. Buttress was to be found in the pew. He, of 
 all men, would be prepared to give an opinion as to the 
 monotony or manifoldness of his friend's ministrations, and 
 his testimony goes to affirm that Mr. Clarke's preaching 
 was remarkable for its endless variety. To one who asked 
 him whether he did not become tired with hearing the same 
 discourses so often, he gave the reply, that he had never 
 heard the same discourse twice, except on one occasion, 
 when it was repeated at his own request. "Well," re- 
 turned the inquirer, " if you did not hear the same text, did 
 he not take the same subject?" " No," said Mr. Buttress, 
 "not anything beyond the broad Gospel of Jesus Christ."* 
 
 * A biographer should not hesitate to relate circumstances which at 
 times may appear too trivial to merit a record. Dr. Ferdinando Warner 
 boosted tliut he had written hia compiled " System of Divinity," in five
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 203 
 
 The results of these well sustained exertions can only be 
 unfolded in the final day. In the case of a Methodist min- 
 ister, who co-operates with so many others in the same 
 pulpit, it becomes peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon the 
 measure of good effected by the ministry of one alone. No 
 doubt each of those good men, who labored so cordially in 
 word and doctrine, had seals to his own ministry ; and all 
 of them enjoyed the solemn gratification of witnessing the 
 progress of the work of God in their circuit at large. 
 Mr. Clarke did not long prosecute his work in London be- 
 fore he was cheered by the tokens of the Holy Spirit's 
 presence and grace in the gathering in of some who were 
 the first-fruits of a more extensive harvest. Among these 
 were two, whose conversion to God was productive of con- 
 sequences of everlasting benefit to many more. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Butterworth, an opulent law-publisher in 
 London, had married Miss Anne Cooke, the sister of Mrs. 
 Adam Clarke. Mr. Butterworth, though the son of a Bap- 
 tist minister, (author of a well known Concordance to the 
 Holy Scriptures,) was not, at that time, a decidedly relig- 
 ious man, nor under any influences which would prepossess 
 him in favor of Methodism. Still, as Mr. Clarke was his 
 brother-in-law, though personally unknown to him, he felt a 
 sort of curiosity to hear him. The effect the sermon had 
 upon him led Mr. Butterworth to hasten the fulfillment of 
 a purpose to call on him, and to seek a personal acquaint- 
 ance. He accordingly went the next day with his lady to 
 Spitalfields. Mrs. Butterworth had not seen her sister for 
 years, as, from the disinclination Mrs. Cooke had entertained 
 for her daughter's marriage with Mr. Clarke, but little inter- 
 course had obtained between the families. These old 
 things, however, were now passing away, and the two sisters 
 were enabled to renew the friendship of their earlier days 
 
 volumes, with one pen ; and Mr. Clarke used to tell how he performed 
 those seven thousand miles of walking with one pair of shoes, " made at 
 Altrincham, in Cheshire, and only a fortnight old when he entered the 
 eity. They were often mended, but served the purpose!"
 
 204: LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 under the sanctifying benedictions of religion. Learning 
 that Mr. Clarke was going to preach that evening at Leyton- 
 stone, Mr. Butterworth offered to accompany him. 
 
 On the road Mr. Clarke soon perceived that the mind of 
 his brother-in-law was awakened to serious inquiry about 
 the way of salvation ; and the little journey passed rapidly 
 in animated conversation on the things of God. In fact the 
 " vital spark of heavenly flame " had been kindled in Mr. 
 Butterworth's heart, and on the way homeward he disclosed 
 to Mr. Clarke, that, while hearing him preach on the preced- 
 ing Sunday, he had received impressions of the truth 
 which had moved him to seek the grace of repentance unto 
 life ; that a sense of guilt and depravity had arisen in his 
 conscience, and that it was his great desire and determina- 
 tion to find the mercy which alone could save him. Right 
 gladly did Mr. Clarke point out to him the way to the 
 attainment of peace with God, through Jesus Christ ; and 
 when, after supper, the visitors having gone home, Mr. 
 Clarke related to his wife the conversation which had taken 
 place between himself and her brother-in-law, his gratifica- 
 tion was greatly enhanced by learning that the sisters had 
 spent the evening in converse on the same theme. Mrs. 
 Butterworth had participated with her husband in the 
 Divine influence which attended the discourse on Sunday, 
 and acknowledged that she had come for the purpose of con- 
 ferring with her sister about the things belonging to her 
 eternal peace. Equally remarkable it is, that both these 
 inquirers after the pardoning mercy of God found the grace 
 they were seeking while hearing another sermon from Mr. 
 Clarke. The friendship established under these auspicious 
 circumstances received an eternal seal. Joined to the Lord 
 in one spirit, and in one hope of their calling, they spent 
 their remaining days in the service of their redeeming God ; 
 and, being gathered "into the ark of Christ's Church," 
 "steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in 
 charity," so passed " the waves of this troublesome world," 
 as to come together " to the land of everlasting life." The
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 205 
 
 Butterworths, having given their hearts to the Lord, gave 
 their hands at once to his cause, and as members of the 
 Methodist communion adorned the doctrine of their Saviour 
 in a life fragrant with devotion and beneficence. In the 
 Church, Mr. Butterworth long sustained most influential 
 offices ; and in the world, whether as a mercantile man, as a 
 patron and manager of various philanthropic institutions, or 
 as a diligent and effective member of Parliament, he stood 
 for many years conspicuous among the best men of his 
 time. 
 
 In the London Circuit, at large, Mr. Clarke and his excel- 
 lent colleagues had the great encouragement of witnessing 
 the tokens of divine mercy in those signs and wonders of 
 salvation by which much people were turned to the Lord. 
 In writing to a friend at Liverpool, he describes this work 
 as an outpouring of the Spirit of God such as he had never 
 seen before. " Every part of the city seemed to partake 
 of it. The preachings were well attended, and a gracious 
 influence rested on the people. After the regular service 
 we have a prayer-meeting, in which much good is done. 
 The first movement took place in our Sunday schools ; and 
 in Spitalfields, New Chapel, West-street, and Snow's-fields, 
 simultaneously. Several sheets of paper would not suffice 
 to give you even a general idea of what is going on. 
 Last night we had our love-feast. For about half an hour 
 the people spoke ; when all was ended in that way, we 
 exhorted and prayed with many who were in great mental 
 distress. We remained four hours hi these exercises. 
 You might have seen small parties praying in separate 
 parts of the chapel at the same time. The mourning was 
 like that of Hadad-rimmon ; every family seemed to mourn 
 apart. We who prayed circulated through the whole chapel, 
 above and below, adapting our prayers and exhortations to 
 the circumstances of the mourners. Many were pardoned ; 
 to others strong hope was vouchsafed, and then was the ad- 
 vice given by each to his neighbor to believe in Jesus : ' He 
 has pardoned me ! O, do not doubt, seeing he has hud
 
 206 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 mercy upon me, the vilest of sinners !' One scene particu- 
 larly affected me. A young man, recently married to an 
 unconverted young woman, persuaded her to kneel down 
 with two others who were in deep distress. Presently she 
 was cut to the heart ; I visited them backward and forward, 
 at least a score times. After they had been about three 
 hours in this state, the young woman found peace, and in a 
 short time the other two entered into liberty. When the 
 young fellow found his wife praising God for his mercy, he 
 was almost transported with joy ; he sung, prayed, and 
 praised ; and great indeed was their mutual glorying, and 
 so was ours on their behalf. Well, thus we continued, un- 
 til at a late hour I prevailed on the people, with some diffi- 
 culty, to go home. We are trying to get these meetings 
 shortened. If friends Russell, Robinson, etc., were here, 
 they would be in their element." 
 
 The population in that part of London where Mr. Clarke 
 resided has always comprised large masses of the poor and 
 destitute ; and in seasons of commercial depression the 
 poor of Spitalfields Kave been subjected to great distress. 
 This was the case during his sojourn in that neighborhood ; 
 and it well accorded with the disposition of his heart, aching 
 so often at the sight of so much misery, to be associated 
 with a number of the Society of Friends, who had formed 
 themselves into a union for distributing bread and soup to 
 the famishing. For that respectable body he then formed 
 an esteem which he cherished through life, and which, on 
 their part, was strongly reciprocated. 
 
 From the severe toil of the circuit, and the constant ten- 
 sion of his mind, as well for the pulpit as the press, his 
 health became now so disordered as to compel him to obey 
 the requirement of his medical advisers, to retire for a 
 short time into the country. He spent, therefore, a little 
 while at the seaside in Kent, where he was greatly revived 
 by the pleasant air and scenery of the coast ; and then took 
 a short tour into Warwickshire, where the ruins of Kenil- 
 worth, and the baronial halls of Warwick Castle, afforded
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 207 
 
 him a delight which he has vividly described in his letters 
 to his family at home. At Coventry he formed an ac- 
 quaintance with the venerable Mr. Butterworth, the father 
 of his brother-in-law, and had the pleasure of occupying the 
 aged minister's pulpit. Though this effort did not contrib- 
 ute to augment his slowly returning strength it was attend- 
 ed by the satisfaction of knowing that it was not made in 
 vain. " Yesterday," he writes, " I had indeed sore work. 
 I preached three times, and at least an hour each time. I 
 was much at liberty, and really believe much good was done. 
 The old gentleman and all his flock seem highly pleased. 
 The people are absolutely (pro tempore) turning Methodists, 
 without knowing it. Several of Mr. Butterworth's disaf- 
 fected members, who have not been in his chapel for many 
 months, came twice yesterday, and are likely to continue." 
 And in another letter : " On Friday evening I preached at 
 our own place, and had the house full. Most of Mr. But- 
 terworth's family were there, and the principal members 
 of his church. Never did such death-like attention occupy 
 an assembly during the hour that I insisted on Matt, 
 vii, 7, ' Ask, and ye shall receive,' etc. The good old man 
 got almost into the seventh heaven ; had it not been that I 
 made the full salvation of God too easy to be attained, he 
 might have walked that evening into paradise. I believe a 
 general quickening took place among all, and I need not tell 
 you how our Joseph and his wife* were affected." And 
 again : "This morning we were to have set off for Birming- 
 ham ; but I found myself so much indisposed that I did not 
 like the thought of setting off in such a tempest. Weary 
 as I am, I must preach to night at our own place, and to- 
 morrow night at Mr. Butterworth's; after which I am 
 to take coach for London and ride all night. If this be 
 not the way to wear out, it is certainly not the way to 
 rust out." 
 
 With somewhat recruited health, Mr. Clarke resumed his 
 engagements in London, and completed the third year of 
 *Mr. and Mrs*. Butterworth, who were then visiting at Coventry.
 
 208 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 labor in that circuit. He seems to have worked in perfect 
 harmony with his colleagues, except about one difficulty 
 which occurred in the case of Dr. Whitehead, who having 
 been ejected from the office of local preacher by the late 
 superintendent, Mr. Rogers, on account of what was deemed 
 a dishonorable use of certain papers in preparing his biog- 
 raphy of Mr. Wesley, was now making strenuous efforts 
 for reinstatement on the Plan. In this he was seconded 
 by many of the trustees, and had also the concurrence of 
 Mr. Pawson and others of the preachers. Mr. Clarke, how- 
 ever, felt compelled to oppose the wishes of his excellent 
 superintendent ; nor, though Dr. Whitehead was subse- 
 quently reinstated, could he eyer modify the opinion he had 
 formed on that subject. This little ruffle, however, soon 
 passed away, and the current of friendship rolled on, with 
 a deeper sense of esteem from the knowledge that each min- 
 ister had of the others' integrity ; and the year, which had 
 thus commenced under somewhat unpropitious influences, 
 passed away in peace. And this was the case with the Con- 
 nection at large, which within the last three years had been 
 severely tried by the hostile movements of Mr. Kilham and 
 his partisans. Into the details of that wretched controversy 
 we have no inclination to enter. Its rise and progress are 
 matters of Methodistic history ; and time the great prover 
 of all things, has given such a verdict on the relative merits 
 of the "Old" and the " New Connection," as the friends of 
 the former are most thankful to accept. One tempest has 
 broken its force upon it after another, but Wesleyan Meth- 
 odism was never so strong as it is to-day. 
 
 At the end of his third year Mr. Clarke attended the 
 Conference of 1798 at Bristol, which was held under the 
 presidency of 'Mr. Benson. While there he wrote to Mrs. 
 Clarke from time to time some of the " Conference news." 
 " Notwithstanding our great losses by the Kilhamites, we 
 have had," says he, " a considerable increase this year. 
 We are now, glory to the God of heaven, not less than 
 100,750 in Great Britain and Ireland. Strange to tell, all
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 209 
 
 the Irish collections have increased. Mr. Mather, Mr. Ben- 
 son, and others have been at me in private to go to Corn- 
 wall, and be general superintendent for the whole county. 
 I am not very fond of ruling, yet I think it is possible I 
 may be sent there. . . . The characters of the preachers 
 examined all gone through ; and, among upward of three 
 hundred traveling preachers, not one charge of immorality 
 brought against any soul ; and yet everything was sifted to 
 the heart. O what thanks do we owe to God for thus pre- 
 serving us from the corruptions of the world ! A solemn 
 exhortation was then given by Messrs. Benson. Mather, and 
 Pawson, to all the brethren, that they should keep themselves 
 pure." He adds, pleasantly : " A few preachers were found 
 guilty of long sleeves cropped heads,* and stringed shoes," 
 (the buckles cast away !) " and severely reprimanded. Af- 
 ter all, never was there a body of men in the world who 
 winked less at any appearance of evil than these ; and I sol- 
 emnly believe no body of Christian ministers, since the 
 world began, so large was ever found more blameless." 
 
 At this Conference Mr. Clarke was a good deal busied 
 in settling on a legal basis the Preachers' Annuitant Soci- 
 ety, to which he became for a time both treasurer and sec- 
 retary. In the prosperity of this institution he ever took a 
 lively interest, from his sympathy for the aged and disabled 
 laborers in a field in which he himself was fast wearing out 
 strength and health, as well as on account of the modicum 
 of comfort its scanty resources would afford to the widow 
 and orphan. Among some papers before me there is a mem- 
 orandum by Mrs. R. Smith, relating to this point, which I 
 shall do well to insert : " My father was remarkable for 
 the zealous care he manifested over any trust committed to 
 him, though he undertook a charge of that nature very un- 
 willingly. At one pariod it was his duty to receive the 
 dividends of the Preachers' Annuitant Society. Having 
 casually learned that the broker who transacted the business 
 of the dividends had involved himself in speculations, he 
 
 * Long hair \vns the orthodox style. 
 14
 
 210 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 determined to apply for the money as soon as it could be 
 received from the bank, and, requesting me to accompany 
 him, entered the counting-house of the gentleman in ques- 
 tion, who, seated at his desk, received this unexpected visit 
 not very graciously. ' I am come, sir, for the dividend on 
 the Preachers' Annuitant Society.' 'I am very busy, sir, 
 and cannot attend to it now,' was the reply. ' I am very 
 sorry to inconvenience you, sir ; and as I myself am in a 
 hurry, will only trouble you to hand it to me, and not 
 intrude any further on your time.' I cannot give it to you 
 now, sir, having much more important business here before 
 me.' ' Why, it will not take you long to hand it to me, and 
 then I will leave you to your business, and go away on my 
 own.' The gentleman, displeased at seeing him so deter- 
 mined, said, ' I cannot be interrupted, Mr. Clarke, nor pos- 
 sibly give it to you now :' upon which my father said, in a 
 voice of resolute firmness : ' Sir, I stand here on behalf of 
 the widows and orphans of God's Church, and claim for them 
 the money you hold which that Church has raised for their 
 support. They speak by my mouth, and I will not leave 
 till you put the money into my hand. The money, sir, 
 and I am gone.' The money was paid ; and my father took 
 his leave, satisfied that he had performed a just though pain 
 ful duty." Mr. Clarke's connection with this legalized fund 
 extended over several years. 
 
 The close of the Conference left him appointed for the 
 second time to Bristol, under the superintendency of that 
 truly good man, Mr. Walter Griffith. They found the so- 
 ciety but slowly recovering from the shattering effects of 
 the storm of controversy which had assailed it from oppo- 
 site quarters : from the anti-sacramental bigotry of the trus- 
 tees and their partisans, on the one extreme, and the ultra 
 democracy of the new Kilhamite school on the other. It 
 seems, however, to have been the determination of the new 
 preachers to know nothing among those quarrelsome peo- 
 pie save Jesus and him crucified ; well knowing that, if 
 Christ came, ho would bring peace with him. The spirit
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 211 
 
 with which Adam Clarke went to work, and the encourage- 
 ments which sustained him, become apparent in a letter 
 dated about a month after his arrival in the circuit : " Through 
 mercy, we are all well. Last Sunday was my turn at Kings- 
 wood and Wick. I had a large congregation in the morn- 
 ing, and such a sense of the presence of God rested on us 
 all as some of the oldest members said they had never felt 
 before. I took that glorious subject : ' How excellent is 
 thy loving-kindness, O God !' etc. My own soul was greatly 
 watered, and the Lord sent a plentiful rain on his inheri- 
 tance. Though the place was thronged there was not a 
 sound in it save that of my own voice ; till, describing how 
 God gave to those who turned to him to ' drink of the river 
 of his pleasure' to be filled with the very thing which 
 made God himself happy I raised my voice, and inquired 
 in the name of the living God, ' Who was miserable? Who 
 was willing to be saved 1 to be made happy ? Who was 
 athirst 1 ?' A wretched being, who had long hardened his 
 heart by a course of uncommon wickedness, roared out : ' I 
 am, Lord ! I am ! I am !' In a moment there was a gen- 
 eral commotion. I seized the instant and told them to com- 
 pose themselves and listen, for I had something more to 
 tell them something for every soul, a great, an eternal 
 good. I am just going to open to you another stream of 
 ' the river of his pleasure.' They were immediately com- 
 posed ; and in a very few moments such a flood of tears 
 streamed down all cheeks as you have perhaps never seen; 
 and all was silence but the sighings which escaped, and 
 the noise made by the poor fellow who was still crying to 
 God for mercy. In about half an hour we ended one of 
 the most solemn and blessed meetings I ever ministered in. 
 I was then obliged to set off for Wick, a place several 
 miles farther. Here I had a good congregation. 
 
 " You will wish to know what became of the poor man, 
 and I am glad I can tell you. I had it yesterday from one 
 of the leaders at Kingswood. When he left the chapel he 
 set off for the first prayer-meeting he could find, thinking
 
 212 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 God would never forgive his sins till he made confession unre- 
 servedly of all his iniquities. He began in the simplicity of 
 his soul, and, with an agonized heart, and streaming eyes, 
 made known the evils of his life. They prayed with him, and 
 God gradually brought him into the liberty of his children." 
 In the following month Mr. Clarke was called to mourn 
 the death of his father, who had been declining in health for 
 some time, and latterly so much so as to excite a strong desire 
 in the mind of his son to go down to Lancashire to see him, 
 and receive his blessing. But the unavoidable business 
 which pressed upon him on entering his new circuit at the 
 ticket^time, and his own domestic circumstances, obliged him 
 still to delay, till to his great grief, the opportunity had 
 forever passed. He had written, however, "to an old and 
 very intimate friend, John Berwick, Esq., of Manchester, 
 entreating him to watch over his father, and to minister to 
 his comfort." Mr. Berwick fulfilled the request, and attended 
 the invalid to the last. " When I ai'rived this forenoon," 
 he writes to Mr. Clarke, announcing the solemn event of 
 his parent's decease, " I found him much altered indeed. . . . 
 He was seated in his chair, but wanted to be removed into 
 bed. I wished to have your desire of ' a line from his own 
 hand.' I therefore put a table before him, and paper, and 
 put the pen in his hand. He faintly said, 'I only wish to 
 send my blessing.' He was very happy, and willing to die. 
 After he had written the few words he was got into bed, 
 and appeared better. I thought he might survive a lew 
 hours, and therefore took my leave of him, and told him I 
 would return. He asked God to bless me, very loud. At 
 iny return I found he had just gone to glory, without a groan. 
 I had spoken to him respecting you. I told him I thought 
 it well you had not been sent for, as you could have done 
 him no good. He said he was perfectly satisfied; for, if 
 you had suffered from the effects of the journey, he should 
 have been very unhappy. He added that he had no pain, 
 and that one moment in eternity would compensate for all 
 he had suffered here."
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 213 
 
 On the same sheet of paper is the last benediction : 
 
 u May the blessing of God, and a dying father's blessing, 
 ever be upon you all, my children. I die full of hope and 
 happy. JOHN CLARKE. 
 
 " God bless you all. Adam=Mary, 
 
 William*=Mary, 
 
 Tracy all all. Amen." 
 
 Under this sacred record are to be seen the following 
 lines : " These words my precious father wrote an hour and 
 a half before he went to glory. ADAM CLARKE." 
 
 Mr. Clarke was deeply affected by this event. He ex- 
 pressed himself " as if the bands of life were loosened from 
 around him, and his mental and physical powers almost 
 brought down together to the sides of the grave." He sent 
 immediately for his widowed mother, who came and resided 
 with him till he left Bristol, when she went to live with her 
 daughter, Mrs. Exley, who was then settled in that city. 
 Mr. Clarke, senior, was buried in Ardwick churchyard, Man- 
 chester. His tombstone, which is inscribed, " To JOHN 
 CLARKE, M. A.," states that he died in the sixty-second 
 year of his age. So rested this learned, honest, and labo- 
 rious man from the toils and disappointments of mortality. 
 Ever afterward his son Adam, passing that churchyard, 
 either on foot or riding, uncovered his head the whole length 
 of the cemetery ; a token of the reverence and love which 
 all through life he cherished for his father's memory. 
 
 This was not the only circumstance which threw a shad- 
 ow over the present year. It was a time of universal 
 gloom. The thunder-clouds of war darkened the political 
 sky ; commercial adversity shut up the warehouse of the 
 merchant ; and want, approaching to famine itself, reigned 
 in the cottage. " These," writes he, " are troublous times ; 
 and we need to watch and pray always, that we may be ac- 
 counted worthy to escape the things which are apparently 
 coming upon us, and to stand before the Son of Man." A 
 member of his family, reverting to those days, observes : 
 * His son-in-law, the Eev. Dr. Johnson.
 
 214 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 " This year, and the succeeding one, were marked by circum- 
 stances of unusual scarcity. All ranks felt and acknowl- 
 edged the distress as a judgment ; the rich voluntarily ceased 
 from a consumption of flour in the way of elegant indulgen- 
 ces ; the middle classes found it difficult to support their 
 families, through the scarceness of all provisions ; and the 
 poor sought from door to door a handful of food to save 
 them from dying. Alas ! they could not always meet with 
 even this, and numbers of them perished from mere starva- 
 tion. From the effects of this distress Mr. and Mrs. Clarke 
 and their infant family suffered in common with others ; but 
 they concealed their necessities, in order not to draw upon 
 the sympathies of their friends, and frequently denied them- 
 selves a sufficiency of food, to save a part of each day's al- 
 lotment of provisions to share with the wretched applicants 
 who were in still greater need than themselves. Mr. Clarke 
 would often talk to his little ones on the subject, and show 
 them their starving fellow-creatures, who, in cold, nakedness, 
 and famine, sought relief; and each would put by a bit of 
 the breakfast or supper for the poor. At its distribution 
 they were all present, and thus were taught to see and feel 
 the blessings which follow self-denial, in the happiness it 
 yielded to others. Thus did he early train his little flock to 
 feel for others, and to love then! as their brethren." 
 
 Mr. Clarke probably referred to this trying time, when, 
 many years after, on a visit to Bristol, he casually met 
 with an old time-piece which had formerly belonged to him. 
 " That clock," said he, " I sold in this city, for the mere 
 purpose of buying bread for my children." 
 
 But, in the midst of these depressions, his mental activity 
 never flagged. lie had entered the arena of literary life, 
 and was fast rising into notice as an author. To the works 
 of Dr. Clarke we will devote an exclusive chapter further 
 on, and be content at present with observing that, after throw- 
 ing off some occasional pieces in the Arminian Magazine, 
 (among which was a curious paper on Judicial Astrology, 
 condensed, apparently, from Barclay's " Argenis,") he pub-
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 215 
 
 lished in 1797 his " Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of 
 Tobacco." These slight efforts were now followed up by a 
 Translation of Sturm's " Reflections," and the advancement 
 of a work in Bibliography, which afterward appeared in the 
 form of a Dictionary, which has long had a high place in the 
 esteem of men of letters, together with two smaller publi- 
 cations an Account of the Polyglot Bibles, and a Catalogue 
 Raisonne of the principal Editions of the Greek Testament. 
 To these latter works, which evince prodigious reading, 
 scholarship, and indefatigable industry, we shall have occa- 
 sion ere long to revert. We name them here, to show in 
 what incessant efforts he must have been filling up his meas- 
 ured days. Nor should it be omitted, that all the while he 
 was diligently engaged with the Commentary on the New 
 Testament ; of which he had now finished the Notes on the 
 first two Gospels, and some other parts of the sacred volume. 
 It is with Mr. Clarke as a preacher and pastor that the pres- 
 ent stage of our recollections has to do. Let us hear him 
 speak on these matters for himself: 
 
 " Last Sabbath I was at Kingswood. The thronging to- 
 gether of the people was truly astonishing. The chapel was 
 thronged, and the grave is not more silent than was that 
 crowd of listening people. While preaching I felt a strong 
 persuasion that God would visit them. I told them so, and 
 it had a good effect on all ; they heard for eternity, and I 
 could not help joining in the prayer of one of them ' O God, 
 save all, save all !' 
 
 " I had a sore day last Sabbath fortnight. Rode twenty- 
 four miles, gave tickets in three places, preached three times, 
 and had not a morsel either of flesh, fish, or fowl, or good red 
 herring, all day ; neither wine, nor strong drink ; only about 
 half-past twelve got a few potatoes, and as much as I pleased 
 of bad small-beer." (He sometimes fared thus meagerly, 
 from his inveterate dislike to bacon and pork. His brethren 
 who had no such antipathies made a hearty dinner when 
 our friend could eat only the potatoes.) " The work of God 
 goes on nobly at Kingswood. There is a new place taken
 
 216 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in, the worst in all the wood ; it is called Cock-road. As 
 the inhabitants were all sons of Belial, no person dared to go 
 into the place for fear of being knocked on the head. There 
 are thirty of these miserable sinners now joined in class, 
 and several of them have found peace with God. The devil 
 has sustained a heavy loss in that quarter." 
 
 Referring to this neighborhood afterward, he says : " The 
 work still goes on gloriously at Cock-road. One man, tho 
 vilest of the vile, hearing that several of his companions 
 were converted, and that they prayed publicly, said, ' So 
 Tom prays, and Jack prays ; what can they say ? I'll go and 
 hear ;' and away he went, and got to a prayer-meeting, 
 where every soul seemed engaged with God but himself. 
 At last the power of God seized upon the wretch's heart, and 
 he exclaimed, ' One prays and another prays : I'LL PRAY ;' 
 and down he fell, and began in his way to cry to God for 
 the salvation of his soul. This human fiend who could 
 scarcely utter a word without an oath, is now transformed 
 into a saint, and is walking in all meekness and gentleness 
 and uprightness before God. What could effect this change 
 but the Almighty power of the grace of Christ ? 
 
 " We had a genuine love-feast yesterday at Kingswood. 
 How little, how unutterably little, did all the partisans of 
 infidelity and their opinions appear in the business of that 
 day ! We had some very affecting testimonies, and some 
 uncommon ones. I began at first to take notes of them ; 
 but soon found that, if I continued them, I should lose the 
 spirit and good of them to my own soul. A young man 
 delivered a speech of at least twenty minutes in length con- 
 cerning his conversion. He was a collier; it was impres- 
 sive beyond description ; and so great was the whole, that 
 to me the parts are uncollectible. Some very great ideas 
 were produced by those plain unlettered men. One of them, 
 recently brought to God, endeavored at first to get rid of 
 his convictions ; but such was the agony of his soul, and 
 such its continuance, that nature was exhausted. 'On 
 awaking one morning,' he said, ' 1 felt ashamed to look at
 
 THE PKEACHER AND PASTOR. 217 
 
 the daylight, much more to look at God. I roared for the 
 disquietude of my soul. I called mightily for mercy. No 
 answer. At last I tumbled me out of bed, and prayed with 
 all my soul. I then drew out my three little children, told 
 them to kneel down, and say their prayers for their father.' 
 It is needless to add, that his, own prayers, and those of his 
 three little innocents to God, brought a speedy answer of 
 peace to his spirit ; in which salvation he continues to walk 
 in a most exemplary way." 
 
 Christian ! does not your heart melt at these recitals 1 
 Let not the men of rituals and formulas tell us of the scan- 
 dal of these transgressions of ecclesiastical routine. He 
 who understands the true spirit of .the apostolic constitu- 
 tions knows that these proceedings both fulfill the purpose 
 for which the apostles labored, and harmonize with every 
 canon they ordained for the increase and stability of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 Intense study, writing eight or ten hours a day, and the 
 full work of a Methodist preacher's life, had already made 
 sad inroads on Mr. Clarke's health. Toward the close of 
 his time in Bristol, he says : " I was once a young man both 
 without and within; but the outward young man is gone, 
 though the inward still continues. I have only to say, that 
 if my natural force be abated, my eye grown dim and my 
 hair grey, long before the ordinary time of life,* Satan 
 cannot boast that these preternatural failures have taken 
 place in his service, or were ever, either directly or indi- 
 rectly, occasioned by it. Blessed be God !" 
 
 A journey now and then served to withdraw his attention 
 from study, and invigorate mind and body for further labor. 
 Thus, in January, 1799, he goes to London. From some 
 characteristic letters to Mrs. Clarke, written while on that 
 visit, we set down a few sentences : " Yesterday morning I 
 preached at City Road. Though the people had not got 
 much notice, yet there was a large congregation. I preached 
 on Rom. xv, 4-6. It was an uncommon subject, and I 
 *He was then about thirty-nine.
 
 218 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 found considerable liberty. Almost all my old Mercuries 
 were there, and I think most of the trustees. Many were 
 ready to half-eat me. 1 went thence to Mr. Bulmer's to 
 dine with Mr. and Mrs. Sundius, Mr. and Mrs. Butterworth, 
 and Mr. Edward. I then went to Spitalfields, and preached 
 at three ; here was a large congregation, and by the time I 
 had done my strength was finished. I then went to see Mr. 
 Johnson, thence to Mr. Fisher's, thence to Mr. Williams's, 
 thence to W., where our dinner-party supped together with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Buttress. They departed at eleven, and I 
 stayed all night. This morning, after breakfast, I set off 
 again ; for Mr. Sundius had given me two guineas to give 
 
 to the poor of my acquaintance. I gave both to , and 
 
 it was a time of need, as they are much in debt for the ne- 
 cessaries of life. I gave him also a guinea to pay for me at 
 the Widow's Relief. Thence to Mr. Williams's. They are 
 both very low, having lost both their children ; thence to 
 Mr. Cressall's, thence to Mr. Reece's ; thence to the soup- 
 house, where I got a very good and highly acceptable bason. 
 I met with Mr. Bevan, who was very glad to see me, and 
 took me to his house in Ploughcourt. He has got up the 
 residue of the yearly epistles. I called in at Mr. Baynes's 
 at one o'clock. They were going to dinner. I sat do\wi 
 and ate with them. I hope to sup this evening at Mr. Mid- 
 dleton's. I have not had a quarter of a night's sleep since 1 
 left. To-morrow I serve at the soup-house." 
 
 More than a year afterward (March, 1801) lie takes 
 another excursion into Cornwall. From the kind of epis- 
 tolary journal sent by several posts to Mrs. Clarke, on this 
 excursion, we will also take a few passages : 
 
 " Mr MOST EXCELLENT AND BELOVED MARY : We left 
 
 Bristol about five minutes before six o'clock, and came on 
 safely and slowly eighteen miles to a place called Cross, 
 where we got breakfast at nine o'clock. I had some cold beef, 
 and made a breakfast like an ancient Briton. We soon 
 got under weigh ; in all, eight passengers. Through Bridge-
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 219 
 
 water we came to Taunton, where a dinner was provided 
 of roast swine and boiled swine, with a miserable knuckle 
 of veal. I asked for a bit of cold meat, and got some of a 
 very miserable quality. They charged us each four shil- 
 lings and ninepence. Once more off. The road most jolty, 
 especially from Collumpton. Arrived at Exeter at a quar- 
 ter to nine." Leaving the city in a chaise, " through a bad 
 road indeed, got to Crockerton a little after twelve. The 
 good folks were gone to bed, and the landlady rose with her 
 child of fourteen months old, which I lugged about while she 
 lighted a fire and got us a comfortable supper. We again 
 set off. Dark and rainy was the night ; but we got over a 
 rugged hop-jump way to Okehampton at half-past three this 
 morning. At half-past four proceeded, and, very much fa- 
 tigued, got to Launceston at eight, where I now write. 
 Thus God has conducted us in perfect safety to within six- 
 teen miles of Camelford. Here we have just had breakfast, 
 and are in expectation of horses, which Mr. Mabyn ordered 
 to meet us. Well now, you see that the Lord cares for 
 your queer odd, good-for-little husband. I dare say you 
 have been praying for me. Pray on, Mary ! I have not 
 taken this journey from any rambling disposition ; I have 
 felt reluctant to it, but think duty has compelled me, and I 
 wait to see the issue. I shall not venture down into the 
 west, as I am sure a month would not suffice to go to all the 
 places I must visit, if I visited any one. . . . Tell John 
 here is a very beautiful ancient castle, which I will tell him 
 all about when I return." 
 
 " CAMELFORD, March 13, 1801. 
 
 " After waiting a long time in a most uncomfortable inn 
 at Launceston, we ordered a chaise to set forward to Camel- 
 ford ; and, just as we were going to step into it, our horses 
 came. Having fed them, we took the chaise for eleven 
 miles, and made the servant follow us with his two Rosin- 
 antes. It was well we did ; for we had a tempest all the 
 way. When we came to the inn, I borrowed a large coat
 
 220 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 from the landlord, who is an acquaintance of Mr. Mabyn's, 
 mounted my tit, and hobbled off for Camelford. After 
 many stumbles and blunders I got safely to Mr. Mabyn's 
 at three o'clock, where we found dinner waiting. In the 
 journey from Launceston to Camelford I passed by Trcgear, 
 once the residence of my old affectionate friend, T. Baron, 
 Esq. He went safely to heaven some years ago ; and his 
 nephew, who was a young lad at school when I was formerly 
 in these parts, became heir to his uncle's estate, and, if pos- 
 sible, more than supplied his place, He turned early to 
 God. Married to a young lady like-minded, they enjoyed 
 in their family all that earth can afford of felicity, and all 
 that Satan could envy. God also lived in them, and they 
 lived in God. Affliction is the lot of all. Death made an 
 inroad in their little family by removing a beloved child ; 
 and the same dart that pierced the child passed through the 
 father's heart as well. He followed his child to the grave, 
 and in five days went into it. The ways of God are in the 
 great deep. 
 
 " March 14. After dinner I went to Michaelstow, to see 
 my old afflicted friend Miss Hocken, whom an unaccounta- 
 ble nervous disorder has confined for thirty years mostly 
 to her room. One of the finest and most sensible women 
 in Cornwall. She was exceedingly glad to see me, and 
 I spent more than an hour in profitable conversation with a 
 woman who obliged me to leave the surface and go to the 
 bottom of the different subjects we discussed. Tell John 
 and Theo. that in this journey I observed several things 
 which strongly indicated that the country hereabout has suf- 
 fered much from some natural violence. I observed one place 
 where a mountain seems to have been rent in twain ; the cor- 
 responding parts on either side are nearly half a mile from 
 each other. There is a deep valley between them, at the 
 bottom of which a river has found its readiest course. . . . 
 On my return Rough Tor, the highest mountain in Corn- 
 wail, rose on my right hand. On its top two peaks, or 
 rather, large rocks. On the western point there is, I am in-
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 221 
 
 formed, a very fine Druidic monument an altar, with an 
 immense stone poised on the top of another, and so equally 
 balanced in the center that a person can move it. Round 
 about are large basins scooped out of the rock, which com- 
 municate by little conduits with each other, and which ap- 
 pear to have been used for libations, or to receive the blood 
 of the sacrifices. . . . Last evening I had a pleasing visit 
 from Mr. Pearse, the Duke of Bedford's steward, and several 
 others. Mr. P., who is one of the excellent of the earth, t 
 joined to the society seventeen years ago. 
 
 "March 16. I am, thank God, as well as you could ex- 
 pect me to be on Monday, after such a day's work. Yes- 
 terday morning I preached a long and (for me) good sermon 
 on the purpose and design of the Lord's Supper; after 
 which I administered that sacred ordinance to the society. 
 Many were in tears all the time; and several, I believe, 
 took the sacramentum, or military oath, to be the faithful 
 followers of Christ forever. As I had been speaking from 
 half past ten to nearly one, I felt great reluctance to preach 
 again at two, especially as one of their own preachers was 
 present ; but they would take no denial ; even Mr. Mabyn 
 himself seemed to have no pity, and I was obliged to work 
 once more. I see what would have been my fate had I 
 gone to the west. I am afraid our people never imagine 
 that speaking, as they call it, can hurt a man ; but this also 
 must be borne with. We had now a very lively meeting, 
 with a multitude of elephantine Amens. By the evening 
 the news had spread far and wide, and we had many from 
 four to ten miles round, and I suppose at least two-thirds 
 of the inhabitants of Camelford. All that the chapel could 
 possibly hold came in, and the rest stood without, cold and 
 uncomfortable as the night was. I worked nearly from six 
 to eight. On my concluding, they struck up a prayer-meet- 
 ing, and continued it till nine, at which almost all that were 
 : n the house during the preaching continued. When I got 
 home, I was supremely wearied. 
 
 " I am now preparing to set oflT for Port Isaac, about ten
 
 222 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 miles. [Here follow some antiquarian descriptions.] I 
 have had a pleasing interview with a young gentleman from 
 India ; he reads Persian and Arabic with the true accent, 
 and they come out of his mouth like oil. He is quite a 
 man of science, and has joined the society here, and met 
 yesterday in class the first time. ... I hope to reach Plymouth 
 toward the end of this week, and spend the Lord's day 
 there. The longer I stay away, the more earnestly I desire 
 to return." 
 
 These letters, of which there is quite a packet, abound 
 with picturesque descriptions of the country, and some curi- 
 ous information on the archaeological remains in that part 
 of Cornwall; the substance of which, with enlargements, 
 the reader may find in the doctor's Miscellaneous Works. 
 He appears to have enriched the letters with these topics 
 for the instruction of his children, who were now reaching 
 the years when the mind begins to hunger after knowledge. 
 Happy the young people who could value and improve the 
 advantage of having a father who was able to nourish their 
 minds, as well as their bodies, with food convenient for 
 them ! 
 
 Mr. Clarke returned to Bristol to fill up the remaining 
 months of his period there in those duties which tended, by 
 the divine blessing, to the enlargement and upbuilding of 
 the congregations of the circuit, both in town and country. 
 Neither he nor his colleagues were permitted to spend their 
 strength for naught. Large multitudes were drawn, from 
 week to week, to hear words whereby they might be saved. 
 The impenitent were awakened and made thoughtful ; the 
 seeker found ; the more advanced in the spiritual Hie 
 were led further heavenward; and God in all things was 
 glorified.
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 223 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR CONTINUED. 
 
 BY the Conference of 1801 Mr. Clarke was appointed for 
 the second time to the Liverpool Circuit. A Methodist 
 minister is called to suffer more than many other men, from 
 the breaking up of that friendly intercourse with congenial 
 minds which yields so much consolation to our life. In 
 Bristol, during the last three years, old friendships had been 
 more strongly confirmed, and new ones, both in the circles 
 of religion and of literature, contracted, which contributed 
 to render this new exodus the more inconvenient to his per- 
 sonal feelings. In the present case, however, he had the 
 advantage of coming among a people who were not un- 
 known to him ; by whom indeed, for his work's sake in 
 days that were past, he was welcomed now as a heartily 
 trusted friend, and by not a few of them revered as a mes- 
 senger of the Lord. 
 
 He entered on these renewed engagements with an intel- 
 lect amplified by the studies and trials of the intervening 
 years, and a heart more richly than ever replete with the 
 graces which the Holy Spirit makes perfect in the faithful ; 
 but with a physical constitution too greatly enfeebled by 
 exhaustion to grapple with the obligations of the Methodist 
 itinerancy. He was often now taken suddenly ill. so as to 
 be in an instant deprived of sensation ; and on one occasion 
 the seizure was so ominous, that his friends anticipated the 
 most distressing results. He staggered on, however, with 
 his work, both in the study and the circuit, till in the follow- 
 ing April he was obliged to be taken to London for the best 
 medical advice. It is then that he announces to Mrs. Clarke 
 the very serious view which an eminent practitioner took of 
 his case : " I went this morning with Mr. Butterworth to con-
 
 224 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 salt Mr. Pearson, who said : 'You must totally cease from 
 all mental and bodily exertion, except such as you may 
 take in cultivating a garden, or riding on horseback. I 
 know not whether your disease be not too far advanced to 
 be cured. The ventricles of your heart are in a state of dis- 
 ease ; and if you do not totally and absolutely abstain from 
 reading, writing, preaching, etc., you will die speedily, and 
 you will die suddenly. Did I not believe you to be in such 
 a state of mind as not to be hurt at this declaration, I would 
 have suppressed it ; but, as matters are, I deem it my duty 
 to be thus explicit, and assure you that, if you do not 
 wholly abstain for at least twelve months, you are a dead 
 man !' Now, my dear Mary, you must not believe all this ; 
 but we will talk the business over when I see you. If I 
 find I cannot do my work, I will give it up. I will not feed 
 myself to starve the Church of God. I will seek out some 
 other way of maintaining my wife and my children." With 
 this alternative, he was compelled to give some remission 
 to his habitual efforts ; and with such good effect, that at the 
 following Conference he was enabled to contemplate the re- 
 sumption of labor as not altogether unwarrantable, though 
 with some hesitation about the locality, as Mrs. Clarke's 
 health was at that time in a precarious state. We have his 
 views on both these subjects in a" letter from the Bristol 
 Conference in July, 1802 : 
 
 " MY VERY DEAR MARY, My good brother Gibson's let- 
 ter this morning has brought no small pain to my mind, 
 and my anxious uncertainty at times is almost unbearable. 
 Unless a more favorable account come soon, I must set off 
 for Liverpool. Those shiverings continued alarm me to 
 the extreme. Mr. Gibson complains that few people call 
 to see you; but of this I am heartily glad. In staying 
 nway they will show more kindness than by coming to see 
 you. I know not what to say or do in my appointment. 
 If I thought Liverpool prejudicial to your health, I would 
 you removed immediately; for myself I fed no man-
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 225 
 
 ner of anxiety. I cannot realize my own danger if I am in. 
 any. It is hidden from me. God prepare me for the 
 worst ! My brethren think there is little or nothing the 
 matter with me; and I am determined to take up my 
 whole work, and perform it, or die. This is my resolution, 
 and from it I shall not move, God being my helper. There- 
 fore I return to begin my work, as if I never had felt a pang 
 of distress. You know my resolutions are not yea and nay. 
 But I must add, that when, having tried my strength to the 
 uttermost, I feel I cannot do the whole of my work, 1 will 
 not starve the work of God to feed myself; but get some 
 other employment, by which I can support my family with- 
 out burdening the cause of God." 
 
 They who wait upon the Lord renew their vigor. So 
 found this brave servant of Christ. He went in the strength 
 of the Lord God, making mention of his righteousness ; and 
 help came with every hour of duty. " The afflictions of this 
 present " had the tendency to awaken him to more vivid per- 
 ceptions of the things that are eternal ; and the solemn re- 
 view of life hitherto spent, and the ordeal to which, by the 
 word of the Lord, he subjected the motives of his conduct, 
 enabled him to thank God and take courage. " I came into the 
 work," says he, " with the purest motives, and now, proba- 
 bly standing on the brink of eternity, can say, no motive or 
 end which I cannot acknowledge before God has ever influ- 
 enced me for an hour. Notwithstanding my ignorance, 
 which none could feel so much as myself, I have gotten 
 wonderfully through, and have had as much favor in the 
 sight of God's people as was necessary for me to go on with 
 some degree of success and comfort. The blessed God saw 
 that he had sown a seed of uprightness in my soul, which 
 the weeds of sinister design or by-ends had never been 
 permitted to impede the growth of, much less to choke. He 
 has, therefore, preserved and blessed me for his own name's 
 sake, and for the sake of that which, in eternal kindness, he 
 had wrought and maintained in my heart." 
 
 15
 
 22 b' LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 As a means of edification to several intelligent Christian 
 friends, and of assistance in the pursuit of knowledge in its 
 higher branches to young men of intellectual aspirations, 
 Mr. Clarke formed in Liverpool this year a literary and 
 scientific association, which took the title of a " Philological 
 Society." This he regularly organized ; and, among other 
 helps to development, supplied it with a long series of ques- 
 tions and theses for examination. Of these, I give a few as 
 specimens : " No. 3. What is an essay ? and are there any 
 rules by which this species of composition should be regu- 
 lated? 12. Which of the arts and sciences can be proved 
 to be most useful to mankind ? 13. In what arts and 
 sciences do the moderns excel the ancients ? and vice versa. 
 9. Which is the most effectual way of disseminating useful 
 knowledge among the lower ranks of society ? 22. What 
 is the difference between the will and the affections'? and 
 how may we distinguish the operations of the one from those 
 of the other? 21. What is conscience? 38. What is the 
 difference between heathen virtue and Christian morality ? 
 4. What is the best method of bringing up children, so as 
 to preserve their health, promote their growth, and improve 
 their understanding? 23. What is the best method of treat- 
 ing domestics ? 24. What is the best method of managing 
 the thoughts? 28. What are those arguments for Divine 
 revelation which, all Christians assert, have not been and 
 can never be refuted ? What is an idea ? Genius ? Com- 
 mon sense ? Enthusiasm ? Sympathy ? A gentleman ? 
 To what causes can the diversity of dialects in a living lan- 
 guage be attributed? 159. Required, an essay on the an- 
 tiquity, genius, perfections, and utility of each of the follow- 
 ing languages : Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, 
 French, Italian, German, and English ; with an account of 
 the most classical and important philological works in each. 
 
 160. Required, a grammar of each of the above languages, 
 that, in quantity of matter and simplicity of expression, shall 
 be brought within the reach of the capacity of children, 
 
 161. Required, short, plain, comprehensive treatises on the
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 227 
 
 elements of arithmetic, geography, astronomy, geometry, 
 etc., for the use of the rising generation, and especially 
 adapted to the circumstances of the children of the poor. 
 171. Required, an essay on the superiority of the civil in- 
 stitutions of Moses to those of Menu, Solon, and Lycurgus. 
 146. Required, a short Scriptural and rational essay on the 
 Providence of God. 69. What further improvements are 
 necessary in the government of parish work-houses ? 
 169. Required, an essay on the Pythagoric doctrine of num- 
 bers, and the uses to which the Pythagoreans and Platonists 
 applied the five regular solids, since termed Platonic bodies." 
 On this last subject Mr. Clarke wrote a dissertation, which 
 may be found in his Miscellaneous Works. It will be seen 
 that these questions do not, all of them, come under the de- 
 nomination of strict philology ; but the wide sense in which 
 he used that term he indicates in an address to the society, 
 where he observes, that " philology, in the modern ac- 
 ceptation of the word, is not so properly a science as an 
 assemblage of several. It includes grammar, criticism, 
 etymology, the interpretation of ancient authors, poetry, 
 rhetoric, history, and antiquites : in a word, everything re- 
 lating to ancient manners, laws, religion, government, and 
 language." 
 
 The society met for conversation, discussion, and the con- 
 sideration of written essays on the various themes of their 
 studies. After some time Mr. Clarke found he could state 
 that the scheme worked well, that interesting and excellent 
 papers were produced ; and that good would be done to the 
 minds and hearts of the members. 
 
 As to himself, he was working hard at the Bibliographi- 
 cal Dictionary, (the first volume of which he brought out at 
 Liverpool,) and at the Notes upon the Holy Scriptures. In 
 addition to these more weighty undertakings, he translated 
 the Dissertation of Monsieur A. L. Millin on the Silver 
 Disc which bears the name of " Scipio's Buckler." This was 
 subsequently incorporated in his Miscellaneous Works. 
 
 Generations pass away, and the son follows the parent.
 
 228 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 As in his last circuit Mr. Clarke had been called to mourn 
 the decease of his father, so now another bereaving provi- 
 dence overtook him in the removal of his only brother, who 
 died at Maghull, in his forty-fifth year. A biographic notice 
 of this beloved relative, from the pen of Dr. Clarke, states 
 that, after having been brought up in childhood by his uncle, 
 the clergyman after whom he was named, an'd instructed in 
 the classics by his father, he was introduced to the medical 
 profession, studying, after his apprenticeship, at Trinity, 
 Dublin. He went out as surgeon in " a Guinea ship," and 
 in two voyages became a witness of the complicated cruelty 
 and villainy of the African slave-trade, of which he has left 
 in his journals some graphic details. " Filled with horror 
 at this inhuman traffic, surgeon Clarke abandoned it after his 
 second voyage : he married, and established himself at Mag- 
 hull, eight miles from Liverpool," in a wide neighborhood, 
 at that time but ill-supplied with medical practitioners, 
 where he had great success, winning the confidence of the 
 people by his skillful treatment, his personal urbanity, and 
 Christian rectitude of life. But his professional labors 
 multiplied beyond his strength. At a time when in a deli- 
 cate state of health, he was called out night after night in 
 cold and tempestuous weather, till his remaining strength 
 broke suddenly down, and he sank into a consumption. In 
 his last days he was consoled by the affectionate attentions 
 of his brother, from whose holy counsels and earnest pray- 
 ers he found most timely help in passing through the dark 
 vale of death. In a pocket-book of Dr. Clarke's there are 
 the following memoranda : 
 
 "Sept. 6th, 1803. I went to see my dying brother. He 
 is in a very happy state of mind. 
 
 "Sept. 15th. Went to Maghull, and gave the sacrament 
 to my dying brother. He is in great pain of body, but 
 steadfast in his confidence in the Lord. 
 
 "Sept. 16th. Preached at Aintree, from Isaiah liv, 
 13, 14. My blessed brother died this evening at nine o'clock. 
 
 "Sept. 17th. I went over to see my dear brother's re
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 229 
 
 mains. Quantum mutatus ab illo /" Changed indeed. But 
 from the sight would not the minister of Christ feel fresh 
 motive to work while it was yet with himself called to-day, 
 in making known to dying men the truth and grace of that 
 adorable Redeemer who is our refuge, our resurrection, and 
 our life ? 
 
 After two years' residence at Liverpool, Mr. Clarke was 
 reappointed to Manchester, where a multitude of Christians, 
 who had long learned to value his ministry, gave him a most 
 grateful welcome. The opening sermon at Oldham-street 
 was attended by a vast concourse, and, from what he then 
 saw and felt, he had confidence that God would be with them. 
 
 Some few details come out in a letter to one of his Liver- 
 pool friends, a little while after his resettlement in Man- 
 chester : " I have a very good garret for my study : poets, 
 you know, and poor authors, generally live in such places. 
 I have had shelves put up for my books, and have most of 
 them unpacked and carried up to this sublime region ; but 
 it has been severe work, and has fatigued me sadly. The 
 books and other things have been much injured in the car- 
 riage ; upwards of twenty of my boxes were broken, though 
 they came by His Grace's flats " (the Duke of Bridgewater's 
 canal-boats.) " I am now quite of poor Richard's mind, that 
 three such flittings would be equal to one burning. . . . 
 
 " I have heard Mr. Heamshaw, the young preacher. He 
 bids fair, I think, to make a luminous star in the Church of 
 Christ. He has a very pleasing voice, a neat delivery, and 
 very decent language; his matter is solid, and his doctrine 
 sound. Mr. Jenkins you know ; the other is Mr. Pipe. 
 He " (Mr. Pipe) " is full of life and zeal, and I should not 
 wonder if he be esteemed the first man among us. I like a 
 good shaking, and long hearty Amens among the people ; 
 but, between you and me, there seems too much of it here ; 
 and many, I am afraid, do not distinguish between sense 
 and sound between the tornadoes of natural passion and 
 the meltings of religious affection. But I must leave this 
 with God, the only wise and good. May he keep us right !"
 
 230 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 In Manchester, as in other places, Mr. Clarke showed the 
 value he set on class-meeting as a means of great help and 
 encouragement in the Christian life, by entering himself as a 
 private member in one of the classes. In Liverpool he 
 had raised a class of his own ; but now, under the leader- 
 ship of " a plain, simple-hearted, good man," Mr. Clarke 
 found, as often as his duties would allow him to meet, that 
 he could derive great profit, and reflect it again in his min- 
 istry, from communion with these lowly ones in the flock 
 of the Lord. 
 
 To the Strangers' Friend Society, which, with Mr. Brad- 
 burn, he had been the means of establishing in the town, he 
 turned his renewed attention, strengthening and extending 
 its truly beneficent agencies. 
 
 Steady also to his purpose in combining moral and intel- 
 lectual culture, in making men strong in whatever is good, 
 he opened his study on stated mornings in the week for 
 young men who were desirous of instruction in the original 
 languages of the Bible, and founded a society, like that 
 already in operation at Liverpool, for the promotion of 
 literary, scientific, and Christian studies ; " to bring for- 
 ward," as he said, "and improve latent talent, and to 
 prompt the few, who were aiding and influencing each other, 
 to act upon the million." Many men who have lived not 
 in vain received good impulses and helps in these intellect- 
 ual fellowships ; and among them we may name that emi- 
 nent scholar, diligent author, and excellent minister of 
 Christ, the late Dr. James Townley.* The success attend- 
 ing this institute was always a subject of great thankful- 
 ness to the founder ; and we may here mention that, when 
 the time came for him to leave Manchester, the members 
 offered him a token of their esteem, not only in a verbal 
 tribute, but by the presentation of two massive silver cups, 
 beautifully ornamented with a border of oak-leaves round 
 
 * Died in 1833 ; President of the Conference in 1829 ; many years one 
 of the General Secretaries for the Methodist Missions. His antiquarian 
 and bibliographical works liave a permanent reputation.
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 231 
 
 the outer rim, and bearing the inscription : " Ex DONO 
 SOCIETATIS PHILOLOGIC^E MANCUNIENSIS REVERENDO ADAMO 
 CLARKE, PR^ESIDI DILECTISSIMO ET DILIGENTISSIMO, IN AMI- 
 CITI^E GRATIQUE ANIMI PLURIMIS PRO MERITIS TESTIMO- 
 
 NIUM." 
 
 In his own literary career Mr. Clarke gave another token 
 of great activity, in the publication of the remaining volumes 
 of the Bibliographical Dictionary (the preface of the sixth 
 volume bearing date, "Manchester, July 1, 1804;") and 
 also a new and improved edition of Claude Fleury's " Man- 
 ners of the Ancient Israelites," a work which found much 
 acceptance with the public. 
 
 As in Bristol and Liverpool, so now in Manchester, the 
 silence of the study was broken upon by the voice of the 
 knell. Mr. and Mrs. Clarke had to sustain the affliction of 
 seeing their beautiful little daughter Agnes fade and die like 
 a flower. This child had become an object of intense affec- 
 tion to her father ; and the stroke which bereaved him was 
 so much the more afflictive. " Agnes," says he, " was a 
 most interesting and promising child. Few of her years 
 ever possessed a finer understanding, or a more amiable dis- 
 position. She was led to remember her Creator hi the days 
 of her youth; she truly feared God, and dreaded nothing 
 so much as that by which he would be offended, and his 
 good Spirit grieved. Young as she was, it was evident that 
 she possessed a pious heart. She loved prayer, attended 
 public worship with delight, and had such a firmness and 
 constancy of resolution, that nothing could make her change 
 a purpose which she had formed, when convinced that it 
 was right. . . . God saw it best to take her ; and, having sowed 
 in her heart the good seed of his kingdom, took her to 
 heaven, where it should bring forth all its fruits in their 
 native soil." 
 
 Twenty years afterward I find another reference, which 
 shows how lasting was this love : " I had a daughter called 
 Agnes ; never was my soul so wrapped up in a child. God 
 took her. ... I had suffered so much in her sufferings, that
 
 232 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the good Dr. Agnew said, if she had lived one week longer 
 it must have killefl me. Agnes is still dear to me, though 
 it is more than twenty years since I lost that lovely 
 child." 
 
 The circumstance that two of their children, Adam and 
 Agnes, lay buried at Manchester, created a melancholy tie 
 between the hearts of the parents and that place ; but, while 
 nature dictated that mournful sympathy, faith, with its sol- 
 emn assurances, strengthened in their souls a more elevated 
 sense of union with the heavenly world, whither their be- 
 loved ones had gone before them, and where, henceforth 
 exempt from death, the families of the saved are reunited 
 in the full possession of the inheritance which is incorrupt- 
 ible, and eternally their own. 
 
 Having completed his term of service in the Manchester 
 Circuit, Mr. Clarke, amid the regrets of multitudes, removed 
 from that city to resume his labors in London, being once 
 more appointed to the metropolis by the Conference of 
 1805. As the superintendent of the circuit, he went into 
 residence at the Methodist parsonage adjoining the chapel 
 in City Road. Here, with the Rev. Messrs. Bogie, Entwisle, 
 J. Stanley, and others for his colleagues, a wide sphere of 
 engagements opened to him. London was still but one cir- 
 cuit ; and since his last appointment the duties had become 
 yet more numerous by the establishment of various other 
 preaching-places, the building of several new chapels, and 
 the increase of pastoral duties consequent on the formation 
 and increase of the societies connected with them. And if, 
 at present, each of the superintendents of the nine circuits 
 into which the metropolis is divided finds that the multi- 
 farious business of his charge demands an incessant care, 
 we may easily conceive that Adam Clarke, as the sole su- 
 perintendent of the Methodist work in London, would be 
 called to a life of almost sleepless labor. Yet his strength 
 was as his day. By redeeming the early hours of the 
 morning, he carried on the studies which were yielding plen- 
 teous fruitage in his literary works ; and by resolute dili-
 
 THE PKEACHER AND PASTOR. 233 
 
 gence he made full proof of his ministry as a preacher and 
 pastor, maintained the financial resources of the circuit in 
 full vigor, and developed the various capabilities of the 
 Methodist system for the promotion of the spiritual and 
 temporal comfort of the multitudes over whom, by the 
 agency of Sunday-school teachers, prayer-leaders, class-lead- 
 ers, visitors of the sick, tract distributers, exhorters, and 
 local preachers, it exerts its benefic influence. Yet more, 
 in addition to all these calls upon his time and care, we 
 find him taking a prominent position in some of the great- 
 est philanthropic movements of the age. Among these 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society, then recently formed, 
 awoke a joyful enthusiasm in his soul, which expressed it- 
 self in services to that noble institution as lasting as his 
 life. At the instance of Mr. Butterworth, who was one of 
 its earliest members, he was invited to take part in its 
 great work, upon which he entered, as we may say, con 
 amore, with the relish of the scholar for the philologic criti- 
 cism involved in the undertaking to send forth the Bible 
 in the various languages of mankind, and with the faith of 
 the Christian in the power of divine truth, so conveyed, to 
 renew the world in righteousness. Of the ability and zeal 
 with which he co-operated in this great design we shall 
 have to give some examples in the subsequent records. 
 Suffice it here to observe, that from his extensive oriental 
 learning, his acquaintance with the verbal criticism of the 
 sacred text, and his sound judgment as a catholic theo- 
 logian, the committee of the Bible Society found in Adam 
 Clarke the man they wanted. Let the reader mark 
 here what great consequences follow the decisions of our 
 early life. When the friendless youth at Kingswood 
 bought the Hebrew Grammar with the piece of coin found 
 in the garden, the world itself was to be the better for 
 the event. 
 
 In his own library at City Road, long before the broad 
 mass of London life had begun to stir itself in a morning, 
 Mr. Clarke was now diligently engaged in perfecting for
 
 234 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the press the first parts of his Commentary, and in supple- 
 menting the six volumes of the Bibliographical Dictionary 
 by two others, comprising a variety of topics connected 
 with those studies, to which he gave the title of " The 
 Bibliographic Miscellany." This work bears date, " No- 
 vember 1, 1806." Besides these, he lent powerful aid to 
 the editor of the Eclectic Review, in some articles on the 
 Septuagint, and the study of the Eastern languages. 
 
 At this time Mr. Clarke felt very strong convictions on 
 the necessity of some effective measures for the training of 
 men of piety and promise for the work of the ministry in 
 the Methodist body ; which, with the continual increase of 
 its members and influence in the country, partook as well 
 the educational advantages by which the English intellect 
 has been so greatly elevated in the present age. He saw 
 that an illiterate ministry would be inadequate to the wants 
 of the times ; and that, if the pulpits of Methodism were to 
 attract the people, they must be filled by men who were, at 
 least on a par with their hearers in mental cultivation. 
 With these impressions, he took an early opportunity of 
 bringing the subject under the consideration of the preachers 
 then stationed in London ; and the result of their conversa- 
 tion he details to Mr. Butterworth : 
 
 " We have now a subject of the ^deepest concern before 
 us. We want some kind of seminary for educating work- 
 men for the vineyard of the Lord. I introduced a conver- 
 sation this morning upon the subject, and the preachers were 
 unanimously of opinion that some efforts should be made 
 without delay to get such a place established either here or 
 at Bristol, where young men who may be deemed fit for 
 the work may have previous instruction in theology, in vital 
 godliness, in practical religion, and in the rudiments of 
 general knowledge. No person to be permitted to go out 
 into the work who is not known to be blameless in his con- 
 versation, thoroughly converted to God, alive through the 
 indwelling Spirit, and sound in the faith. Mr. Benson said 
 be would unite his whole soul in it, if I would take the
 
 THE PREACHER AND PASTOR. 235 
 
 supeintendence of it. What can we do to set this matter 
 on foot? The people are getting wiser on all sides; 
 Socinianism, and other isms equally bad, are gaming 
 strength and boldness. . . . Every circuit cries out, 'Send 
 us acceptable preachers;' and we are obliged to take what 
 offers, and depend upon the recommendation of those who 
 can scarcely judge, but from the apparent fervor of a man's 
 spirit. My dear brother, the time is coming, and now is, 
 when illiterate piety can do no more for the interest and 
 permanency of the work of God than lettered irreligion did 
 formerly. The Dissenters are going to establish a gram- 
 mar-school, and have sent about to all our people, as to 
 their own, for countenance and support. Would not God 
 have our charity in this respect to begin at home ? Arc 
 there not many of our people who would subscribe largely 
 to such an institution ? If we could raise enough for the 
 first year for the instruction of only six or ten persons, 
 would it not be a glorious thing ? Perhaps about twenty 
 would be the utmost we should ever need to have at once 
 under tuition, as this is the greatest average number we 
 should take out in a year. Speak speedily to all your 
 friends, and let us get a plan organized immediately ; let 
 us have something that we can lay, matured, before the 
 Conference. God, I hope, is in the proposal ; and we should 
 not promise our strength or influence to others, till we find 
 either that we can do nothing for ourselves, or that nothing 
 is requisite." 
 
 This desirable project could n,ot at that time be accom- 
 plished. The Conference was burdened with increasing pe- 
 cuniary difficulties, and the resources of the Connection were 
 not adequate to the task. At a later day, however, (1833,) 
 the scheme was carried into full effect, to the great satisfac- 
 tion of all enlightened and impartial men in the Methodist 
 communion. A Theological Institution was founded, one 
 branch of which is situated at Richmond, Surrey, and 
 the other at Didsbury, near Manchester. Already, in 
 those sequestered shades, hundreds of pious young men,
 
 236 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 called of God to the work of the Gospel, have been 
 soundly trained for the Christian ministry, of which they 
 are making worthy proof in various parts of the world. 
 The divinity tutors have hitherto been the Rev. Pro- 
 fessor Jackson, for Richmond, and the Rev. Dr. Hannah, 
 for Didsbury.
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 237 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 
 
 IN these incessant engagements the year had passed away, 
 and Mr. Clarke attended the annual assembly of the preach- 
 ers at Leeds, in 1806. On this memorable occasion he 
 was invested with the highest honor his brethren in the min- 
 istry could confer upon him, in being elected President of 
 the Conference. It will be most pleasant to read such no- 
 tices of those days as we find in his own letters to Mrs. 
 Clarke. 
 
 One from Sheffield, on the way, acquaints us that his fel- 
 low-travelers were twenty-two in number. " I was one of 
 three on the box, with the coachman ; Messrs. Bradford, 
 Cole, and Goodwin were behind me ; Mr. and Mrs. Benson, 
 inside. . . . From every quarter I find it is the unanimous 
 design of the preachers to put me in the chair. Perhaps 
 you will be surprised when I tell you that I am absolutely 
 determined not to go into it. This purpose I believe none 
 can shake. I have neither a state of mind nor nerves for 
 such a work, and I would not take a handful of guineas to 
 be obliged to preach the president's sermon. Dr. Coke 
 is here." 
 
 " Leeds, July 25. We have got almost through our sta- 
 tioning work, and have much order and good-will among 
 us. ... When at Sheffield, I read over the Plan for the edu- 
 cation of the young preachers, before Mr. Holy and some 
 other of the principal friends, who all highly approved of it. 
 This day I got Mr. Moore to read it, from whom I expected 
 considerable opposition ; but I was disappointed, by receiv- 
 ing from him the following note on the back of the cover : 
 
 ' A very admirable letter. It answers almost all my ob-
 
 238 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 jections, or rather my fears. If we were such ministers as 
 we should be, the pious who are well informed and even 
 learned would be glad to join themselves to us.' He means 
 that many pious, well-informed, and even learned men 
 among our societies, and who are local preachers, would be 
 glad to become traveling preachers ; but he contends that the 
 preachers have no proper Scriptural authority, [all this 
 having been] already given up ; so that the most vulgar and 
 illiterate in a Leaders' or Quarterly Meeting can, by the 
 number of heads, or show of hands, carry any point of dis- 
 cipline or doctrine against the preachers. This is certainly 
 true, and is a sore and increasing evil."* 
 
 "July 27. This morning, according to appointment, I 
 rode out to Armley, and preached at ten o'clock. The good 
 people would have sent me back on horseback, but I excused 
 myself, and walked home in company with Messrs. Bunting, 
 Collier, and Button. Brother Garrett we left behind, to 
 follow the blow. I have to preach this evening again at the 
 new chapel. This will be sore work. Mr. Bradburn 
 preached this morning on Old Methodism, and acquitted 
 himself, I hear, very well. How I shall get on, God 
 knows ; but I am pledged, and cannot recede. 
 
 " The people are coming in, I am informed, from twenty 
 miles' distance and upward. The following will show you, 
 in some measure, their spirit and temper. A Quaker, air- 
 ing himself in the street by his own house about six in the 
 morning, saw a plain-looking countryman covered with 
 dust, carrying a very large great coat, and sweating at every 
 pore. He accosted him; 'Friend, whither art thou come? 
 Thou appearest much fatigued.' ' I am coming to th' Meth- 
 odist Conference,' says Bluntspurs ; 'I am coom forty miles, 
 and ha' walked all t' night.' The Quaker, struck with his 
 
 *In the dissensions which lately afflicted the Methodist body, some of 
 the antagonists of the Conference intimated that, had Dr. Clarke lived, 
 he would have approved of the attempts then made to deprive the min- 
 isters of the few remaining powers which are inherent in their office, nnd 
 necessary to the discharge of their pastoral duty. How far these sur- 
 mises were correct, may be learned from the Doctor's own words.
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 239 
 
 appearance and honest bluntness, said, ' Friend, I like thy 
 spirit ; thee seemest sincere and zealous in this way ; turn 
 in hither, and refresh thyself; thou shalt be welcome to 
 what the place can afford.' Poor Gruff turned in, and found 
 a hearty welcome. How valuable is this simplicity of 
 spirit! and how much more happiness do these people 
 enjoy, who are taking God at his word, than those who are 
 disputing with their Maker himself every particle of his 
 revelation ! Scaliger, who understood thirteen languages, 
 seeing the comparative happiness of the simple and ignorant, 
 cried out once, ' O that I had never known my alphabet !' 
 But it is probable that from these as many sources of com- 
 fort are sealed up, as there are causes of distress to those 
 whose minds are cultivated. I shall leave this till after 
 preaching. . . . 
 
 "I am now returned from preaching to some thousands ; 
 thousands within, and hundreds without. To relieve the ex- 
 cessive press, a preacher was obliged to stand up without, 
 while I wrought an hour and fifteen minutes within. At 
 the last prayer we had an uncommon shaking, and some acts 
 of solemn self-dedication took place, never, never, I hope, 
 to be forgotten." 
 
 "July 28. This morning our Conference began, and 
 the whole time before breakfast was employed in filling up 
 the Deed, etc. After breakfast, as I had heard from all 
 quarters that they designed to put me in the chair, I ad- 
 dressed the Conference, and having told them what I had 
 understood, proceeded to give reasons why I could not go 
 into the chair, and begged that no brother would lose a vote 
 for me, as my mind was fully made up on the business. 
 This produced a conversation I little expected. All the old 
 preachers insisted on it that I was at present the proper 
 person, and entreated me not to refuse. I insisted upon it 
 that I would not, and solemnly charged every one who in- 
 tended to vote for me to give his suffrage to some other. I 
 then wrote [mine] for Mr. Barber, and showed my paper to 
 those about me, who all followed my example. I trembled
 
 240 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 till this business was concluded : and what was the result ? 
 I was chosen by a majority of one half beyond the highest ! 
 I was called to the chair in the name of the Conference, and 
 refused, begging that the next in number of vote might take 
 it. We were thrown into a temporary confusion, during 
 which Mr. T. Taylor and J. Bradford lifted me up by mere 
 force out of my seat, and set me upon the table ! I was 
 confounded and distressed beyond measure, and, against all 
 my resolutions, was obliged to take the seat. After recov- 
 ering from my embarrassment, I began business, and have 
 conducted it hitherto with order, and, I believe, much to the 
 satisfaction of the brethren. Dr. Coke was chosen secretary, 
 and between him and Mr. Bengon there was a close run. 
 We are now at the characters, and have got through seventy- 
 nine circuits. There are two or three knotty cases in ref- 
 erence to charges of false doctrine, which will soon come 
 
 before us. . . . I do not see any sentence in 's book 
 
 which is capable of bearing an evil construction. It is a 
 poor milksop production, and the time and expense are 
 
 thrown away upon it. is too high ; he has learned 
 
 to bear no cross for Christ's sake ; perhaps he may now be 
 schooled a little in this necessary science. . . . Pray, pray 
 hard for me. I am far from being comfortable in my mind. 
 The thought of having to preach next Lord's day before the 
 Conference, and to admit those who have traveled four years 
 quite absorbs my spirits." 
 
 "July 29. Having a few moments, (sitting on the Con- 
 ference board, the preachers beginning to assemble,) I de- 
 vote them to you. We have gone on well. When we 
 came to the Wakefield Circuit, Mr. Marsden produced a let- 
 ter from Mr. Pawson, containing his dying advice to the 
 Conference. This was read, and a motion succeeded that it 
 should be printed. ... I have just now got the number of 
 the preachers present ; they amount to two hundred and three. 
 J. have long walks, and sleep, or rather watch, in a front room 
 in the noisiest street in Leeds, in which there is scarcely a 
 silent hour in the night. I have not had one night's rest."
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 241 
 
 ** July 30. We have now got through all the characters,. 
 
 except 's for Pelagianism, and 's for denying the 
 
 direct witness of the Spirit. Mr. has had the ques- 
 tions proposed to him which were sent to Mr. , and has 
 
 answered all to the perfect satisfaction of the Conference. 
 
 Mr. , who was under the same accusation, has had the 
 
 same questions put to him, and has not answered to their 
 satisfaction. . . . The brethren are so incensed against evasive 
 answers on this subject that every man has Argus eyes. 
 
 The question which I sent to Mr. was my own ; but 
 
 to-day it has been adopted without variation, to be used as 
 the test on which the Pelagain heretics should be tried. 
 There is the utmost need to take heed to our doctrines. . . . 
 1 write this while the rest of their brethren are at their tea. 
 I am nearly worn out with excessive exertions." 
 
 " Aug. 3. This morning I went to the new chapel, 
 where the doctor (Coke) was to preach. Long before 
 the time it was more than full. Many hundreds were stand- 
 ing in the street when I got up to it. However, I squeezed 
 in ; and as it was more than half an hour before the time, 
 and the doctor was not come, I got a Prayer Book, went 
 into the desk, and began to read prayers. This quieted the 
 people. As the press was great at the door and in the street, 
 four preachers stood up in different parts, and began to 
 preach. Thus, instead of one, we had five congregations. 
 When we had finished the sacrament [of the Lord's Supper, 
 which was administered] to perhaps eight hundred people, 
 we could scarcely get out, for the afternoon congregation 
 was waiting to get in. I came home, and, having got a 
 morsel of dinner, am come to scribe you a few lines, and to 
 look for a text for this evening. A sore work lieth before, 
 me, and how I am to get through it I know not. I will leave 
 this unconcluded till I return. . . . 
 
 " I have just returned. An amazing congregation ; thous- 
 ands, without and within. There was reason to fear some 
 lives would be lost, the press was so great. I got on mid- 
 dlingly. Nearly all the preachers [were present.] I am
 
 242 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 now weary enough, and my cold still bad. There is no 
 morning that I am not in the chapel, (though nearly a mile 
 from my lodging) before five o'clock. What is the use of 
 lying in bed ? I cannot sleep ; my eyes are like those of a 
 ferret. I know not when I shall be able to sleep again. . . . 
 It is said that there are upward of twenty thousand stran- 
 gers come into town. It is like a county town in the time 
 of election. The inns and private houses are overflowed, 
 and the streets everywhere full." 
 
 "Aug. 6. This has been a day of very great fatigue. 
 I have been a good part of the afternoon examining the 
 young men. I had each doctrine to define and explain. 
 Though it almost totally exhausted me, I got through with 
 precision. ... I have in about half an hour to go and ad- 
 mit them all, in the presence of an immense congregation, 
 crowds of which were rushing into the chapel before I left 
 the Conference board. We are still in great harmony. I 
 have nearly as much authority as I could wish ; and when I 
 choose to exert it, all I can desire. The brethren behave 
 exceedingly well. I let them feel only that power with 
 which they have invested me, and they properly respect it. 
 
 " Finding the chapel already full, a half an hour before 
 the time, I immediately began." He then describes the or- 
 dination service, as practised at that time among the Meth- 
 odists, and adds : " I then addressed them in a short speech 
 and pronounced the formal words of reception, in the name 
 of God, whose mercy and love they were to proclaim ; of 
 Jesus Christ, whose atonement they were to witness ; of the 
 Holy Ghost, by whose influence they had been thus far fitted 
 tor the ministry, and by whose unction they were to alarm, 
 convince, convert, and in holiness build up the souls of men; 
 also in the name of the Methodist Conference, by whose au- 
 thority I acted; and in the name of the many thousands 
 which constitute the Church connected with them. Mr. Moore 
 then prayed, and I pronounced the dismissal." 
 
 " Aug. 7. [As to the station for next year] I am re- 
 turned for London; and may now give up, as at the highest
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 243 
 
 pitch of honor Methodism can bestow upon me: President 
 of the Gjnference, Superintendent of London, and Chairman 
 of the London District, all at the same time. . . . The Lord 
 knows I never sought it. Well, I would rather have one 
 smile from my Maker than all this honor, and all the world 
 could confer beside. 
 
 " I own I should feel home very waste if you were not 
 there to receive me when I come ; and yet I wish you by 
 all means to go and see your mother. If I possibly can 
 after resting a few days at home, I shall rejoice to accom- 
 pany you and Mr. Butterworth to Trowbridge." 
 
 The duties of the president, including extensive journeys 
 in Scotland and Ireland, incessant correspondence, and a for- 
 midable amount of connectional business, render it necessary 
 that an additional preacher be stationed with him, as a 
 helper in the ordinary labors of the circuit. Among the 
 young men who appeared at the Leeds Conference for ordi- 
 nation was the Eev. David M'Nicoll, who preached at one 
 of the services, and whose discourse gave the president such 
 an idea of his capacity and character, as to determine his 
 choice of an assistant for the coming year. " I have heard 
 Mr. M'Nicoll," says he, in a letter to Mrs. Clarke, " this 
 morning at five. He is a wonderful fellow. Though a 
 Scotchman, he has excellent language, and such a flow of 
 words as you have seldom heard. He will infallibly bear 
 the bell in London. Your husband can, I believe, dig much 
 deeper ; but he certainly cannot fly so high." And again, 
 speaking of the men received into full connection : " David 
 M'Nicoll, who is coming to London, was one of them ; and 
 in a very neat lively and elegant manner, he testified of the 
 hope that was in him." Nor was the president disappointed 
 in this high estimate. Mr. M'Nicoll gave early indications 
 of a genius which, cultivated in after years by a most ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with the best literature in the English 
 language, made him one of the first preachers of the day. 
 The blandness of his natural disposition, his vivid, yet well- 
 governed imagination, his fascinating musical talent, his
 
 244 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 wealth of information, and the artless simplicity of his man- 
 ners, rendered him one of the most amiable companions ; 
 while the moral virtues of his heart and life, and the power 
 which attended his pulpit ministrations, commanded homage 
 as well as affection.* 
 
 After the exertions of the Conference, Mr. Clarke availed 
 himself of a few days relaxation, making one of a family 
 party in a tour into Wiltshire. In a series of well written 
 letters to his son Theodoret, he describes the most remark- 
 able scenes and objects which attracted their attention. Mr. 
 Butterworth, who was chief mover in the affair, had pro- 
 vided two carriages ; and they set out for Devizes, from 
 thence over Salisbury Plain, where the sight of shepherds, 
 with their flocks and dogs gave him huge delight. They 
 visited Stonehenge ; and then Wilton House, the seat of the 
 Earl of Pembroke, with its rare collections of coins and an- 
 tique sculptures, and, without, its romantic vistas, temples, 
 groves, and gardens ; a spot which altogether won, as he 
 says, his warm attachment. " We returned," he writes, " to 
 our inn, and partook of a most comfortable dinner. We 
 were all as hungry as Greenland bears. I have seldom 
 needed a meal so much, and have not been often more thank- 
 ful to God for one." On the road to Wilton they passed 
 by the church where, as he says, ""that blessed man of God 
 Mr. Herbert (the poet) formerly preached. It is entirely sur- 
 rounded with very fine tall yew-trees, and the mere sight of the 
 place impressed my mind with solemnity and reverence." 
 
 The next place was Wardour Castle, the seat of the Earl 
 of Arundel. The paintings here riveted his attention ; one 
 of them especially, " The Saviour after Death," by Spagno- 
 letto. " He (the Saviour) is represented as just taken 
 down from the cross ; the countenance indescribably expres- 
 
 * After a splendid ministerial career, Mr. M'Nicoll died suddenly at 
 Liverpool, in 1836. A noble tribute to the virtues of his intellectual and 
 Christian character has been given in a discourse preached and published 
 on the occasion by his friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. James Dixon. 
 His Works, with a biography, have been edited by his son, Dr. M'Nicoll.
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 245 
 
 sive of death, and yet highly dignified ; fully verifying the 
 words, ' No man taketh my life from me :' 'I give, up my 
 life for the sheep :' for though he groaned and gave up the 
 ghost, after he had cried with a loud voice, yet it could not 
 be said of him 
 
 Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras. 
 
 No ; you could see that he was ' free among the dead,' free 
 at liberty to resume his life whenever he pleased, as he 
 
 had given it up according to his own good pleasure 
 
 The family chapel is one of the most solemn little build- 
 ings I ever saw. It is laid out in the Romish taste ; two 
 lamps perpetually burning before the altar on which is 
 placed a costly crucifix. Through a window of stained 
 glass a sufficient measure of light makes every object visible 
 enough in conjunction with the lamps ; indeed the mixture 
 of these two lights produces a sort of illumination which 
 partakes at once of the cheerfulness of day and the solem- 
 nity of night. . . . He who can enter a place dedicated to 
 the worship of God as he does into his own habitation or 
 that of his horses, has (in my opinion) no proper notion of 
 religious worship, and is never likely to derive much edifi- 
 cation from his attendance on the ordinances of God. . . . 
 Another thing impressed us the number of religious books 
 which we saw in every apartment ; such as the History of 
 the people of God, the Imitation of Christ, etc., and all these 
 books seemed as if they were in frequent use." 
 
 In the progress of their tour they came to the village of 
 Amesbury. " It is situated among the hills, in a chalky soil, 
 and is neat, dry, and clean ; there is one inn, the George, 
 which, much to our satisfaction, afforded us a tolerable sup- 
 per and beds. Almost our first inquiry was, ' Are there 
 any religious people here 1 ?' " The waiter, who was "an in- 
 telligent man," directed them to some whom he considered 
 such, and to one, as the leader of the rest, a baker, named 
 .Edwards. "Determined to find this ecclesiastical baker, 
 we sallied out. It was a fine moonlight evening. I rapped
 
 246 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 at his door, and asked to see Mr. Edwards. He came, and 
 invited us in. We entered, and told him we were strangers 
 in the country, and that, on inquiring whether there were 
 any religious people in the village, we had been directed to 
 him. As soon as we sat down, I asked him to what class of 
 religious people he belonged. He replied, ' To Mr. Wesley's 
 people.'" After some conversation, "we were so pleased 
 with the worthy coupla, that we invited them to sup with 
 us 'at our inn, where we spent a comfortable hour together." 
 The Sabbath was spent by the tourists in Bradford, where 
 Mr. Clarke preached in the morning to a large and deeply 
 attentive congregation. Some of the old people had heard 
 him years before, when he came to their circuit in his novitiate. 
 Refreshed and strengthened in mind and body by this 
 pleasant excursion, Mr. Clarke resumed his duties in London 
 with renewed vigor. " In labors " he was " more abundant," 
 and his influence became greater every day. We read that 
 " to him that hath shall be given ;" and the subject of our 
 memoir, in being faithful to the talents confided to him, 
 became more and more enriched with those heavenly 
 gifts which rendered him in the pulpit an apostle indeed ; in 
 the study an instructor not of the ignorant only, but of the 
 learned too ; and in life " an example of the believers, in 
 word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 
 Not only in his own communion was he regarded with affec- 
 tionate reverence and homage, but in the Church at large ; 
 and among the highest literary circles his character had 
 begun to be known and admired. Some of the most dis- 
 tinguished men of the day, as Roscoe, Porson, Lord Teign- 
 mouth, Charles Butler, and Morrison of China, found pleas- 
 ure and profit in his conversation and correspondence. A 
 sermon on some public occasion would gather round his 
 pulpit one of the most choice congregations in London ; and 
 a new work from his pen was welcomed with thankful re- 
 spect by the good and by the great. Of this universal senti- 
 ment of esteem the senate of the university of Aberdeen 
 only gave a suitable expression when they conferred upon
 
 THE PKESIDENT. 247 
 
 him, in January, 1807, the diploma of Master of Arts; and, 
 thirteen months afterward, created him Doctor of Civil and 
 Canon Law. These honors had been already merited ; but 
 the university knew that the man who was now invested 
 with them gave pledges of yet greater things, which would 
 more abundantly vindicate their judgment of him, and con- 
 tribute to the honor of the learned body who had enrolled 
 him among their associates. 
 
 One of the verifications of these prognostics made its ap- 
 pearance in the following September, in the " Concise View 
 of Sacred Literature " a work in which the learned author 
 gives an analytical account of the great masterpieces of re- 
 ligious teaching, from the earliest times down to the middle 
 of the fourth century ; with the intention of resuming and 
 completing the course in a subsequent volume : a purpose 
 which, in process of time, was carried out with ability by 
 his son, the Rev. J. B. B. Clarke. A treatise on the Chris- 
 tian Eucharist, and an edition of Harmer's Observations on 
 the Scriptures, were also at this time in progress ; but Dr. 
 Clarke's main efforts turned on the great labor of his literary 
 life, his own Commentary on the Bible. 
 
 At the Liverpool Conference, in 1807, Dr. Clarke was 
 thankful to surrender the presidential seal into the hands of 
 the Rev. John Barber, his successor in office, and to receive 
 from his brethren the cordial expression of their approval 
 of the spirit and manner in which he had fulfilled his duties. 
 Anxious to promote the temporal as well as the spiritual 
 interests of his fathers and brethren in the ministry, he intro- 
 duced to the attention of the Conference at this session a 
 measure which he had closely meditated, and the adoption 
 of which would, as he conceived, be the means of affording 
 substantial consolation to many of the preachers who in 
 future years should be found in age and decay without the 
 means of temporal support. The plan, indeed, was not 
 adopted ; but it has a record here, to illustrate the large and 
 liberal thoughts of him who devised it. We will give the 
 piiptM- as it proceeded from his own pen :
 
 248 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 "BISM1LLAIII ARAIIHANI AKKAHEEMI!* 
 
 " Taking into consideration the very desolate state of the 
 superannuated preachers and widows in the Methodist Con- 
 nection, and well knowing that the provisions made by the 
 Preachers' Annuitant Society must in every case fall very 
 far short of even providing them with the necessaries of life, 
 it is proposed 
 
 " 1 . That an asylum" or college be erected with as much 
 speed as possible for the reception of superannuated preach- 
 ers, and the widows of those who have died in our Lord's 
 work. 
 
 " 2. That the asylum be erected in the vicinity of some 
 large town, in a healthy situation, where the necessaries of 
 life may be found cheap. 
 
 "3. That the asylum consist of houses, each con- 
 taining a sitting-room, two lodging-rooms, a study, a small 
 
 kitchen, and a garden, feet long, and the breadth of the 
 
 house. 
 
 "4. That the building enclose a large square of feet; 
 
 and that a commodious chapel, for the use of the institution 
 and the vicinity, bo, built in the center or one end of the 
 square. 
 
 "5. That the place itself be taken in by the traveling 
 preachers, as one of the regular places of the circuit where 
 it is situated ; and that all the residents in the asylum shall 
 meet regularly is class, and be subject to all the rules, reg- 
 ulations, etc., common to the Methodist Societies. 
 
 " 6. That no person shall be entitled to a place in this 
 college who has not been a regular traveling preacher for 
 the space of twenty years, and who has not been declared 
 superannuated by the Conference merely on account of such 
 bodily infirmities as render it impossible for him to con- 
 tinue in his work. 
 
 " 7. That no widow be admitted who has not been the 
 wife of a traveling preacher for at least twenty years, or 
 * " In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate !"
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 249 
 
 has not traveled with her husband during that time, or has 
 not maintained an unblemished character. 
 
 " 8. That if any of the widows re-marry with one of the 
 superannuated preachers, she shall go to the apartments of 
 her husband ; but should she marry with a person who is 
 not a resident in the asylum, she shall leave it. 
 
 "9. That each family have the house free of rent and 
 taxes, and a certain sum be allowed annually for coals 
 and candles. 
 
 " 10. That the superannuated preachers and widows resi- 
 dent in the asylum have the whole of the annuity which they 
 can legally claim from the preachers' fund, independent of 
 of all the privileges and advantages arising from their 
 residence. 
 
 "11. That no preacher or widow be obliged to enter 
 this institution, or be entitled to its privileges, not being 
 resident in it, unless there be no room for any proper claim- 
 ant, and the funds be in such a state as to enable the man- 
 agers to grant a certain portion of help to such persons. 
 
 " 12. That the principal friends throughout the Connection 
 be solicited for subscriptions to purchase freehold premises, 
 on which to* erect the necessary buildings." 
 
 This programme was supplemented with the following 
 postscript : " The preceding plan was laid before the Con- 
 ference by Brother Clarke; and he was required by the 
 Conference to write an Address to the members and friends 
 of the Societies, accompanied with the plan, soliciting sub- 
 scriptions for the above laudable purpose ; and the Confer- 
 ence order that the Address and Plan be printed in the Min- 
 utes and Magazine. 
 
 " J. BARBER, President. 
 "T. COKE, Secretary.' 1 ' 1 
 
 At this Conference Dr. Clarke was appointed, in conjunc- 
 tion with Dr. Coke and Mr. Benson, to draw up a compend 
 of Methodist doctrines, confirmed by Scripture, and illus-
 
 250 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 trated from the writings of Mr. Wesley. This was accord- 
 ingly compiled, and a copy sent to the chairman of every 
 district for the consideration of the preachers. 
 
 As the time drew on when, according to the usages of 
 Methodism, Dr. Clarke would have to leave the metropolis, 
 the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society ex- 
 pressed their sense of the value of his services to that great 
 institution by an official request to the Conference, that the 
 general custom might in his case be pretermitted. To this 
 unusual application, so honorable to each of the parties, the 
 Conference, from an earnest desire to promote the interests 
 of the Bible Society, gave their full consent. In the course 
 of the year Dr. Clarke removed from City Road, and took 
 up his residence at the Surrey Institution, to the librarianship 
 of which he had allowed himself to be nominated under the 
 circumstances disclosed in the following extract from a cor- 
 respondence on the subject with Mr. Butterworth : 
 
 " Whether I propose myself for librarian to the Surrey 
 Institution, or permit another to do so, is nearly the same 
 thing. It is a fixed principle with me never to be a candi- 
 date for a public office, either in Church or State ; and from 
 this I have never swerved. My heart is in every literary 
 institution : I believe they are all ordered in the Divine 
 providence. Perhaps I am as weil qualified, in many re- 
 spects, for the office, as I am for any of those I now fill. I 
 must contine in London another year." In short, he left the 
 matter with the authorities of the Institution, and they 
 elected him. 
 
 Invested with the office, he confronted its duties with his 
 usual decision. " Mark," says he, " I have all the books in 
 both libraries to provide : I have to travel from shop to 
 shop, to examine books, to compare prices before I purchase, 
 I have lectures, and the plan of lectures, and even their mat 
 ter, to arrange : I have to construct the whole machine, 
 and to give it proper momentum and direction ; to be 
 incessant in labor, and to employ all my bibliographical 
 and philosophical knowledge in those things ; and, as I
 
 THE PKESIDENT. 251 
 
 have taken them in hand, I shall do them, if God spare 
 my life." 
 
 Among the smaller pieces which Dr. Clarke published at 
 this time, was a memoir of the last hours of that distin- 
 guished scholar, Professor Person ; a notice which details 
 some literary conversation which the writer had with the 
 illustrious Grecian, on some points relating to the archae- 
 ology of his favorite language. Another biographical sketch 
 was written for the Wesleyan Magazine. It refers to a 
 man as eminent for the sanctity of his life as the subject of 
 the former memoir was remarkable for his attainments in 
 Greek scholarship the Rev. John Pawson. This little 
 piece will be always read with refreshment and edification 
 by those who know anything of the power of religion in the 
 soul. It presents a graphic portraiture of " a man of irre- 
 proachable integrity, of unspotted life, and of very extensive 
 usefulness. As he honored God with his body, soul, and 
 substance, so God honored him by giving him the highest 
 affection and confidence of his Church and people ; with an 
 unction and baptism of the Holy Ghost, and with such a 
 victory and triumph over sin, death, and the grave, as would 
 have been glorious even in the apostolic times." 
 
 The labors of Dr. Clarke in the field of English history, 
 in accomplishing the redaction of a great portion of Rymer's 
 Fcedera, will claim a more particular review in another 
 chapter. I only refer to the subject here to notice a trans- 
 action in which he was engaged about this time, in the pur- 
 chase of the diplomatic and private papers of Sir Andrew 
 Mitchell, English ambassador to the court of Berlin during 
 the seven years' war. It was judged that documents which 
 immediately related to a period so eventful should not be 
 allowed to perish ; and Dr. Clarke was requested to nego- 
 tiate for their purchase, on behalf of the trustees of the Cot- 
 tonian Library at the British Museum. He obtained the 
 papers for 400 ; and, on his delivering them personally at 
 the Museum, they were sealed up for thirty years, (accord- 
 ing to the usual agreement in such cases,) to obviate injuri-
 
 252 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ous results to private or public parties who might be in- 
 volved in the secrets of the transactions recorded in them. 
 I may add here, from the family memorandum, that at the 
 termination of this business Sir William Forbes, at whose 
 instance it had been undertaken, inquired of a friend of the 
 doctor, what compensation he should make to him for his 
 trouble ; but he was assured by that friend (Robert Eden 
 Scott, Esq.) that Dr. Clarke would be found above receiv- 
 ing remuneration for acts of that kind. Sir William 
 therefore contented himself with presenting to the doc- 
 tor a copy of the Nova Reperta Inscriptionum Anti- 
 quarum, with a record on the fly-leaf expressive of the 
 donor's regard. 
 
 The same characteristic of disinterestedness shows itself 
 in the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of librarian 
 at the Surrey Institution. Finding that they were really 
 incompatible with the momentous undertakings, ministerial 
 and literary, in which his whole existence should be ab- 
 sorbed, he, at the end of ten months' service, relinquished 
 the situation, and refused to receive the salary. The coun- 
 cil of the Institution attested their admiration of his import- 
 ant and generous services, by installing him as permanent 
 honorary librarian to the Society. Dr. Clarke now re- 
 moved his residence to Harpur-street, Bloomsbury. 
 
 In the department of Biblical literature, in addition to 
 some extensive engagements on behalf of the Bible Society, 
 he took a zealous part in the measures adopted by the late 
 Rev. Josiah Pratt, B.D., for a new edition of the London 
 Polyglot. At the request of Lord Teignmouth, Dr. Bur- 
 gess, bishop of St. David's,* and some other friends of this 
 
 * " I had on Monday between two and three hours' conversation with 
 Lord Teignmouth and the bishop of St. David's. It was indeed very in- 
 teresting, and the bishop was mightily pleased ; so was Lord Teign- 
 mouth. The bishop is to lay the project before the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, the Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Salisbury. Lord 
 Teignmouth is to lay it before Lord Granville, Earl Spencer, and several 
 others. Never did a project seem to have a fairer prospect. Mr. Pratt 
 and I were deputed to draw up a short account, with a specimen, and get
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 253 
 
 undertaking, he furnished a specimen sheet in royal folio, 
 and another in octavo. This, under the title of " A Plan 
 and Specimen of Biblia Polyglotta Britannica ; or, an en- 
 larged and improved Edition of the London Polyglot Bible, 
 with Castel's Heptaglot Lexicon," was printed and circulated 
 among the literati at home and abroad. But this noble and 
 much needed enterprise came to nothing, for want of adequate 
 patronage. A copy of the prospectus may be found in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 But the time had now come in which Dr. Clarke's long 
 preparatory labors enabled him to present to the world the 
 first part of his own edition of the English Bible, with the 
 Commentary which has given him a lasting name among 
 the great Biblical teachers of the Church. In the early part 
 of the year he put forth a prospectus of the work, which ex- 
 cited general attention, and not the less on account of a con- 
 troversial paper from the Rev. Thomas Scott, (himself one 
 of the most valuable of the English annotators on the 
 Bible,) who, in "The Christian Observer," impugned the 
 statement that Dr. Clarke had made in the prospectus, that 
 the Septuagint was the version to which our Lord and his 
 apostles had constant recourse, and from which they made 
 all their quotations. The animadversions of this respected 
 clergyman were answered by Dr. Clarke, through the me- 
 dium of the same journal, in a paper which has been re- 
 printed in his Miscellaneous Works. In the month of July 
 following, the first portion of the Commentary made its ap- 
 pearance, and was soon in the hands not only of the reading 
 people in the doctor's own religious communion, (among 
 whom it received an enthusiastic welcome,) but of a multi- 
 tude of the eminent and pious in every branch of the Christ- 
 ian Church. 
 
 All this while the Methodist preacher was not merged 
 and lost in the man of letters, and the companion of peers 
 
 it printed. We have it already at the press. There is little doubt of our 
 having His Majesty as patron, and the weightiest part of the bench of 
 bishops, and the lords temporal." (Letter to Mrs. Clarke, May, 1810.)
 
 25-i LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 and prelates. In this respect Dr. Clarke was evermore the 
 same man ; he dwelt among his own people, and with heart 
 and hand labored with his brethren for the promotion of the 
 cause of Christ in the conversion of sinners, and the edifica- 
 tion of the Church redeemed by his precious blood ; in the 
 advancement of which both he and they found their peace, 
 and glory, and joy. We have, indeed, but few documents 
 relating to his circuit-work at this period ; but here and 
 there in a letter we catch a glimpse of his manner of life. 
 " I was up this morning about four, and fagged till about a 
 quarter past five, and then had to walk to City Road to at- 
 tend the meeting at six." So far were the interests of 
 Methodism from being slighted by Dr. Clarke, they were 
 advanced by the steps of his own progress. His pulpit 
 ministry was now in its effulgent meridian, and the growing 
 influence of his name attracted many to the chapels in the 
 metropolis who might otherwise have been strangers to 
 them all their days. 
 
 So, wherever he went, in his occasional journeys, crowds 
 assembled round the pulpit where he was to preach even a 
 passing sermon. Thus at St. Austell, in a tour which he 
 took into the west in the autumn : " Short as the notice 
 was, we had the chapel quite full, and several of the princi- 
 pal gentry made part of the congregation. I preached on 
 Ephesians iii, 13, etc. ; and though very weak, and quite 
 fagged out, spoke an hour and twenty minutes. I met here 
 many of my old friends, but the greater number are 
 dead. 
 
 " We got to Camelford late in the evening, and were fol- 
 lowed by some of the principal of our St. Austell friends, 
 among whom are Mrs. Flamank and Mr. S. Drew. Many 
 more were to set off to-day, to be present at the preaching 
 to-morrow ; but the incessant rain must render it impracti- 
 cable. The floods wash the sides of the room where I am 
 now writing, and are so high in the streets, that [the com- 
 munication between] the upper and lower parts of the town 
 is cut off. I am to preach here twice to-morrow, and on
 
 THE PRESIDENT. 255 
 
 Monday morning to leave for Launceston, Exeter, etc. 
 Should I stay here any longer, I should have invitations 
 from every part of Cornwall. If eating and drinking could 
 make us happy, it would be enjoyed here in perfection ; the 
 finest salmon in the world for sixpence per pound ; whitings, 
 several pounds' weight, for twopence each ; large rabbits a 
 shilling a couple; and so of other things. Here a man 
 may maintain a large family with a small income. Will 
 you come, and let your poor husband get out of that world 
 to live in which he was never calculated ? I corrected a re- 
 vise this morning, and sent off by post. There are a few 
 memoranda in it directed to Theo. I do not get much sleep 
 at night, and this does not agree with me. I am seldom 
 contented when from home, which prevents me from getting 
 much benefit when abroad. The man lives ill at home who 
 rejoices to go abroad and returns to his family with reluct- 
 ance. So it never was with me. I have been obliged to 
 get the shoes, soled by Mr. before I came away, re- 
 soled. The soles put on by him were not worth two- 
 pence." 
 
 We are not fastidious enough to reject these little details. 
 The critic well says, that " biography is useless which is 
 not true to life. Even the weaknesses of character must be 
 preserved, however insignificant or humbling. The jest- 
 book of Tacitus, the medicated drinks of Bacon, the prepar- 
 atory violin of Bourdaloue, and the fancy -lighting damsons 
 of Dryden, have their place and value. They are the errata 
 of genius, and clear up the text. A French mathematician 
 had doubts about the animal wants of Newton, and was dis- 
 posed to regard him as an intellectual being in whom the 
 mind's flame had absorbed each grosser particle. It is cer- 
 tainly a precipitous fall from dividing a ray of light, or 
 writing Comus, to weariness and dinner. But biography 
 admonishes pride, when it displays Salmasius shivering un- 
 der the eyes of his wife, or bids us stand at the door of 
 Milton's academy and hear the work of the ferule up-stairs. 
 It steals on the poet and the premier in their undress Cow-
 
 256 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ley, in dressing-gown and slippers ; Cecil, with his treasur- 
 er's robe on the chair;" and, as we may add, on Adam 
 Clarke, looking ruefully on the unstable foundation of his 
 shoes. 
 
 " Camelford. I have finished my Sunday's work. 
 Preached this morning, and gave the sacrament. Mr. Drew 
 preached in the afternoon, and I again at night. I assure 
 you those were high times. The day was very fine, and 
 the people flocked together from all quarters. At the eve- 
 ning service Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Johnson were so 
 affected, that they were almost on the eve of making a glo- 
 rious noise ; and the latter was just going to break out in 
 prayer, when prevented by the blessing being pronounced. 
 This visit has done many great good. It is strange, but the 
 chief members, in almost all the societies round about, were 
 convinced and brought to God under my ministry. . . . 
 Our whole journey has been one of mercy. God has espe- 
 cially owned the word ; many have been blessed. We had 
 a crowd about us when we set off, and yesterday was a high 
 day indeed."
 
 ITINERANCY. 257 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ITINERANCY. 
 
 A FEW months later we find Dr. Clarke performing an 
 extensive tour in Ireland, whither he had gone on some re- 
 searches relative to the State Record Commission with which 
 he had now been entrusted by the government, and to meet 
 the Irish preachers at their annual Conference. His letters 
 homeward detail some particulars of this expedition, which 
 give us his revived impressions of years now receding into 
 the immeasurable past. 
 
 " Holyhead, May 30. I wrote to you from Shrewsbury, 
 my very dear Mary, on Tuesday. Having slept there, we 
 set off between five and six in the morning ; and after trav- 
 eling through the wildest, most uncultivated and uncultivat- 
 able country I ever saw, vast mountains, sudden and tre- 
 mendous precipices, huge overhanging rocks, rivers tumb- 
 ling over the mountains ; a country which exhibits all the 
 disruptions which nature could have suffered by every sort 
 of violence, . . . we got safe, eighty-five miles on the whole, 
 a little before ten, to Bangor Ferry. A good supper, and 
 went to bed ; slept till just before five ; crossed the ferry, 
 breakfasted at the house where you and I and John had the 
 bottle of fine cider twenty- two years ago, and then reached 
 Holyhead. . . . The very sight of some of the precipices 
 would have drunk up your soul." 
 
 "Dublin, 31. Having got a little breakfast, I set out to 
 deliver my credentials to Mr. Mason, the secretary. Did 
 not find him at home. Met him on returning, and appointed 
 to meet him within two hours. Went to visit the preachers, 
 and none of them at home. N. B. The old breakfasting-out 
 system still lasts, I entered the house where we had suf- 
 
 17
 
 258 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 fered so many calamities, not without strong emotions. The 
 school is now held in the parlor on the right, as you go in. 
 
 I then called on Mr. , and found him embalming his 
 
 already demi-mummized body with nicotian fumes. Called 
 to see John Jones and his wife. Mad with joy to see me. 
 Then to Mr. and Mrs. P. Then to H.-street, to see my 
 cousin Boyd. They have a fine tall daughter, whom they 
 call Eve. The father's name you know is Adam. He 
 knows the genealogy of our family most nobly, and tells me 
 he can trace it up through seventeen Irish kings. Now, go 
 to : could you have thought you were allied to one who can 
 trace the pure current of his blood through seventeen mon- 
 archs ? I hope you will now begin to think much of your- 
 self. Leaving them, proceeded to the secretary's, and ex- 
 amined with him different MS. indexes. He showed me un- 
 common kindness, and furnished me with letters to Trinity 
 College. I posted thither, and met Dr. Barrett coming 
 down his own stairs and going into the hall on an examina- 
 tion. He has appointed to meet me to-morrow at eleven. 
 Returned to my lodging completely wearied, having walked 
 over Dublin from one end to the other. . . . Tell John to 
 see that nothing exceptionable in the natural history of the 
 Defense of the Nachash be permitted to pass."* 
 
 When journeying in the provinces Dr. Clarke was care- 
 ful to avail himself of opportunities for preaching the Gospel. 
 Thus, at Charlernont : " Sunday morning. The people throng- 
 ing together from all quarters, it was found impracticable to 
 preach in the chapel. We sent therefore to the commander of 
 the fort to permit us the use of one of the yards. He readily 
 acceded, and came himself and several of his men. It was 
 a very stormy morning, and I was obliged to stand exposed 
 to the wind and rain. We had a very good time, and as 
 soon as finished I drove off for Dungannon. PI ere the crowd 
 was great, and we had scarcely hope to stow them into the 
 chapel, which is by far the largest I have seen since we left 
 
 * Probably referring to a paper written for the Classical Journal, in re- 
 ply to a critique on bin theory of the Nachash in Gen. iii, 1.
 
 ITINERANCY. 259 
 
 Dublin. As I now felt a touch of sore throat, I dared not 
 venture in the open air a second time. We got to the chapel. 
 Greatly crowded. Numbers without. Great grace rested 
 upon all. Many of our old friends followed from Armagh 
 and Charlemont, and others came from twenty miles around." 
 
 From Magherafelt he writes : " We proceeded from Dun- 
 gannon to Cookstown, where I had been published to preach 
 in the Dissenting meeting-house. . . . When I got to the 
 place, could hardly articulate, owing to the severe cold 
 caught on Sunday morning. There was no remedy. Into 
 the pulpit. It was supposed that three thousand were pres- 
 ent, from far and near and wide. I went in, found I could 
 not preach, and gave it over as a lost case. I, however, 
 thought of saying a few words by way of exhortation. The 
 people were as still as death. I spoke for forty-five minutes, 
 and with much freedom. All the principal people were 
 there, and several of the clergy. Yesterday we came to this 
 place. It is astonishing to think of the concourse of people. 
 We have no chapel here. Got the Presbyterian meeting- 
 house, and preached with glorious power I believe, to every 
 relative I have in the kingdom : they had heard of my com- 
 ing, and to the sixth or eigth generation were gathered to- 
 gether. I am now just setting off for Maghera." 
 
 In another letter: "From Castle Dawson I proceeded 
 toward Maghera, and stopped to view the place where I had 
 spent the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth years of my check- 
 ered life. Half the house in which we lived, one of the best 
 in that country, is pulled down. ... I walked through the 
 grounds where I had laughed and cried, sought birds' nests, 
 looked for fairies' haunts, made good resolutions, and spent 
 the most happy (and, perhaps, the most innocent) period of 
 my life. Though I had left that place when about eight 
 years of age, yet I remembered every hill and every hedge, 
 where my brother and I used to see the fairies' nocturnal fires. 
 The orchard, from which I had eaten often of the choicest 
 fruit, no longer exists. Zion is plowed like a field. The 
 emotions to which these scenes now gave birth cannot be de-
 
 260 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 scribed. . . . They connect the long interval between four 
 years of age and fifty. ... To the poor woman I gave 
 three tenpenny pieces, who received them as from heaven, 
 and, addressing the child, said, ' See, my dear, God has sent 
 you a new coat by this gentleman ; and may the blessing 
 of God rest upon him and his family forever !' . . . We 
 soon got to Maghera looking over which before dinner, 
 went to the quondam dwelling of Dr. Bernard, the Bishop 
 of Limerick, celebrated in Boswell. This is also in a state 
 of ruin ; nothing like its former self, except the great 
 beech-tree. Left the place with reflections not the most 
 pleasant. . . . 
 
 " The next morning I set out to visit the Grove, and to 
 look for my old dwelling, and the school-house in the wood ; 
 but could get no farther than the Grove." 
 
 From Coleraine : " Our preaching-house being too small 
 in Derry, I was furnished with the Court-house, a large and 
 elegant building, and in it preached on the Lord's day to 
 crowded congregations. Yesterday I went out to Ballyaher- 
 ton, where we formally resided; and when I came to the 
 old habitation, I surveyed it with reverence. A poor woman 
 was standing at the door. I said, ' Will you permit me to 
 walk into your house ?' ' She said, ' O sir, it is not a proper 
 place for such a gentleman as you v to enter.' I answered, 
 4 1 have had the privilege of living in it for several years.' 
 ... I gave the children each a tenpenny piece. Peram- 
 bulating the neighborhood, I came to a place called Port- 
 Stewart, where I had often held religious meetings. None 
 knew me. But, after I had discovered myself to one, the 
 news ran, and the people came in every direction about 
 me. . . . 
 
 "Returned to Coleraine, where I had to preach. . . . 
 Was not a little surprised to see Captain O'Neil's and Mr. 
 Crombie's chariot-sociable, and all their family, who came 
 to hear preaching, the first of the Methodist kind they had 
 ever heard. . . . Preached, thank God, a glorious sermon, 
 two hours, Everybody to hear; almost all, if not all, the
 
 ITINERANCY. 261 
 
 gentry of the town, and some others from five or six miles 
 distant. This day we went to the Giant's Causeway. . . , 
 It fell short of my expectation. The pain of which I com- 
 plained at home has continued with little intermission." 
 
 From Antrim, on the longest day : " Yesterday left Cole- 
 raine for Bally mena, a journey of twenty-two miles. Thirty- 
 two years ago I walked this same road to a love-feast. Only 
 one woman remains of those who were in society at that 
 time. . . . On my arrival to-day, as our own chapel was 
 utterly insufficient, the Rev. Mr. Babbington, the rector, 
 kindly offered me the use of his church, which, on the tolling 
 of the bell, was soon filled with a great concourse, to whom 
 I found considerable liberty in showing what were the doc- 
 trines of the apostles, from Acts ii, 42. To-day we left for 
 Antrim, and here we should have had another church ; but 
 the rector happened to be away, and our people had not ap- 
 plied in time. Preached in the Presbyterian chapel." 
 
 On the way to Antrim Dr. Clarke visited the Moravian 
 settlement of Grace Hill. They pressed him to give them 
 an address in the chapel. " We entered," he says, " and I 
 was surprised to find a large congregation. I desired the 
 minister to give out one of his own hymns. He did so, and 
 they all accompanied the organ in good full chorus. The 
 hymn gave me excellent scope to speak on for half an hour." 
 They sang a parting hymn, and he commended them to God 
 in prayer. The settlement contained at that time four hun- 
 dred members. He preached again the same evening in An- 
 trim, " a good deal to my hurt, as, my mental energy being 
 greatly exhausted, I was obliged to exert the greater physi- 
 cal force ; and this to me is ever unpleasant and hurtful." 
 
 Sunday, June 23. He preached twice in Belfast. Immense 
 crowds. His voice failed in the evening ; and again at Lis- 
 burn next day. On the Wednesday at Lurgan, out of doors 
 " as nothing but a field would contain the thousands that 
 gathered together. The day following it was agreed that I 
 should rest : I go therefore to dine with Mr. Hamilton, and 
 to-morrow preach at Portadown."
 
 262 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 From the latter place he writes : " Well, I am now re- 
 turned from preaching to the largest congregation I ever 
 addressed. I had almost all the town and all the country, 
 peasantry, gentry, magistrates, preachers, and clergy. The 
 grass does not cover the field more thickly than the peo- 
 ple. ... I found both strength and mind for the work, and 
 trust God will not permit the word to have been spoken in 
 vain." 
 
 In the same way the Doctor preached at Drogheda, 
 making five times in the open air within the last eight days 
 of the tour. On the 2d of July he arrived in Dublin. 
 
 " Mr. Butterworth and Joseph are well : they are both 
 greatly improved by their journey ; and I am conscious that 
 I am much the worse every way. My clothes are worn out, 
 and are not fit to appear in, even in the meanest congregation. 
 I have had nothing but fatigue and suffering all the time. 
 My love to everybody." 
 
 The Conference which now opened, and at which Dr. Clarke 
 had come to preside, consisted of about a hundred preachers 
 from all parts of Ireland. "I assure you they are all equal, 
 man for man, with the English preachers. They are all 
 walking with a clear sense of their acceptance with God ; 
 which is of infinite moment, not only to their own salvation, 
 but to the prosperity of the work of God. 
 
 " Yesterday I went to dine with the Rev. Dr. . 
 
 Several' of the clergy were present, and a number of gen- 
 teel persons of both sexes. The house was elegant, and the 
 entertainment splendid. But what we were brought together 
 for, unless merely to eat, I am to this hour at a loss to di- 
 vine. No topic of conversation was started, and no person 
 seemed to notice another. Whether this is to be attributed 
 to self-sufficient confidence, or to a fear of each other, I do 
 not pretend to say : but the repast ended, as it began, in 
 comparative silence ; and then I took French leave, heartily 
 sorry I had lost so much time, or had, probably, been the 
 means of preventing the company from enjoying theirs. . . . 
 This day I dined at Major Sirr's, at the Castle ; where, had I
 
 1TINEEANCY. 263 
 
 not been confined for time, I should have spent a pleasant 
 and profitable evening." 
 
 The Conference ended on the 17th, leaving Dr. Clarke 
 greatly exhausted. Toward the close of his sta*y in Dublin, 
 he accompanied Mr. Butterworth on a visit to the college of 
 Maynooth, where they were " very politely received by 
 Father De la Hogue, one of the professors. It costs our 
 government 9,000 per annum. Mr. Knox is the treasurer. 
 Students, three hundred. I saw nothing very remarkable. 
 Their library is a poor one, and their chapel not elegant. 
 The only thing I saw worth observation was the following, 
 written in large letters above the fire-place in the kitchen : 
 'Be clean, have taste, don't want, don't waste.' When 
 coming away I offered my hand to Father De la Hogue ; 
 but he declined receiving it. He had received us with the 
 utmost politeness. I was a heretic, and therefore he would 
 not give me the right hand of fellowship. His politeness and 
 courtesy were, therefore, put on. What an execrable system, 
 which cramps and freezes all the charities of human life ! 
 
 " I must now begin to do something for the Records the 
 remaining part of this week." This latter employment now 
 occupied him closely. " I am still driving from office to 
 office, till nearly off my feet. . . . If it would do me any good 
 I have honor here in great abundance. People whom I have 
 never known, both among the clergy and nobility, call on me 
 and leave their cards. Invitations to the city, to the suburbs, 
 the country, are without end. Last Sunday evening, when I 
 preached at the new Chapel, the street was filled with chari- 
 ots, coaches, berlins, and jaunting-cars; and I had lords, 
 ladies, knights, doctors, clergy, laity, in full score. I wish 
 you had been with me I have been obliged to go to the 
 barracks and dine with the officers, who behaved with the 
 utmost politeness and respect."* 
 
 On Dr. Clarke's return to England he had to encounter 
 the grief occasioned by the decease of his mother. Her 
 
 * Of this tour in Ireland I have given the above notices from the Doc- 
 tor's manuscript letters.
 
 264 LIFE OF ADAM CLAliKE. 
 
 health had been for some time rapidly declining. He had 
 seen her at Bristol on his way to Ireland, and had found her 
 in the full possession of her faculties, calmly waiting for her 
 translation to the eternal mansions. On the subject of the 
 coming change she spoke with a devout serenity ; and, on 
 parting with her son, she commended him with earnest prayer 
 to the blessing of God. Yet, in the course of his ministerial 
 tour, the Doctor seems to have expected still once again to 
 visit this beloved parent. Her decease, however, transpired 
 so closely on the eve of his return, that no news of it had 
 reached him on the way. " But," says her grandaughter, 
 "from the constrained manner and tearful eyes which but 
 too eloquently replied to the almost first interrogation upon 
 entering his house, ' Is all well V the truth could not be con- 
 cealed ; upon which his countenance instantly grew pale, his 
 lips quivered, he spoke not, but in the silence of the heart's 
 agony, with upraised eyes and heaving chest, he retired to 
 his study." 
 
 " The heart knoweth its own bitterness." We envy not 
 the man who is not bowed down at the death of the mother 
 who bare him, the guide of his youth, the moralist of his 
 heart, and the encourager of every good feeling and worthy 
 action ; and such had been Mrs. Clarke to him who now 
 mourned her departure. Her image was ever dear to his 
 memory, and her earliest lessons had shaped the character 
 and conduct of his life. Yet must his sorrow have been not 
 without thankfulness for the grace shown both to himself 
 and her, in sanctifying and saving them together ; not without 
 the full assurance of hope that they should alike have their 
 perfect consummation and bliss in the everlasting kingdom 
 of Him who had redeemed them. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Roberts, the friend and neighbor of 
 the departed matron, wrote to Dr. Clarke, on the occasion, a 
 letter of condolence, in which he appropriately says : " You 
 are justified in entertaining the best feelings when you reflect 
 that good Mrs. Clarke was your mother. She lived just so 
 long, and died so well, as to leave in the heart of her son
 
 ITINERANCY. 265 
 
 nothing but acquiescence in the Divine will, and gratitude 
 for that gracious dispensation of Heaven which could not 
 have been manifested in a manner more consolatory to the 
 feelings of the man, the son, and the Christian." 
 
 Dr. Clarke was speedily summoned from the indulgence 
 of lonesome grief, to resume those life-absorbing efforts 
 which Providence had ordained as the task of his existence, 
 and in the fulfillment of which his own preparation for the 
 rest that remaineth unto the people of God could be best 
 carried on. In the stated work of the pulpit, in advancing 
 the Commentary, and in discharging the duties resulting 
 from his engagement with the Record Commission, the 
 weeks and months passed rapidly away. These avocations 
 called him to Cambridge, to Oxford, and again to Ireland. 
 Connected with his sojourn at Cambridge in December, he 
 makes a memorandum on the formation of a Bible Society 
 in that town: "Lord Hard \vicke," says he, "was in the 
 chair, supported by Lord Francis Osborne, the dean of Car- 
 lisle, and several of the professors. The meeting lasted 
 from eleven till four o'clock ; and such speeches I never 
 heard. Mr. Owen exceeded his former self; Mr. Dealtry 
 spoke like an angel ; and Dr. E. D. Clarke, the traveler, 
 like a seraph. Everything was carried, and the meeting 
 ended in a blaze of celestial light. Every man seemed 
 to swear that he would carry the Bible to all who never 
 knew it, so far as the providence of God should permit him 
 to go. For myself, I did not laugh and cry alternately ; I 
 did both together, and completely wet my pocket-hand- 
 kerchief with tears. Between two and three hundred 
 young men of the University were the first movers in this 
 business." In the following April he visited Cambridge 
 again, and was hospitably entertained at Corpus Christi 
 College. During this sojourn he had several hopeful con- 
 versations with some of the junior gownsmen, who greatly 
 pleased him "by their disposition and manners." One of 
 these, the Rev. Thomas Galland, M.A., became a distin- 
 guished ornament to the Methodist ministry.
 
 266 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIP. 
 
 ITINERANCY. 
 
 IN June Dr. Clarke resumed his travels in Ireland. " Left 
 London," writes he, " at six A. M., in the Liverpool coach, 
 having under my care a young lady, Miss O'Connor, a per- 
 fect stranger to me, but whom I was requested to protect 
 to Dublin. I soon found that she was a Roman Catholic, 
 but of an amiable disposition, and, in her own way, con- 
 scientiously religious. At the place of our last changing 
 between Prescot and Warrington, Mr. Nuttall, Mr. Fisher, 
 and their man and carriage were waiting, and took me and 
 my little ward to their place, called Nut Grove, where they 
 were distractingly glad to see me. On our journey I ob- 
 served that my ward had a French work, called Journal du 
 Chretien, (the Christian's Diary,) in which there is a prayer 
 and what is called ' an act of devotion,' for the morning and 
 evening of each day. Poor little thing, though she had no 
 place of retirement to do these devotions, yet such is her 
 fear of God, that she could not neglect them ; and therefore, 
 at the proper time, both morning and evening, she took out 
 her book and read her little devotions. I rejoiced to show 
 her that a heretic, so called, loves the same God." 
 
 "June 11. I preached in Liverpool to an immense crowd. 
 I understand a Roman Catholic lady, who had long been 
 seeking rest for her soul, came to the preaching. She was 
 deeply convinced that the foundation of her hope must be 
 alone in the death and merits of Christ. Her heart ap- 
 peared as if broken under the word, and God showed her 
 the way of salvation by faith through the blood of the 
 cross." The doctor preached again on the 14th at Bruns- 
 wick Chapel, on " the providence and mercy of God ; who
 
 ITINERANCY. 267 
 
 wrought for his own name, and I have reason to believe 
 much good was done. We had a bad night at sea ; one 
 mast was split, and the wind was against us. Through 
 mercy we reached Dublin in safety." 
 
 " A gentleman attthe Custom House, seeing ' Dr. Clarke ' 
 on different boxes, (for it was on all Miss O'Connor's,) 
 came out into the mob that surrounded us, and inquired for 
 Dr. Clarke. I answered. He took me into the Custom 
 House, instantly passed all the boxes, would take no 
 money, saw us both into a jingle, and told the fellow to be- 
 ware he took no more than his fare, which was six shillings 
 and sixpence ; and so we got safely to Mr. Keene's." 
 
 Dr. Clarke's health was again' distressingly impaired. 
 He suffered so much, that existence seemed at times a mar- 
 tyrdom. Through the grace given to him, his will bore up 
 with an indomitable energy, and carried him through the 
 labors of the pulpit, or preaching in the open air, the presi- 
 dency of the Conference, and the researches of the State 
 Record business, while many a man in like affliction would 
 have been at home in his bed. 
 
 " We this day commence our operations on the Lodge 
 Manuscripts, and I shall open my way with the chancellor 
 of Christ Church, perhaps call on Dr. Barrett and others. 
 Major Sirr's family fully expected me to lodge there ; but 
 our people and the preachers have taken fire at the propo- 
 sal. I found here an affectionate letter from Mr. Averell, 
 who is waiting to convey me to Cork, etc. But such a jour- 
 ney is now xitterly out of my power. Another letter was 
 in waiting from Mr. Mayne, of Drogheda, an extract from 
 which will not displease you: 'Dear Doctor, Our people 
 anxiously desire to see you ; and the public at large, to hear 
 you once more. Pray do visit us. The last time you were 
 here, God gave a Roman Catholic to your ministry. He is 
 thoroughly steady, and his wife has since died in the Lord 
 Jesus. Come, therefore; who knows but God may give 
 you another?' I know what both you and Mr. Butterworth 
 will say ; and, please God, I shall obey you. There I shall
 
 268 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 go, God willing I think Wednesday preach to them on 
 Thursday, and return on Friday, if this horrible seizure (of 
 affliction) will give me so much respite. But it so thorough- 
 ly embitters every comfort, that I cannot rejoice in anything 
 without trembling. For eight days I have swallowed noth- 
 ing, cold or hot, solid or fluid, without great, often extreme 
 pain. I am in constant pain, and often in agony indescrib- 
 able." 
 
 " June 22. When in Liverpool, I preached two sermons ; 
 and it appears that God has owned them in a signal man- 
 ner. They have produced a universal stir. A Roman 
 Catholic lady was thoroughly converted under the first ; she 
 has since joined Miss Titherington's class, and given a won- 
 derful testimony. The trustees waited on me formally to 
 thank me for my visit, and to request that I would come to 
 them next year. Yesterday preached at Wesley Chapel, 
 and at Whitefriars'-street. High fever and utmost exhaust- 
 ion. Cough most oppressive to-day." 
 
 "June 26. I am just this minute returned from Drog- 
 heda. Mr. Tobias, Mr. F., and John accompanied me. 
 Yesterday morning they entertained us with a public break- 
 fast ; you know I not only do not like, but detest such 
 meetings. However, as it was done to honor me, I endeav- 
 ored to receive it in good part, and" gave them a sort of 
 sermon for about half an hour. [The interval to the even- 
 ing was spent in an excursion to the. scene of the battle of 
 the Boyne, and some other remarkable spots.] ... I went 
 into all the hovels in this most miserable village, (Munster- 
 boyce,) where Mr. Butterworth's bounty enabled me to 
 leave a handful of silver last year. I found them in the 
 same or worse misery ; and, trusting in God, I opened my 
 stock, and, according to their different necessities, divided 
 with them at least as much as last year. ... I got a tor- 
 rent of most hearty prayers for me and mine. I was not a 
 little tried when I found I must preach in the new market- 
 place in the open air. . . . The hour came, and I went to 
 the spot. There were about a thousand people ; many
 
 ITINERANCY. 269 
 
 Catholics, and among them two or three priests. There 
 were also two clergymen. What good may have been 
 done, I know not. If God have glory, my labor is not in 
 vain." 
 
 " July 1. We began our Stationing Committee this morn- 
 ing, and have just got through forty circuits. To-morrow 
 will finish that part of the work, and on Friday we enter 
 on the regular work of the Conference." 
 
 The business of the Stationing Committee brought more 
 vividly before Dr. Clarke's mind his own approaching 
 change of circuit ; a subject which, in his peculiar circum- 
 stances, excited some uneasiness. It is on this point that 
 he here adds : " Now, my dear Mary, with respect to going 
 to Liverpool; I am far from being happy in London. I 
 feel uncomfortable in Harpur-street. I am maintained by 
 the Society, and they have no adequate work for their 
 money. I do not think I am acting with justice to take the 
 maintenance of a preacher, while not doing one half of his 
 work. Added to this, it is a considerable expense to Mr. 
 B. to make up taxes and deficiencies. . . . You know I am 
 not partial to Liverpool ; yet here there seems to be an 
 open door. Not only the Catholic lady was converted 
 when I preached there on my way hither, but also a deist. 
 Perhaps, by others, more accustomed to see God's hand in 
 these matters, these would be considered tokens for good, 
 and particular calls. What can I do ? My own mind leads 
 me to give up at once, because I cannot do the full work ; 
 and neither my judgment nor conscience will allow me to 
 eat bread in this way, which I have not earned. Indeed, 
 the business is come to a crisis with me. In my present 
 way I shall go on no longer. I have suffered greatly in my 
 mind last year on this account ; and shall I commence an- 
 other in the same circumstances 1 My day of digging is 
 over ; and as to begging, I never could do it. But I may 
 still earn a little bread ; though, from all appearances, not 
 long. But that I must leave. I feel I am too much in the 
 bustle of life, and to this there is no congeniality in my
 
 270 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 nature. My heart and soul have long said : ' O that I had 
 in the wilderness the lodging-place of a wayfaring man !' 
 But I am brought on the eve of Conference, without plan, 
 arrangement, or prospect of being put in circumstances 
 where my mind can be at ease. . . . My cough and oppres- 
 sion still continue unabated, and I am not able to take as 
 much sleep as is necessary to support life.'.' 
 
 We transcribe these sentences, however reluctantly, to 
 show the honorable feelings of the writer, and to make them 
 serve to explain some of the after-movements of his life. 
 But, while we read them, let us bear in mind that he who 
 was giving way to morbid self-accusations was all the while 
 one of the most hard-working men among all his contempo- 
 raries in the Lord's vineyard. Let us hear him in the next 
 letter : 
 
 "July 5. From six in the morning till four, in the Con- 
 ference. Before I go in the morning, writing till within the 
 few minutes it takes to trot to the chapel. As soon as I 
 come home, up with the pen, and continue every minute till 
 I go to bed, except the very short time I take to get a little 
 food. I do not get half sleep. I have preached this morn- 
 ing at seven, at Gravel Walk. Before I went, hard at work. 
 The congregation was vast, and the place very hot. Spent 
 myself; but, as soon as I came home, to work again, and 
 continued till half-past one. Then to Whitefriars, to 
 preach to an immense congregation. Worked two hours. 
 Home, and, except about half an hour for dinner, at the 
 writing again ; and now it is about eight o'clock, P.M., 
 when I sit down to write to you. I received yours with the 
 proof, and have hurried much to correct it. This morning 
 1 received a letter from the Speaker and Mr. Cayley, inquir 
 ing when I shall return, and requesting me to come to the 
 Tower, and see what they are doing there for me ; request- 
 ing me also to go to Oxford, and collate a copy of the 
 Boldon-Book, in the Bodleian library. One day only is al- 
 lowed me in the Tower before I go to Oxford. I must go 
 straight to London, and then to Oxon even before Confer-
 
 ITINERANCY. 271 
 
 ence. The above orders are made out to me in the form of 
 respectful requests. You know I must either go on or stop. 
 I am in a continual fever, and my breast gets no time to 
 heal ; the oppression and cough are grievous. Is there any 
 such a fool as I am alive ? My life is incessant labor and 
 anxiety." 
 
 What follows shows a heart full of sympathy for the 
 trials of his afflicted brethren : " Yesterday poor John 
 Grace, one of our best preachers, was buried. He had set 
 out for Conference, was taken ill on the road, and died at 
 Mountrath. The circumstances of this case are distressing 
 and horrible. Before leaving his circuit he had an inflam- 
 mation in his chest; riding increased it. When he came 
 to a friend's house at Mountrath, perceiving him to be very 
 
 ill, they sent for a doctor named . This rascal ordered 
 
 him to drink cold water, and pronounced aloud in the family 
 that his disorder was a dangerous, malignant, and highly 
 infectious fever. The people of the house took the alarm, 
 and requested that he might be removed. No one would 
 take him in. Poor Henry Deery, his colleague, ran away 
 into the town, found an empty house, got a bed, etc., into 
 it; and, just as they were going to hurry the dying messen- 
 ger of Christ into it, the whole neighborhood rose, having 
 heard of the vile quack's decision, and absolutely refused to 
 let him be brought there. The family where he lay were 
 in the utmost distress, the doctor insisting that, to preserve 
 them from the infection, he must be removed within an 
 hour. Poor Deery was at his wits' end. A waste shat- 
 tered building contiguous to the house was pitched on as the 
 only asylum. Deery went and got bundles of straw, and 
 stopped up the breaches and crevices in the walls. Poor 
 John Grace was then rolled up in the bed-clothes ; the bed 
 was got into this place, and he was lifted over a wall, to be 
 stretched on that from which he never more removed. . . . 
 He called out for, some cold water. It was brought ; and, 
 having drunk it, he said : ' I shall soon drink of that river 
 the streams of which make glad the city of God.' There
 
 272 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 was just time enough to send for his poor wife, who got to 
 the wretched hovel in time to close the eyes of her husband, 
 the father of her five children. Such was the end of John 
 Grace, after having spent twenty-five years in the public 
 ministry of the word. O God, how unsearchable are 
 thy ways!" 
 
 "July 11. I am never happy from home, and even jour- 
 neys of pleasure to me are journeys of pain. Company I 
 do not love, no matter of what description ; and I scarcely 
 can ever find freedom in places where even good cheer, good 
 breeding, good sense, and religion itself predominate." (A 
 strange man, according to his own view of himself, just 
 then.) "To many places of this kind I ani invited in this 
 city ; great crowds of the best of the people are gathered 
 together to do me honor. I wonder that such invitations 
 are repeated, as I often sit like a person speechless, or one 
 in whose mouth there are no reproofs. Those who are 
 strangers to me must have, in every sense, a mean opinion 
 of me ; for, though I hope I in general conduct myself 
 according to the rules of good-breeding, yet I cannot be 
 polite, that is, pay compliments without rhyme or reason. 
 1 cannot be a pleasing companion to those who may think 
 themselves entitled to this kind of entertainment ; and, as I 
 rarely speak in public company; I consequently neither 
 please nor instruct by my conversation. In short, I never 
 was made for the world." 
 
 It may have been true enough that the doctor, in common 
 with many other eminent scholars, had occasionally these 
 feelings of constraint in society ; but that such feelings were 
 so habitual as to become characteristic, is more than will be 
 admitted by many persons, yet surviving, who remember, 
 and can never forget, the genial glow of his conversation in 
 the social circle. 
 
 "July 14. To-morrow, please God, I sail for England, as 
 I shall finish the Conference with a forenoon's sitting. 
 Their financial affairs here take up so much time. The 
 business transacted at the district meetings in England is
 
 ITINERANCY. 273 
 
 all done here in open Conference ; a fearful waste of time. 
 But for this we should have done three days ago." 
 
 " Chester, July 18. From Bangor Ferry to St. Asaph, 
 and thence to Holywell and this city, where we arrived 
 after one. Never have I felt myself so exhausted. In the 
 last two stages I was nearly knocked up. My whole vital 
 energy seems nearly gone ; and I would sacrifice not a little 
 to be in London, as I have seriously feared whether I shall 
 not be laid up. I suppose it is the effect of fatigue and anxiety, 
 and that a day or two of rest will restore me. But where 
 should I get rest ? Here I am among perfect strangers ; 
 and the cry is, Preach, preach. I have promised to preach 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 Seventeen days after the last date we find him again 
 leaving London for Oxford, from which he writes : 
 
 " August 5. We reached Oxford between eight and nine. 
 It being the race-week, we found it difficult to procure a 
 lodging at the Augel, but succeeded at the Mitre. This 
 morning Mr. Gabriel's friend procured us the lodgings in 
 Broad-street, where I now write. I have waited on Mr. 
 Gaisford, Regius Professor of Greek, with the Speaker's 
 letter. He received us very politely, and invited us to dine 
 in public hall in Christ Church. We have accordingly 
 dined to-day in the first college of the first university in 
 the world." 
 
 W riting August 8, he refers to this again : " It was no 
 small gratification to me to sit on the same seat and eat at 
 the same table where Charles Wesley sat and ate nearly 
 one hundred years ago. At Christ Church the Speaker was 
 educated. I believe he wrote strongly to his college to 
 show me every respect ; and they have done so. 
 
 "After my labor yesterday at the Bodleian, I went to 
 visit several colleges, and, among the rest, Lincoln, of which 
 Mr. John Wesley was fellow. One of the poorest-looking 
 of the colleges ; but it has been the parent, under God, of 
 the greatest work of a spiritual and reforming nature that 
 has appeared upon earth since the second century. How 
 
 IS
 
 274 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 many millions have been saved since John and Charles 
 Wesley first gave themselves to God in this place! And 
 yet this city is like the coiners in our Mint; it has made 
 the gold for others, and is not thereby enriched. I have 
 been here four days, and have not seen the face of a Method- 
 ist. I am going this evening to look for some, that I may 
 hear some kind of preaching to-morrow (Sunday) that will 
 do me some good. Nobody that I meet knows anything 
 of them. In this case, how like is Oxford to Jerusalem and 
 Zion ! The law proceeded from the latter, and the word 
 (doctrine) of the Lord from the former ; but how little did 
 either Zion or Jerusalem retain of either ! So this great 
 work of God, which began in and proceeded from Oxford, 
 has hallowed the whole nation, and yet Oxford has not prof- 
 ited by it. The lines of Virgil came to my mind; which 
 Theo. may translate to you : 
 
 ' Sic vos non vobis mellifieatis apes ; 
 Sic vos non vobis nidificati aves ; 
 Sic vos non vobis 'seller a fertis oves ; 
 Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.' 1 * 
 
 " As far as Methodism is. concerned, they may be applied 
 to the ancient and learned city and university of Oxford." 
 
 Resuming his work in London, in the pulpit, the commit- 
 tee-room, (and especially that of the Bible Society,) in vis- 
 iting the sick, and in carrying on an extensive correspond- 
 ence, always answering letters as soon as he had received 
 them, the departing year left him swallowed up in a com- 
 plication of duties which tasked his strength to the utmost. 
 In grappling with these obligations, days, weeks, and 
 months were all too short. " You know," says he, writing 
 to a friend, " that when I am at home I am never an hour 
 
 * " So you, ye bees, who every flower explore, 
 Not for yourselves amass the honey'd store. 
 So you, ye birds, of wondrous skill possest, 
 Not for yourselves construct the curious nest. 
 So you, ye sheep, who roam the verdant field, 
 Not for yourselves your snowy fleeces yield. 
 So yon, ye patient kinc inured to toil, 
 Not Cor voursolvoB subdue the stubborn soil."
 
 ITINERANCY. 275 
 
 disengaged, being as mere a slave as any on this side the 
 Pillars of Hercules. Every hour has its work, and such 
 work as requires every minute of the sixty. Judge, then, 
 how much of my London labor was behind, after an absence 
 of five weeks. I was almost terrified to return, knowing 
 what a chaos I should find to reduce to order. I have been 
 laboring to bring up my lee-way, tugging at the oar for 
 life. You may think that, during my excursion, I must 
 have acquired a measure of additional health, and am the* 
 better able to ride out the storm. I gained no ground, but 
 lost some. You shall judge. I traveled by mail two 
 nights and a day to Liverpool ; set off for Stockport, to 
 preach for their schools : collection, 122. I then rode off 
 for Manchester ; preached the same evening for the schools : 
 collection, 154. Without waiting to eat, took coach for 
 Nut Grove, near St. Helen's, where I arrived about two 
 o'clock on Monday morning. In the course of that week I 
 preached again and again. The next Sabbath morning I had 
 to preach before three hundred ministers. . . .two hours, 
 enough to knock up or knock down a strong man for a fork 
 night. The next Sabbath, at Warrington, for a Sunday 
 school. Friday, for Worcester, to open a new chapel : col- 
 lection 211 4s. One hour out of the chapel, and I began 
 again, a second sermon: collection, 100 Os. 9d. Without 
 waiting to eat, set off on my way to Liverpool. At Penk- 
 ridge I lay down about three hours and a half, bought a 
 penny roll, rode again, and traveled eighty miles without 
 stopping to take a morsel of food but my penny roll. After 
 various excursions and fatigues, which my paper will not 
 permit me to enumerate, I got back to London with a de- 
 crease both of mental and corporeal energy, to gird myself 
 to new labors no less exhausting or depressing than those 
 through which I have passed." 
 
 At the Conference of 1814, which was held in Bristol, Dr. 
 Clarke was elected for the second time to the presidential 
 chair, and, against his own inclinations, was desired to prolong 
 his residence in London. The preceding year had been dis-
 
 276 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 tinguished in the annals of Methodism by the formation of 
 the Wesleyan Missionary Society. In itself essentially a 
 missionary institution, Methodism has always put forth an 
 evangelizing energy which lives with its life and extends 
 with its extent, " spreads undivided," and, we may safely 
 add, yet " operates unspent." The Wesleys themselves 
 labored as missionaries in Georgia; and while as yet the 
 system in England had but comparatively " a little strength," 
 it stretched its arm across the Atlantic, and turned vast re- 
 gions of that continent from a moral wilderness into a fruit- 
 ful field. In 1769 Messrs. Boardman and Pilmor went from 
 the Conference, with fifty pounds, to America, and laid the 
 foundation of what is now the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 with its universities, schools, Bible and Missionary Societies, 
 its apostolic bishops, its thousands of ordained ministers, 
 its thousands more of local preachers and exhorters, and a 
 body of communicants greatly exceeding a million. 
 
 Among the men who took a prominent part in these 
 great movements was one whose revered name is indissolu- 
 bly joined with the cause of Christian missions, the Rev. 
 Dr. Thomas Coke. This great evangelist carried the Gos- 
 pel to myriads beyond the western sea, both on the conti- 
 nent and in the islands. The slave population of the West 
 Indies heard from his lips the truth which was destined to 
 set free ; the truth which, as to civil liberty, trained them to 
 receive it, and meanwhile made multitudes of them par- 
 takers of the more glorious liberty of the sons of God. In 
 the prosecution of these blessed embassies the Doctor 
 crossed the Atlantic Ocean eighteen times ; and at length, at 
 an advanced age, fulfilling the last wish of his heart the 
 establishment of a mission to India and the East he died 
 at sea on the 2d of May, 1815. 
 
 The West India missions had not only been originated, 
 and hitherto superintended, by Dr. Coke, but, we may say, 
 they had been supported by him ; largely from his own 
 private resources, and more adequately by his unwearied 
 diligence in collecting for them, literally from door to door.
 
 ITINERANCY. 277 
 
 The present writer well remembers him, as coming again 
 and again to his father's house, book hi hand, to receive the 
 accustomed subscription. He may be also permitted to 
 record his reminiscence of hearing the Doctor preach his 
 last sermon in England, on the eve of his embarkation for 
 the East ; the text being the prophecy in the sixty-eighth 
 Psalm: "Ethiopa shall soon stretch out her hands unto 
 God." * It may be easily conceived that the loss of such a 
 man would be felt as a heavy blow to the Methodist mis- 
 sions. But He whose ways are not as our ways willed that 
 this very loss should tend rather to the furtherance of the 
 Gospel. A new sense of obligation to take this great cause 
 in hand more fully took possession of the minds both of min- 
 isters and people ; and the result was the rapid organization 
 of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, which, rising from 
 small beginning, has taken a rank among the beneficent 
 institutions of Christianity scarcely second to any. Its 
 ordained agents, including those who have relation to the 
 affiliated Conferences, are more than six hundred in number, 
 besides some nine hundred salaried catechists, interpreters, 
 exhorters, etc., and more than ten thousand unpaid agents. 
 By its means the Gospel is preached hi more than twenty 
 languages at three thousand six hundred and fifty places in 
 various parts of Europe, India, China, Southern and West- 
 ern Africa, the West Indies, Australia, Canada, and East- 
 ern British America. Within the forty years of its exist- 
 ence, immense multitudes, who are now with the dead, have 
 heard by it the tidings of salvation ; and myriads have been 
 gathered into the Church, who, in life and death, have giveu 
 good evidence that they found those tidings true ; while at 
 present 114,528 Church-members are under the care of the 
 
 * Dr. Coke was accompanied at that time by several newly ordained 
 ministers, whom he was taking with him to Ceylon, which he intended 
 to make the pivot of extensive operations in the East. Of this band of 
 missionaries only two survive the Bev. Messrs. Squance and Lynch, 
 [Dr. Harvard, the historian of the mission, has departed since the pre- 
 ceding lines were written.]
 
 278 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 missionaries, with 94,500 children, who receive instruction 
 in their schools. 
 
 Into this new development of Christian zeal Dr. Clarke 
 entered with his whole soul. Henceforward a new claim 
 on his time and strength, as an advocate of the missionary 
 cause, was often enough made ; but never, if it could be 
 met, was it slighted or refused. At the first Missionary 
 meeting held in City Road chapel, December, 1814, he pre- 
 sided, and delivered an inaugural discourse, which was after- 
 ward published under the title of " A short Account of the 
 Introduction of the Gospel into the British Isles ; and the 
 Obligation of Britons to make known its Salvation to every 
 Nation of the Earth."* 
 
 The Commentary, too, was now in rapid progress ; and, 
 in transmitting one of the parts to the Speaker of the House 
 of Commons, the author accompanied it with a letter, an 
 extract from which is here given, on account of the refer- 
 ences made in it to that communion whose interests and 
 honor the Doctor ever delighted to identify with his own : 
 
 "As the people with whom I am religiously connected 
 are not only very numerous, but of considerable weight in 
 the land, I have not hesitated to show them that those sacred 
 oracles from which they derive the principles of their faith 
 and practice are in perfect consonance with those of the 
 British Constitution, and the doctrines of the Established 
 Church : not that I doubted their loyalty or attachment to 
 the State or the Church, but to manifest to them and future 
 generations the absolute necessity of holding fast that ' form 
 of sound words' which distinguishes our national Church, 
 and ever connects the fear of God with honor to the king. 
 
 " Sir, it is with the most heartfelt pleasure that I can state 
 
 * The City Road meeting was not the first, (that at Leeds hacPthe 
 priority,) but the first for the metropolitan district. The Leeds meeting 
 was an epoch in the history of the connection. Among the speakers on 
 that occasion were the Rev. Messrs. IJuntinir. Morley, and Watson, who 
 not only thus assisted at laying the foundation, but in after years, as 
 General Secretaries of the Society, contributed invaluable service iu 
 upraising this colossal work of mercy.
 
 ITINERANCY. 279 
 
 to you, that this immense body of people are, from conscience 
 and affection, attached to the constitution both in Church and 
 State ; and the late decisions in behalf of religious toleration 
 have powerfully served to rivet that attachment." 
 
 The duties of Dr. Clarke's second presidential year M-ere 
 largely augmented, as already intimated, by the formation 
 of various Branch Missionary Societies in different parts of 
 the kingdom ; for which, and other religious interests, he 
 undertook extensive journeys, in the course of which we find 
 him preaching and holding public meetings in Bristol and 
 Bath, in Exeter, Plymouth, and some parts of Cornwall ; 
 and then, northward, in Birmingham, Liverpool, and other 
 places. Everywhere crowds hung upon his lips, and the 
 word preached came with the saving power of grace to the 
 hearts of many, while it stirred up the various Churches thus 
 visited, by thoughts of " whatsoever things are true," and 
 " honest," and " lovely," and " of good report," to give the 
 greater diligence in making their own election sure, and pro- 
 moting the cause of their Saviour in the world. At the 
 Conference held in Manchester, he gave up the insignia of 
 the office he had so well sustained into the hands of his suc- 
 cessor, the Rev. John Barber, a venerable servant of Christ, 
 who, as the event proved, was then within a few months of 
 the termination of his earthly course. 
 
 With Dr. Clarke the time had now happily come when 
 the same Providence which had dictated his longer residence 
 in London, was about to open to him the doors of a more 
 tranquil retreat, where he would be enabled, with greater 
 freedom from interruption, to prosecute those theologic es- 
 says he was so anxious to complete before the arrival of the 
 fast approaching time when he too should " cease at once to 
 work and live." " I have made up my mind," says he, " if 
 God will open me a way, to leave this distracting city, and 
 get out of the way even of a turnpike-road, that I may get 
 as much out of every passing hour as I can. I ought to 
 have no work at present but the Commentary ; for none can 
 comprehend the trouble, and often anguish, which the writ-
 
 280 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ing of these notes costs me ; and what adds to the perplexity, 
 is the multitude of little things to which almost incessantly 
 my attention is demanded. Matters are come to this if I 
 do not at once get from many of my avocations, I shall soon 
 be incapable of prosecuting any. I must hide my head in 
 the country, or it will shortly be hidden in the grave." 
 
 This was a decision which, in regard to various philan- 
 thropic institutions in London, to which he had long given 
 his gratuitous and effective aid, as well as to the feelings of 
 a multitude who had greatly profited under his ministry, 
 could only be unwelcome, except for the personal relief it 
 would give to one so highly honored and esteemed, whose 
 added years, it was well believed, would be fully consecrated 
 to the same great objects which had commanded the days 
 of the past.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAK. 281 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAE. 
 
 HITHERTO our narrative has turned mainly on those inci- 
 dents of life, and traits of character, which relate to the sub- 
 ject of our memoir as a Christian minister ; but a biography 
 of Adam Clarke would be essentially defective, in which a 
 respectful homage was not rendered to his memory as a 
 scholar and a man of letters. Unhappily, the scanty limits 
 of the present work will not allow of extensive disquisition 
 on this topic, were the writer ever so well able to indulge 
 in it. Necessity prescribes that our pages shouM teem 
 with facts rather that fancies, and should treasure up ma- 
 terials which the thoughtful reader may make the subject of 
 his own conclusions. For myself, I enter on this chapter 
 with a mortifying sense of insufficiency. I am not going to 
 affect the critic, or to sit in judgment on the intellect and 
 learning of a man the lachet of whose shoes I should have 
 been unworthy to unloose. On the other hand, I may be 
 doing a pleasurable service to my readers by collecting and 
 setting down such notices of his mental development as 
 have been given, here and there, by Dr. Clarke himself, or 
 by those who knew him intimately. 
 
 We are first led back to the village school in Ireland, 
 where the child, under the indignant glance of his disap- 
 pointed and anxious father, tried to learn, but could not. 
 The circumstances under which this physical inability was 
 overcome have been already detailed. His intellect seemed 
 to undergo a sudden regeneration. The ability to learn was 
 given him, as it were, in an instant of time. In his own 
 words, " it was not acquired by slow degrees ; there was no 
 conquest over inaptitude and dullness by persevering and
 
 282 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 gradual conflict ; the power seemed generated in a moment, 
 and in a moment there was a transition from darkness to 
 light, from mental imbecility to intellectual vigor ; and no 
 means nor excitements were brought into operation but 
 those mentioned in the narrative.* The reproaches of his 
 schoolfellow were the spark which fell on the gunpowder 
 and inflamed it instantly. The inflammable material was 
 there before, but the spark was wanting. This would be a 
 proper subject for the discussion of those who write on the 
 philosophy of the human mind." 
 
 Dr. Clarke always considered this incident as having an 
 important bearing on his destiny, and often mentioned it as 
 " a singular providence which gave a strong characteristic 
 coloring to his subsequent life." He says that it may not 
 be unworthy the consideration of the instructors of youth, 
 but may teach the masters of the rod and ferula that those 
 are not the instruments of instruction, though proper enough 
 for the correction of the obstinate and indolent ; that mo- 
 tives to emulation, and the prevention of disgrace, may be 
 in some cases more effectual than any punishment inflicted 
 on the flesh. " Let not the reader imagine from this de- 
 tail," says he, " that Adam Clarke found no difficulty after- 
 ward in the acquisition of knowledge. He ever found an 
 initial difficulty to comprehend anything; and till he could 
 comprehend in some measure the reason of a thing, he could 
 not acquire the principle itself. In this respect there was a 
 great difference between him and his brother ; the latter 
 apprehended a subject at first sight, and knew as much of it 
 in a short time as ever he knew after ; the former was slow 
 in apprehension, and proceeded with great caution till he 
 was sure of his principles ; he then went forward with vigor, 
 in pushing them to their utmost legitimate consequences." 
 
 These two brothers had for some time but an interrupted 
 
 school tuition, from the demand which the garden and fields 
 
 made upon their labor. " Before and after school hours 
 
 was the only time their father could do anything in his little 
 
 * See page 14, supra.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 283 
 
 farm ; the rest of the toil, except in those times when seve- 
 ral hands must be employed to plant and sow and gather in 
 the fruits of the earth, was performed by his two sons. 
 This cramped their education, but labor omnia vincit im- 
 probus; the two brothers went 'day about' to school, and 
 he who had the advantage of the day's instruction remem- 
 bered all he could, and imparted on his return to him who 
 continued in the farm all the knowledge he had acquired in 
 the day. Thus they were alternately instructors and schol- 
 ars, and each taught and learned for the other. This was mak- 
 ing the best of their circumstances ; and such a plan is much 
 more judicious than that which studies to make one son a 
 scholar while the others are the drudges of the family, 
 whereby jealousies and feuds are often generated." * 
 
 No doubt this alternation of rustic exercise with school 
 seclusion had a good effect in strengthening the child's phy- 
 sical constitution, and in contributing to insure him a 
 healthy mind in a healthy body. Good air and exercise have 
 a wondrous influence in giving tone to the intellect, as in 
 after life Adam Clarke found, when, a wandering itinerant, 
 he read many a book and thought out many a sermon sub 
 dio, on the high road, or in the wayside field. So in his 
 school days, in summer time, his lessons were often conned 
 in the open air. "The school," he tells us, "was situated 
 in the skirt of a wood on a gently rising eminence, behind 
 which a hill, thickly covered with bushes of different kinds 
 and growth, rose to a considerable height. In front of this 
 there was a great variety of prospect both of hill and dale, 
 where, in their seasons, all the operations of husbandry 
 might be distinctly seen. The boys who could be trusted 
 were permitted in the fine weather to go into the wood to 
 study their lessons." On this pleasant slope, with the 
 auburn and purple moorlands spread out before him, the 
 sunlit sea in the distance, and the smoke from the cottage 
 chimneys here and there rising into the quiet sky, the boy 
 would find that the pages of Virgil had a charm which made 
 * Autobiography.
 
 284 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the task of construing, a labor of love. " Quid facial Icetas 
 segetes" etc., would have a commentary on the page of na- 
 ture before him, as well as in the words of the annotator in 
 the margin. 
 
 " What makes a plenteous harvest ; when to turn 
 The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn ; 
 The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine ; 
 And how to raise on elms the teeming vine ; 
 The birth and genius of the frugal bee, 
 I sing, Maecenas, and 1 sing to thee.' * 
 
 "In this most advantageous situation," to quote his own 
 words, " Adam read the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, 
 where he had almost every scene described in those poems, 
 exhibited in real life before his eyes. If ever he enjoyed 
 real intellectual happiness, it was in that place and in that 
 line of study. These living scenes were often finer com- 
 ments on the Roman poet than all the labored notes and 
 illustrations of the Delphin editors and the Variorum 
 critics." 
 
 The glimpses which his school books gave into the by- 
 gone times of Greek and Roman history, awoke in his mind 
 a strong desire to become more fully acquainted with them ; 
 and, among other methods which his scanty means allowed 
 him, he procured " an old copy of- Littleton's Dictionary, 
 and made himself master of all the proper names, so that 
 there was neither person nor place in the classic world of 
 which he could not give an account. This made him of 
 great consideration among his schoolfellows, and most of 
 them in all the forms generally applied to him for 
 information." 
 
 His love of reading had already become intense and un- 
 conquerable. "To gratify this passron, he would undergo 
 any privations. The pence that he and his brother got, 
 they carefully saved for the purchase of some book. . . . 
 Theirs was but a little library, but to them right precious." 
 He gives a list of some of the books ; where, with Jack the 
 
 * Georgica, i.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 285 
 
 Giant-killer, we have Guy, Earl of Warwick, the Seven 
 Wise Masters, the Nine Worthies of the World, the 
 Seven Champions, Sir Francis Drake, Robinson Crusoe, 
 and Montelion, or the Knight of the Oracle ; the Gentle 
 Shepherd, the Peruvian Tales, and the Arabian Nights' 
 Entertainments, with many others. 
 
 In those fanciful days he greatly delighted himself with 
 whatever books he could get of a romantic kind, written in 
 a metrical form ; and, as he grew up, he became extensively 
 read in the popular ballad literature, both of England and 
 Ireland. In after years he used to boast that his library 
 contained some of the choicest specimens of- the old poetic 
 romances. His mind, indeed, may not have been poetical ; 
 and the pleasure which in later days he found in that de- 
 scription of reading, resulted rather from the insight it gave 
 him into the manners and feelings of past generations, than 
 from any sympathy with the charms of the poem itself. 
 In that respect he read only as an antiquarian. Thus, re- 
 ferring to the metrical ballads of Sir Walter Scott, he said : 
 " I scarcely ever give myself the trouble to read the poetry ; 
 the notes are the most valuable part of the book to me, 
 and these I can convert to my own purposes." Nor is it 
 at all improbable that the first impulse of his mind to an- 
 tiquarian studies was communicated by his converse, in 
 childhood, with these versified traditions of the past. 
 
 Nor was he without some skill in those days in string- 
 ing rhymes together. A specimen which has come down 
 to us, composed " one Saturday afternoon, at a time when 
 he had not learned to write small hand, so that he was 
 obliged to employ his brother to write down the verses 
 from his lips," shows, if not a precocity of genius, yet an 
 amount of talent which, if cultivated, would have given him 
 a place, at least, among our second-rate poets.* 
 
 Along with his classical lessons at school, in Greek and 
 Latin, he received some instruction in mathematics and 
 
 * It may be seen in his autobiography. Life by Mrs. Smith, vol. i, 
 page 40.
 
 286 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 French; in which departments a good foundation was laid 
 for the progressive attainments of coming life. One cir- 
 cumstance we should not omit : He tells us he found it 
 much easier to learn after his conversion to God. " Though 
 he could not well enter into the spirit of Lucian and Juve- 
 nal, which he then read, yet he was surprised to find how 
 easy, in comparison of former times, learning appeared. 
 The grace which he had received greatly illumined and 
 improved his understanding, and learning now seemed to 
 him little more than an exercise of memory. He has often 
 said : ' After I found the peace of God, I may safely assert 
 that I learned more in one day than I could formerly in a 
 month. And no wonder ; my soul began to rise out of 
 the ruins of its fall, by the favor of the Eternal Spirit. I 
 found that religion was the gate to true learning, and that 
 they who went through their studies without it had double 
 work to do.'" 
 
 In English reading, he was engaged at this time with 
 some very good books, which were sanctified to his im- 
 provement both in mind and heart. Such were the works 
 of Derham and Ray. He read them with Kersey's and 
 Martin's Dictionaries by him for the explanation of techni- 
 cal words. Baxter's "Saints' Everlasting Rest," and the 
 Life of the devoted Brainerd, he perused with solemn and 
 prayerful joy. These two latter books seem to have given 
 him a great impulse toward the ministry ; and this was 
 pmliably what he meant when, expressing his obligations 
 to Mrs. Rutherford, who had lent them to him, he said that 
 it was she who had made him a preacher. 
 
 Such was the stage of mental culture he had attained, 
 when entering, under the circumstances already related, on 
 the life and labors of an itinerant Methodist preacher. On 
 J'-aviug Ireland for Kingswood, these treasures of the mind 
 were his only patrimony. Even of books of his own he had 
 scarcely any to take away. " I brought from home an En- 
 glish Bihle,, a Greek Testament, Prideaux's Connection, and 
 Y" ling's Ni^lit Thoughts, on the margin of which I had writ-
 
 *THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 287 
 
 ten a number of notes. It was a favorite with some of my 
 children, and remained in the family when the others had 
 gone. Young I twice recaptured ; once from Anna, and once 
 from Eliza ; but where it now is I cannot tell." 
 
 In the first circuit some few attempts were made to keep 
 up his classical reading, but with little effect, from the want 
 of suitable books, and the necessity of preparation for the 
 constant work of preaching, on which he had now fully en- 
 tered. In the course of the year, as we have seen, he was 
 induced by the influence of well-meant but barbarous advice 
 to give up scholastic learning altogether. Yet it may be 
 questioned whether the four years' recess from those par- 
 ticular studies, which followed his adoption of that advice, 
 was really detrimental to his mental education^ considered as 
 a whole. A man requires something more than Greek and 
 Latin to be a preacher of the Gospel. A mere classical 
 scholar, whose mind is not stored with general knowledge, 
 and whose reasoning faculties are suffered to lie dormant, is 
 but poorly fitted for the grand labors of the Christian min- 
 istry ; and Adam Clarke, while he left Homer and Virgil to 
 their repose, was earnestly engaged in gathering in, and in 
 giving forth to others, the precious fruits of that knowledge 
 of the word and ways of God which makes the moral life of 
 man strong, healthy, and beautiful. He began the study of 
 the Hebrew Bible, read a good deal in French, and made 
 his first essay in authorship itself, by translating some of the 
 Abbe Maury's Discourse on Pulpit Eloquence for the Ar- 
 minian Magazine. He, moreover, enlarged his acquaintance 
 with the works of the great English theologians. He read 
 widely and diligently, morning, noon, and night, not only in 
 his different places of sojourn, but in walking and riding as 
 well. Thus those years were by no means lost, but, prob- 
 ably, more substantially improved than they would have 
 been by the bald word-studies he had been led for that time 
 to abandon. However this be considered, the time came 
 when he could conscientiously resume them. Mr. Wesley, 
 to whom in 1786 he had sent the translation from Maury,
 
 288 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in kindly acknowledging it, charged him " to cultivate his 
 mind, as far as his circumstances would allow, and not to 
 forget anything he had ever learned" "This," says he, 
 " was a word in season, and, next to the Divine oracles, of 
 the highest authority with Mr. C. He began to reason with 
 himself thus : ' What would he have me to do ? He cer- 
 tainly means that I should not forget the Latin and Greek 
 which I have learned ; but then he does not know that by a 
 solemn vow I have abjured the study of those languages for- 
 ever. But was such a vow lawful "? Is the study of Hebrew 
 and Greek, the languages in which God has given the Old 
 and New Testaments, sinful 1 It must have been laudable 
 in some, else we should have had no translations. Is it 
 likely that what must have been laudable in those who have 
 translated the sacred writings, can be sinful in any, especially 
 in ministers of God's holy word ? I have made the vow, it 
 is true ; but who required it ? What have I gained by it 1 
 I was told it was dangerous, and would fill me with pride, 
 and pride would lead me to perdition : but who told me so ? 
 
 Could Mr. , at whose suggestions I abandoned all these 
 
 studies, be considered as a competent judge? I fear I have 
 been totally in error, and that my vow may rank with rash 
 ones. Which, then, is the greater evil, to keep it, or to 
 break it ? I should beg pardon from God for having made 
 it ; and, if it were sinful to make, it is so to keep it.' So 
 he kneeled down, and begged God to forgive the rash vow, 
 and to undo any obligation which might remain. He arose 
 satisfied that he had done wrong in making it, and that it 
 was his duty now to cultivate his mind in every way, to be 
 a workman needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the 
 word of truth." 
 
 In resuming the classics, he found he had so far forgotten 
 the grammatical forms, as to be obliged to begin almost de 
 novo. But he now took care to lay the foundations strongly 
 in acquiring the Greek and Latin accidences; and, going to 
 work in good earnest, soon regained what had been lost, and 
 thenceforth made steady advancements.
 
 * THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 289 
 
 From the time of his appointment to Bristol, after his 
 return from the Channel Islands, he was unusually success- 
 fill in gathering together in his library the best editions of 
 the classical authors, and spread out his reading in all direc- 
 tions, till in the lapse of years, spent in persevering study, 
 he had become familiar with the great authors of antiquity, 
 from Homer and Herodotus down to the Neo-Platonists of 
 Alexandria and the Byzantine annalists. In communion 
 with these great minds he lived through the ages of the past : 
 he saw, in the drama of the Iliad, Troy sink in flame and 
 thunder ; he wandered with Ulysses in his homeward way, 
 and voyaged with the Argonauts through the gorgeous scenes 
 portrayed by Appolonius. He sat with Theocritus among 
 the wild thyme of the Sicilian hills ; with Hannibal he gazed 
 on Italy from the Alpine rocks ; and stood with Scipio amid 
 the ruins of Carthage. He heard Demosthenes on the Pnyx, 
 Cicero at the bar, and Plato in the academic grove. And 
 these sights and voices of times forever gone did not yield 
 him pleasure only, they brought him profit ; he read with a 
 purpose, and made every acquisition subservient to the 
 great design of his life, the elucidation of the Bible, and the 
 advancement of religious truth among mankind. He had 
 ascertained that all knowledge helped to promote this end ; 
 and wherever it was to be obtained, there was he. Ubi 
 mel, ibi apis; and, like the bee, he gathered honey from 
 every flower. This profiting appears to all who are ac- 
 quainted with his works, and especially in the Commentary, 
 in reading which we see how affluent was the author's eru- 
 dition, and with what advantage he employs it in illustrating 
 the sacred text, seeking to bring every imagination and 
 thought of even heathen minds into subservience to the cause 
 of Christ, and to make the heroes, historians, poets, and phi- 
 losophers of the pagan world, so many Nethinim, to do such 
 employment as they could in the courts of the one true God. 
 
 So, too, there are those yet living who remember with an 
 unfading pleasure how richly the conversation of Dr. Clarke 
 was pervaded with choice and useful allusions derived from 
 
 19
 
 290 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 classic literature ; while, occasionally, an hour spent in 
 listening to him yielded as much profit as a day's reading. 
 
 But, respectable as were his attainments in what is strictly 
 classic erudition, Dr. Clarke stands out more prominently 
 among the scholars of his time as a master of Oriental learn- 
 ing. In this respect his celebrity is, perhaps, not owing so 
 much to a thorough and practical acquaintance with the 
 languages of the East, as to the circumstance that the culti- 
 vation of them has met with but little patronage in our 
 country, and has called forth the resolute energy requisite 
 to excel in them from comparatively few of the scholars of 
 England. It is true that life is short, and that knowledge 
 is a boundless deep ; that, where the whole of a man's years 
 are devoted to study, he cannot learn everything ; and that, 
 in general, a serious application to the classics or mathe- 
 matics, combined with professional duties, will not allow 
 men to meddle with Hebrew or Persian. But what is a 
 just matter of complaint is, that when men have been led to 
 encounter such tasks, and have so far succeeded as to be 
 able to promote this description of learning through the 
 medium of the press, they have been almost uniformly called 
 to suffer for it : so that what Solomon the king wrote, that 
 " he who increaseth knowledge inereaseth sorrow," has been 
 fill til led in them. The greatest work in Oriental literature 
 \\c I'jiglish possess, next to the London Polyglot Bible, (it- 
 self elaborated with much anxiety, as well as toil,) is the 
 Heptaglot Lexicon of Edmund Castel,* in the completion 
 of which the author, instead of winning a fortune, spent one, 
 and brought himself to the threshold of a jail. We have seen 
 that to the laudable overtures of Dr. Clarke and the Rev. 
 
 * Dr. Castel labored at this work seventeen years, maintaining at his 
 own cost seven Englishmen and seven foreign scholars, nil of whom died 
 
 before the work was finished. His own fortune nf illi'j wu.s exhausted 
 
 in the undertaking:; he borrowed 1,800 more, and was then obliged to 
 appeal to the mercy of Charles II. (" ne career esset pnemium, tot lalm-um 
 et xumptitjt") lest a prison should be the reward of such labors and c\ 
 pnisr. His Majesty gave him, in answer to this appeal a begging letter, 
 t'j the bishops and nobility !
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 291 
 
 Josiah Pratt for a new edition of the Polyglot, no response 
 worth naming was given ; a conclusion almost as impotent 
 as what followed when another learned person published a 
 prospectus for a new edition of Meninski's Thesaurus, and 
 received in return the name of one subscriber, and that one, 
 not an Englishman, but a Pole ! 
 
 It may not excite great surprise that the dead languages 
 of the Orient are so scantily cultivated in our schools of 
 learning ; but it is a marvel in the eyes of our continental 
 neighbors, that England, with such extensive relations to the 
 East, should be so indifferent to the knowledge of the living 
 tongues of the people whom Providence has brought under 
 her protection, or subjected to her rule. One would think 
 her Indian and Asiatic interests would cause the study of 
 Sanskrit, Hindustanee, Arabic, Armenian, and Persian to 
 become almost as popular as German or French. France, 
 which has no such interests to operate as a motive to the 
 patronage of such studies, has for many years sustained the 
 means of a gratuitous prosecution of them by all who desire 
 snch advantages. At Paris, where I have for months to- 
 gether enjoyed the privilege of lessons, without money or 
 price, there are professors' chairs for the current languages 
 of the East, free of access to all. Great patronage is also 
 given in Germany, and even in Denmark, to the same pur- 
 suits. From the imperial press at Vienna editions of the 
 most important works in Oriental learning are continually 
 issuing, while the Russian government makes such studies 
 imperative on large classes of its subjects. Every country 
 which has commercial or diplomatic relations with Russia, 
 has its linguistic representatives in the schools of St. Peters- 
 burg Novo Tcherskask, Storopol, and Kazan where the 
 languages of Circassia, Tartary, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, In- 
 dia, and China, form a regular part of the education of young 
 men, according to the department of public service to which 
 they are destined.* 
 
 * An excellent advantage for men preparing for missionaries. Look at 
 the Propaganda at Eonie. They study there all the languages of the earth.
 
 292 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 In England some progress has been made of late years, 
 but not enough ; far from enough to answer to the scale of 
 our advantages or our duties. In addition to what has been 
 done in the establishment at Haileybury, greater effective- 
 ness should be given to the study of the Oriental languages 
 in our universities, by more stringent requirements and 
 more generous rewards ; and in the metropolis there should 
 be, as- in Paris, free schools or if we cannot afford to go so 
 far, then schools at an easy rate of payment for the encour- 
 agement of hundreds of young men who would gratefully 
 avail themselves of such a privilege. 
 
 To return' to Dr. Clarke : The first bias of his mind to- 
 ward this kind of learning seems to have been given at a 
 very early time of life. He tells us that the reading of the 
 " Arabian Nights' Entertainments " gave him that decided 
 taste for Oriental history which proved so useful to him in 
 his Biblical studies. He wished to acquaint himself more 
 particularly with races of people whose customs and man- 
 ners, both religious and civil, were so strange and curious ; 
 and he never lost sight of this till Divine Providence opene'd 
 his way, and put the means in his power to gain some ac- 
 quaintance with the principal languages of the East. 
 
 Under the circumstances already related, he began He- 
 brew at Trowbridge. He entered Keartily upon it, and soon 
 made himself master of as much as could be gathered from 
 Bayley's Grammar. The excellence of this work consists 
 in a variety of copious extracts from the Bible, with a trans- 
 lation and analysis ; but, as a grammar, it fails to give a 
 perspicuous exhibition of the forms of the language, and is 
 now become obsolete. It is, however, a kind of amiable 
 book ; and a copy is worth having. Dr. Bayley, the author, 
 after leaving Kingswood, obtained some church preferment 
 in Manchester. Mr. Wesley in his Journal mentions being 
 once his guest in that city, and expresses the pleasure with 
 which he heard Miss Bayley read a Hebrew psalm at the 
 time of family prayer. 
 
 The next book Mr. Clarke appears to have got at Ply-
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 293 
 
 mouth was, Leigh's Critica Sacra, where he found the lit- 
 eral sense of every Greek and Hebrew word in the Old and 
 New Testament, and the definitions enriched with theological 
 and philological notes drawn from the best grammarians 
 and critics. Just lately Dr. Kennicott had then published 
 his edition of the Hebrew Bible. His sister, who resided 
 at Plymouth Dock, lent Mr. Clarke a copy, the careful 
 reading of which gave him his first practical knowledge of 
 Biblical criticism. 
 
 He first saw the Polyglot Bible in the public library at 
 St. Heller's, Jersey. When first settled in the islands, he 
 had set to work on Grabe's Septuagint, with the desire to 
 see how far it agreed with or differed from the Hebrew 
 text, with which he had now become pretty familiar. He 
 found that the Septuagint threw much light on the Hebrew ; 
 the translators, who had advantages we do not possess, hav- 
 ing perpetuated the meaning of a multitude of Hebrew 
 words, which would otherwise have passed away. He read 
 on in the Septuagint to the end of the Psalms ; noting down 
 the most important differences in the margin of a quarto 
 Bible in three volumes, which was afterward unfortunately 
 lost. At this time his own stock of books was very small ; 
 and, having no living teacher, he had to contend with diffi- 
 culties at every stage. But, when it was his turn to serve 
 in Jersey, he made all the use he could of the public library 
 which had been established in St. Helier's by the Rev. Mr. 
 Falle, one of the ministers of the island, and its historian. 
 Here, as before said, he had the use of Walton's Polyglot. 
 In reading the Prolegomena to the first volume, he perceived 
 the importance of the Oriental versions there described, and 
 began to feel an intense desire to read them. His first at- 
 tempt was with the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch. This 
 was easy work, as the words are all Hebrew, only expressed 
 in the ancient Samaritan character, which he very soon 
 learned. This Samaritan text must be distinguished from 
 the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, which is a different 
 work. The text is an invaluable relict. It gives, occasion-
 
 294 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ally, accounts of transactions mentioned by Moses which 
 are more full than those of the Hebrew text ; it expresses 
 the words, also, more fully; gives the essential vowels 
 which are supplied in the Hebrew text by the Masoretic 
 points ; and contains as well some important variations in 
 the chronology. The Samaritan version is a Targum, or 
 paraphrase on the text, in a mongrel dialect, which, with an 
 Aramaic basis, comprises a multitude of words, Cuthite, 
 Arabic, and Hebrew. 
 
 " Having met with a copy of Walton's Introductio ad 
 Linguas Orientates, he next applied himself to the study of 
 the Syriac." From that little manual, however, he would 
 get no further instruction in Syriac than what relates to the 
 orthoepy of the language ; and that not delivered in the 
 plainest manner. He was, therefore, thankful for the addi- 
 tional help afforded him in the Scholia Syriaca of Leusden. 
 By the time he had mastered this, he was able to consult 
 any text in the Syriac version ; so that the Polyglot became 
 more and more available to him. " All the time he could 
 spare from the duties of his office, he spent in the public 
 library, reading and collating the texts in the Polyglot, es- 
 pecially the Hebrew, Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate, 
 and Septuagint. The Arabic, Persian, and Ethiopic he did 
 not yet attempt, despairing to malce any improvement in 
 them without a preceptor." When obliged to leave the 
 library, he cast a lingering look at the Polyglot, and sighed 
 for one he could call his own. Providence gratified his de- 
 sire, and in a way which he will best relate for himself: 
 " Knowing that he could not always enjoy the benefit of the 
 public library, he began earnestly to wish to have a copy 
 of his own ; but three pounds per quarter, and his food, 
 (which was the whole of his income as a preacher,) could ill 
 supply any sum for the purchase of books. . . . Yet he be- 
 lieved that God in the course of his providence would fur- 
 nish him with this precious gift. He had a strong << >i'(i- 
 dence that by some means or other he should get a Poly- 
 glot. One morning a preacher's wife who lodged in the
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAK. - 295 
 
 same family said : ' Mr. Clarke, I had a strange dream last 
 night.' 'What was it, Mrs. D. V * said he. 'Why, I 
 dreamed that some person had made you a present of a 
 Polyglot Bible.' He answered, ' Then I shall get one soon, 
 I have no doubt.' In the course of a day or two he received 
 a letter containing a bank-note of 10 from a person from 
 whom he never expected anything of the kind. He imme- 
 diately said : ' Here is the Polyglot.' He wrote to a friend 
 in London, who procured him a tolerably good copy, the 
 price exactly ten pounds." 
 
 Mr. Clarke's appointment to Bristol afforded him yet 
 greater facilities. He had access to some important libra- 
 ries ; and from the large collections of second-hand books 
 he made continual accessions to his own. The Rev. Henry 
 Moore, referring to this period of his life, says : " I met him 
 in Bristol. I was glad to see a considerable alteration in 
 his person, though still nothing approaching the clerical cos- 
 tume. I found he had been a hard student, and had made 
 progress, especially in Oriental literature. His library 
 alarmed me. He had among his other works a Polyglot 
 Bible, and he seemed determined to master every tongue in 
 it. I said, ' Brother Clarke, you have got a choice collection 
 of books; but what will you do with them] As a Meth- 
 odist preacher, you cannot give them that attention which 
 they demand.' He smiled, and said, ' I will try.' I found 
 he had been trying indeed. To an improvement in Latin, 
 Greek, and French, he had added a considerable knowledge 
 of Hebrew ; and he showed me a Chaldee Grammar which 
 he had himself written out, in order to be able to study the 
 whole of the prophet Daniel. As he had not hitherto been 
 appointed to circuits favorable to such studies, I was sur- 
 prised at the advancement he had made. Our common 
 work at that time was to travel two or three hundred miles 
 in a month, preach generally fifteen times in a week, and at- 
 tend to various other duties ; and if Mr. Wesley heard of 
 a very studious preacher, he was sure to keep him at that 
 
 * Mrs. T)c Qucti-villc.
 
 296 . LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 work, lest he should forget or lightly esteem the great de- 
 sign of God to which [the preachers] were expressly called 
 in that extraordinary day; which was, not to dispense 
 knowledge but life, even life from the dead. Knowledge 
 would follow of course, if life were attained ; but zeal and 
 tender love for souls might easily be lost. His concise 
 charge, when he received them as his helpers, was : ' You 
 have nothing to do but to save souls ; therefore spend and 
 be spent therein.' " 
 
 These reflections are good enough ; but there was no 
 need to make them in connection with Mr. Clarke's name, 
 and that Mr. Moore knew very well. Indeed, he immedi- 
 ately adds : " But I found my friend had not neglected this 
 high calling. His discourses seldom smelled of the lamp, 
 and he was zealous for the Lord." Mr. Clarke fully en- 
 tered into the spirit and design of his revered father in the 
 Gospel, and the "Twelve Rules of a Helper," from which 
 Mr. Moore quotes what he calls Mr. Wesley's charge, 
 were never more heartily observed than by him. In his 
 old copy of the " Large Minutes," I find his mark attached 
 in the margin to the first of these Rules : " Be diligent ; 
 never be unemployed a moment ; never be triflingly em- 
 ployed. Never while away time ; neither spend any more 
 time at any place than is strictly "necessary." The observ- 
 ance of that rule was the secret of the " progress," which 
 astonished not his friend Moore only, but many besides. 
 
 In another part of the same manual, his mark stands also 
 in the margin opposite the following passage, on the em- 
 ployment of time, addressed by Mr. Wesley to his preach- 
 ers : "We advise you, 1. As often as possible to rise at 
 four. 2. From four to five in the morning, to meditate, 
 pray, and read, partly the Scriptures with the Notes, partly 
 the closely practical parts of what we have published. 
 U. From six in the morning till twelve, allowing an hour 
 for breakfast, to read in order, with much prayer, the Chris- 
 tian Library, and the other books which we have published, 
 in prose and verso."
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAK. 297 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Wesley never intended 
 his preachers should be ignorant and illiterate men. Here 
 are seven hours a day prescribed for study. Very few 
 Methodist ministers in the present day can afford so much 
 time for their books. The works recommended in the 
 Minute were not of course, to be the exclusive reading of 
 the preachers ; for elsewhere Mr. Wesley gives another list 
 of works, comprising some of the principal of the classics, 
 arranged for four years' study ; the going through which, 
 he tells the preachers, would make a man a better scholar 
 than many a graduate of the universities. 
 
 Two years later Messrs. Moore and Clarke met again, 
 when the former " was astonished at the progress " the latter 
 " had made ; he seemed to have Oriental learning at his 
 fingers' ends." While residing at Bristol, on his second 
 appointment to that city in 1798, Mr. Clarke applied him- 
 self to learn Persian. He had now such an insight into the 
 laws of languages, as to find assistance, rather than obstruc- 
 tion, in the simultaneous study of several of them. In one 
 of his letters, written later in life to Mr. Hugh Stuart Boyd, 
 who appears to have expressed a doubt as to the advisable- 
 ness of such a course, he says : " I think it strange that you 
 are of opinion that we cannot carry on consentaneously two 
 or three languages at a time. If I could not do so, I think 
 I should be tempted to run out into the street, and dash the 
 place where the brains should be, against the first post 1 
 met." In fact, the more he learned, the more he found he 
 could learn. To him who had, was given. In Bristol he 
 had become acquainted with a man of kindred spirit, and 
 learned how true it is, in these matters as well as in others, 
 that " as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a 
 man his friend." The gentleman I allude to was the late 
 Mr. Charles Fox, one who to many elegant attainments 
 added a passionate love for Oriental, and especially for Per- 
 sian poetry. Mr. Clarke and he became intimate, and 
 each proved a help to the other. Clarke obtained a good 
 deal of aid from Fox in the study of Persian ; and Fox, by
 
 298 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 his converse and correspondence with his Methodist friend, 
 became a devout believer, and exemplified in life and death 
 the blessedness of the true Christian. 
 
 In Persian, Mr. Clarke commenced with the version of 
 the Gospels in that language, found in the fifth volume of 
 the London Polyglot ; nor could he at that time have 
 adopted a better text-book, as the subject was already 
 familiar, and the language good idiomatic Persian.* The 
 version itself was not made from the Greek text, but from 
 the Syriac Peschito, the very words of which are sometimes 
 retained with a Persian gloss ; but the body of the work is 
 good Persian. Henry Martyn found that the Persians at 
 Shiraz liked it better than the more recent translations. 
 " To my surprise," says he, " the old despised Polyglot 
 version was not only spoken of as superior to the rest," 
 (that is, the two by Sabat,) " but it was asked, 'What fault 
 is found in this ? This is the language we speak.' " f 
 
 The Grammar Mr. Clarke used was that of Sir William 
 Jones no doubt the best in existence. Of this elaborate 
 work he wrote in after days a masterly description in the 
 Eclectic Review, which may be seen, also, in his Miscellan- 
 eous Works. The perusal of the review (as well as of 
 others, in the same volume, on W T ilkins's Persian Dic- 
 tionary, and Gil Christ's Theory of the Persian Verbs) will 
 
 * This translation was made in the fourteenth century by a Persian 
 Jew who had embraced Christianity, and had become a resident at Kalta, 
 in the Crimea. We learn as much from the epigraph at the close of tho 
 work: " The four glorious Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 were finished in the city of Kaffa, inhabited by Christians, the second 
 prayers being done, on the ninth of the month Tammuz, which in Latin 
 is called July, in the year 1341 of Christ the Messiah ; by the hand of 
 the most weak of the people of God, Simon ben Josef ibn Abraham Al- 
 tabrizi. The God of the pious in his mercy and providence be so gra- 
 cious, that those who read or hear this Gospel may say a Paternoster and 
 Ave Maria for the poor writer, that he also by the Divine mercy may be 
 forgiven. Amen. It was moreover written by the command and coun- 
 sel of his lord and king, the friend and brother of the holy Church, tho 
 prince Ibn Sahm Addaula ibn Sirana, surnamed Teflizi ; to whom, and t(> 
 whose parents may God be propitious !" 
 
 t Journals, vol. ii, p. 808.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 299 
 
 reveal abundant evidence that in the progress of years the 
 writer had become an accomplished critic in the literature 
 of that beautiful tongue. 
 
 It will not be supposed that a man of Mr. Clarke's tastes 
 and impulses would remain satisfied without the knowledge 
 of Arabic ; a language which, for the purposes he had at 
 heart, would have a higher claim upon his regard than that 
 of the Persians. As a cognate of the Hebrew, it takes rank 
 among the more strictly Biblical tongues ; and some 
 acquaintance with it will be helpful to the thorough study 
 of the original text of the Old Testament. Dr. Clarke, 
 however, was by no means disposed to attach that exagger- 
 ated importance to the knowledge of Arabic, in this respect, 
 which has been claimed for it by some scholars. He gave 
 it as his deliberate opinion, after much experience, that " a 
 man may perfectly understand the whole phraseology of the 
 Hebrew Bible who knows not a letter of the Arabic alpha- 
 bet ; and though we readily grant that a knowledge of that 
 language may be of considerable service in supplying 
 several deficient roots, whose derivatives alone remain in 
 the Hebrew Bible ; yet, as to the general understanding of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, we assert in our turn that a knowl- 
 edge of Hellenistic Greek, and especially that of the Septu- 
 agint, will avail more toward a thorough understanding of 
 the sacred text than all the Arabic in Hariri or the Koran. 
 Of all the books in the Old Testament, the book of Job 
 alone is that to which Arabic learning may be most suc- 
 cessfully applied, from the number of Arabisms which it 
 contains ; yet even here it can do but little, as is evident 
 from the excessive labors of Schultens and Chapelow on 
 this book, both eminent Arabic scholars and critics, who, 
 nevertheless, in the judgment of those best qualified to form 
 a correct opinion, have contributed little toward the eluci- 
 dation of the difficulties found in this ancient book."* 
 
 He entered, however, on the study with his wonted 
 energy, and followed it up with such results as to become 
 
 * Works, vol. x, p. 266.
 
 300 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 one of the most respectable Arabic scholars in England. 
 The enthusiasim he felt in this pursuit, in its earlier stages, 
 discovers itself in the sacrifice he made to obtain what was 
 then deemed, and rightly, the best lexicon to the language, 
 the Thesaurus of Meninski. He had written to his book- 
 seller to look out for a copy for him, and learned in reply 
 that " one copy had been sold the day before, to a brother 
 in the trade, for 30 ; that he had been to see what he 
 would let it go for, and that he demanded forty guineas, 
 saying he could make even more of it, but that he would 
 keep it forty-eight hours for the answer." Mr. Clarke im- 
 mediately wrote to a friend for the loan of the money, since 
 " without the Thesaurus he was at a stand in the prosecu- 
 tion of his studies;" engaging that he would "faithfully 
 repay it in three months." His friend, however, demurred 
 to the greatness of the sum " for a book," and, instead of 
 the forty guineas, sent him some dry advice on the neces- 
 sity of learning the value of money, and of confining his 
 wishes and wants within the limits of his circumstances. 
 Nothing daunted, he went in person to another friend, and 
 said, " Mr. Ewer, I want to borrow of you 40 for three 
 months, at the end of which I will repay you. Will you 
 lend me that sum ?" To which the good man replied, "Yes, 
 Mr. Clarke, twenty times that" sum for twenty times as 
 long, if you wish it ; you may have it to-day." So Menin- 
 ski was brought home, and became one of the choice com- 
 panions of his life.* 
 
 *The high price of this work may be explained, not only from its in- 
 trinsic excellence, but from the circumstances of its history. Francois 
 Menin was a native of Lormine, in 1623; and, having completed his 
 studies at Rome, obtained a situation in the Polish embassy ut Constan- 
 tinople, where he became familiar with Turkish as interpreter to the 
 embassy, and was subsequently appointed embassador himself. In this 
 connection with the Polish court, and naturalized as a Pole, he took the 
 national termination to his name, and was henceforward known as Me- 
 ninski. In his thirty-eighth year he entered the service of Austria as 
 an interpreter of Oriental languages at Vienna, made a pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and was made a knight of that order. 
 When fifty-seven, he published the great work which had been the labor
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 301 
 
 In Arabian literature, as well as Persian, Dr. Clarke 
 from time to time enriched his library with the choicest 
 authors, both printed and in manuscript. His collection of 
 Oriental manuscripts became at length truly magnificent. 
 In the course of his earlier studies he derived great advan- 
 tage from the Bibliotheque Orientak of D'Herbelot, and 
 cherished a strong wish to publish an English translation 
 ofit.f 
 
 Among his other researches, he had become master 
 of enough of Ethiopic and Coptic to be able to read and 
 pronounce the few scanty pieces we have in those lan- 
 guages. Connected with the latter was a little incident 
 which deserves to be set down. On one of his visits to 
 
 of his life the Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium, in four volumes. 
 (Vienna, 1680.) It is a lexicon of the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian lan- 
 guages, and partially of the Tartar ; the definitions and explanations 
 being given in Latin, German, Italian, French, and Polish. A new edi- 
 tion was published a hundred years later from the same press, with the 
 same types, but on inferior paper. Copies, however, of both these edi- 
 tions are exceedingly scarce, from the destruction of most of those of the 
 first, by fire, owing to the explosion of a bomb at the siege of Vienna by 
 the Turks ; and of the second, from an accident by water. Previously 
 to the appearance of Richardson's Persian, Arabic, and English Diction- 
 ary, a good copy has sold for eighty, and sometimes for a hundred guin- 
 eas. The copies are generally marked by the fire, and stained more 
 or less by the water used to quench the flames. The fourth volume of 
 the work was entirely destroyed, and cost the author seven years more 
 of labor to replace it. 
 
 t " In my answer to Mr. Phillips, Paul's Church- yard, I told him I had 
 projected the translation of a work of the greatest consequence. . . .Our 
 extensive conquests in the East, and the commercial transactions with 
 that great world, render everything relative to the history of those coun- 
 tries, the manners of the ancient and modern inhabitants, their arts and 
 sciences, mythology, eminent men, etc., not only interesting to men of 
 letters, but also to men of business. 
 
 " It is strange that such a work should have been upward of a hnn- 
 dred years published abroad, and yet never translated into English. I 
 refer to the Bib. Orient, of D'Herbelot, with the supplement of Visdelou 
 and Galand. This book cannot be translated by any man who has not 
 a knowledge of the Arabic tongue, etc. I could add a thousand things 
 to it, to make it what it should be. . . . You know I have perseverance 
 capable of running even a four years' heat on one course ; and I could 
 scarcely hope to do this in less." Letter.
 
 302 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 London, in 1803, he met one day with the secretary of the 
 Royal Society of Antiquarians, Dr. Brandt, who invited 
 him to go with him to the Society's Hall at Somerset 
 House, to give an opinion upon a stone recently arrived 
 from Egypt, with an inscription which had hitherto baffled 
 all attempts to decipher it. The stone had been dug up by 
 the French troops when at work in the trenches at Raschid, 
 or Rosetta, in Lower Egypt. In the reverses of the war 
 it fell into the hands of Sir Sydney Smith, and, greatly to 
 the mortification of the savans, had been transmitted to 
 England, and intrusted to the care of the Royal Society of 
 Antiquarians. The block, somewhat mutilated, bore a 
 triple inscription ; one in Greek, a second in hieroglyphics, 
 and the third in forms which had defied all the learning of 
 London to unravel. I will now let Mr. Clarke tell his own 
 story, in writing home : 
 
 " I have been very little out since I came here ; but, 
 through Mr. Baynes, I have had an interview with the sec- 
 retary of the Royal Society of Antiquarians, who informed 
 me that they had received from Egypt a curious stone with 
 a threefold inscription ; one, hieroglyphics ; the other, 
 Greek ; and the third, utterly unknown. He offered to take 
 me, and show it. ' All of the literati,' said he, 'have been ; 
 several members of the Asiatic Society, the famous Sanskrit 
 scholar, Charles Wilkins, etc.; and not one of them can 
 find out the matter of the stone, nor the third inscription. 
 Sir, it pours contempt upon all modern learning, and is a 
 language that is utterly lost. As the Greek inscription 
 shows that it relates to the deification of one of the Ptole- 
 mies, it is evidently several hundred years older than the 
 Christian era. However, if you choose, sir, you shall have 
 the privilege of seeing it.' He seemed to treat me with 
 such a more than quantum sufficil of hauteur, that I really 
 did not wish to lay myself under so much obligation. He 
 then said : ' If you are conversant in Greek, I can repeat part 
 of the last lines of the inscription to you.' I bowed and 
 nothing. He then began, and interpreted as he went.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 303 
 
 A.mong many things he said : ' The stone is so hard that 
 no instrument we have can cut it ; and the inscription itself 
 points this out, for the decree is that it should be cut on a 
 hard stone.' A. C. 'Sir, I do not think, whatever quality 
 the stone may be of, that arepeov here signifies hard. Its 
 ideal and proper meaning is firm ; and it probably 
 refers to the local establishment of the stone.' He 
 was not willing to give up his own opinion, and the 
 interview ended. 
 
 " On Saturday morning I called upon Mr. Baynes, and 
 found the Doctor had been there again inquiring for me, and 
 wishing me to meet him there at noon, and he would take 
 me to Somerset House. . . . The Doctor came at the 
 appointed time, and behaved with less stiffness. We en- 
 tered the coach. The conversation was chiefly about the 
 stone and its indescribable inscription, with the contempt it 
 poured, and so forth. He talked about Persian, and assured 
 me we had derived many English words from it, and men- 
 tioned some. I mentioned others. I soon had the ground 
 to myself. Arrived at Somerset House, I was led to the 
 apartment. 
 
 ''Doctor. Here is the curious and ancient stone which 
 Sir Sydney took from General Menou, which he valued so 
 much, that the French Government endeavored to make the 
 restoration of it a part of the treaty. 
 
 " I had only begun to look at the stone, when the mem- 
 ber who is employed in making out the Greek inscription, 
 came in, I suppose by appointment. I viewed it silently 
 for some time. 
 
 " Doctor. Well, sir, what do you think of it 1 
 
 " A. C. Why, sir, it is certainly very curious. 
 
 " Dr. What do you think the stone is 1 Some suppose 
 it to be porphyry, others granite ; but none are agreed. 
 
 " A. C. Why, sir, it is neither porphyry nor granite ; it 
 is basaltes. 
 
 "Dr. Basaltes, think you? 
 
 " A. C. Yes, sir ; I am certain it is nothing but basaltes,
 
 304 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 interspersed with mica and quartz. I pledge myself it will 
 strike fire with flint." 
 
 "This produced some conversation, in which the other gen- 
 tleman took a part ; at last my opinion became current. I 
 then measured the stone, and the Doctor took down the 
 dimensions. Then the unknown inscription came into 
 review. 
 
 "A. C. This inscription is Coptic,* and differs only from 
 the printed Coptic in Wilkins's Testament, as printed Per- 
 sian does from manuscript. 
 
 " Thus was delivered into their hands a key by which the 
 whole may be made out." 
 
 From the treasures of Sanskrit and Hindoo literature, 
 the Vedas, Shastras, Puranas, and other symbolic books of 
 the old Indian religion, Dr. Clarke enriched his common- 
 place books with a great variety of remarkable extracts ; and 
 especially from the Zend-Avesta, and Bagkavat-geeta, which 
 were afterward used with advantage in his commentaries on 
 the Scriptures.j- He made no pretensions to an acquaint- 
 ance with the original languages of those books, but availed 
 himself of the translations of them which had been so far 
 accomplished at that time by M. Anquetil du Perron, Sir 
 William Jones, Dr. Charles Wilkins, and various writers 
 in the "Asiatic Researches," though I ought to observe, that 
 subsequently (that is to say, in 1812, as I find by a memo- 
 randum of his own) he entered for himself on the study of 
 Sanskrit; and I believe found no small help in pursuing it 
 from the two Indian priests who, as we shall see, were 
 shortly after domiciled a considerable time in his family. 
 But so far back as 1798 he was eagerly employed with the 
 translated works. " I have read over the Ayeen Akbery, 
 and marked a number of curious things. I never met with 
 
 * More correctly, Egyptian in the enchorial character. They might have 
 Been that such was the case from the words of the Greek inscription : 
 " Tlii* document shall be engraved on a hard stone in Sacred, Enchorial, 
 and Greek letters," lepotf xai 'EFXQPIOI2 xal 'EhhrjviKolf -ypup/jiaaiv. 
 
 t A, for example, on Matt, xxv., and the first chapter of St. John.
 
 THE STUDENT AND SCHOLAR. 3Vo 
 
 a better spirit than that of the author. It is a work of great 
 labor and importance, and has more matter in it than four- 
 score volumes. Will you be so kind as to inquire whether 
 Mr. Wilkins, who translated the Baghavat-geeta, has finished 
 the remainder ? If this has been published, get it for me at 
 any price. I have made large gleanings from the Baghavat- 
 geeta ; and I think the rest would afford me a copious harv- 
 est Do not lose a moment about it. When I come 
 
 to John's Gospel and Epistles I shall need to consult all 
 the Oriental writings I can procure. It is from them alone 
 that his peculiar phrases can be interpreted. [Query.] Keep 
 your eye about you. May be God may throw in our way 
 an Ayeen Akbery, etc. I have at considerable expense pur- 
 chased the Zend-Avesta, attributed to Zoroaster, published 
 by M. A. Du Perron." 
 
 And again, in 1799 : " I thank you heartily. Before I 
 knew anything of your design, I purposed to write to you 
 concerning the Hedaiyah;* but I almost despaired of getting 
 it, because I thought, like the Ayeen Akbery, it was one of 
 those phoenix books which are rarely to be seen. W T hile 
 purposing to write, I was agreeably surprised by the receipt 
 of it. In the customs and manners alluded to in the Scrip- 
 lures, all these books will be uncommonly useful. In this 
 respect the Ayeen Akbery, Baghavat-geeta, Institutes of 
 Menu, and the Hedaiyah are invaluable. I have read the 
 three former, and have marked every place that suits my 
 purpose. The Hedaiyah I am now beginning." 
 
 Once more, 1799 : " Last week a bookseller came to me 
 from Bath, with a lot of MSS. One is a large thick octavo, 
 a Hindoo and Persian Dictionary ; another, a small octavo, 
 is a compilation from the Mahabh&rata, containing about 
 six hundred pages ; another is a very thick folio, containing 
 about fifteen or sixteen hundred pages, and is either the 
 whole or a very large part of the Mah&bh&rata translated 
 from the Sanskrit into Persian. The Mahabh&rata contains 
 
 * Hamilton's translation of the Hedaiyah. or Oommrntary on the Laws 
 of Islam. Four voluiws.
 
 306 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 one hundred and sixty thousand couplets in the original, and 
 is the most invaluable work in the East. From it the Geeta 
 was translated by Mr. Wilkins ; a work next in dignity and 
 importance to the Bible. [?] He left them with me to look 
 at them, and marked the three for nine guineas, but has 
 since sent me word that he must have four more. Mr. 
 Stock, who saw the MSS. the evening they came, begged to 
 purchase the great folio for his friend, A. C. Now, do you 
 think I should give the 4 4s. more than he asked me ? Mr. 
 Fox will be glad to have the other two. If I send them 
 back, I shall lose the Mah&bh&rata ; and this I should not 
 like, as it comes to me in a providential way." 
 
 But, while making those wide excursions into the regions 
 of foreign philology, Dr. Clarke was not unmindful of the 
 claims of his own mother tongue. A fervent admirer of the 
 English language, he made himself master of its vast capa- 
 bilities by an intimate acquaintance with its structure, and 
 with the sources of those various elements of which it is 
 composed. He had carefully read the homely fathers of 
 our English theology and history in their own Anglo-Saxon ; 
 and this, together with his knowledge of the Semitic and 
 Indo-European tongues, (especially Persian and Sanskrit,) 
 as well as the earlier Continental dialects, enabled him to 
 arrive at the true origines of the" English speech, and to ex- 
 plain its peculiar phenomena. Among his Anglo-Saxon 
 treasures, he set particular value on a manuscript transla- 
 tion of the Bible, of which he has availed himself with ad- 
 vantage in many parts of the Commentary.
 
 THE STUDENT. 307 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STUDENT CONTINUED. 
 
 WITH a mind devoutly intent on attaining the knowledge 
 of the good, Mr. Clarke sought it out, not only in the fading 
 pages of human literature, but in the enduring registries 
 traced by the Creator himself on the immeasurable uni- 
 verse. For science, truly so called, he cherished an instinct- 
 ive and ever-growing love. He believed with St. Paul that 
 " the invisible things of God from the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
 made, even his eternal power and divinity :" their immense- 
 ness showing his omnipotence; their vast variety and fit- 
 nesses, his omniscience and love; and their preservation, 
 the reign of his everlasting providence. So that, as he ex- 
 presses it in his notes on the first chapter to the Romans, 
 "Creation and Providence form a two-fold demonstration 
 of God." In those, too, on the eleventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, he enters more largely on this sub- 
 ject, and condenses the rich results of broad and deep in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 From a child he had been moved by that " desire " which 
 the inspired moralist speaks of, as impelling one who feels 
 it to " separate himself," that he may " intermeddle with all 
 knowledge." " I was always," said he, " a curious lad, and 
 extremely inquisitive. If a stone was thrown up into the 
 air, I wished to know why it came down with a greater 
 force than it ascended ; why some bodies were hard, and 
 others soft ; and what it was that united various bodies. I 
 was intent in gazing at the stars, and in singling out one from 
 another. I obtained the loan of an old spy -glass ; and with 
 it, often without hat, and bare-legged, I sallied out on a clear
 
 308 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 frosty night to make observations on the moon and stars. 
 Since that period I have been constantly learning, and still 
 know but little either of heaven or earth." 
 
 In those boyish days, in common with many who have to 
 do with rural work, the atmosphere claimed a good deal of 
 his attention, and, from incessant observation, he became a 
 practical meteorologist. In a paper in the " Wesleyan 
 Magazine," for 1824, entitled " A Fair and Foul Weather 
 Prognosticator," he takes occasion to revert to those juve- 
 nile lessons received in the school of nature : " I do not re- 
 member the time in which I was unconcerned about the 
 changes of the weather. From my childhood I was bred up 
 on a little farm, which I was taught to care for ever since I 
 was able to spring the rattle, use the whip, manage the 
 sickle, or handle the spade; and, as I found that much of 
 success depended on a proper knowledge of the weather, I 
 was led to study it from eight years of age. Meteorology is 
 a natural science, and one of the first to be studied. Every 
 child in the country makes, untaught, some progress in it. 
 I had learned by silent observation to form good conject- 
 ures about the coming weather, and on this head to teach 
 wisdom among them that were perfect, but who had not 
 been obliged, like me, to watch earnestly that what was so 
 necessary to the family support should not be spoiled by 
 the weather before it was housed. Many a time, even in 
 tender youth, have I watched the heavens with anxiety, ex- 
 amined the different appearances of the morning and even- 
 ing sun, the phases of the moon, the scintillation of the 
 stars, the course and color of the clouds, the flight of the 
 crow and the swallow, the gambols of the colt, the fluttering 
 of the ducks, and the loud screams of the sea-mews ; not 
 forgetting even the hue and croaking of the frog. From the 
 little knowledge derived from close observation, I often 
 ventured to direct our agricultural operations in reference 
 to the coming days, and was seldom much mistaken in the 
 reckoning." 
 
 This weather-wise philosopher of the fields, who is so
 
 THE STUDENT. 309 
 
 restless to know the great secret of nature that he must 
 needs sally forth bare-headed, with naked feet, into the silent 
 night, to send his questions to the moon and stars, grew up 
 into adolescence in the same mind, and may next be seen 
 bending a face which religion had now lit with a solemn in- 
 telligence over the pages of Derham and Ray. "As he was 
 told by the highest authority that ' the heavens declare the 
 glory of God,' and as mere inspection filled him with won- 
 der without giving him the information he wanted, he wish- 
 ed to gain some acquaintance with astronomy. . . . About 
 this time a friend lent him that incomparable work of Dr. 
 Derham, the ' Astro -Theology,' which he read in union with 
 the Bible at all spare times of day and night. Ray's ' Wis- 
 dom of God in the Creation ' gave him still more knowl- 
 edge, and directed him to the study of natural philosophy. 
 All these things were the means of establishing his soul in 
 the thorough belief of the truth ; so that his faith stood not 
 in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God."* 
 
 In his novitiate in the ministry, he read whatever he 
 could get, in the department of natural science, with a never- 
 flagging relish. Down in Cornwall, in addition to some 
 chemical works, he had the use of a medical gentleman's 
 laboratory ; and at Plymouth he obtained from a naval 
 friend a copy of Chambers's Encyclopaedia, with which, " a 
 library in itself," he spent almost every spare half-hour. 
 Here his philosophical taste was gratified, and knowledge 
 gained apace. Of Chambers he never spoke without com- 
 mendation. 
 
 But these were only beginnings of wisdom, first steps in 
 a pathway which became more sunlit as he advanced, led up 
 from nature to nature's God. In the Channel Islands he 
 read many scientific books ; and at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 had the opportunity of attending the courses on chemistry 
 and anatomy. At the Surrey Institution he found im- 
 mense delight as well as profit in the lectures and experi- 
 ments of the professors, who were among the most able 
 * Autobiography.
 
 310 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 men of the day ; and with what fruit those advantages were 
 improved appears in his enriched edition of Sturm's " Re- 
 flections on the Works of God," and the innumerable illus- 
 trations of the nature-science of the Bible in his expository 
 writings. Among his own collections in natural history 
 there was one of minerals, which has been seldom excelled 
 by private persons, including not only the metallic produc- 
 tions, but also some very choice specimens of the precious 
 stones. 
 
 We have before intimated that Dr. Clarke had always a 
 yearning for the recondite in nature ; a disposition which 
 led him to diverge sometimes from the orthodox chemical 
 science of modern times into the now almost forgotten by- 
 paths of the old alchemists. We have seen how, when a 
 mere boy, he tried to master the " Occult Philosophy " of 
 Cornelius Agrippa. In his earlier itinerant years he tells us 
 that " he read several alchemistic authors, the perusal of 
 which was recommended to him by a friend* who was 
 much devoted to such studies ; and he also went through 
 several of the initiatory operations recommended by pro- 
 fessed adepts in that science. This study was the means 
 of greatly enlarging his views on the operations of nature, 
 as he saw many wonders performed by chemical agency." 
 It may surprise the reader that he took pains to wade 
 through Basil Valentine, George Ripley, Philalethes, Nicho- 
 las Flammel, Artephius, Geber, Paracelsus, the Hermetical 
 Triumph, all the writers in Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum 
 Britannicum, etc., not with the hope of finding the philoso- 
 pher's stone, but rerum coynoscere causas, to see nature in 
 her own laboratory. 
 
 Among the few men who have followed such pursuits in 
 modern times, Mr. Clarke became acquainted with one in 
 Dublin, of whom he has left some memoranda too curious 
 not to be transcribed. One Sabbath morning, preaching in 
 Whitefriars'-street chapel on Isaiah i, 25, 26: "And I will 
 turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, 
 * Dr. Twcntyman, the physician of Port Isaac, Cornwall.
 
 THE STUDENT. 311 
 
 and take away all thy tin," etc., he mentioned, by way of 
 explaining the metaphor, the method by which the dross is 
 separated from the silver in the process of refining, and 
 made some observations on the nature and properties of 
 metals, tending to throw light on the subject he was discuss- 
 ing. A gentleman, eminent as a man of science, was pres- 
 ent on that occasion, whose name was Hand, who had for 
 some time been a resolute and unwearied experimcntist in 
 the problems of alchemy in fact, a serious expectant of 
 finding the grand secret itself. . The sermon arrested his at- 
 tention, and from the turn of phraseology employed by the 
 preacher, he was sure that in Mr. Clarke he could know a 
 man like-minded with himself, and one who had traveled on 
 the same track as that which, he believed, might conduct 
 them both to wealth and immortality. He sought an intro- 
 duction ; and if, on becoming acquainted with the learned 
 preacher, he did not find a devotee to the mysterious art as 
 thorough as himself, he nevertheless found one who, as an 
 inquirer into the arcana of nature, was glad to spend an 
 hour occasionally with him in his laboratory. The memor- 
 andums to which I have referred are two letters from this 
 gentleman to Mr. Clarke, after the latter had removed from 
 Dublin to Manchester. In the first he makes the following 
 remarkable recital : 
 
 " The second of November last, came to my house two 
 men ; one I thought to be a priest, and yet believe so ; the 
 other a plain, sedate-looking man. They asked for me. 
 As soon as I went to them, the laskmentioned person said 
 he had ' called to see some of my stained glass, and hoped, 
 as he was curious, I would permit him to call and see me 
 now and then.' Of course I said I should be happy. After 
 much conversation he began to speak of metals and alchemy, 
 asking me if I had ever read any books of that kind (but I 
 believe he well knew I had). After some compliments on 
 my ingenious art, they went away. At twelve o'clock the 
 next day he came himself, without the priest, and told me 
 he had a little matter that would stain glass the very color
 
 312 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 I wanted, and which I could never get ; that is, a deep blood- 
 red. Said he, ' If you have a furnace hot, we will do it ; for 
 the common fire will not do well.' I replied : ' Sir, I have 
 not one hot; but, if you will please to come with me, I will 
 show you my little laboratory, and will get one lighted/ 
 When we came out he looked about him and said, ' Sir, do 
 not deceive me, you are an alchemist.' ' Why do you think 
 that, sir V ' Because you have as many foolish vessels as 1 
 have seen with many others engaged in that study.' '1 
 have,' I answered, ' worked a long time at it without gain, 
 and should be glad to be better instructed.' ' Do you be- 
 lieve the art?" 'Yes, sir.' 'Why 1 ?' 'Because I give 
 credit to many good and pious men.' He smiled. ' Will 
 you have this air-furnace lighted?' I did so. He then 
 asked for a bit of glass, opened a box, and turned aside, 
 laid a little red powder on the glass with a penknife, put 
 the glass with the powder on it into the fire, and when hot 
 took it out, and the glass was like blood 1 ' Have you 
 scales V I got them for him, and some lead ; he weighed 
 two ounces ; he then put four grains of a very white pow- 
 der in a bit of wax, and, when the lead was melted, put this 
 into it, and then raised the fire for a little while, took it out y 
 and cast it into water ; never was finer silver in the world ! 
 I exclaimed, [uttering also the acred name,] ' Sir you 
 amaze me.' ' Why,' he replied, ' do you call upon God ? 
 Do you think he has any hand in these things?' 'In all 
 good things, sir,' I said. ' Ah, friend, God will never reveal 
 those things to man. Did you ever learn any magic?' 
 
 ' No, sir.' ' Get you then ; he will instruct you. But 
 
 1 will lend you a book, and will get you acquainted with a 
 friend that will help you to knowledge. Did you ever seo 
 the devil ?' ' No, sir ; and trust I never shall.' ' Would 
 you be afraid ?' ' Yes.' ' Then you need not ; he harms 
 no one ; he is every ingenious man's friend. Shall I show 
 you something ?' ' Not if it is anything of that kind.' ' It 
 is not, sir. Please to get me a glass of clean water.' I did 
 so. He pulled out a bottle, and dropped a red liquor into
 
 THE STUDENT. 313 
 
 it, and said something 1 did not understand. The water 
 was all in a blaze of fire, and a multitude of little live things 
 like lizards moving about in it. I was in great fear. This 
 he perceived, took the glass, and flung it into the ashes, and 
 all was over. ' Now, sir,' said he, ' if you will enter into 
 a vow with me, as I see you are an ingenious man, I will 
 let you know more than you will ever find out.' This I de- 
 clined, being fully convinced it was of the devil ; and it is 
 now I know the meaning of ' coming improperly by the 
 secret.' After some little time he said he must go, and 
 would call again, when I should think better of his offer. 
 He left me the two ounces of Zwna." 
 
 From the second letter : " I have not seen the individual. 
 [ have used a quarter of an ounce of the silver in my own 
 work, and have sold the remainder for pure silver. The 
 metal was in fusion; and when the powder was put in, 
 which was in size not larger than the head of a lady's hat- 
 pin, the lead in a moment became like some dried powder 
 or calx ; the fire was then raised to melt it again, which was 
 of a heat to melt any silver. In about a quarter of an hour 
 he said : ' It is in perfect flux.' He took it out, and cast it 
 into the water, and you never saw finer silver in your life. 
 I have heard too much of the tricks of alchemists, and was 
 too attentive to all that passed, for any man or devil to de- 
 ceive me in this. [?] 
 
 " When I mentioned the name of God, he smiled with a 
 kind of contempt. The glass of water was a common tum- 
 bler, and he said something as he was putting it in, and 
 looked very sternly at me. The blaze did not take place 
 the moment he put the red liquid in, but little flashes in the 
 water, and a strong smell of sulphur, so much so, that I 
 thought some had fallen into the furnace ; but that was not 
 the case. The glass soon became all on fire, like spirits of 
 wine burning ; and a number of little creatures became visi- 
 ble, exactly like lizards. Some of them moved their heads 
 almost to the top of the glass, and I saw them as distinctly 
 as I ever saw anything. He observed me tremble ; and I
 
 314 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 exclaimed, ' Christ save me !' On his flinging the water 
 with the lizards under the grate, I looked to see if I could 
 observe them there. He said, ' They are gone.' ' Where V 
 'From whence they came.' 'Where is that?' 'O, you 
 must not know all things at once.' 'Why, sir, I believe 
 this is magic. You could, I have no doubt, raise the devil, 
 if you liked.' ' Would you be afraid f ' Yes sir ; I hope 
 to be saved from having anything to do with him.' He re- 
 plied, ' You are a very ingenious man, Mr. Hand ; and I 
 wish you to be better acquainted with nature, and the things 
 in this curious world, through which I have almost been, and 
 have more knowledge than most I have met with ; and yet 
 I know many wonderful men.' ' Do you know any person, 
 sir, who has the red stone ?' ' I do ; multitudes.' ' I wish 
 I knew some.' ' You shall, and the whole secret.' ' Sir, 
 you are very good.' ' But you must know that we are all 
 linked, like a chain ; and you must go under a particular 
 ceremony, and a vow.' ' I will vow to God, sir,' I replied, 
 ' that I will never divulge.' Here he stopped me, and said, 
 I was ' going beyond the question,' and appeared vexed. 
 He said the vow must be made before another, and [added] 
 with an angry tone, ' It is no matter to you whether it be 
 before God or the devil, if you get the art.' 
 
 "Then, indeed, my dear friend, I saw almost into his in- 
 most soul. I grew all on fire, and said, ' I will never receive 
 anything, not even the riches of the world, but from God 
 alone.' ' O sir, he replied, ' you seem to be angry with me ; 
 my intention was to serve you. You are not acquainted 
 with me, or you would rather embrace than offend me.' 
 
 " Much more conversation passed. He spoke of , 
 
 and many other such books, and said he would lend me one. 
 After some time he added, he would leave me to reflect on 
 the subject, and he would call again. He had told me that there 
 was but one way on earth of knowing the transmutation of 
 metals ; and of that, he said, I knew nothing. 
 
 "You did not tell me if Mr. is still in Manchester. 
 
 I wonder he would not acknowledge to you that he had the
 
 THE STUDENT. 315 
 
 art, and how. If he is still in Manchester, tell him of a dis- 
 tressed brother, and perhaps he will give me light." 
 
 From the third letter : " Since I wrote to you last I have 
 seen the man. I said, ' How do you do, sir ?' He replied, 
 ' Sir, I have not the honor of knowing you.' ' Do you not 
 remember,' said I, ' the person who stains glass, and to 
 whom you were so kind as to show some experiments ?' 
 ' No, sir ; you are mistaken,' and he turned red in the face. 
 ' Sir,' I answered, ' if I am mistaken, I beg your pardon for 
 telling you that I was never right in anything in my life, and 
 never shall be.' ' Sir, you are mistaken, and I wish you 
 good morning.' He several times turned round to look 
 after me ; but, be assured, I never saw a man if that one 
 was not the one who was with me. I intend to inquire and 
 find him, or who he is ; of this I am determined. 
 
 " I am at work again, and building a digesting-furnace, 
 exactly after Philalethes, with a tower to contain charcoal 
 sufficient to last twenty-four hours. I will have it to give 
 any degree of heat I please. So, you see, I cannot have 
 done ; nor will I, while I have even a little to enable me to 
 proceed. I spend nothing in any other amusement, so that 
 I may do something at this ; that, if God pleases, I may 
 have a little to spare to do good with." 
 
 Mr. Clarke, in his correspondence with this honest enthu- 
 siast, did not forget to urge upon him the necessity of ob- 
 taining the true riches, " than gold and pearls more precious 
 far," and of seeking that wondrous transmutation of mind 
 and heart which no power can effect but the grace of the 
 Eternal Spirit. He warned him against the inordinate de- 
 sire of wealth ; and exhorted him, in a diligent attendance 
 on the house of God, the reading of his word, and the com- 
 munion of his people in class-meeting, to work out his sal- 
 vation. Mr. Hand died in peace, somewhat suddenly. 
 There was good reason to believe that his acquaintance 
 with Mr. Clarke had led him to that " secret of the Lord," 
 that " knowledge of the Holy," which is the true elixir of 
 immortal life, the key to treasures incorruptible.
 
 316 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 These aerial excursions into the cloud-land of alchemy 
 only gave Mr. Clarke a greater value for a standing on the 
 solid ground of true science. He \vas disposed to look with 
 a suspicious eye upon whatever was wanting in demonstra- 
 tive evidence ; and, on that account, he never heartily con- 
 curred with the doctrines of what was then the new school 
 of the geologists. It should be remembered, however, that 
 geology was then, as a science, only in an inchoate (not to 
 say, a chaotic) state ; and, moreover, that infidelity, though 
 foiled in the attempt, had endeavored to make an instru- 
 ment of it for the promotion of its own injurious ends. Dr. 
 Clarke was only one of many good and learned men who, 
 on those grounds, set their faces against what they consid- 
 ered a new-fangled, fantastic, and mischievous delusion ; 
 but we are bold to affirm, that, had he lived to our days, 
 (in which the true science of geology has emerged from its 
 inceptive confusion, has shaken itself free from these skep- 
 tical tendencies, and, instead of becoming the adversary of 
 the Bible, has proved itself rather a confirming witness of 
 its truth, and an interpreter of its words,) he would have 
 regarded it with very different sentiments. 
 
 It was an axiom with him, that " speculative TRUTH can 
 never be alien from practical WISDOM." He held that all 
 knowledge is valuable, and that a minister of the Gospel 
 may find a use for every species of information. Thus, 
 when a young preacher once asked him whether he would 
 advise him to study mineralogy, he promptly replied, " By 
 all means ; a Methodist preacher should know everything. 
 Partial knowledge, on any branch of science or business, is 
 better than total ignorance. To have a variety of subjects 
 of study will, instead of exhausting the mind, minister to its 
 invigoration ; for, when wearied with one, the surest means 
 of refreshment is to have recourse to another." " The old 
 adage of ' Too many irons in the fire,' " said he, " contains 
 an abominable lie. You cannot have too many poker, 
 tongs, and all, keep them all going !" 
 
 Dr. Clarke's learning was subservient to one design to
 
 THE STUDENT. 317 
 
 know God, and to make him known. He carried the spirit 
 of the theologian into all his inquiries, and it was as a divine 
 that he reached his highest glory. In the direct study of 
 theology his main book was the Bible. That with him was 
 the fans et origo of all religious truth. All his reading had 
 a bearing upon the elucidation of the Scriptures. His im- 
 mense library, amounting at last to about ten thousand 
 printed volumes, and a large collection of ancient and Ori- 
 ental manuscripts, formed, as we may say, one vast com- 
 mentary on the sacred book. In this large collection of 
 works, it is remarkable that the writings of the Puritans, 
 English sermon writers, and English divines in general, 
 formed a comparatively inconsiderable part. In fact he did 
 not read much in that line. He felt that to understand, be- 
 lieve, and live the Bible, insured him an endless supply of 
 reflection and sentiment which made him independent of 
 them all. He liked Baxter and Howe, and a few more, but 
 never leaned upon them. As to Dr. Owen, sometimes 
 called " the prince of English theologians," he estimated 
 him in some respects very cheaply. In one of his letters to 
 Hugh Stuart Boyd he gives his opinion of Owen, which 
 some readers may wish to see : 
 
 " Now about Owen. 1. He was a good scholar. 2. A 
 rigid Calvinist. 3. A very good man. 4. A voluminous 
 writer. 5. A very indifferent critic. But in this he was 
 excusable, because the ars critica was in his time in its cra- 
 dle. The morality of the Gospel was sacred with him. He 
 saw and bewailed the antinomianism that was spreading in 
 his day, and wrote strongly against it. As a writer I know 
 him chiefly from his Considerations on the Polyglot, and his 
 voluminous comment on the Hebrews. To some I should 
 seem a heretic were I to pronounce these writings clumsy, 
 inelegant, obscure, and overwhelmed with verbiage. He 
 sometimes spends forty pages to explain what even in his 
 own way might be dispatched in as many lines. His sense 
 and meaning he drowns in a world of words. To me he is 
 one of the most unsatisfactory writers. As to his book OH
 
 318 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the Hebrews, I would rather a hundred times do my work 
 myself, than watch him going a hundred miles about, in 
 order to come back to the next door.* ... I should think 
 it is impossible for such a man to write clearly on any sub- 
 ject. He cannot condense his meaning, and never comes to 
 the point, but by the most intolerable circumlocution. . . . 
 I have heard a good character of his work on the Holy 
 Spirit ; but I am so completely sick with wading through 
 his Hebrews, that I shall never have courage to encounter 
 him again. He attempted to answer John Goodwin's ' Re- 
 demption Redeemed ;' but, from what I have seen of this, 
 he is like a mouse under the paws of a lion. Goodwin was 
 a thorough logician, and there were no odds and ends about 
 his mind. I do not, however, search any of their works for 
 information on the great doctrines of the Gospel. Where 
 we agree, I find they can add nothing to me ; and I have 
 defended and proved the same truths by modes of reasoning 
 of which they appear to have never thought. ... I do not 
 find in the whole universe of writing, from the earliest 
 Fathers down to the lowest Puritans, so clear, consistent, 
 and comprehensive a view of the great doctrines of salvation 
 as that held and taught by the Methodists." 
 
 On the other hand, in patristic theology Dr. Clarke had 
 read widely. The preparation of \hat useful work of his, 
 " A concise Account of Sacred Literature," required a per- 
 sonal examination of the works of the Fathers, which resulted 
 in an acquaintance with them sufficiently familiar to enable 
 him to refer at any time to them for an evidence, an argu- 
 ment, or an illustration. With such of the great theolo- 
 gians of the Continent as wrote in Latin and French, he had 
 also an extensive intercourse. But the books he loved the 
 most were those which bore most intimately upon the one 
 
 * Kobert Hall was of the same opinion. He says : As a reasoner Owen 
 is most illogical ; for he always takes for granted what he ought to prove, 
 while lie is always proving what ho ought to take for granted ; and, after 
 a long digression, he concludes, very properly, with, " This is not our con- 
 and returns to enter on something still farther from the point.
 
 THE STUDENT. 319 
 
 Book. Like Martin Luther, he was " a doctor of the Holy 
 Scriptures ;" in the most eminent sense of the term, a Bib- 
 lical divine. 
 
 To attain, while pursuing the toilsome avocation of a 
 Methodist preacher's life, such stores of erudition, and to 
 dispense them in his numerous works for the promotion of 
 knowledge and religion in his own and future generations, 
 demanded an intensity of zeal, and a heroism of perseverance, 
 which excite our reverence and admiration. Such a man 
 reminds us of a sublime passage in Ezekiel, where the pro- 
 phet, describing the characteristics of the intellectual agents 
 employed in effecting the great revolutions of Providence, 
 tells us that each of them had the fourfold visage of the 
 eagle, the ox, the lion, and the man, as symbolical of ele- 
 vation of purpose, patience in labor, courage which domi- 
 nates over all opposition, and love which sanctifies all. 
 
 One secret by which he achieved so much was the careful 
 redemption of time. With him the night was for repose, 
 but the day was for labor ; and his day began at the begin- 
 ning. Like Milton, he was up " in summer with the bird 
 that first rises, and in the winter before the sound of any 
 bell ;" but, unlike the Penseroso of the same great poet, he 
 would not say 
 
 " Let my lamp at midnight hour 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower ; 
 Where I may oft outwatch the Bear, 
 With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere 
 The spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 What worlds or what vast regions hold 
 Th' immortal mind that hath forsook 
 Her mansion in this fleshly nook ; 
 And of those demons that are found 
 In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 
 Whose power hath a true consent 
 With planet, or with element." 
 
 However he might have desired with the poet to know 
 these mysteries, Adam Clarke would certainly have objected 
 to watch all the night in learning thein. He was ever of 
 opinion that late studies, when early ones are given up for
 
 320 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 them, are disadvantageous as to the comparative amount of 
 work done, as well as destructive of the health and life of 
 the agent. He called this night toil " burning out the can- 
 dle of life at both ends."* But the hours of the day ho was 
 most assiduous in improving ; and though he could not say 
 with Buda^us, that " the only day he lost in his life was that 
 on which he was married, for on that day he could only read 
 six hours," yet very few men have lost fewer days than Dr. 
 Clarke. For even when obliged to leave home on a jour- 
 ney, he would carry with him the materials for reading and 
 writing, and still work by the way, on the coach or at the inn. 
 For long journeys he had what he termed his " portable 
 library," packed into a convenient case, divided into com- 
 partments, for a small copy of the Hebrew Bible, Septua- 
 gint. Greek Testament, English Bible, Common Prayer 
 Book, Virgil, and Horace. He carried his ink-bottle sus- 
 pended from his neck by a riband, and lodged in his waist- 
 coat pocket. 
 
 Diligence like this, actuated and sustained for more than 
 half a century by love to the God of truth, and zeal for the 
 salvation of souls, led to results which have lifted up his 
 name among those of the true benefactors of mankind. We 
 see in his exemplary life how a large amassment of good 
 may accrue from small beginnings." Like the river, which, 
 rising a feeble streamlet, in some lonely waste, deepens and 
 widens by the accession of stream after stream, as it rolls 
 onward in its fertilizing course, till it vanishes in the gran- 
 deur of the ocean, the intellectual and religious career of 
 this faithful and wise servant, who learned that he might 
 
 * A catalogue having been sentto him late one evening, he saw among 
 the books advertised a copy of the first edition of Erasmus's Greek Tes- 
 tament. Early on the following morning he went off and bought it. A 
 few hours after, a well-known literary man, Dr. Gossett, came to the How- 
 la quest of the same book. Learning that Dr. Clarke had purchased it, 
 he called on him and requested to see it. Gossett : You have been for- 
 tunate ; but how you got the book before me, I am nt a loss to imagine ; 
 for I was at Buynes's directly after breakfast. Clarke: But I WHS 
 then- before breakfast.
 
 THE STUDENT. 321 
 
 teach, and who taught that men might be saved and God 
 glorified, was a progress in which strength was added to 
 strength, and blessing to blessing. 
 
 " I said, I will water my garden, 
 
 I will abundantly water my garden-bed ; 
 
 And, lo, my brook became a river, 
 
 And my river, a sea ; 
 
 Therefore will I make doctrine to shine like the morning, 
 
 And will reveal it to those who are afar ; 
 
 I will pour forth instruction as prophecy, 
 
 And will leave it for generations to come ; 
 
 For, behold, I have not labored for myself alone, 
 
 But for all who inquire after Truth." 
 
 JOSHUA BEN SIRA : Mashalim, c. 24. 
 21
 
 322 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 "JESUS saith unto them, Have ye understood all these 
 things? They say unto him, Yea Lord. Then said he un- 
 to them. Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, 
 who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." 
 Matthew xiii, 51, 52. Dr. Clarke belonged to that class 
 of authors whose affluence of information and fertility of 
 thought render the communication of knowledge to others 
 at once a duty and a pleasure. He wrote, as well as 
 preached, out of the abundance of the heart. The same 
 guiding power which had given him the impulse to learn, 
 moved him also to teach. His views were but humble at 
 first. When, in the Norman Isles, he commenced writing 
 some reflections on various chapters of the New Testament, 
 he expressed in one of his letters a doubt whether they 
 would ever be read by any one but himself, and signified, 
 in another, his persuasion that the Lord had not appointed 
 him to be an instructor of others by the pen. But the 
 time had not then come. The fallow ground is first pre- 
 pared, and the seed sown ; then does the earth bring forth 
 of itself the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear ; 
 and the sickle is put in because the harvest is ripe. We 
 have seen how he labored in the improvement of his 
 mind ; his works, whether as a preacher or an author, show 
 the result. Those toilsome seasons of intellectual tillage 
 yielded, and are still yielding, harvests unto life eternal. 
 
 The characteristic of his literary works is INSTRUCTIVE- 
 NESS. If he wrote, it was because he had something to tell
 
 THE AUTHOR. 323 
 
 you worth your knowing. Hence his pages are crowded 
 with information, and that which has generally a bearing 
 on the personal welfare of the reader. As to style, he is 
 perfectly unpretending ; if not ornate, still never common- 
 place or unpleasant ; and, though plain, yet often solemnly 
 forcible. The staid self-possession and dignity of the scholar 
 are blended with the gracious dispositions of the Christian. 
 Such, indeed, are the intrinsic reality and value of what he 
 is telling you, that you become insensible to the manner in 
 which it is told. You have the feeling, while reading, that 
 the author who is absorbing your attention more and more 
 is an honest and earnest man, who is bent on doing you 
 good for time and eternity. Such is the good spirit which 
 breathes in these works, that a person who reads much of 
 them will get to feel toward the writer as if he were a per- 
 sonal friend, or a wise and loving father. 
 
 The doctor's writings are so voluminous, and our limits 
 so restricted, that we can do little more in the present chap- 
 ter than indicate the subjects which he has treated. 
 
 With the exception of a few papers written for the Maga- 
 zine, nothing had appeared from his pen, bearing his own 
 name, before 1797, when he published " A Dissertation on 
 the Use and Abuse of Tobacco," an essay which, it must 
 be confessed, is well argued and well written. It abounds 
 with useful and curious information, botanical, medical, and 
 historical ; and, in relation to the purpose which the author 
 had at heart in writing it to offer a warning against the 
 indiscriminate use of tobacco he has said what well mer- 
 its the attention, of its votaries. The recent discussions 
 which have been so extensively carried on in " The Lancet " 
 and other publications, on the same subject, have given the 
 strongest scientific corroboration to the view which Mr. 
 Clarke takes of the injurious effects, both physical and 
 moral, which follow the immoderate use of the fragrant but 
 seductive and dangerous leaf. It should be added, that this 
 pamphlet has been the means of doing much good hi ful- 
 filling to some extent the wishes of the author.
 
 324 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 His next considerable venture was an improved transla- 
 tion of Sturm's " Reflections on the Being and Attributes 
 of God, and on his Works both in Nature and Providence ;" 
 a popular work, too well known to need any description 
 here. Though the translator worked upon a French edition, 
 so producing a version of a version, yet he had carefully 
 collated his exemplar with the German original, to be satis- 
 fied as to its correctness. It is to be regretted that he did 
 not do this with the first German edition, as that is enriched 
 with many beautiful devotional verses, which are not given 
 in the Franch translation.* Still, he preferred the latter as 
 his text, on account of many substantial improvements in it. 
 For it was Mr. Clarke's purpose, not so much to give a 
 literal translation of Sturm, as to provide a book of relig- 
 ious meditations as good as he could make it. He has ac- 
 cordingly augmented the work with a variety of matter, 
 scientific and devotional, giving it high rank among works 
 of the class in the English or any other language. The 
 manuscript, in Mr. Clarke's bold handwriting, may be seen 
 in the library of the Wesley an College at Richmond. 
 
 A similar undertaking was a translation of Fleury's 
 " Treatise on the Manners of the Ancient Israelites ; con- 
 taining an Account of their Customs, Ceremonies, Laws, 
 Polity, Religion, Sects, Arts, and Trades ; their Division of 
 Time, Wars, Captivities, Dispersion, and present State." 
 
 * I transcribe a specimen of these good verses : 
 
 Fluchtig ist die edle Zeit, 
 
 Gross sind unsre pflichten f 
 
 Lehr urn fur die Ewigkeit, 
 
 Jede treu verrichten, 
 
 Jede from/me gute That 
 
 Lass uns wohl gelingen, 
 
 Frucht lass jede Tugendsaat 
 
 Fur den Himmel bringen. Jan. 1. 
 
 Wir leben liier zur Ewiglceit, 
 Zu thun was uns der Herr gebeut ; 
 Und unsere Leben* kl#inster Theil 
 1st cine Print zu vftfcnn Ilfil. Jnn. 2.
 
 THE AUTHOR. 325 
 
 Claude Fleury was abbe of Argenteuil, and a member of 
 Hie Royal Academy ; a man of piety and learning. His 
 work has always been a favorite one with good men of 
 every Church. Bishop Home, in giving it his hearty recom- 
 mendation, says that " it is an excellent introduction to the 
 reading of the Old Testament, and should be put into the 
 hands of every young person."* Mr. Clarke may be said 
 to have published a new edition, rather than a new transla- 
 tion, of this pleasing manual ; as he took for his text the 
 translation published in 1756, by Ellis Farneworth, though 
 made in reality by Thomas Bedford, of Compton, Derby- 
 shire. In acknowledging this, he says he was convinced 
 that a better one on the whole could scarcely be hoped for, 
 the language being pure and elegant, and the spirit and unc- 
 tion of the original excellently preserved. As in the case 
 of Sturm, the editor enriched the book with many import- 
 ant additions. 
 
 A more formidable work was now in progress the Bib- 
 liographical Dictionary, in six volumes ; the first of which 
 issued from the press in 1802, and the last two years later. 
 In this elaborate compilation he gives a chronological ac- 
 count of the most curious, scarce, and important books in 
 all departments of literature Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cop- 
 tic, Syriac, Chaldee, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, and Armen- 
 ian from the infancy of printing to the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century. In doing this he has condensed the 
 most valuable materials treasured up in many expensive 
 works : as Le Long's Bibliotheca Sacra ; Mattaire's Annales 
 Typographici ; Vogt's Catalogus Historico-Criticus ; Mar- 
 chand's Histoire de FOrigine et des Progresde Flmprimerie ; 
 De Bure's Bibliographic Instructive ; Meerman's Oriaines 
 TypographicoB ; Osmont's Dictionnaire Typoyraphiqve, 
 Historique, et Critique des Livres JRarcs; De Rossi's Appa 
 ratus Biblicus; Cailleau's Dictionnaire Typographique ; 
 Panzer's Annales Typographici; Heinsius's Allgemeines 
 Backer Lexicon; Bowyer's " Origin of Printing," and Har- 
 
 * Discourses, vol. i.
 
 326 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 wood's "View of the Classics," which last he has trans- 
 ferred, bodily, into his work. The dry details of bookcraft 
 are relieved by biographical notices and anecdotes of the 
 most eminent authors, and critical judgments of their pro- 
 ductions. On the editions of the Holy Scriptures, both 
 separately, and in the Polyglot collections, the Dictionary 
 is of especial value. Great attention is also paid to the 
 classical authors in Greek and Latin. In the department 
 of Rabbinical literature, we do not find the amount of infor- 
 mation which might have been expected ; and the same 
 failure may be observed in most of the above works which 
 Mr. Clarke took as his authorities. In following years he 
 kept a steady eye on an improved and enlarged edition, for 
 which he noted down some thousands of additions and 
 amendments. 
 
 In 1806 he published a Supplement to the Dictionary, 
 with the title of the " Bibliographical Miscellany," in two 
 volumes; in the first of which may be found, 1. An 
 account of the English translations of all the Greek and 
 Roman classics and ecclesiastical writers, with critical re- 
 marks, from the best authorities ; and, 2. An extensive list 
 of Arabic and Persian grammars, lexicons, and elementary 
 treatises, with a description of the principal works of the 
 best Arabic and Persian writers, whether printed or in 
 manuscript, with such English translations of them as had 
 been hitherto accomplished. 
 
 The second volume is equally a " Miscellany." It opens 
 with remarks on the origin of language and of alphabet- 
 ical characters, and then gives a short history of the origin 
 of printing, and the introduction and perfection of the art in 
 Italy; a catalogue of authors on bibliography and typo- 
 graphy, in four classes ; an alphabetical list of all the cities 
 and towns where printing was carried on in the fifteenth 
 century, with the title of the first book printed in each 
 place. Then follow an Essay on Bibliography, which 
 dilates on the knowledge and love of books ; and an account 
 of several bibliographical systems, exhibiting the proper
 
 THE AUTHOR. 327 
 
 % 
 
 method of arranging books in a large library. It will be 
 perceived that this work has great attractions for reading 
 men ; and its value is yet enhanced to the student, by copi- 
 ous tables of the Olympiads, the Roman calendar, and the 
 Mohammedan Hegira and Chalifate. 
 
 Though the Bibliographical Dictionary had a very encour- 
 aging sale, it has never been reprinted. Large materials 
 were left by Dr. Clarke for an improved edition. He had 
 intended also to supply the deficiencies of the Dictionary, 
 by a supplementary work of the same kind on the literature 
 of the modern European languages. 
 
 While these works were yet in hand, his active pen threw 
 off several minor pieces, which were eagerly read at the 
 time, and will always reward the attention of those who are 
 interested in the subjects of which they treat. Among 
 them were two polemical pieces against M. Du Perron, 
 occasioned by that gentleman's attack on the literary charac- 
 ters of Sir William Jones, and Mr. William Hunter of 
 Bengal ; a Dissertation on the Silver Disc in the Cabinet 
 of Antiquities in Paris, commonly called "Scipio's Buck- 
 ler ;" a curious Essay on Witchraft ; two very useful Com- 
 pendiums of the various Editions of the Polyglot Bibles, 
 and of the Greek Testament ; and a critical Dissertation on 
 the Text of the Tree Divine Witnesses, with fac-similes of 
 1 John v, 7-9, as they stand in the first edition of the New 
 Testament printed at Complutum in 1514, and in the Codex 
 Jtfontfortii, a manuscript in the library of Trinity College, 
 Dublin. 
 
 The conductors of the Eclectic Review, which was estab- 
 lished in 1804, wished, at the very outset of their under- 
 taking, to secure Mr. Clarke as a regular contributor, espe- 
 cially in the Biblical and Oriental branches ; and, in compli- 
 ance with their pressing invitation, he prepared for the 
 opening number a review of Granville Sharp's Tracts on the 
 Hebrew Language, and Yeates's Hebrew Grammar. And 
 subsequently, from time to time, he wrote for that periodi- 
 cal articles of so much intrinsic value, that we rejoice to find
 
 328 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 
 
 them embodied in a permanent form in the tenth volume of 
 his Miscellaneous Works. They comprise Reviews of Sir 
 William Jones's Persian Grammar, Bell's Greek Grammar, 
 Whittaker's Latin Grammar ; Lord Teignmouth's Memoirs 
 of Sir W. Jones ; Stock on the Prophet Isaiah ; Holmes's 
 Edition of the Septuagint ; Wilkin's Arabic and Persian 
 Dictionary ; Barrett's Evangelium secundum Mattkceum; 
 Gilchrist's New Theory of the Persian Verbs; De Sacy's 
 Chrestomathie Arabe ; Western's Fragments of Oriental 
 Literature ; and Dean Graves's Lectures on the Pentateuch. 
 All these disquisitions are marked by a thoroughness and 
 solidity which will always make them most acceptable to 
 inquirers into the various subjects of philology and criticism 
 to which they refer. The writer, with no ostentation, shows 
 his own mastery of the branch of learning forming the sub- 
 ject of the books reviewed; and not only gives a lucid 
 account of their contents, but adds to the sum of informa- 
 tion to be found in them, from his own rich stores.* 
 
 In September, 1807, he published, in one volume, "A 
 concise View of the Succession of Sacred Literature, in a 
 Chronological Arrangement of Authors and their Works to 
 the Year of our Lord 345." Most of the sheets had been 
 printed more than three years, the author having been pre- 
 vented fruiu completing it. The main value of this book 
 lies in the analytical account it gives us of the writings of 
 the Greek and Latin Fathers who lived before the Council 
 of Nice. Mr. Clarke's account of these writings is not 
 second-hand compilation, but derived in general from a per- 
 sonal examination of the works themselves. Even the 
 "Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques " of the Sorbon- 
 nist, Du Pin, (in itself a treasure of that kind of lore,) was 
 not in his possession while engaged in this task. The 
 author's original design, to bring down the resume of the 
 ecclesiastical writers to the time of the invention of print- 
 
 * To these (Eclectic) reviews we may add another, on Exley's Theory 
 of Physics, which appeared in the Literary Gazette, and is reprinted in 
 the tenth volume of the Works.
 
 THE AUTHOR. 829 
 
 ing, was not accomplished by himself, but by his son, the 
 Rev. J. B. B. Clarke, who fulfilled it in the production of a 
 second volume much larger than the first, and in a manner 
 that bore out the high estimate his father had taken of his 
 qualifications and ability for such a work. The second 
 volume was published in 1831, the year before the decease 
 of Dr. Clarke, who prefixed the following words : " As the 
 continuation is announced under another name, it may be 
 necessary to state that I have been obliged to seek that help 
 in others once found in myself, of which length of days and 
 impaired sight have deprived me.* To my son, J. B. B. 
 Clarke, M. A., I have delivered up all my papers, (the 
 whole of which have been added to what was previously 
 published, and constitute the completion of the first part,) 
 with the fullest conviction that from his natural taste for 
 this species of study, so nearly allied to his sacred function, 
 and from his various learning and thorough knowledge of 
 the subject, he is amply qualified to conduct it, with credit 
 to himself and profit to the reader, to that issue at which 
 his father aimed the glory of God, and the good of his 
 Church." 
 
 About the time of the publication of the first volume, Dr. 
 Clarke was diligently at work on a new edition of Shuck- 
 ford's "Sacred and Profane History of the World," for 
 which he had made numerous notes and corrections ; but 
 the book, when nearly through the press, was consumed by 
 a fire which burned down the printing-office. This calamity 
 destroyed also another work on which he had spent yet 
 more labor an edition of Harmer's " Observations on 
 various Passages of Scripture." Shuckford he did not 
 resume, but gave it over to the Rev. Mr. Creighton, who 
 
 *In a letter to Mrs. Clarke, dated 1816, when away from home, the 
 Doctor says : " Tell Joseph for the Lord's sake to give all diligence at 
 Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. 1 must soon be worn out, at least as to my 
 eyes ; and if there be not some one to go on with my unfinished works, 
 all will be ruin." He found in Joseph the helper he wanted. Of this 
 amiable and learned clergyman see a short account further on.
 
 830 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 brought it forward again ; but to Ilarmer he applied with 
 renewed zeal. By improving the style, and inserting the 
 Hebrew and Greek words (where it could be done advan- 
 tageously) in the Scripture quotations, with the Masoretic 
 pronunciation of the Hebrew, by illustrating some pas- 
 sages from Eastern authors, and adding a series of observa- 
 tions designed to show the benefit afforded by the Greek 
 and Roman classics as means of illustration in many pas- 
 sages of Scripture, he produced an edition of this useful 
 work incomparably superior to any one of the four which 
 had preceded it. 
 
 Another editorial undertaking was a reprint of the Con- 
 cordance to the Bible which had been published a long time 
 before by the Rev. Mr. Butterworth of Coventry ; a good 
 work of the kind, which, however, under the care of Dr. 
 Clarke, became much better, by the incorporation of addi- 
 tional matter prepared by the author himself, by the ex- 
 punging of some erroneous statements relating to the natu- 
 ral history of the Bible, by more critical expositions of the 
 proper names, and by revision of the theological definitions. 
 As a Concordance, this edition comprises the good qualities 
 of being correct, pleasant, and portable. 
 
 In original composition, the Account of the Ecclesiastical 
 Writers was now followed by a treatise on the Holy Com- 
 munion, with the title of "A Discourse on the Nature, Insti- 
 tution, and Design of the Holy Eucharist." The primary 
 idea of this disquisition may be expressed by a sentence 
 from the Introduction : " The Eucharist I consider a rite de- 
 signed by God to keep up a continual remembrance of the 
 doctrine of the atonement." In bringing this out to view, 
 great stress is laid upon the analogy between the Lord's 
 Supper in the New Testament dispensation, and the paschal 
 supper under the Old. In the introduction he examines the 
 question, whether our Lord ate the Passover with his dis- 
 ciples in the last year of his ministry ; and inclines to the 
 opinion that he did partake of the paschal supper with them, 
 but not at the same hour with the Jews ; and that he expired
 
 THE AUTHOR. 331 
 
 on the cross the same hour in which the paschal lamb was 
 slain. He then proceeds to his theme, "that Christ our 
 Passover is sacrificed for us, and that he has instituted this 
 rite as a perpetual memorial of that his precious death until 
 his coming again ; and they who, with a sincere heart and 
 true faith in his passion and death, partake of it, shall be 
 made partakers of his most blessed body and blood :" in the 
 discussion of which he points out : 
 
 I. The nature and design of this institution : here drawing 
 a parallel between it and the Passover ; embodying, as he 
 goes on, some rich quotations from the great doctors of the 
 Hebrew and Christian communions. 
 
 II. The manner of its celebration : where he gives a har- 
 mony of the Gospel narratives of the last supper, and takes 
 occasion to urge the importance of retaining the materials 
 of the communion as they were appointed by our Saviour ; 
 that is, unleavened bread, to be broken in the act of adminis- 
 tration ; and the use of the purest wine, or the unadulterated 
 juice of the grape. 
 
 III. The proper meaning of the different epithets given 
 to it in the Scriptures and the primitive Church. 1. The 
 Eucharist. 2. Lord's Supper. 3. Sacrifice. 4. Breaking 
 of Bread. 5. Communion. 6. Sacrament. 7. Paschal 
 Feast, Passover. He explains these terms with a profusion 
 of learning. In defining the term " sacrament," he seems to 
 restrict the meaning to the oath of fidelity and obedience 
 He takes occasion in one place to ask, " Who, then, should 
 approach this awful ordinance?" and answers, 1. Every be- 
 liever in Jesus Christ. 2. Every genuine penitent; "for 
 the promises of pardon are made to him." And as to the 
 question, "Who are they who should administer it?" he 
 answers, " Every minister of Jesus Christ, and he only ;" 
 adding : " I shall not dispute here about the manner in which 
 a man may be appointed to officiate in any branch of the 
 Church of God. The pure Church of Christ exists exclusively 
 nowhere. It lives in its universality in the various con- 
 gregations and societies which profess the Gospel of the Son
 
 332 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of God : therefore I contend not here for this or that mode 
 of ordination. But I contend that the man alone who is ap- 
 pointed to minister in holy things, according to the regular 
 usages of that Church to which he belongs, has a right to 
 preach God's holy word or to administer his sacraments." 
 
 IV. The reasons for frequent communion. 1. The com- 
 mand given by our Lord to do this in remembrance of him. 
 2. The eucharist sets forth the truth of the atonement; it 
 represents the great Sacrifice, and should therefore be con- 
 stantly observed. 3. It is the duty of the pastor to urge its 
 observance on the flock. 4. It is a standing and inexpug- 
 nable proof of the authenticity of the Christian religion. 
 
 In a postscript the author gives some extracts from a 
 Saxon homily, and others from ^Elfric's Epistles, to show 
 that the early English Churches did not hold the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation. 
 
 On the memorable words of our Saviour, " Take, eat ; 
 this is my body," Dr. Clarke, in opposition to the Romish 
 doctrine, affirms the meaning to be, "This represents my 
 body ;" observes that in the same way the Paschal lamb is 
 called the Passover, because it represented the means ap- 
 pointed for the preservation of the Israelites from the blast 
 of the destroying angel ; and then proceeds to make a philo- 
 logical remark which has called forth some grave discussion. 
 " Besides," writes he, " our Lord did not say, Hoc est corpus 
 meum, ' This is my body,' as he did not speak in the Latin 
 tongue; though as much stress has been laid upon this quo- 
 tation from the Vulgate version by the papists as if the 
 original of the three evangelists had been written in Latin. 
 Had he spoken in Latin, following the idiom of the Vulgate, 
 he would have said, Pauls hie corpus meum significat, or 
 symbolum est corporis met : ' This bread signifies my body.' 
 But let it be observed, that in the Scriptures, as they stand 
 in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Chaldaeo-Syriac languages, there 
 is no term which expresses to mean, signify, or denote, though 
 both the Greek and Latin abound with them : hence the 
 Hebrews use a figure, and say, It is, for It signifies." Of
 
 THE AUTHOR. 333 
 
 this mode of speaking he gives a variety of examples. The 
 same train of remark he has embodied in his commentary 
 on the twenty -sixth chapter of St. Matthew. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman, at that time a professor in the Collegio 
 della Sapienza at Rome, in a work on Syrian literature,* 
 published by him in 1828, took occasion to animadvert on 
 this statement, and to show that in the Syrian language there 
 are many terms expressive of signifying, meaning, and de- 
 noting ; of which he gives a variety of examples, for the 
 purpose of obviating Dr. Clarke's argument against the 
 Romanist view of transubstantiation. The objection of Dr. 
 Wiseman was hereupon met by Professor Lee, of Cambridge, 
 who replied to it in his Prolegomena to Bagsters' Polyglot 
 Bible. It is many years since I perused those works ; and, 
 not having access to them at present, I cannot state the pre- 
 cise terms in which the argument was conducted ; but I ad- 
 vert to the point just here, to observe that, judging from the 
 words which Dr. Clarke uses in the treatise before me, as 
 well as in his Commentary on Matt, xxvi, the learned Italian 
 professor seems to have launched his polemical javelin 
 against an antagonist created by his own imagination. Dr. 
 Clarke never said that in the Syrian LANGUAGE, as it was 
 cultivated by ecclesiastical writers ages after the time of 
 our Saviour, there is no word which answers to signify or 
 represent; but, as the reader will see by reverting to his 
 own words, that " in the SCRIPTURES, as they stand in the 
 Hebrew, Chaldee, and Chaldaeo-Syriac languages," there is 
 no such term. The Syriac language after the apostolic time 
 received many accessions of terms and words, which at that 
 time were unknown in it. 
 
 Returning for a moment to the treatise on the Eucharist, 
 we may deferentially remark, that the chief defect we dis- 
 cover in this substantial and profitable discourse is, that, 
 while the Doctor gives great prominence to the Holy Sup- 
 
 * Horce Syriacce: seu Commentatio-nes et Anecdota Res vel Litttras 
 Syriacas tpectantia, Auctore Nlcholato Wiseman, S.T.D. Tomveprimu*. 
 Itmnce, 1828.
 
 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 per as a memorial, he does not point our attention suffi- 
 ciently to its sacramental character as a sign and seal of the 
 promises of God's covenant in Christ ; nor is he sufficiently 
 explicit on the efficacy of the solemn rite as a means of 
 grace. Neither can we be satisfied with the restricted sense 
 he gives to the term " sacrament," as denoting an oath of 
 fidelity. In the Vulgate New Testament the Latin word 
 sacramentum answers to the Greek pvorripiov, " a mystery," 
 something vailed under an emblematic form ; and the sense 
 in which the apostles employed the latter term ought to be 
 taken into account in defining the meaning of the former. 
 Thus St. Paul, speaking of the marriage-bond, says that, 
 representing as it does the union between Christ and the 
 Church, it is pvorripiov fieya, " a great mystery ;" which 
 the Vulgate renders sacramentum magnum. So, in Rev. 
 i, 20, " the mystery of the seven stars " is in the Vulgate " the 
 sacrament of the seven stars." The Syrians use the word 
 roza in the same passages, and apply that term also to the 
 ordinance of the Lord's Supper. In all these cases it is very 
 plain that the Roman military oath has nothing to do with 
 the matter. Nevertheless Dr. Clarke's work on the blessed 
 Eucharist is one of the best in the English or any other 
 language ; and it would be a cause of thankfulness if the 
 Methodist literature were enriched by a treatise equally 
 good on the other sacrament of baptism. 
 
 Several minor pieces were communicated from time to 
 time by Dr. Clarke to various periodicals, of which we re- 
 gret to be only able to afford room for the titles. Several 
 of them are of an antiquarian character ; such as : 1. An 
 Attempt to explain an Inscription on what is called Arthur's 
 Tomb-stone, near Cam el ford. 2. A short Description of 
 three Round Towers in Ireland. 3. An Account of three 
 remarkable Crosses at Munsterboyce, in Ireland. 4. An 
 Account of Mount Rough-tor, with its Druidical Monuments. 
 5. A Dissertation on Diplomas and Diptychs. 6. On the 
 Poem of "King Hart," by Gawin Douglas. 7. On the 
 Bow of Ulysses. 8. On a Bourbonnese Inscription.
 
 THE AUTHOR. 335 
 
 Others refer to the phenomena of nature : 1. On Prog- 
 nostications of the Weather. 2. An Account of an Agri- 
 cultural Experiment. 3. An Account of the miraculous 
 Growth of a Woman's Hair. 4. Extraordinary Sagacity of 
 a Dog. 5. On some medical Cases in the Philadelphia 
 Medical Museum. 
 
 Another class consists of dissertations and fragments on 
 Biblical subjects: 1. On the Genealogy of Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. Critical Remarks on the Thirty -second Chapter of Exodus. 
 
 3. An Introduction to Fisher's "Grand Folio Bible," (a 
 masterly essay). 4. A Preface to the Book of Psalms. 
 5. On the Words, Anathema Maranatha. 6. Directions 
 for Reading the Bible. 
 
 And another, of papers on ecclesiastical subjects: 1. On 
 the Creed of the Abyssinians. 2. Translation of the Liturgy 
 of Dioscorus. 3. On Kneeling in Worship. 4. A Letter 
 of Counsel to a Preacher. 5. On the Methodist Chapels 
 and Trustees. 
 
 The next class are polemical: 1. A Reply to various 
 Critiques on Dr. Clarke's Bible. 2. On a Pamphlet enti- 
 tled, " A Vindication of the Hindoos." 3. Remarks on a 
 Criticism in the Christian Observer. 4. Another Letter to 
 the Same. 5. A Letter to the Editor of the Monthly 
 Magazine. 
 
 All these, along with a translation of the History of St. 
 Leucio, an establishment near Naples, founded as an experi- 
 ment in social economy by the late king Ferdinand, are 
 found in the tenth and eleventh volumes of his collected 
 Works. 
 
 The remaining class are biographical six notices of emi- 
 nent Christians, among whom are his early friend Coleman, 
 and his revered colleague Mr. Pawson. 
 
 In coming to the next considerable book, the " Memoirs 
 of the Wesley Family," it should be observed that Dr. 
 Clarke had long entertained the idea of writing a biography 
 of the founder of Methodism himself; of whom, with an al- 
 most boundless veneration, he was wont to say, that " as a
 
 336 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 scholar, poet, logician, critic, philosopher, politician, legis- 
 lator, divine, public teacher, and deeply pious and exten- 
 sively useful man, he had no superior, and few, if any 
 equals ;" and that justice can never be done him unless he 
 be viewed in all these characters. At the Conference of 
 1820 he was officially requested to write Mr. Wesley's life. 
 The widely read memoir by the poet-laureate was then 
 making a great impression on the public mind ; and a num- 
 ber of influential persons who dissented from the worldly- 
 minded and sinister views of the character of Mr. Wesley 
 presented in that biography, urged him by earnest solicita- 
 tions to acquiesce in the request. Among these, Mr. 
 Butterworth offered him 500 for the copyright. Nor was 
 Dr. Clarke averse from the task, but greatly inclined to 
 undertake it. He had, indeed, a feeling, produced by some 
 incidents in conversation with him while living, that such a 
 thing would have been agreeable to Mr. Wesley himself; 
 and he had been for years accumulating materials which 
 would be highly effective in the construction of an authentic 
 life of that servant of God. 
 
 Yet this project, through certain unpropitious hindrances, 
 came to nothing ; or rather, we should say, it issued not in 
 a life of the founder of Methodism, but in a memoir of the 
 family from which he sprang. The Rev. Henry Moore de- 
 clined to confide to his use certain papers which he had in 
 possession as one of the trustees of Mr. Wesley's literary 
 property. Upon this Dr. Clarke offered him all his own 
 collections, provided he would undertake the memoir him- 
 self. But this, too, was at that time declined. The result 
 has just been stated. 
 
 This work, written, we may truly say, con amore, and in 
 the short space of four months, was published in 1823. The 
 copyright of the first edition was presented by the author 
 to the Methodist Book-room, for which he received the most 
 cordial thanks of the Conference. It was subsequently re- 
 printed, with a large accession of matter, in two volumes. 
 In addition to his own collection, ample materials had been
 
 THE AUTHOR. 337 
 
 supplied him by Miss Sarah Wesley and other friends, in- 
 cluding Miss Sharp, from whom he received some import- 
 ant letters out of the correspondence of her grandfather, the 
 archbishop of York, which threw much light on the early 
 history of Mr. Wesley's father, the rector of Epworth. 
 That indefatigable Methodist antiquarian, the late Thomas 
 Marriott, Esq., also freely opened his treasures for the 
 doctor's use. From all these sources he has been able to 
 perpetuate the memory of a family remarkable alike for 
 their genius, their exemplary piety, and their relation to a 
 revival of apostolic religion, the influences and effects of 
 which strengthen with the years of time, and widen in their 
 range of action on the nations of the world at large. 
 
 The next publication to be mentioned is a useful tractate, 
 the design of which is best described in the ample terms of 
 the title-page; namely, the "Clavis Blblica ; or, a Com- 
 pendium of Scriptural Knowledge, containing a general 
 View of the Contents of the Old and New Testaments ; the 
 Principles of Christianity derived from them, and the Rea- 
 sons on which they are founded ; with Directions how to 
 read most profitably the Holy Bible. Originally drawn up 
 for the Instruction of two Teerunanxies or High Priests of 
 Buddhoo from the Island of Ceylon." Of these Indian 
 priests we will give an account further on. The little vol- 
 ume now before us (which is dedicated to the Rev. Jabez 
 Bunting, M.A., President of the Conference for 1820, and to 
 the Secretaries, Treasurers, and Committee of the Wesleyan 
 Missionary Society) recites the circumstances under which 
 the interesting strangers had been confided to the writer's 
 care, and is accompanied with an affectionate and fatherly 
 letter, replete with wise counsel, and a most suitable intro- 
 duction to the book he had written for their learning. The 
 work itself is admirably suited to the instruction of cate- 
 chumens, and young persons in general. 
 
 Dr. Clarke in the latter years of his life wrote a number 
 of homiletic discourses, not so much for his own use in the 
 pulpit, as for publication through the medium of the press. 
 
 22
 
 338 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 In his collected Works they are comprised in four volumes, 
 and thrown together in a miscellaneous manner. For the 
 sake of method and brevity, I will arrange them under their 
 proper heads. 
 
 I. THEOLOGICAL. 1. On the Existence and Attributes of 
 God. (Jer. x, 11.) 2. The Being and Providence of God. 
 (Heb. xi, 6.) 3. St. Paul's Metaphysics ; or, the Invisible 
 made known by the Visible. 4. The Doctrine of Provi- 
 dence. 5. The different Methods which God has used to 
 bring Men to the Knowledge of Himself. 6. Divine Re- 
 velation. 7. Worship. 8. The Love of God to a Lost 
 World. 9. His Willingness to save all Men. 10. The 
 Plan of human Redemption. 11. The Love of God to 
 Man. 12. The Necessity of Christ's Atonement. 13. The 
 God of all Grace. 14. The Gift of a Saviour the Fulfillment 
 of Prophecy. 15. God's Love in Christ considered in its 
 Objects, Freeness, and Results. 16. The Miracles of 
 Christ a Proof of his Divinity. 17. The Gospel a Pro- 
 clamation of Life and Immortality. 18. Life the Gift 
 of the Gospel, the Law the Ministration of Death. 
 19. Life, Death, and Immortality. 20. The Corruption of the 
 World. 21. The condescending Entreaty of God to Sinners. 
 22. Repentance. 23. Salvation by Faith. 24. Holiness. 
 25. The true Circumcision. 26. Christ crucified, a Stumbling- 
 block to the Jews, and Foolishness to the Greeks. 27. The 
 Design of Jewish Sacrifices ; that of Christ the only Atone- 
 ment. 28. The Gospel of Christ the Power of God unto 
 Salvation. 29. The Glory of the Latter Days. 
 
 II. EXPERIMENTAL. 1 . True Happiness, and the Way to 
 attain it. 2. Genuine Happiness the Privilege of the Chris- 
 tian in this Life. 3. The Confidence of the true Christian. 
 4. Experimental Religion and its Fruits. 5. The Hope of 
 the Gospel through the Resurrection of Christ. 6. The 
 Operations of Providence and Grace calculated to inspire 
 Confidence and Gratitude. 7. St. Peter's Character of the 
 Dispersed among the Gentiles, and his Prayer for the 
 Church of God. 8. Confidence in God, and its Reward.
 
 THE AUTHOR. 339 
 
 9. Probation and Temptation. 10. Promises to the Man 
 who has set his Love upon God. 11. Acquaintance with 
 God, and the Benefits which result from it. 12. The Fam- 
 ily of God and its Privileges. 
 
 III. ETHICAL. 1. On the Decalogue. 2. The Wisdom 
 that is from above. 3. Love to God and Man the Fulfilling 
 of the Law. 4. The Lord's Prayer. 5. The Prayer of 
 Agur. 6. The Traveler's Prayer; a Discourse on the 
 third Collect, for Grace. 7. Christian Moderation. 8. The 
 Christian Race. 9. The Origin and End of Civil Govern- 
 ment. 10. The rights of God and Caesar. 
 
 IV. Relating to the CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 1. The high 
 Commission. 2. Apostolic Preaching. 3. The Christian 
 Prophet and his Work. 4. The Wise Man's Counsels to 
 his Pupil : or, the true Method of giving, receiving, and 
 profiting by Religious Instruction. 5. Characteristic Affec- 
 tion and prime Objects of the Christian Ministry. 
 
 V. MISCELLANEOUS. 1. The Rich Man and the Beggar. 
 2. Nebuchadnezzar's Dream. 3. Two important Questions 
 answered. (Psalm xv, J-5.) 4. Death unavoidable. 
 
 The topics of these discourses, it will be perceived, are of 
 the weightiest moment ; and they are discussed with a cor- 
 respondent seriousness and gravity, with a breadth of inves- 
 tigation, a force of argument, and a fidelity of application, 
 which will insure them a high and permanent place in the 
 homiletic literature of our country. As to the graces of 
 composition many of them are far from being finished in 
 style. Designedly unadorned, their very simplicity gives 
 them a characteristic strength. The truth is made known 
 in deep and well-defined outlines ; not in highly enameled 
 pictures, but in cartoons struck off by the bold hand of a 
 master. 
 
 This is all that we have room to offer on the Miscellaneous 
 Works of Dr. Clarke ; but there are yet three peculiar 
 phases of his literary life, which we must take next in 
 review.
 
 34:0 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE. 
 
 IT was about the year 1808 that the attention of the House 
 of Commons was directed to the condition of the Public 
 Records. The principal archives of the more remote reigns 
 of the English kings had been, a hundred years before, col- 
 lected and embodied in a series of twenty folios, under the 
 title of FCEDERA, Conventiones, et cujuscunque Generis Acta 
 publica, inter Regis Anglice et alios Principes* Fourteen 
 of these were edited by Thomas Rymer, an eminent anti- 
 quary who held the office of Royal Historiographer, and 
 who died in 1713; the remaining six, by Robert Sander- 
 son, his assistant, afterward Keeper of the Rolls. Since 
 that time there had been a large accumulation of public 
 documents, which were lying in confusion in various reposi- 
 tories, together with a number of valuable papers not in- 
 corporated in the Fcedera. Rymer left a collection of state 
 papers in no less than fifty-nine volumes folio, which, after 
 his death were taken into the possession of the government. 
 To have these multitudinous documents arranged, in contin- 
 uation of that great work, was felt to be a duty to the 
 country ; and a commission was appointed to take the 
 measures proper for its accomplishment. One preliminary 
 was the appointment of a suitable editor; and it will serve 
 to give an idea of tho high estimate which had been already 
 formed of Adam Clarke, to state that he was the man to 
 whom the government and senate of England made their 
 application. Our surest method will be to give a statement 
 
 * Another edition was published at the Hague, in 1739, in ten volumes 
 folio.
 
 THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE. 341 
 
 of this transaction from a memorandum in the Doctor's 
 own handwriting. 
 
 "Some time in February, 1808, 1 learned that I had been 
 recommended to His Majesty's commissioners of the public 
 records, by the Right Hon. Charles Abbott, Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, and one of the commissioners, (to 
 whom I was known only by some of my writings on bibli- 
 ography,) as a fit person to undertake the department of 
 collecting and arranging those state papers which might 
 serve to complete and continue Rymer's Foedera. . . . John 
 Caley, Esq., secretary to the commission, was appointed to 
 see me. . . . He called on Mr. Butterworth, and desired an 
 introduction to me on the following Thursday. ... I attended 
 the appointment, and was introduced to him in Mr. B.'s study. 
 
 " After the usual compliments, Mr. Caley said : ' Mr. 
 Clarke, I am desired to call on you to know whether you 
 would be willing to undertake a work hi which His Majes- 
 ty's government would wish to employ you ?' A. C. Pray 
 what is it in which His Majesty's government could employ 
 so obscure an individual as myself 1 ?' Mr. C. Sir, I am not 
 at liberty to specify it at present. A. C. Then, sir, I can 
 give no answer, because I know not whether I have the requi- 
 site qualifications for the work. Mr. C. Sir, those who 
 have sent me have no doubt of your qualifications. The 
 work is confidential ; but I can say no more at present than 
 that it requires the habits of a Christian, a scholar, and a gen- 
 tleman. A. C. Why, sir, I may very reasonably doubt 
 whether I have any of these qualifications in an adequate de- 
 gree ; all lean say is, if there be any way in which, in addi- 
 tion to my present sacred duties, I can serve my king and 
 country, it must be my duty to embrace it. But as I know 
 not the nature of the work, nor the abilities and time it may 
 require, I cannot give any particular answer. Mr. C. Mr. 
 Clarke, your answer is sufficient. I shall report it, and you 
 may expect to hear from me shortly. 
 
 " Within a few days I received a note from Mr. Caley, 
 wishing me to call upon him. I did so, and was then in-
 
 342 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 formed what the work was a supplement and continuation 
 ofRymer; and that His Majesty's commissioners had de- 
 sired me to draw up an Essay on that work. I was struck 
 with surprise, and endeavored to excuse myself on the 
 ground of general unfitness. ... At this the secretary 
 smiled and said : ' Mr. Clarke, you will have the goodness 
 to try ; and meanwhile, pray, draw up the paper which the 
 commissioners require, and I am always ready to give you 
 any assistance in my power.' " 
 
 He felt on consideration strongly inclined to consent. 
 But previously " I laid," says he, " the whole business be- 
 fore the committee of preachers at City-road, and begged 
 their advice. Some said, ' It will prevent your going on in 
 the work of the ministry ;' others, ' It is a trick of the devil 
 to prevent your usefulness. Others, ' It may rather be a 
 call of Divine Providence to greater usefulness than for- 
 merly ; and, seeing you compromise nothing by it, and may 
 still preach as usual, accept it in God's name.' Others, ' If 
 Mr. Wesley were alive, he would consider it a call of God 
 to you ; and so close in with it without hesitation.' " He 
 did so, but he adds, " with the positive understanding that I 
 would only consider myself a locum tenens till they could 
 procure another." 
 
 His first task was to produce a report of the nature, num- 
 ber, and localities of the materials which were to form the 
 new Supplement to the Foedera. It was to take the form 
 of " An Essay on the best Mode of carrying into Effect a 
 Compilation from unedited and latent Records, to form a 
 Supplement," etc. ; and, as he writes in a letter to his friend 
 Mr. Roberts, " was to be prepared in fourteen days. . . . 
 These records were to be found in, 1. The British Mu- 
 seum. 2. The Tower. 3. The Chapter House, Westminster. 
 4. The Rolls Chapel. 5. The State-Paper Office. 6. The 
 Privy Council Office. 7. The Signet Office. . . . Write I 
 must. . . . Well, I thought, for the honor of my God, and 
 for the credit of my people, I will put my shoulder to a 
 wheel deeply stuck in the mud, and raise it if I can. To do
 
 THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE. 343 
 
 anything with effect, I must examine sixty folio volumes, 
 with numerous collateral evidences, and write on a subject, 
 ' Diplomatics,' on which I had never tried my pen, and in 
 circumstances, too, the most unfriendly, as I was employed 
 in the visitation of the classes during the whole time. I 
 thought, prayed, read ; like John Bunyan, ' I pulled, and, as 
 I pulled, it came.' " 
 
 The Essay, thus required, he was enabled to furnish with 
 an incredible activity ; and, to quote the words of the official 
 minute, " At a Board of the Commissioners appointed by 
 his Majesty on the Public Records of the Kingdom, holden 
 Friday, 25 March, 1808 Present, the Rt. Hon. C. Abbott, 
 Lord F. Campbell, Lord Redesdale, Lord Glenverbie, the 
 Bishop of Bangor, etc., the secretary stated that Adam 
 Clarke, LL.D., having been recommended on account of his 
 extensive learning, and indefatigable industry, as a fit per- 
 son* to revise and form a Supplement to Rymer's Fcedera, 
 had prepared an ' Essay on the best Mode of executing such 
 an Undertaking ;' which report the secretary delivered in, 
 and the same was now read." 
 
 In this elaborate dissertation he gives a short history 
 of the origin and progress of the Fcedera, examines the 
 comparative merits of the different editions through 
 which it had passed ; considers the materials of which it 
 is composed, and how far they accord with the original 
 design: then takes into view the projected Supplement; 
 considers the nature of the proper materials, and the 
 repositories where they could be found; and finally points 
 out the best mode by which they might be selected, ar- 
 ranged, and edited. 
 
 Upon the presentation of the report, the board "or- 
 dered that the secretary do obtain admission for Dr. 
 Clarke to make searches in the several public offices, 
 
 * "At the same time," when the report was forwarded to the secretary, 
 " I sent them word that I was an itinerant preacher among the people 
 called Methodists, lately under the direction of the Rev. John Wesley, 
 deceased."
 
 344 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 libraries, and repositories, which it may be necessary fur 
 him to consult." 
 
 Furnished with this authority, and appointed also a sub- 
 commissioner, he applied himself with assiduity to the work 
 before him. In May, the following year, the secretary stated 
 to the board that Dr. Clarke had been diligently employed 
 in collecting materials ; when it was ordered that he be de- 
 sired to lay before them a further report; which was accord- 
 ingly prepared, and followed, in January, 1810, by a third, 
 'which turned especially on the structure of Rymer's work, 
 and on the use which he made of our ancient English histo- 
 rians. In the course of this disquisition Dr. Clarke impugns 
 the authenticity of the celebrated letter of" Vetus de Monte? 
 the Elder of the Mountain,* to Leopold, duke of Austria, 
 exculpating king Richard for the murder of the Marquis of 
 Montferrat. He considers the letter to be a forgery of 
 Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, and, as such, unworthy of a 
 place in the Foedera. 
 
 A minute of the board in March states that, having con- 
 sidered Dr. Clarke's several reports, they are of opinion 
 " that the work will be best executed by a consolidation of 
 all the old and new materials in a chronological series, with 
 indexes, analytical and alphabetical, according to the plan 
 laid down in the said reports ; a>nd order that Dr. Clarke 
 do forthwith prepare materials for a first volume of a new 
 edition of Rymer according to the said plan, and be desired 
 to propose a plan for carrying on the continuation concur- 
 rently." 
 
 In this new edition the various supplements were to be 
 embodied chronologically, and the whole material so ar- 
 ranged and fixed that the Fcedera should be a permanent 
 standard. 
 
 Dr. Clarke's labors in this public undertaking extended 
 
 through a period of nearly ten years, in the course of which 
 
 he spent many a toilsome day among the antiquated records 
 
 in the Tower, the Chapter-House, and the Cottonian, Har- 
 
 * The Shcekh ul jcbel, or chief of the llassanians in Mount Lebanon.
 
 THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE. 345 
 
 leian, Lansdown, and Sloane collections in the British Mu- 
 seum, as well as at the State Paper Office and the Rolls 
 Chapel. The same work called him to take frequent jour- 
 neys to the provincial repositories of such documents, in the 
 archives of various cathedrals, the Bodleian at Oxford, and 
 the libraries of Corpus Christ! and other Colleges at Cam- 
 bridge ; and in Dublin, at Christ Church, and the library of 
 Trinity College. He found in general every facility from 
 the local authorities, and at the British Museum was fur- 
 nished with a room which he could call his own apartment. 
 Associated with him, as assistants, at different times, were 
 Messrs. Holbrooke and Janion, Dr. Steinhauer, and his son, 
 Mr. J. W. Clarke. 
 
 In the preceding chapters we have had frequent occasion 
 to notice journeys taken by him for the prosecution of 
 this work.* A recurrence to these will show that most of 
 them were connected with evangelical labors as well. This 
 combination, as we have seen, was at times most oppressive 
 and wasting in its effects on Dr. Clarke's strength and health. 
 He made repeated overtures to the government-commission 
 to be absolved from further service, but did not find a re- 
 lease till the year 1819, when his constitution was so broken 
 down as to compel him to be decisive in renouncing it. The 
 board, though they had refused before, now accepted his re- 
 
 * One of his letters from Oxford contains the following passage. He 
 had been introduced by Professor Gaisford to some of the society at 
 Christ Church, and had partaken of their polite hospitality. In another 
 part of the letter he resumes : "At 12 o'clock at the Bodleian. The Greek 
 professor, who is the curator of the library, met us, and with him the sub- 
 librarian, the Eev. Mr. Bandinell. [The Rev. Dr. Bandinell, the present 
 curator.] I explained to him our object ; he brought immediately to hand 
 the things we needed, and appointed a noble room to ourselves, where 
 the MSS. and Editiones Pfincipet of the classics are kept. Having got 
 MS. copies of the JBoldon-JSook, which we have to collate with a transcript 
 made by Mr. Ellis from a copy in the cathedral of Durham, we began our 
 work, and wrought till three. We have six hours a day for work. . . . 
 The bed and sitting-room which I now occupy were formerly the apart- 
 ments of Dr. John Uri, a very learned Orientalist, who was the preceptor 
 of the present Arabic professor, Dr. White. In this house he lived for 
 twenty-five years; and here he died, in 1796."
 
 346 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 signation ; on which occasion the late Speaker, the Lord 
 Colchester, addressed to him a kind letter, in which he says : 
 " I will not lose a day in assuring you that you have, and 
 ever had, through your long and successful labors under the 
 Record Commission, my entire confidence and approbation." 
 In finishing his connection with this national work, which he 
 truly calls " a proud monument to the glory of the British 
 nation, and to the enlarged views and munificence of those 
 sovereigns under whose auspices it was projected," the doc- 
 tor gives expression to his devout gratitude in the following 
 words : " I register my thanks to God, the Fountain of wis- 
 dom and goodness, who has enabled me to conduct this 
 most difficult and delicate work for ten years, with credit to 
 myself and satisfaction to his Majesty's government. . . . 
 To God only wise be glory and dominion, by Christ Jesus, 
 for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 The studies connected with the discharge of these official 
 duties gave Dr. Clarke a more thorough insight into English 
 history than was possessed by some men who have become 
 famous as historians. Compared with his attainments in 
 this kind of knowledge, those of Hume, for example, were 
 but superficial. That elegant but plausible writer had, as 
 Dr. Clarke learned, the privilege of consulting the Records, 
 but did not take the trouble to avail himself of it. A man 
 of genius, it seems, can write history without much research : 
 like M. Vertot, who finished his narrative of the siege of 
 Malta before getting the authentic documents ; and when 
 they arrived, threw them on the sofa behind him, with, " My 
 siege is done." 
 
 Dr. Clarke's researches tended to confirm him in those 
 liberal yet constitutional principles which formed his politi- 
 cal creed from first to last. He was what is called a mod- 
 erate Whig. " Honor all men honor the king ;" Dr. 
 Clarke did both. He loved the British constitution, recog- 
 nizing its practical and expansive capabilities for the exer- 
 cise of those harmonious duties. "The constitution is 
 good," says he; "it is the best under the sun; it can
 
 THE LITERARY SERVANT OF THE STATE. 347 
 
 scarcely be mended. The executive government may in 
 particular cases adopt bad measures, and therefore should 
 not be vindicated in those things ; yet, in general, the exec- 
 utive government must be supported ; because, if it be not, 
 down goes the constitution, and up rise anarchy and every 
 possible evil."
 
 348 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE COADJUTOR OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 
 
 THE rise of the British and Foreign Bible Society was 
 one of the signs which, at the opening of the nineteenth 
 century, inaugurated a new era in the religious history of 
 the world. Till the nations of the earth are brought 
 under the influence of a direct revelation from God, they 
 will never be renewed. No words, then, can tell the gran- 
 deur of the thought which at that time began more fully to 
 move the minds of British Christians, TO GIVE THE WORLD 
 THE BIBLE, or express the solemn gratitude which the true 
 philanthropist must feel in reviewing the successes which 
 have attended the blessed enterprise, through which, by per- 
 severing toil, and not a little sacrifice, "by the patience of 
 hope and the labor of love," millions and millions in many 
 lands and tongues have read and heard the words that are 
 spirit and life. All honor to the jnen who, so few in num- 
 ber, and so feeble in resources, arose to do this work, and 
 unvail the fair aspect of truth for the eyes of all humanity ! 
 
 In this most beneficent undertaking Dr. Adam Clarke 
 had the honor of taking a conspicuous part. Mr. Butter- 
 worth, who was one of the originators of the Society, soon 
 enlisted his brother-in-law in a work for which his whole 
 heart was predisposed, and for which his Biblical knowledge 
 and evangelic zeal so eminently qualified him. The com- 
 mittee, as soon as they commenced active measures for 
 printing the various Oriental versions of the Scriptures, 
 found in him the very man they needed. As we are now 
 looking at the aspects of his literary life, it is only in this 
 point of view that our limits will allow us to consider his 
 relations to the Society. Dr. Clarke, then, was, as we may
 
 THE COADJUTOR OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 349 
 
 say, the standing counsel of the committee in that depart- 
 ment ; and the papers which in that capacity he communi- 
 cated to them not only show the sound advice and practical 
 help he was enabled to give, but embody some essays on 
 the Eastern translations of the Bible which deserves an end- 
 less permanence. These papers, which are too long for 
 insertion here, may be found in the second volume of the 
 family Life of Dr. Clarke, edited by his son and daughter ; 
 and in the event of a new edition of the Doctor's Works, 
 they should be incorporated in it. He not only gave these 
 important advices vivd voce in the committee meetings, of 
 which he was a punctual attendant, and in the written 
 instructions now referred to, but he superintended, as well, 
 the preparation of the Oriental types. With a lively sense 
 of the zeal with which he carried these aids into prosperous 
 effect, the committee desired to give him some token of their 
 esteem. To use the words of their historian, Mr. Owen: 
 " For the eminent services which had cost Mr. Clarke no 
 ordinary sacrifice of time and labor, they requested permis- 
 sion to present him with fifty pounds ; an offering which 
 that learned and public-spirited individual respectfully but 
 peremptorily declined to accept. Gratuitous exertions in 
 the cause of the Society, and refusals to accept pecuniary 
 returns, have abounded in every period of its history. 
 Mr. Adam Clarke is, however, not to be classed with ordi- 
 nary benefactors." 
 
 When Providence removed Dr. Clarke from London, the 
 Committee of the Bible Society felt that they were losing 
 one of their most valued helpers, and expressed their senti- 
 ments in an official letter of thanks. But though he was 
 thus taken away from the sphere in which he could person- 
 ally co-operate with the committee, his influence and ser- 
 vices were at the command of the Society wherever he had 
 opportunity of serving the glorious cause for which it 
 exists. 
 
 Since those days the career of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society exhibits one ceaseless advance, and that
 
 350 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 splendid experiment of Christian zeal has been attended 
 with a success which confirms the assurance that its purpose 
 will be accomplished in giving the word of God to the 
 human race. Vast as is the design, every year utters more 
 distinctly the prophecy of its fulfillment. The astronomer, 
 from a known section of the pathway of a new planet, can 
 describe its entire orbit, and its time of revolving, even to a 
 day ; .so, in the progress this great institution has made 
 within the last fifty years, there may be found the pledge 
 that its destiny will be carried out, and even the elements 
 that may serve in calculating the period when the consum- 
 mation shall be gained.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 
 
 DR. CLARKE was one of a long succession of men who, 
 in every age of the Christian Church, have applied the best 
 energies of their intellect and heart to the study and inter- 
 pretation of the Scriptures of truth. Eegarding the Holy 
 Bible as an authenticated revelation from God to mankind, 
 the immutable canon of their duty, the Gospel of their 
 redemption from sin and perdition, and the covenant charter 
 of their hope of everlasting life, they have made it the 
 grand business of their lives to lay open its mines of wis- 
 dom, for the edification of the Church in her holy faith, and 
 the conversion of the world to God. 
 
 A volume which enshrines the thoughts of an infinite 
 Intelligence, and bears relation not only to the concerns of 
 human life in the remotest past, but to its destinies in the 
 endless future, may well awaken the earnest scrutiny of the 
 wisest and most thoughtful of mankind. Nor, when we 
 consider the peculiar character of its contents, and the cir- 
 cumstances of time, locality, and language in which it was 
 written, need we be surprised that so much resolute labor 
 has been needed for the satisfactory explication of many of 
 its parts. Let us rather be thankful that these attempts 
 have been so well sustained, and crowned with such meas- 
 ures of success, that the holy Book may now be read in so 
 many of the languages of our race, and understood by all 
 who arc willing to be made wise. 
 
 One result of these persevering studies has been to fix 
 the principles on which the Bible may be truly expounded. 
 Severe investigation and careful experiment have reduced 
 those principles to a well defined system, designated in
 
 352 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 technical phrase the science of Hermeneutics or Exegesis.* 
 But the present comparatively satisfactory state of this 
 science has been, like most other human attainments, ar- 
 rived at by slow and laborious approaches. 
 
 Though the written word of God had its public interpreters 
 in the Old Testament time, we have no monuments of their 
 labors except the version of the Septuaginta, completed 
 about 140 B.C. ; the Aramaic Targuin of Onkelos on the 
 Pentateuch, and of Yonathan ben Uzziel on the Prophets, 
 executed somewhere toward the opening of the Gospel dis- 
 pensation : the Septuagint being in general a grammatical 
 translation of the Hebrew Bible, and the Targums a toler- 
 ably close paraphrase in the vernacular of Palestine at that 
 time. In these productions we have, no doubt, an embodi- 
 ment of the expository ideas propounded in the synagogue 
 by the Meturgemanin, or official interpreters of the Hebrew 
 text, who, ever since the days of Ezra, had accompanied the 
 Sabbath readings of Moses and the Prophets with such oral 
 translations as would make them intelligible to the people. 
 To these we may add the fanciful expositions of Philo, the 
 Alexandrian Jew, and the more substantial but often random 
 explanations of Joseph ben Mattathja, in his work on the 
 Antiquities of the Jews. In the Mishna, too, and subse- 
 quently in the Talmud, (works which were elaborated in 
 the first five centuries of the Christian era,) a multitude of 
 Biblical texts are expounded with various degrees of correct- 
 ness or absurdity. So, also, in the books called Sifra, Sifree, 
 and Mekilta, we have commentaries on the Pentateuch, and 
 in the Boraitha of Rabbi Eleazor an exposition of various 
 historial portions of the Old Testament. 
 
 But the first among the known Jewish authors who is 
 worthy of the name of a professed commentator, is Saadya 
 the Gaon, president of the Rabbinical College at Sora, in 
 Babylonia, in the tenth century. He translated the Penta- 
 teuch into Arabic without notes, but wrote commentaries on 
 
 *If Kcientiefially distinguished, hermeneutics are the theory of inter- 
 pretation ; exegesis, interpretation in its practical exercise.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 353 
 
 the Psalms, Canticles, Job, and Daniel. He was followed 
 in the same labors by Hai Gaon, in the same century ; by 
 Tobia ben Eliezer, Salomo Jizhaki, (or Rashi,) Abraham ibn 
 Ezra, Moses bar Nachmaii, and Moses ben Maimun, in the 
 twelfth ; in the thirteenth, by Simeon Haddarshan, (the com- 
 piler of the Yalkut, so often quoted by Dr. Clarke, a collec- 
 tion, as the word means, a repertory, or thesaurus, compris- 
 ing in a stout folio the substance of the preceding comment- 
 ators,) by Moses and David Kimchi, whose grammatical 
 scholia are of great value in the study of the Hebrew Bible ; 
 and by Levi ben Gershom, or Banola, who supplemented 
 the literal exposition of the text with suitable moral appli- 
 cations. These, with Don Isaac Abravanel in the fifteenth 
 century, are the principal of a multitude of Jewish exposi- 
 tors, whose works, however worthy of examination, repose 
 from age to age in slumbers but very rarely disturbed.* 
 
 Among these Hebrew commentators there are four meth- 
 ods of interpretation. Some unfold the simple or literal 
 meaning ; others advance from the literal to the allegorical, 
 and consider the letter of the document as the signature or 
 indication of a higher and more spiritual teaching. Others, 
 again, bring to their aid the mythical apparatus of the Med- 
 rashim, and crowd their pages with the legends and sagas 
 of the Hagadoth ; while a fourth class, disdaining all these 
 lower modes of exegesis, seek the transcendental regions of 
 the Kabbala. 
 
 The first of these four modes of interpretation is called by 
 the Rabbins the Derek Peshet, or simple way ; the second, 
 Remez, or intimation, suggestion as to meaning ; the third, 
 Derush, or illustrative exposition ; the fourth, Sod, the draw- 
 ing out of latent mystical significations. They contract 
 these four terms into a technical one, composed of the in- 
 itials^PaRaDiSe. 
 
 Principles nearly similar are developed in the early com- 
 mentaries of the Christian Church. While Irenaeus adhered 
 to the simple method, Origen, Clement, and others adopted 
 
 * See Etheridgc's ii Jerusalem and Tiberias," pp. 400-422. 
 23
 
 354 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 three modes of exposition the grammatical, analogical, 
 and allegorical. The learned catechist of Alexandria held 
 that Scripture had a threefold sense, answering to the trinal 
 elements of human nature : the grammatical, (7(*)p&TiKd<;=- 
 the body ; the moral, i/jv^/cdf^soul ; the mystical, TTVSV- 
 |u<mKdf=spirit. The excesses of Origen's disciples gave 
 way afterward to the more severe method of the Antiochian 
 school, under Diodorus of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mopsu- 
 ostia ; men who were too much disposed to exaggerate on 
 the opposite side, and indulge in a frigid, rationalistic ex- 
 position of the Scriptures : while Chrysostom, Theodorct, 
 Jerome, and Augustine preferred the via media. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, when the study of the Hebrew and 
 Greek originals of the Bible had been almost forgotten, some 
 of the schoolmen, in their interpretations of the Vulgate, 
 closely followed the traditions of the Church, while others 
 launched upon the ocean of allegorical fancy. Some held 
 that in Scripture there was a threefold sense the literal, 
 the spiritual, and the moral ;* others, a fourfold sense 
 historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical;f yet 
 others, a sevenfold sense historical, allegorical, intermedi- 
 ate, tropical, parabolical, Christological, moral ; \ nay, others, 
 un eightfold sense literal, allegorical or parabolical, tropo- 
 logical or etymological, anagogical or analogical, typical or 
 exemplary, anaphorical or proportional, mystical or apoca- 
 lyptical, Boarcademical or primordial ; and, to crown all, 
 others, an infinite sense ; thus giving the interpreter space 
 and verge enough to range wherever the wings of imagina- 
 tion might bear him. 
 
 by reverting to these things, which is like glancing into a 
 dark and roaring vortex, we become the more sensible of 
 the great advantages which the Church now possesses in 
 those surer principles of interpretation which have been car- 
 ried with increasing effect into their practical results* since 
 the time of the Reformation. At that great epoch the 
 
 * PtwclwaiuB Radbcrt. t Rabanus Manrus, Victor de St. Hugo. 
 
 J Anjeelom. S John Seotus Erigena.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 355 
 
 necessity which was felt for an appeal to the Bible, as the 
 record of Divine revelation, and the high rule of faith to the 
 Church, led to a revived study of the languages in which it 
 was first written, and to the investigation of the sacred text 
 in its philologic and simple meaning. With what good 
 effect these pursuits were followed out, may be seen in the 
 works of the Romanist commentators, Erasmus, Clarius, 
 Cornelius a Lapide, the Jansenist Quesnel, and the learned 
 Benedictine, Augustine Calmet ; and among the Protestants, 
 in the exegetical labors of Calvin and Beza, Tremmellius, 
 Grotius, Munster, Louis de Dieu, Crozius, and Bengel. 
 
 In Germany the Protestant commentators, under the in- 
 fluence of the skeptical spirit which pervaded Europe toward 
 the latter end of the last century, gave way to the tempta- 
 tion of compromising with the prejudices of infidelity by re- 
 ducing the Scriptures almost to the level of human compo- 
 sitions, and of ignoring or explaining away whatever is su- 
 pernatural in the events they record, or supra-rational in the 
 doctrines they inculcate. In this deplorable error the early 
 Socinians led the way, and they have been followed with 
 strides too firm and rapid by the whole tribe of Continental 
 Rationalists. 
 
 In our day, thanks be to God, a wholesome reaction has 
 taken place ; and the more Christian and evangelical exposi- 
 tions of Tholuck, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, and 
 several others, are every day rising into a higher ascendant 
 over the Lessings, the Bauers, the Pauluses, the Bretschneid- 
 ers of a school whose cold and hopeless words had struck 
 the Church with a palsy which no power can heal but the 
 power of the Cross. 
 
 Our own British Christianity has been mercifully sheltered 
 from this destructive blight ; and, in the department of Bib- 
 lical exposition, the divines of England, while they may not 
 have been equal to their Continental brethren in the breadth 
 and depth of their philological learning, have nevertheless 
 left them immeasurably behind in soundness of exegetic 
 principle, and ability in expounding the holy Scriptures, so
 
 356 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 as to promote the edification of the Church in faith and 
 virtue, and the fulfillment of the merciful designs for which 
 the Bible was given to mankind. 
 
 In the erudite criticism of the Scriptures, the nine folio 
 volumes of the CRITICI SACRI* formed an Appendix to the 
 London Polyglot worthy of the learning and labor which 
 had been displayed in that grand undertaking. This work, 
 which embodies the principal commentators, Romanist and 
 Protestant, who had flourished since the Reformation, was 
 ably condensed (with additions) in the " SYNOPSIS CRITICOR- 
 UM " of Matthew Poole in five volumes folio. These enter- 
 prises were followed up by the more indigenous labors of 
 Ainsworth on the Pentateuch and Psalms, Caryl on Job, 
 Owen on the Hebrews, Gill in a learned Commentary on 
 the Bible which is not sufficiently known, Lightfoot's Tal- 
 inudical illustrations of the New Testament, Hammond and 
 Whitby on the same book, and Bishops Patrick, Lowth, etc., 
 on Isaiah and the other prophets ; nor, among several others 
 who might claim to be mentioned, should we forget Campbell 
 on the Gospels, and Macknight on the Apostolical Epistles. 
 
 Then, for the more substantial and homiletic class of Com- 
 mentaries, there were Burkitt, who published in that way 
 the substance of his own preaching ; Matthew Henry, a ven- 
 erable name, loved by all good men, whose comments have 
 a heavenly charm which has attracted and improved the 
 most lofty minds in all religious communions ; Wesley, 
 who expresses more in a sentence than many writers in 
 whole pages ; Doddridge, gracious and devout ; Scott, mas- 
 culine in reason, as well as steadfast in faith ; Dodd, whose 
 Commentary condenses the best parts of Calmet, with mat- 
 ter supplied by his own resources and the inedited papers 
 of other eminent scholars ; and among the Methodists, Ben- 
 son, who expanded the notes of Mr. Wesley, adding much 
 rich material from other sources ; and Coke,- who, by the 
 editorial labors of Mr. Drew, published a Commentary 
 
 * London, 1G60. Republished at Amsterdam, with a Supplement, 1702, 
 Lu twelve volumes.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 357 
 
 which, though not in all parts original, (being in fact a rif- 
 acimento of Dodd's,* just as the latter was of Calmet,) is 
 nevertheless a thoroughly good and useful exposition of 
 the sacred text.f 
 
 Most of these English Commentaries are reducible to 
 two classes. Some are dryly critical, without being popu- 
 lar ; others popular without being critical. Now Dr. Adam 
 Clarke seems to have entertained the idea of producing a 
 work which should combine the advantages of both classes ; 
 sufficiently critical to aid the inquiries of the more serious 
 student, and yet sufficiently popular to serve the purposes 
 of general edification. It was his purpose to give a lucid 
 view of the several books of Scripture, as to their dates 
 and authors, their scope and connection ; to expound the 
 original text in a manner to adapt itself to the deficiencies 
 of the English reader ; to elucidate difficulties in chronology, 
 history, and Oriental manners ; to develope the grand doc- 
 trines of revelation, and apply the whole to the great con- 
 cerns of human salvation and duty. 
 
 To the accomplishment of this task he brought qualifica- 
 tions which proved his designation to it by the providence 
 and grace of God ; strong and expansive powers of intel- 
 lect ; an almost universal erudition ; a faith of the heart in- 
 wrought by the Holy Spirit whose words he sought to in- 
 terpret ; and a resolute will, which bore him up in body 
 and mind, from year to year, till the great labor should be 
 completed. The seven gifts which, according to Augustine, 
 the true expositor of Scripture must possess reverence, 
 piety, science, fortitude, prudence, cleanness of heart, and 
 heavenly wisdom J the Lord had vouchsafed him in blessed 
 degrees ; and by the diligent improvement of them, in this 
 
 * It is remarkable that the notes in Dodd, usually ascribed to Locke, 
 are found to have been Cudworth's. 
 
 t Since then, the Methodist press has issued the masterly disquisitions 
 of Watson on part of the New Testament ; and the Commentary of Sut- 
 cliffe, abounding in reflections which have great unction and beauty. 
 
 | Timor, pittas, scientia,fortitudo, concilium, purgatio cordit, sapientia. 
 Aug., De Dovtrina CItrtit., ii, 7.
 
 S58 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 and the other. endeavors of his devoted life, these graces 
 increased with his years. He was moved also by a con- 
 viction of responsibility. He heard the voice of God. 
 
 The studies of his earlier years had always a bearing on this 
 grand design. From the beginning he felt the need of being 
 taught by God to understand his own word. Referring to 
 his comparatively juvenile life, he says: "No man ever 
 taught me the doctrine I embraced ; I received it singly by 
 reading the Bible. From that alone I saw that justification 
 by faith, the witness of the spirit, and the sanctification of 
 the heart were all attainable. These I saw as clearly as I 
 do now ; and from them I have never swerved. I often 
 read the Bible on my knees. When I came to a passage 
 I did not fully understand, I said, ' Lord, here is thy book ; 
 it is given for the salvation of man ; it can be no salvation 
 to him unless he understand it ; thou hast the key of this 
 text, unlock it to me;' and praying 'thus I generally received 
 such light as was satisfactory to myself." Thus he had 
 grace to approach the fountain itself and draw. 
 
 We have seen that while in the Norman Isles he applied 
 himself to the study of the Septuagint, in reading which he 
 noted down the most important differences between that 
 venerable translation and the Hebrew text, with which he 
 had already become familiar. In reading thus carefully the 
 version of the Old Testament in the Alexandrine Greek, 
 he acquired an intimacy with the peculiar diction of the 
 New Testament writers ; and when afterward, at Dublin, 
 he began some notes on the latter, he saw the necessity of 
 a thorough and critical perusal of the printed text of the 
 New Testament, as collated with the manuscripts, either 
 by himself, so far as his opportunities reached, or through 
 the labors of Wetsteiu and others, and especially of Gries- 
 bach, who was at that time zealously employed on his edi- 
 tion of the Greek Testament.* To make his investigation 
 
 * This department of biblical criticism has in our day been brought to 
 on almost consummate perfection by the efforts of Lachmann, Tisdieu- 
 dorf, and our own countryman, Trcgulles.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 359 
 
 more minute and definite, he resolved to translate the text 
 in writing ; a task which was begun in June, 1794, and fin- 
 ished in eleven months. In January, 1797, he commenced 
 the same process with the Hebrew and Chaldee text of the 
 Old Testament; and this written translation was finished in 
 about fourteen months. Along with the translation he 
 had made occasional notes and memoranda for his future 
 work. Two months after, May 1st, 1798, he began in good 
 earnest the actual Commentary, commencing with the 
 Gospels. 
 
 He now wrote with a vigor and determination which 
 enabled him, toward the close of the year, to give 
 a good account of the work in a letter to Mr. Butter- 
 worth : 
 
 "A few moments before your letter came, I was on my 
 knees returning thanks to God for supporting and assisting 
 me in my work, and enabling me to bring one part of it to 
 completion. What think you ? I have finished Matthew ; 
 I have done more, I have finished Mark. I began May 1st 
 wrought till July 22d, when I set off for Bristol. I could 
 not get things to bear, to recommence, till September, 22d. 
 Yesterday, December 1st, I finished Mark ; having spent, 
 in the whole, about five months. While in London, though 
 I labored hard, I could make but little way ; so that nearly 
 three months were employed on the first twelve chapters 
 of Matthew, occasioned by the miserable place where I was 
 obliged to study. Any that had less of the mule's dispo- 
 sition than I have would have abandoned it in settled dis- 
 like. Since I came here my labor has been great indeed, 
 constant and severe preaching, and early and late writing. 
 For nearly a month past I wrote nine or ten hours a day ; 
 some days, more. Mark was easy work after Matthew ; 
 yet even on Mark I have written upward of 100 close 
 quarto pages ; the whole 740 pages. 
 
 " You will be able to form some estimate of the quan- 
 tum of letter-press this will make, when I inform you that 
 each page contains about '28 linos ; total, 20,720 lines ; each
 
 360 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 line, 34 letters ; total, 704,480 letters. You will at once 
 see that I must not go on at this rate, or the book will be 
 unbuyable. I assure you I do not intend it. My aim from 
 the beginning was to make the comment on Matthew per- 
 fect, not by saying all that might be said, but by saying 
 all that should be said. To the best of my knowledge, I 
 have not inserted one useless sentence. I have no doubt 
 but that Gospel is the grand source from which all the 
 apostolic doctrines have been drawn.* I have written 
 six hundred pages upon it, and I humbly trust no godly 
 mind will ever feel wearied in reading them. I have 
 done everything in my own way. I have no more of my 
 translation revised for the comment; and it will take 
 nearly a month to prepare Luke and John to go on with. I 
 bought Geddes's Bible, expecting much, got nothing, and 
 sold it." 
 
 In the course of the following year he had got so far into 
 the New Testament as to venture to advertise it ; and he 
 tells Mr. Butterworth that he had got a couple of pages set 
 up, " merely to see how it will look. ... I have made up 
 my mind to send the old text alongside of the new. The 
 book will be better received on this account, and be more 
 useful. My translation will suffer no loss by the compari- 
 son. 1 have had this specimen taken off' on royal quarto. 
 You must not let it go out of your hand. My plan of in- 
 terpreting the Transfiguration is new, so far as I know ; 
 and I do not wish that everybody should have it before 
 the work sees the sun. At first view there will appear lit- 
 tle difference in the two translations. I do not wish it, ex- 
 cept where essentially necessary ; but the fifth and eleventh 
 verses will show the importance of making the Holy Spirit 
 speak English as he speaks Greek. I did not choose this 
 portion because of any difference between the texts, but 
 merely because the subject was complete in it." 
 
 He reached the end of the fourth Gospel in November, 
 
 * Here and in a few other places, the careful reader may qualify the 
 .Doctor's statements.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 361 
 
 1799; but, though so far in readiness, the work was not 
 consigned to the printer till nearly ten years after. He ac- 
 counts for this delay in a Prospectus issued in 1809, by the 
 sudden rise in the price of paper, and the announcement of 
 another work on the Scriptures by a friend. "As I could not 
 bear the thought," he says, " of even the most distant ap- 
 pearance of opposition to any man, I gave place, being deter- 
 mined not to attempt to divide the attention of the public, 
 nor hinder the spread of a work which, for aught I then knew, 
 might supersede the necessity of mine." That work, how- 
 ever, had been for some time completed, and the subscribers 
 supplied with their copies ; and, as repeated requests reached 
 Mr. Clarke for the production of his long promised Com- 
 mentary, he hesitated no longer. No doubt the interval had 
 conduced to improve the work, by giving space for recon- 
 sideration and correction. By this time a considerable por- 
 tion of the Old Testament was in readiness ; so that the 
 actual publication began, not with the Gospels, but with the 
 Book of Genesis. In the interim he had also changed the 
 plan of the work. His own translation of the sacred text 
 had been intended to be printed at large. This idea was 
 now abandoned, and the new translation incorporated, in 
 successive clauses or fragments, in the notes, as often as a 
 modification of the authorized English text seemed to be 
 required. 
 
 Mr. Butterworth now followed up the Prospectus with 
 another of his own, in which he solicited subscriptions for 
 the work on the author's behalf; an appeal which was re- 
 sponded to by a list of sixteen hundred subscribers, among 
 whom were several noblemen, and other persons of rank 
 and influence belonging to the Church of England, as well 
 as to the Dissenting and Methodist communions. Mr. But- 
 terworth, the publisher, was so encouraged by this demon- 
 stration, as to resolve on striking off ten thousand copies on 
 common paper, and one thousand on a finer paper and 
 larger page. Nor did he over-calculate ; for, in fact, not 
 only did the eleven thousand copies go off, but nearly eight
 
 362 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 hundred more were required before the first demand could 
 be supplied.* 
 
 We have no room to enter more largely into these details, 
 or to follow our commentator minutely in the further pro- 
 secution of his toilsome career. Let it suffice to say, that 
 when the Pentateuch and Gospels were thus launched upon 
 the world, and the expositor was committed with his sub- 
 scribers to the plighted engagement of completing the series 
 of the holy Books, the great body of the Old Testament and 
 apostolic writings remained to be yet undertaken ; and that 
 the accomplishment of this task, and that, too, with the 
 heavy responsibilities of his ministerial charge, his duties in 
 the Record Commission, and the completion of several other 
 works, rendered the next fifteen years of his life one almost 
 unremitting agony of labor. At length, in great exhaustion, 
 he approached the goal. In the beginning of March, 1825, 
 he remarks to a friend : " For some time past I have suf- 
 fered much in my eyes; it is impossible they should last. 
 All winter I have written several hours before day, and sev- 
 eral after night. Under this they have failed. But I want 
 to get the Commentary done. I have got to the end of thoi 
 sixth of the twelve minor prophets ; so there are six more 
 to do. Jeremiah and Daniel are finished and printed. Of 
 Ezekiel, thirty chapters. You see, then, that I am fully in 
 sight of land." 
 
 At length the hour of its completion struck. Adam Clarke 
 closed the work of his Commentary, as he had begun it so 
 many years before, kneeling in the presence of God. " It 
 will give you pleasure," writes he to a friend, " to hear that 
 on March 28th, 1825, at eight o'clock in the evening, I wrote 
 upon my knees the last note on the last verse of the last 
 chapter of Malachi. Thus terminated a work on which I 
 have painfully employed upward of thirty years." On re- 
 ferring to the last note itself, we find the following devout 
 
 * Successive editions of Dr. Clarke's Commentary, both in England and 
 America, have placed it among the most extensively circulated works of 
 the kind in existence.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 363 
 
 and worthy record : " To God the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost be eternal praises. Amen. I have this day com- 
 pleted this Commentary on which I have labored above 
 thirty years, and which, when I began, I never expected to 
 live long enough to finish. May it be a means of securing 
 glory to God in the highest, and peace and good-will among 
 men upon earth ! Amen. Amen." 
 
 He says elsewhere : " In this arduous work I have had no 
 assistants, not even a single week's help from an amanuen- 
 sis ; no person to look for commonplaces, or refer to an 
 ancient author, to find out the place and transcribe a passage 
 of Latin, Greek, or any other language, (which my memory 
 had generally recalled,) or to verify a quotation ; the help 
 excepted which I received in the chronological department 
 from my own nephew, Mr. John Edward Clarke. I have 
 labored alone for twenty-five years previously to the work 
 being sent to the press, and fifteen years have been em- 
 ployed in bringing it through the press ; so that nearly forty 
 years of life have been so consumed." 
 
 We have the family memorandum, that on the evening 
 that the work was finished Dr. Clarke came into the parlor, 
 and, without speaking, beckoning to his youngest son, took 
 him away to the study. On entering he found the usual 
 signs of work all laid aside ; the books marshaled in their 
 shelves, the study-table clear, with the exception of a copy 
 of the Bible, and the whole place with the unwonted appear- 
 ance of repose. The doctor then spoke : " This, Joseph, is 
 the happiest period I have enjoyed for years ; I have put the 
 last hand to my Comment. I have written the last word. 
 I have put away the chains that would remind me of my 
 bondage ; and there" pointing to the steps of his library- 
 ladder " have I returned the deep thanks of a grateful soul 
 to the God who has shown me such great and continued 
 kindness. I shall now go into the parlor, tell my good news 
 to the rest, and enjoy myself for the day." 
 
 Of the Commentary we have no need to say anything in 
 the way of description : a book found alike on the shelves
 
 364: LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of the peer and the peasant is too well known to require 
 this. Its merits and blemishes have long ago been pointed 
 out, and call for no new criticisms. One leading feature in 
 its character is independence in thinking. English commen- 
 tators in general are not distinguished by originality. Sev- 
 eral of them have notoriously borrowed from their prede- 
 cessors, and appear to have been either unable or unwilling 
 to think for themselves. Clarke, while he availed himself 
 largely of the labors of other scholars in almost every 
 branch, yet knew how to transmute their material so as to 
 subserve his own ideas, and to give it the imprint of his 
 personal mind. But the greater number of his expositions 
 are emphatically his own. 
 
 In a work, then, thus marked by original thinking, we are 
 prepared here and there to find traces of a strong idiosyn- 
 crasy. We should recollect that the author is a man who 
 is used to decide for himself, and that " with a will ;" so we 
 are not to be astonished if he even argues that Judas will 
 be saved, or that the serpent which tempted Eve was a 
 baboon. 
 
 This latter opinion, it must be confessed, when first enun- 
 ciated, took the learned world by surprise ; and intelligent 
 men who wished well to the author's enterprise felt some 
 misgivings for the success of a work which proclaimed at 
 the very outset a novelty so startling. Some critics assailed 
 him with raillery, and others with reproach. The doctor, 
 in general, was indifferent to attacks of either kind ; but, in 
 defense of his favorite opinion, he surmounted for once his 
 dislike to controversial discussion, and met his antagonists 
 in open fight ; if that, indeed, could be called open, in which 
 his principal antagonist appeared with a visor. A writer in 
 the Classical Journal had penned, under the Arabic name 
 of Al Tefleesh, "the Investigator," a series of animadver- 
 sions on Dr. Clarke's interpretation of the word nachash, 
 which called forth a reply from the author in the same serial, 
 in which the subject receives a more extensive examination 
 than he had given it in the Commentary, and is put before
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 365 
 
 the reader in such points of view, and with such ingenuity, 
 as to insure a respectful attention, if it fail to command his 
 final acquiescence. The paper in question will be found re- 
 printed in the tenth volume of the Miscellaneous Wcrks. 
 He here admits that the word nachash, rendered " serpent" 
 in Gen. iii, 1, sometimes has that meaning, but shows that 
 it has others, and attempts to make out that it has another 
 meaning in that text. 
 
 A more grave error, in the estimation of many divines 
 of the day, was committed by the commentator in adopting, 
 in his notes on the Epistle to the Romans, the view of 
 Doctor John Taylor, as developed in his "Key" to that 
 Epistle. But here Dr. Clarke should have the benefit of his 
 own explanation, and we will hear him for himself: "In 
 my notes on the Epistle to the Romans, I have entered at 
 large into a discussion on the subjects to which I have 
 referred in the Epistle to the Galatians ; and, to set the 
 subject in a clear point of view, I have made a copious 
 extract from Dr. Taylor's Key to that Epistle ; and I have 
 stated that a consistent exposition of it cannot be given but 
 upon that plan." Hereby we see " that the doctrines of 
 eternal, unconditional reprobation and election, and the 
 impossibility of falling finally from the grace of God, have 
 no foundation in the Epistle to the Romans. Taylor has 
 shown that the phrases on which these doctrines are founded 
 refer to national privileges, and those exclusive advantages 
 which the Jews, as God's peculiar people, enjoyed, during 
 the time in which that peculiarity was designed to last ; and 
 that it is doing violence to the sense in which those expres- 
 sions are generally used, to apply them to the support of 
 such doctrines. In reference to this I have quoted him, and 
 those illustrations of his which I have adopted I have 
 adopted on this ground ; taking care never to pledge myself 
 to any of his peculiar or heterodox opinions. . . .In this 
 sense alone those quotations ought to be understood, and 
 my whole work sufficiently shows that Dr. Taylor's peculiar 
 theological system makes no part of mine ; that on the
 
 366 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 doctrine of the fall of man, the eternal Deity of Jesus 
 Christ, of justification by faith in the atoning blood, and the 
 inspiration and regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost, 
 we stand in diametrical opposition to each other. Yet this 
 most distinguishing difference cannot blind me against the 
 excellence I find in his work." And again: "If I have 
 quoted, to illustrate the sacred writings, passages almost 
 innumerable from Greek and Roman heathens, Jewish Tal- 
 mudists, the Koran, and from Brahminical Polytheists, and 
 these illustrations have been well received by the Christian 
 public, surely I may have liberty to use, in the same way, 
 the works of a very learned man, and a most conscientious 
 believer in the books of Divine revelation, however errone- 
 ous he may be in certain doctrines which I myself deem of 
 vital importance to the creed of an experimental Christian. 
 Let it not be said that, by thus quoting largely from his 
 work, I tacitly recommend an Arian creed : * I no more 
 do so than the Indian matron who, while she gives the nour- 
 ishing rind of the cassava to her household, recommends 
 them to drink of the poisonous juice which she has pre- 
 viously expressed from it." These explanations ought to 
 suffice with all reasonable men. 
 
 There was yet another topic introduced by the commen- 
 tator, which led to a more serious controversy : I refer to 
 his doctrine regarding the Divine Sonship of the Redeemer. 
 I allude to it with extreme reluctance, as it is the only em- 
 barrassing subject in the entire biography of this most 
 excellent servant of God ; embarrassing, on account of any 
 implied censure that it might seem to associate with his 
 honored name. And this painful feeling of reluctance, I 
 venture to believe, is participated by my reverend fathers 
 and brethren who are the promoters of the present volume. 
 I presume it is not their wish, and it cannot be my own, to 
 give a renewed prominence to a subject so unpleasant. I am, 
 thankful to recollect that but few words are needed in alluding 
 
 * Taylor is often styled an Arian ; but his views are considerably lower 
 than those which that term will convey to the well-informed theologian.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 367 
 
 K> it, as the controversy has long ago been brought to a 
 peaceful termination. When the question was discussed, it 
 was, not discussed in vain. It was done in sorrow on both 
 sides, but was productive, after all, of beneficial results, in 
 bringing a solemn truth of revelation more fully before the 
 eyes of the Church, and in giving a greater clearness, vigor, 
 and steadfastness to the faith of believers in the Divine 
 and therefore eternal Sonship of the Saviour of the world. 
 
 The infirm and glimmering intellect of man can know 
 nothing of the tremendous mysteries of the Infinite Nature, 
 but by revelation. We must go to the word of God, with 
 an humble and believing heart. 
 
 It is there revealed, not only that in the Divine Subsist- 
 ence there are Three Persons, but that the relation of the 
 Second Person to the First is that of SON. 
 
 Dr. Clarke was a devout believer in the Trinity, but he 
 demurred as to this relationship. He considered that the 
 name of " the Son of God " was a Messianic title of the 
 Redeemer, as the consequence of his having been born of 
 the Virgin ; he denied that it was descriptive of his mode 
 of existence prior to the Incarnation.* 
 
 Now revelation affirms that the only begotten Son was 
 in the bosom of the Father ; that God so loved the world 
 as to give his only begotten Son ; that the Son of God was 
 sent into the world ; that the Son of God was manifested in 
 the flesh ; that the Word who was in the beginning with 
 God, and who was God, was made flesh, and dwelt among 
 us ; and that the glory which He then made manifest was 
 the glory of the only begotten of the Father. 
 
 But Dr. Clarke believed that the Second Person of the 
 Trinity, who was thus revealed in the flesh, was thencefor- 
 ward to be known as the Son of God, but not as the eter- 
 
 *Thc grounds of this denial he has given at large in his notes on St 
 Luke i, 35. They are mainly rationalistic ; and, when dealing with Heb. 
 i, 3, the Doctor himself uses a mode of reasoning in direct opposition to 
 tlicin u mode which has bei-n justly pronounced " perfectly satisfac- 
 tory to the most fastidious of his opponents."
 
 368 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 nally begotten of the Father ; because, according to his view, 
 no such relation was possible. 
 
 In this respect, and this only, Dr. Clarke made a certain 
 divergence from the faith of the Catholic Church. The 
 Church from the beginning has taken those emphatic state- 
 ments of Scripture in their true and literal meaning, and 
 has evermore taught and testified that the Second Person of 
 the Trinity is, by an ineffable and eternal generation, the 
 Son of God. That such is the sense in which the Church 
 has received these Scriptures, is evident from those solemn 
 enunciations of doctrine we call the Creeds. Even before 
 the increasing heresies of the fourth century rendered an 
 03cumenical declaration of that kind necessary, (at the coun- 
 cil of Nicaea,) most of the great Christian communities had 
 given their profession of faith in this particular, as well as 
 others. That, for example, of Antioch, where the disciples 
 were first called Christians : " I believe in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, his only begotten Son, born of him before all 
 worlds ; True God of True God ; by whom also the worlds 
 were framed, and all things made." Or that of Jerusalem, 
 the mother of us all, as it is found in the Catechetics of St. 
 Cyril, bishop there in 345 : " I believe in one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father 
 before all ages ; the true God, by whom all things were 
 made." 
 
 In the great assembly of Nicaea the universal Church pro- 
 nounced the faith once delivered to the saints, and called 
 upon the faithful, in all ages to come, to abide in the same 
 truth : " We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of 
 God, the only begotten of the Father ; that is, of the sub- 
 stance of the Father ; God of God, Light of Light, very God 
 of very God ; begotten, not made ; consubstantial with the 
 Father ; by whom all things were made." 
 
 No man had a greater abhorrence of Arianism than Dr. 
 Adam Clarke ; yet with this main point in the testimony of 
 the Church against Arianism he could not bring his mind to 
 concur. He had embraced, and ever held fast, certain ra-
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 369 
 
 tionalistic arguments which prevented him from believing 
 that " the Son of God was begotten of the Father before all 
 worlds." 
 
 This unhappy twist in the Doctor's judgment was formed 
 in his juvenile years,* but never rectified. An intellectual 
 conservative in the strictest sense, whatever he mentally 
 apprehended he no more renounced ; and, when far advanced 
 in life, could affirm that he had never changed his creed. 
 
 When the gravity of the subject is considered, we are not 
 surprised that the thesis laid down so formally by the 
 learned and influential commentator, and defended by him 
 with such an array of argument, should have called forth 
 the most serious reclamations from his brethren in the min- 
 istry ; but we are surprised that these remonstrances, 
 though expressed in respectful terms, and enforced by earn- 
 est reasonings out of the Scriptures, should have been rep- 
 resented by some as betraying an animus of personal dis- 
 like to the Doctor, and as amounting, in fact, to a sort of 
 ecclesiastical persecution. Certainly such divines as Wil- 
 liam France and Richard Watson had as good a right to 
 show their opinion as Dr. Clarke had to state and defend 
 his own ; nor did the practical assertion of this right involve 
 the necessity of indulging in either disposition or language 
 discordant with the veneration which they entertained for 
 the sanctity of his life, the amplitude of his learning, and the 
 dignity and honor of his name. 
 
 Writing a simple biography, and not a theological treat- 
 ise, I abstain from any attempt to give an analysis of this 
 controversy, content with recording the circumstances under 
 which it arose. The discussion of the subject itself would 
 require a volume. Happily, the question has been suffi- 
 ciently settled, and determined, too, on the right side. Most 
 
 * So early as about 1787 he had written the outline of his favorite argn - 
 mcnt against the Eternal Sonship, and in a conversation with Mr. Wesley 
 took the opportunity to read the paper to him. His venerable friend, 
 from the short reply which lie made, evidently thought that it would be 
 sufficient to remind him that, in embracing such a doctrine, he was in 
 of departing from tin- faith of the true Church. 
 
 24
 
 370 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of the pamphlets in which the discussion was carried on are 
 now out of print ; but whoever would master the entire 
 argument should study Mr. Watson's " Remarks," * and 
 the " Inquiry into the Doctrine of the Eternal Sonship of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, by Richard Treffry, junior."-)- The 
 latter work, distinguished as it is by genuine theologic 
 science, consummate criticism, and Christian temper, has 
 taken an abiding place among the classics of English divin- 
 ity. From many years of intimate friendship with the 
 lamented author, and repeated opportunities of conversation 
 with him while engaged in the labor of that work, I can 
 testify that, so far as Dr. Clarke was personally concerned, 
 he had in Mr. Treffry an admirer whose reverence for him 
 was almost boundless. 
 
 This, it should be remarked in conclusion, is the flaw in 
 the doctor's otherwise sound and Scriptural theology. No 
 man was more steadfast than he, in life and death, in his af- 
 fiance in the great truth that Jesus Christ, his Redeemer, 
 was "over all, God blessed forever;" and to make this 
 truth known to the world by preaching it, writing it, and 
 living it, became his peace, his glory, and his joy. As to 
 the peculiar point in which he differed from his brethren, he 
 never gave prominence to it, except in the statements in his 
 Commentary upon a very few texts. In his public preach- 
 ing he carefully abstained from making any allusion to it ; 
 and that, from a sense of honor, as a minister of a body 
 which, in common with the Church at large, held a doctrine 
 in this one solitary instance opposite to his own ; and from 
 a persuasion, no doubt, that, could he otherwise make it with 
 propriety an element in his popular addresses, it would bo 
 very far from promoting the edification of the people.J 
 
 Dr. Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 
 is, on the whole one of the noblest works of the class in the 
 
 v Works, vol. iii. t Third Edition. London : Mason. 1849. 
 
 J It deserves to be added, that when Dr. Clarke was elected President, 
 nfter the Conference had pronounced on the Sonship question, he was 
 most studiously exact in eliciting from each candidate for ordination a 
 nt of his agreement on this point with the theology of the body.
 
 THE COMMENTATOR. 371 
 
 entire domain of sacred literature. It is a thesaurus of 
 general learning ; and, as the exposition of an Eastern book, 
 it abounds very properly with a great variety of Oriental 
 illustrations, philological, ethnic, and antiquarian. In amass- 
 ing these, he drew from the most choice lexicons of the 
 Hebrew and cognate languages ; from the rabbinical writ- 
 ings, either the authors themselves, or the collections of 
 Schoettgen, Lightfoot, and others who have made selections 
 of the most eligible places in those writings which are avail- 
 able for the commentator ; from translations of the Indian 
 mythologists, lawgivers, moralists, and poets ; and from a 
 whole library of historians, naturalists, travelers, and 
 writers on the archaeology of the Oriental nations. When 
 we consider that this great undertaking was begun, continued, 
 and ended by one man, and that man engaged in the zealous 
 and faithful discharge of so many public duties ; instead of 
 reasonably complaining that here and there it has a blem 
 ish, or that its general plan is not in all respects filled up as 
 completely as could be desired, our wonder is rather excited 
 that he should have brought it so far as he did toward per- 
 fection. The Commentary is not equal through all its parts. 
 On some books he is more diffuse and effective than on 
 others. The Pentateuch and the Gospels are done well ; 
 and so are the apostolical Epistles. On the historical books, 
 also, he is in general satisfactory. But on the prophetic 
 portions of the word of God he commonly fails. This, in 
 one way or another, is a fault common with nearly all our 
 popular expositors of the Bible. In effect, we are greatly 
 in want of a Commentary, which, interpreting the oracles 
 that relate to the future destinies of our world, upon sound 
 principles, avoiding the rationalistic tendencies of the spirit- 
 ualizing school on the one hand, and the extravagances of 
 the ultra-millenarians on the other, shall be worthy of the 
 present advanced stage made in the study of prophetical 
 theology. 
 
 But, in comparison with the substantial excellences of the 
 work, these defects appear almost inconsiderable. Its lumin-
 
 372 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ous expositions of the Law and the Gospel ; its earnest and 
 forcible appeals to the conscience of the sinner and the un- 
 believer ; its rich counsels for the well-understood wants of 
 the Christian's inner life ; its endless exhibitions of general 
 knowledge, and its valuable aids to the students of those 
 holy tongues in which revelation took its first recorded 
 forms ; all will render this book the companion and the coun- 
 selor of multitudes as long as the English language may 
 endure. The man who accomplished it achieved immortal- 
 ity, his name having become identified with an indestructible 
 monument of learning and religion : 
 
 " jEre perennius, 
 
 Begaliqm situ pyramidum altins ; 
 Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens 
 Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis 
 Annorum series, etfuga temporum."
 
 BOOK IIL-EYENING. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 TIME glides on, and moves so insensibly that the shadows 
 of the departing day come on many of us unawares. The 
 lapse of years beguiles man of his strength, as the autumnal 
 winds rob the woods of their foliage. The change may be 
 slow, but it is sure ; and the process, imperceptible for a 
 while, becomes apparent enough in its effects. 
 
 But he who enjoys the faith and hope of the Gospel is 
 not dismayed by these tokens of decay ; he connects them 
 with the purposes of the unalterable will which decrees that 
 in this way man shall throw off what is corruptible in his 
 nature, that mortality may be swallowed up of life. The 
 Divine pledges of this blessed consummation fill him with 
 expectations which contribute to render the latest days of 
 his earthly life the most serene. He gives himself to the 
 work of preparation, and waits. Meanwhile all is tranquil. 
 What Jean Paul Richter says of himself in his last days, the 
 Christian ought to say without misgiving : " I make ready 
 for my journey, and take leave of the many companions I 
 have loved. Strangely mingles the future with the present 
 in my soul, while maturity passes away into age. Never- 
 theless the cloudless evening sky spreads itself out in rose- 
 ate glory."* 
 
 So it was with Adam Clarke. His last days were his 
 * Biographic, 6*te Epistd.
 
 374 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 best. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for 
 the end of that man is peace." In resuming our narrative 
 we must remind the reader of the pressure of bodily infirm- 
 ity brought on by excessive exhaustion, under which Dr. 
 Clarke was obliged to write these admonitory words : 
 " Matters are come to this issue ; if I do not at once get 
 from many of my vocations, I shall soon be incapable of 
 prosecuting any. I must hide my head in the country, or it 
 will be shortly hidden in the grave." It was in this time of 
 extreme necessity that Providence opened the way to such a 
 retreat, in which he could repair for a time his wasted con- 
 stitution, without ceasing altogether from those mental and 
 religious activities which had become essential to his enjoy- 
 ment of life. Millbrook, a compact little estate about ten 
 miles from Liverpool, was offered to him on conditions so 
 liberal, and accompanied with such munificence on the part 
 of the proprietor, that he was enabled to make it his own, 
 and thither, after some time spent in rebuilding the house, 
 he repaired with his family in September, 1815. 
 
 His frame of mind on this occasion is intimated in a let- 
 ter to Mr. Boyd, in which he says : " That I shall leave 
 London, as a place, without regret, I am certain ; but it will 
 not be so with respect to many who are in it. I do not like 
 to be put out of the way of old friends ; and, as to forming 
 new ones, that is nearly out of the question. So I must 
 take care to keep up a good understanding with myself, 
 which I cannot do without being on good terms with my 
 God ; and on those terms I cannot be, without having at all 
 times a conscience sprinkled with the atoning blood." 
 
 This new arrangement in his temporal condition did not 
 interrupt Dr. Clarke's public relation to the Methodist min- 
 istry. His name stood on the Minutes as one of the 
 preachers of a neighboring circuit, in which he fulfilled the 
 duties assigned him; lending, too, his powerful aid to the 
 interests of Methodism in various parts of the country. At 
 home, he revived the habits of his youth in horticulture and 
 the tillage of the field, to the great improvement both of the
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 375 
 
 property he had purchased, and of his own health in body 
 and mind. Nor was he inattentive to the moral culture of 
 the neighborhood. The rustic people among whom his lot 
 was now cast were, most of them, nominally Roman Cath- 
 olics ; ignorant, poor, and ill cared for. He lost no time in 
 preparing a small chapel contiguous to his house, where the 
 Gospel was preached in plain words, and in a friendly, lov- 
 ing spirit ; and this means of usefulness was supplemented 
 by a Sunday school, attended by both Protestant and Rom- 
 anist children, who were instructed by the members of the 
 family, aided by the mistress of the village school. In 
 time, the good effects of these measures were shown in the 
 moral and domestic improvement of the neighborhood. 
 
 Dr. Clarke had that year been requested by the Presi- 
 dent, the Rev. John Barber, to preside at the Irish Confer- 
 ence; and upon the death of that good and upright man, 
 which occurred suddenly in the course of the year, the lead- 
 ing ministers of the Connection united in urging the doctor 
 to undertake the mission which their departed friend had as- 
 signed him. He complied with this request, and went in 
 June, by way of Scotland. His visit to the Irish brethren 
 at this Conference proved unusually important, as^ a junc- 
 ture had occurred in their affairs in which his influence and 
 counsel were of the greatest service. The Irish Societies 
 had been much disturbed on the old question of the Lord's 
 Supper in their own chapels. Many of the trustees contin- 
 ued adverse to this practice, and were disposed to use all 
 the legal power they had, to prevent it. Two documents 
 of an intimidating tone had been sent into the Conference ; 
 one from the attorney-general, and another, expressed in 
 strongly threatening terms, from the trustees themselves. 
 Dr. Clarke dispelled the fears which these menaces had pro- 
 duced in the minds of some of the preachers ; and the issue 
 of a long debate was a vote that the wishes of the Societies 
 for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from their own min- 
 isters should be complied with. Several points in the ad- 
 dress Dr. Clarke gave on this occasion are of consequence
 
 376 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in relation to Methodism in its widest range. For ex- 
 ample: 
 
 " 1. Mr. Wesley had no plan, except that of following the 
 openings of Providence ; had he followed a plan, it would 
 have been of man, and not of God. Our doctrine is from 
 the revelation of God, and our discipline likewise. Mr. 
 Wesley was only the instrument. 
 
 " 2. In following Providence, Mr. Wesley was compelled 
 to do many things opposed to his prejudices : these, I we! 1 
 know, were of the High-Church character. It was according 
 to his great principle of action that he ordained Dr. Coke 
 for America, as he did others for Scotland. He foresaw 
 that the Methodists would be a great people, and therefore 
 ordained preachers to keep up the spirit of the Church of 
 England ; but Providence never intended that any individ- 
 ual should be a successor to Mr. Wesley. When he died 
 Dr. Coke came to Dublin, to put himself at the head of the 
 Irish Methodists ; but he, (Mr. Clarke,) being then in Dub- 
 lin, opposed it. On the same subject there was in England 
 a competition between Dr. Coke and Mr. Mather, which 
 was overruled by the appointment of District Meetings. 
 
 "3. The introduction of the sacraments originated in the 
 demands of the people. They urged them at the British 
 Conference. By not yielding to their earnest entreaties, we 
 sacrificed too many members. When the plan of pacifica- 
 tion was at length made, (by which the sacraments were in- 
 troduced under defined conditions,) the consequences were 
 blessed ones." 
 
 4. As to the present state of Methodism, Dr. Clarke 
 stated that he was competent to judge of its spirituality and 
 prosperity. "I have been twice President of the British 
 Conference ; and in the grand climactcrical year of Meth- 
 odism all its great offices were in my hands. I had access 
 also to government, knew its sentiments of Methodism, and 
 had full evidence that it had not lost its character or influ- 
 ence. I have met more classes in my circuit than any other 
 man, and have seen no loss of spirituality. I will not make
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 377 
 
 invidious comparisons between the Methodists in England 
 and Ireland ; in both they are the children of my God and 
 Father; but this I will say, from perfect acquaintance with 
 the subject, that they have in England more grace and more 
 stability since the introduction of the sacrament than 
 before." 
 
 And with more particular reference to the Irish preachers, 
 he added : 
 
 " I have had access to the inmost archives of the State, 
 (on affairs relating to Ireland,) where their characters were 
 properly appreciated. In a particular conversation which I 
 had with Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Perceval, they spoke most 
 honorably of their usefulness in the time of the Rebellion. 
 They have been bulwarks to the Church itself, against the 
 attacks of Popery and other enemies." 
 
 In relation to these matters, Dr. Clarke wrote about this 
 time : " I know Methodism better than any man in Ireland ; 
 and can say that preaching in Church hours, and the sacra- 
 ments from the hands of our own preachers, have been 
 marked by the most distinguished approbation of God. 
 The Methodists in England are a thousand times more at- 
 tached to the Church of England and her service than they 
 ever were before ; and the method which we were before 
 taking to drive them to the Church, was driving them, and 
 is now driving those of Ireland, into Dissenting congre- 
 gations. Our usefulness to the Church is now greater 
 than ever." 
 
 In parting with the Conference, he urged the Irish minis- 
 ters to be steadfast and unmovable as to the ground they had 
 now taken with respect to the sacraments. " My advice to 
 you all is, look up to God, and keep close together ; never 
 think of measuring back your steps to trustee craft again. 
 Give up the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, when you go 
 to drink the new wine in the kingdom of God. Let neither 
 fear nor flattery induce you to it one moment sooner. Had 
 you had it twenty years ago, you would have been doubly 
 more numerous, and doubly more holy. God has broken
 
 378 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 your chain ; if you mend it, or suffer others to do so, you 
 will have his curse. If the genuine Methodists of Ireland 
 stand fast in their fiery trial, God will make you both great 
 and glorious. Look for your help from him. Do not sup- 
 pose that any man's money is necessary to the support of 
 Christ's cause ; for ' the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness 
 thereof.' " 
 
 In the course of the year 1818 Dr. Clarke was actively 
 engaged in several parts of the country in opening chapels, 
 preaching anniversary sermons, and helping the cause of for- 
 eign missions by setting their claims before assemblies who 
 gathered in successive thousands, attracted both by the 
 goodness of the object and the celebrity of the advocate. 
 While he was in London at the anniversary of the Wes- 
 leyan Missionary Society this year, an incident occurred 
 which was fraught with a lasting satisfaction to his mind 
 his compliance with a request, made to him by some emi- 
 nent persons, to take under his care and instruction two 
 Indian priests who had come to England in quest of the 
 knowledge of the true God and of his Christ. 
 
 " While on the platform," says he, in a note to Mrs. 
 Clarke, " I received a letter from Sir Alexander Johnstone, 
 then within sight of land, on his return from the Island of 
 Ceylon ; and in about half an hour another note was handed 
 to me from the same gentleman, stating his actual arrival, 
 and adding a wish to see me as soon as possible. On the 
 following day I had an interview with him, when he told 
 me that he had brought with him two high-priests of Budd- 
 hoo, who had left their country and friends, and put 
 themselves before the mast, exposing themselves to all kinds 
 of privations, in order to come here to be instructed in the 
 truths of Christianity ; that he had paid their passage, but, 
 in order to try their faith and sincerity, had kept them in 
 the meanest place, and at the greatest distance from himself 
 during the whole voyage." 
 
 It appears that Sir Alexander was at that moment in un- 
 certainty as to what was to be done to give these young
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 879 
 
 men the protection they needed, combined with that teach- 
 ing, in the hope of receiving which they had encountered the 
 terrors of the great deep. He asked the Doctor's advice. 
 " I think," was the reply, " our missionary committee will 
 take them ; but if not, I will do honor to their motives, 
 trust in the Lord, and take the whole burden upon myself." 
 This gave great satisfaction to Sir Alexander, who assured 
 him that he should not bear the burden alone. The Doctor 
 writes : 
 
 " May 10. I have to-day received the two priests from on 
 board the vessel at Blackwall, and will give you a little de- 
 scription of them. 
 
 " Munhi Rathana is twenty-seven years of age, and has 
 been high-priest eight years. He was educated, as was the 
 other, from youth, for the priesthood. Dherma Rama is 
 twenty-five years old, and has been between six and seven 
 years in the priesthood. They are cousins ; about five feet 
 six inches, and quite black ; they have fine eyes, regular fea- 
 tures, and the younger, a remarkably fine nose. There is a 
 gentleness and intelligence in their faces which greatly im- 
 pressed me. Their hair, which is beginning to grow, (for, 
 as priests, they are always shaven,) is jet-black. Their cloth- 
 ing is imposing in appearance. It consists of three parts : 
 a sort of tunic or brocade, with gold and silver flowers ; upon 
 this they have a sash, that goes round their waist ; and, over 
 the whole, a yellow garment. . . . They have now European 
 shoes and stockings. One of them has a screen made of silk 
 to which there is a massive handle of ivory. This, as high- 
 priest, he used in the temple before his face, while perform- 
 ing the recitations from their sacred books. They eat spar- 
 ingly, but refuse nothing placed before them of solid food, 
 and take no fluid but milk or water." 
 
 The missionary committee wished to put them entirely 
 under the Doctor's care. He accepted the charge, took 
 them to Bristol, where he had to preach for the missions, 
 and then conducted them to Millbrook. The characteristics 
 of these two Asiatics, under the immediate observation of
 
 380 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the Doctor for nearly two years, were such as engaged his 
 affection, and called forth expressions of unequivocal 
 approval. 
 
 " It will give you satisfaction," says he, writing to the 
 committee, " to know that they still behave well, and are 
 gentle and submissive. They are very diligent in their 
 studies, and have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, particu- 
 larly religious knowledge, as well as for reading and writing 
 English ; which is of vast importance, as I am satisfied that 
 the English language, under God, is the key of their salva- 
 tion. They are both men of erudition in their way, with, 
 as far as I can judge, a commanding eloquence. They are 
 deeply read in the ethics of the Brahmin and Buddhoo sys- 
 tems. In these respects their acquirements are immense. 
 I have myself read some works of this kind ; and well know- 
 ing the subtle and specious reasons which both those sys- 
 tems can bring forth in behalf of their ethics and philosophy, 
 I do not a little wonder at the subjection of these men's 
 minds to the truths of the Gospel. I see them at the feet of 
 Christ." 
 
 After a residence of twenty-two months at Millbrook, in 
 the course of which Dr. Clarke had become entirely sure of 
 their sincerity, and satisfied with their proficience in the 
 truths of Christianity, he complied with their solemn request 
 and admitted them to the sacrament of baptism. This took 
 place in the presence of an immense congregation, in Bruns- 
 wick Chapel, Liverpool, on Sunday, March 12th, 1820. Af- 
 ter the Liturgy, the Doctor, before proceeding to the ordi- 
 nance, gave an account of the previous life of the two cate- 
 chumens, and detailed such circumstances of their recent 
 studies and experience as had satisfied him that they were 
 now fully eligible for admission to the privileges of the 
 Church by the rite about to be administered. He then left 
 the desk, and went to the font where they were standing. 
 The congregation joined in the hymn, 
 
 " Father, Sou, and Holy Ghost, 
 la solemn power come down," etc,
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 381 
 
 When the Doctor came to the lines, 
 
 " See these sinful worms of earth, 
 Bless to them the cleansing flood," 
 
 he laid his hands upon their heads ; the two priests burst into 
 tears, and the whole assembly seemed to feel, in deathlike 
 stillness, that the power of the Highest was indeed overshad- 
 owing them. The office for the baptism of adults was then 
 recited with heartfelt fervor ; the elder candidate receiving 
 the name of Adam Sree Goonah Munhi Rathana ; and the 
 younger, that of Alexander Dherma Rama. 
 
 During the service, the latter, who, through fear of death, 
 had long been subject to bondage, had that fear entirely re- 
 moved ; and the elder, Adam, on returning to his room, fell 
 prostrate on the ground, and spent a long time, weeping, in 
 prayer and praise. 
 
 A few weeks after this event, having completed the pur- 
 pose for which they had come to England, they grew anxious 
 to return, and arrangements were made for that object. 
 One thing ought not to be omitted, as showing their disinter- 
 ested sincerity ; they declined to receive presents. Among 
 other offerings, Mr. Sherburn, of the plate-glass manufac- 
 tory at Ravenhead, sent them two fine toilet-glasses. They 
 admired them, but were silent. Dr. Clarke spoke to them 
 pointedly of the kindness and attention of Mr. Sherburn 
 in making them the presents ; when Dherma, after some 
 hesitation, said, " We are obliged to Mr. Sherburn, but we 
 will not have them. We came to England without money, 
 without goods, without clothes, except our priests' garments ; 
 we will take nothing back with us but one coat apiece, the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the books you have promised 
 us. No, if God give it," (i. e., assist us,) " we will take 
 no presents ; we will receive nothing but the Gospel of 
 Christ ; for that alone we came."* 
 
 They returned to Ceylon in company with Sir Richard 
 
 Many particulars about these two converts may be found in the twelfth 
 volume of Dr. Clarke's Works.
 
 382 LIFE OF ADAM CLABKE. 
 
 Ottley, (who was going out to that island as judge,) carrying 
 with them the devout and loving wishes of their revered 
 friend, who gave expression to the solidity of his good 
 opinion of them in a formal certificate, which was accompa- 
 nied by an official letter on the part of Lord Bathurst, ad- 
 dressed in their behalf to the authorities in Ceylon. 
 
 Some months after, Dr. Clarke received from them the 
 intelligence of their safe arrival. " My dear father," writes 
 the elder, Adam Rathana, " I am here, comfortable and 
 happy ; however, I will tell you my good generally. Since 
 we sailed from England, we have every Sunday had prayers, 
 and sometimes a sermon ; every morning and evening we 
 have met in Sir Richard's cabin to read the Bible and pray ; 
 at times some of the other passengers have joined. We 
 have three Sundays had the Lord's Supper ; indeed, my 
 mind sometimes rejoices concerning my soul. 
 
 " Every day Judge Ottley orders us to go to him for im- 
 provement; indeed, by his teaching we have got great 
 knowledge ; also he is very kind to us. Your book teaches 
 us great knowledge ; he talks to us out of it, and my mind 
 is greatly satisfied with him all the time. . . . On the 30th 
 of October we arrived at Colombo ; the governor very kind 
 to me, and put -me under the Rev. Dr. S., who came from 
 England, colonial chaplain. With him I study Christian 
 religion, and I hope in a short time to be able to preach the 
 salvation of Jesus Christ. When I was with you, I told 
 you I wish to have some power to preach the Gospel to 
 hc;it!icn people. My wish, I thank God, he has done forme ; 
 and I have now exceeding happiness in receiving this great 
 blessing. My dear father, I will never forget you. You cut 
 me off some of your hair, and when I think of you, I take 
 it in my hand, and, seeing that, my mind is full of sorrow, 
 wanting you. My daily prayer is for you and your family." 
 
 The subsequent life of these cousins gave good evidence 
 of their true-hearted establishment in the faith. The elder 
 devoted himself to the service of the Church, and received an 
 appointment as a chaplain; and the other adopted the life
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 383 
 
 of a civilian, and became a mohunderam or inferior magis- 
 trate. I met only lately, in a periodical of the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel,* with an extract of a letter 
 from the present bishop of Colombo, who mentions the 
 pleasing fact that a son of the elder had just then been or- 
 dained a deacon of the Church. His lordship says : " It was 
 gratifying to me last Sunday to admit to the diaconate 
 another native laborer, after a probation of more than three 
 years, in the service of the society, at Badulla, under the 
 Rev. E. Mooyart, of Newera Ellia. His name is George 
 Adam Rathana. He is the son of a converted Buddhist 
 priest, who was some years ago conveyed to England by the 
 late Sir A. Johnstone, and confided to the care of Dr. Adam 
 Clarke for Christian education. I have known him long, 
 having received him as the first divinity student in St. 
 Thomas's College, where he gained the esteem and confi- 
 dence of all." 
 
 Reverting to the tenor of Dr. Clarke's life at Millbrook, 
 we find him celebrating the coronation of King George IV., 
 by a kind of domestic fete with his family and their neigh- 
 bors. " We brought all our tenants together, even to the 
 least of their children, and gave them a dinner. They ate a 
 world of beef, pies, pudding, and cheese, besides half a bushel 
 of currants and cherries. To our work-people I also gave a 
 holiday, and paid each man his day's wages : and, when all 
 was over, I gave each child a penny ; all above eight years 
 old, a sixpence ; and to every grown person, a shilling. We 
 sang and prayed, and afterward I dismissed them. They 
 were as happy as they could be. Our union-jack was fly- 
 ing all day ; at sunset we struck our flag, and heartily prayed, 
 morning, noon, and night, for the king." 
 
 The Conference had voted a loyal Address to the new 
 monarch, and Dr. Clarke was appointed to negotiate with 
 the Home Secretary about the time and manner of pre- 
 senting it. Lord Sid mouth informed him that the Ad- 
 * " The Mission Field," May, 1857.
 
 384 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 dress might be presented at a levee, by a deputation, or by 
 an individual. As such an opportunity was not likely to 
 occur for some months, his lordship kindly offered to lay it 
 himself before His Majesty, taking occasion to remark in 
 the same letter that he knew " the influence of the Wesleyan 
 Methodists to be extensive." 
 
 In February, 1821, died that great preacher and expositor 
 of the word of God, the Rev. Joseph Benson. Dr. Clarke, 
 standing at the side of his death-bed, heard the theologian's 
 last testimony : " My hope of salvation is, BY GRACE THROUGH 
 FAITH/" On the occasion of the funeral, at City Road, Dr. 
 Clarke delivered a powerful address to the congregation 
 which crowded the spacious chapel. 
 
 Among many journeys this year he visited Epworth, to 
 preach for the chapel. With his veneration for the family 
 of the Wesley s, the spot on which he then found himself was 
 felt to be classic ground. " With reverence and strong re- 
 ligious gratification," he went over the old rectory, accom- 
 panied by the resident clergyman ; and then proceeded to 
 the simple, clean little church, hard by which was " a syca- 
 more tree which was planted by the hand of old Samuel 
 Wesley. I brought away a piece of the outer bark. I have 
 got a pair of fire-tongs which belonged to him, and which were 
 bought at the family sale. There is also an old clock, which 
 I rather think I shall have, and for which I left a commission." 
 
 In these widely extended journeys for the promotion of 
 great charities for time and eternity, he was everywhere 
 hailed with a hearty religious welcome, and heard with an 
 almost unexampled reverence by the rich and the poor, who 
 met together to receive from the lips of him who kept 
 knowledge the words of eternal peace. 
 
 At the Conference of 1822, held in London, his brethren 
 in the ministry offered him the token of their own heartfelt 
 veneration by electing him to the presidential chair. This 
 was the third time that honor was conferred upon him ; a 
 circumstance which had not hitherto occurred in the annals 
 of the body. Dr. Coke had been president twice ; and since
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN THE CHURCH. 385 
 
 those days two eminent men, Drs. Jabez Bunting and Robert 
 Newton, have held the office four times each. But in the 
 present case the distinction was unique, and was no doubt 
 intended as a homage paid to extraordinary virtue and 
 worth. 
 
 At this Conference initiatory proceedings were entered 
 upon toward a mission to the Zetland Islands, a work in 
 which, as we shall have to record, Dr. Clarke took a personal 
 and a predominant interest. His official visit to the Irish 
 Conference was made in connection with a tour in Scotland, 
 and in several neighborhoods of his native island. In the 
 course of these peregrinations he found himself once more 
 among the scenes of his childhood. He entered the church 
 where he was baptized. " I went," says he, " within the 
 communion-rail. With silent solemnity and awe, I there, 
 in the presence of Him whose I am, and whom I serve, men- 
 tally and in a deep spirit of prayer, took upon myself those 
 vows which had so long before been made in my name and 
 on my behalf." 
 
 Standing by the graves of some of the members of his 
 family in the adjoining place of the dead, he made the re- 
 flection : " Here lie several of my ancestors ; and I go to lie 
 most probably in another land, and shall not, in all likeli- 
 hood, be gathered to my fathers. But I too shall be found, 
 when all the quick and dead stand before the Lord ; and 
 wheresoever my dust may be scattered, the voice of the 
 Lord shall call it together, and I shall stand in my lot at the 
 end of the days. May I then be found of him in peace, 
 without spot and without blame, and have an entrance into 
 the holiest through the blood of Jesus !" 
 
 In Ireland he found the societies still in an uneasy con- 
 dition. At a public meeting, convened in Belfast, " one pro- 
 posing the question to me, ' Is Methodism now what it has 
 been 1 ?' I answered it in a way very different from what 
 was, I believe, expected, and intended by it: 'No: it is 
 more rational, more stable, more consistent, more holy, 
 more useful to the comm.ynjty, and a greater blessing to
 
 386 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the world. at large.' And all this I found no difficulty in 
 proving." * 
 
 It had been published for him to preach at Bandon at 
 twelve o'clock ; and he proceeded thither for that purpose. 
 His entrance into the town was greeted as if he had come 
 (as indeed he had) an embassador from a king. The street 
 was lined with a multitude waiting his arrival, many of 
 whom had come from various towns, and some from a dis- 
 tance of thirty miles. On reaching Dublin, he presided at 
 the Conference ; in the course of which the Dublin mission- 
 ary meeting had the long remembered advantage of his 
 counsels and exhortations. 
 
 The Irish Conference is preliminary to that in England ; 
 and scarcely had the Doctor arrived at home from a journey 
 of two thousand miles, before he was again on the way to 
 the latter, which was held that year in Sheffield. He once 
 more gave up the seal of office to his old friend, the Rev. 
 Henry Moore, and concluded the duties of his presidency 
 with a charge at the ordination of the junior ministers, dis- 
 tinguished by a powerful and solemn unction, while he ex- 
 horted them to " take heed to themselves and to the doc- 
 trine," and to " continue in these things," so as to save them- 
 selves and those who should hear them. The official sermon, 
 which he delivered at the usual time, was on a theme which ' 
 called out all the powers of his sanctified mind : " God is a 
 Spirit; and they that worship him, must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth." 
 
 It was at this Conference that Ebenezer Chapel, a large 
 Gothic structure which the Methodists of Sheffield had lately 
 erected, was dedicated for Divine service ; and Dr. Clarke 
 
 * On his rontc to Ireland by the north he found the General Assembly 
 in session at Edinburgh : when he took the opportunity of witnessing the 
 manner in which that reverend body conducts its proceedings. Dr. 
 Clarke could not help drawing in his own mind a contrast between the 
 rigid formality with which the business was transacted, and the genial 
 yet well-ordered freedom of the "conversations between the Wcsleyun 
 ministers nt their Annual Conference;" and expressed it, on leaving the 
 eliireli, liy whispering t<> his companion. " Methodism forever!"
 
 THE ELDER REVERED IN" THE CHURCH. 387 
 
 was the morning preacher. Toward the conclusion of 
 the sermon, owing to some false alarm, (created, it was 
 thought, for a wicked purpose,) one of those panics took 
 place which have been too often attended by fatal effects. 
 But, through the good providence of God, no great dis- 
 aster occurred. This being the third instance of the kind 
 in which a simliar shock had been given him, the Doctor 
 expressed a resolution to preach no more at the opening of 
 a chapel. 
 
 An accident which befell him shortly after the Conference 
 had a bad effect on his health, which became so disordered 
 as to lay him aside for a time altogether. On the 14th of 
 September, he takes occasion to lament that he was too 
 weak to repeat even the Lord's Prayer; and on the 17th, 
 that he could not speak five minutes at a time so soon is 
 the strength of the most vigorous man laid low. An idea, 
 which had been present with him some time, now gained 
 ground in his mind ; namely, that a residence in a more 
 southerly part of England would be more conducive to his 
 welfare. This was strengthened by the consideration that 
 his family were then nearly all settled in London. He now 
 observes that he should be glad " if any small place, from 
 three to fifty miles from London, could be obtained ;" 
 adding : " But we should rather be thinking of our last 
 change, than of making another removal." An indication 
 was given, however, of his resolve to migrate from the 
 north, by the appearing of his name, on the Minutes of the 
 next Conference, in connection with the London West Cir- 
 cuit. In the course of some few months, an advantageous 
 offer having been made to Dr. Clarke for the Millbrook 
 property, he finally disposed of it ; and, after a short and 
 intermediate residence at Canonbury Square, Islington, he 
 took up his last earthly sojourn at Haydon Hall, near Pinner 
 in the county of Middlesex. In this salubrious and beauti- 
 ful spot, about sixteen miles from London near enough 
 for ordinary convenience, yet sufficiently secluded for retire- 
 ment the Doctor soon felt himself at home. His flagging
 
 388 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 health recovered much of its wonted energy ; and, his soul 
 being replenished with increase of grace, he dedicated life 
 anew to God in humble dependence on that preventing and 
 sustaining power which alone could enable him, in all his 
 works, begun, continued, and ended, to glorify His holy 
 Name.
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 389 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 
 
 THE fallen heart of man is not so utterly abandoned and 
 debased as to have lost all sensibility to the praise worthi- 
 ness of the things that are pure, and honest, and of good 
 report ; for, among the heathens themselves, the wreath was 
 given to the patriot, and shrines and statues rose to the 
 fame of the wise and the just. Nor does Christianity dis- 
 countenance such tributes to social worth. Religion attests 
 her veneration for those who have lived for the public good, 
 by inscribing their names on her temples ; and the enlight- 
 ened of all nations speak with reverence of Westminster Ab- 
 bey, and like solemn places, as spots sacred to all humanity. 
 The recollections they inspire create a wholesome influence 
 on society at large, as the well-earned honors thus awarded 
 are not only memorials to the dead, but incentives to virtu- 
 ous effort among the living. 
 
 The true Christian has, indeed, a higher reward in view 
 than any of these things can yield him. They are not the 
 recompense to which he aspires, compared with which the 
 most glittering prizes of the world are only meteors in a 
 changing sky. And if, instead of these honorable awards, 
 dishonor and death would be the issue of his efforts, he 
 would labor on, in the promotion of human welfare, to do 
 the will of God. But if, on the other hand, his fellow-men 
 recognise in him a merit which calls forth some tokens of 
 commendation, he delays not to consecrate that tribute " to 
 the greater glory of the Most High," by employing the in- 
 creasing influence it may confer upon him, as a talent to be 
 improved in his service, and to his praise. 
 
 Adam Clarke, as a scholar and author, met with as great
 
 390 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 a measure of scientific and literary honors as fells to most 
 men in the republic of letters. King Solomon has written 
 that " a man shall be commended according to his wisdom :" 
 if this rule hold good, as it did in the instance of him whose 
 course we are reviewing, the amplitude of the laudatory 
 testimonials with which he was greeted will sufficiently 
 prove the estimate his contemporaries had formed of him, 
 as one of the master spirits of the intellectual world. 
 
 From the ancient University of Aberdeen he had received, 
 in 1807, the diploma of Master of Arts. The application 
 to the Faculty for its conferment, made by the late Profes- 
 sor Person, was perfectly unknown to Mr. Clarke ; who as 
 soon as he became aware of the circumstance, wrote to Mr. 
 Porson as follows : " It is only within a few hours that I 
 have been informed of a request made to you by one of my 
 friends for your recommendation to King's College, Aber- 
 deen. This was utterly without my knowledge, nor had I 
 even the slightest intimation that anything of the kind was 
 projected. I have such high notions of literary merit, and 
 the academical distinctions to which it is entitled, that I 
 would not in conscience take, or cause to be taken in my 
 behal/, any step to possess the one, or to assume the other. 
 Everything of this kind should come, not only unbought, 
 but unsolicited. I should as soon think of being learned 
 by proxy, as of procuring academical honors by influence ; 
 and, could one farthing purchase me the highest degree 
 I would not give it. Not that I lightly esteem such honors; 
 I believe them, when given through merit, next to those 
 which come from God ; but I consider them misplaced 
 when conferred in consequence of recommendation in which 
 the person concerned has any part, near or remote. As I 
 wish to stand as high as justice will permit in your good 
 opinion, and as I should justly conclude I had deservedly 
 forfeited it, if known to hunt after a title, I deem it neces- 
 sary, on the hint I have received of this matter, to trouble 
 you with these lines. What you have said of me I know 
 not, but I am satisfied you would say nothing but what is
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 391 
 
 kind and just ; and to deserve and to have the smallest 
 measure of the approbation of a man \vho stands at the 
 head of the republic of letters, would be to me a very 
 high gratification." 
 
 The faculty of King's College had already become too 
 well acquainted with Mr. Clarke to be disinclined to meet 
 the overture of the great Cambridge professor ; and the 
 degree was immediately conferred. The newly created 
 Master was thus advised of the honor by Professor Bentley, 
 under date of January 31. 1807 : 
 
 "I have the pleasure to announce to you that the Univers-- 
 ity and King's College, Aberdeen, have this day unani- 
 mously conferred the degree of Master of Arts on Mr. 
 Adam Clarke, member of the Philological Society of Man- 
 chester, and author of several literary works of merit. Mr. 
 Scott is the promoter in this faculty, and I was obliged to 
 him for seconding me in my proposal. Let me assure you, 
 I look not on this as the measure of your merit ; but it may 
 be considered as a step ; and, while I live, I shall not cease 
 to wish, and (as far as it may be in my power) endeavor to 
 promote, your due honor and fame." 
 
 Some thirteen months afterward the senate of King's Col- 
 lege attested their proper appreciation of his learning and 
 labors by creating him Doctor of Laws. This act was an- 
 nounced to him in most complimentary terms by Mr. Bent- 
 ley, under date of March 3, 1808 : 
 
 "I have the pleasure to inform you, that this University 
 has this day given another proof of its estimation of your 
 merit, by unanimously voting to you the highest designa- 
 tion in its gift, that of LL.D. Permit me to add my sin- 
 cere congratulations on the occasion, and to wish that you 
 may long live to enjoy the rewards and fruits of your use- 
 ful and meritorious labors. You are already as much pos- 
 sessed of the degree as it is possible to be ; but I shall soon 
 have the honor to transmit to you the demonstration of it 
 in the sign manual of all the members of the Senatus 
 Academicus."
 
 392 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 It may be added, that so entirely were these transactions 
 divested of all pecuniary relationships, that the college refused 
 to accept even the customary fees given on those occasions. 
 
 In 1813 Dr. Clarke was elected a Fellow of the Antiqua- 
 rian Society. His nomination, which had the signature of 
 one of the commissioners of the State Records, having been 
 suspended at Somerset House for the usual period of six 
 weeks, his election was unanimous. This connection with 
 the Antiquarian Society was attended both with pleasure 
 and profit to him, from the congeniality of the studies car- 
 ried on by its members, with those in which all his life he 
 felt a peculiar interest. 
 
 The Royal Irish Academy inscribed Dr. Clarke's name 
 among those of its members in 1821 ; a distinction which 
 gave him the more satisfaction, from the circumstance that 
 it was a token of esteem from his own countrymen. 
 
 A similar mark of respect was shown by the Eclectic 
 Society of London an association consisting only of men 
 who have distinguished themselves in literature or science. 
 The chancellors of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
 were at that time the vice-patrons of the Society ; the patron, 
 II.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester, whose seal was affixed to 
 the diploma. 
 
 The Geological Society of London enrolled the doctor as 
 an associate in 1823; and in the same year the Royal 
 Asiatic Society elected him a fellow. He had also the 
 honor of being instituted a member of the American His- 
 torical Institute. 
 
 It should be observed, that, as none of these distinctions 
 had been sought by Dr. Clarke, so they were not overween- 
 ingly doted upon when received.* He " bore his faculties 
 meekly ;" in truth, they gave him at times more pain than 
 pleasure. He walked humbly with God, and with men ; 
 still ambitious, not of the laurel wreaths that fade away, 
 but of the crown which is incorruptible. 
 
 * His mind hud too far outgrown things of that kind to be satisfied 
 with them.
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 393 
 
 It is a fact, however, that from all ranks of society Dr. 
 Clarke received most unequivocal tokens of real respect. 
 Among the members of the Church of England, distin- 
 guished laics and dignified clergymen made no secret of 
 their personal regard for the learned Methodist divine. A 
 pleasant incident illustrative of this took place at an anniver- 
 sary meeting of the Prayer-Book and Homily Society. Dr. 
 Clarke was on the platform, which was crowded by some of 
 the elite of the Church. One of the speakers took occasion 
 to refer to him, as " the worthy doctor, who, of all the men 
 I know who are not of our Church, comes the nearest to it 
 both in doctrine and friendship ;" whereupon Dr. Clarke, in 
 a speech which followed, ventured, in alluding to the refer- 
 once to himself, to state his own connection with the Church 
 by baptism, confirmation, and communion ; adding : " If, 
 after all, I am not allowed to be a member of it, because, 
 through necessity being laid upon me, I preach Jesus to the 
 perishing multitudes without those most respectable orders 
 that come from it, I must strive to be content ; and if you 
 will not let me accompany you to heaven, I will, by the 
 grace of God, follow after you, and hang upon your skirts." 
 Mr. Wilberforce, who was sitting beside the chair, rose, and 
 in his usual animated style said : " Far from not acknow- 
 ledging our worthy friend as a genuine member of the 
 Church, and of the Church of the firstborn whose names 
 are written in heaven far from denying him to be of the 
 company who are pressing in at the gate of blessedness 
 we will not indeed let him follow ; he shall not hang on our 
 skirts, to be as if dragged onward ; we will take him in our 
 arms, we will bear him in our bosoms, and carry him into 
 the presence of his God and our God." 
 
 On the publication of his little manual, " The Traveler's 
 Prayer," he received complimentary letters from the Bish- 
 ops Blomfield, Ryder, and Herbert Marsh. The latter pre- 
 late told him that, though long accustomed to read, study, 
 and admire the Liturgy of the Anglican Church, he felt that 
 Dr. Clarke's discourse on the Third Collect developed beau-
 
 394 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 ties in it which he had never seen before. Blomfield, bishop 
 of London, gave him a general invitation to visit him at 
 Fulham Palace whenever he could make it convenient. On 
 one occasion, after a frank conversation, as they were de- 
 scending the stairs toward the hall door, his lordship quoted 
 in Latin the well known sentence : " Seeing you are such a 
 man, I wish you were altogether our own." The bishop 
 liked Dr. Clarke's simple, genuine character, as well as his 
 learning. He was a frequent reader of his Commentary. 
 
 The late Earl and Countess of Derby took several occa- 
 sions of testifying the veneration and regard they had 
 learned to entertain for him. Their personal acquaintance 
 with him began after he had come to reside at Millbrook. 
 He received (to quote a letter of his own) " a polite mes- 
 sage, stating that, if agreeable to me, they would wait on 
 me for the purpose of inviting me to Knowsley Hall. I 
 fixed the next day at twelve ; and they came. . . . There 
 were thirteen persons, all nobles." Much conversation took 
 place. Among other topics, the countess, who seemed " far, 
 very far from being indifferent to the life of God in the 
 soul," asked him for a copy of his sermon on " Salvation by 
 Faith," which he presented to her ladyship, with the kindred 
 discourse on the " Love of God." This led to other visits 
 on both sides, and not without some good improvement. 
 
 Among the members of the royal family there were some 
 who showed a personal respect for Dr. Clarke. His Com- 
 mentary was not only in their libraries, but often in their 
 hands. The Duke of Kent, the father of our august sove- 
 reign, attended personally at City Road Chapel to hear the 
 doctor preach for the Royal Humane Society ; and the Duke 
 of Sussex gave him repeated evidences of a more than or- 
 dinary esteem. 
 
 That illustrious prince, among other excellent traits of 
 character, was distinguished by an ardent love for Biblical 
 learning. His own knowledge of the sacred tongues was 
 more than respectable, and his library contained a magnifi- 
 cent collection of the Scriptures in the principal languages
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 395 
 
 and editions in which they had been given to the world. 
 The duke had fifteen hundred Bibles ; and for many years 
 he spent two hours every morning in reading the Scrip- 
 tures. Now Dr. Clarke had a copy of the London Poly- 
 glot which contained in the Epistle Dedicatory a laudatory 
 reference, by Walton, to Oliver Cromwell.* The Protector 
 dying before the actual publication of the work, this pas- 
 sage was suppressed, and the epistle modified so as to dedi- 
 cate the Polyglot to the returning monarch. A few of the 
 republican copies, nevertheless, found their way into the 
 world ; and from that in his own possession Dr. Clarke re- 
 printed a few exemplars of the Dedication, in type exactly 
 resembling the original. To render the likeness still more 
 complete, he tinted the paper by an infusion of tobacco to 
 the shade which time had given to the pages of the Polyglot, 
 The Duke of Sussex, having heard of this, expressed a wish 
 to have one of those sheets for his own copy, and made the 
 request for it through his surgeon, William Blair, Esq., 
 who was a personal friend of Dr. Clarke; upon which the 
 doctor wrote a letter to his Eoyal Highness, accompanied 
 by the only copy of the reprinted Dedication which re- 
 mained, and a reprint of the title-page to the fifth volume 
 of the Polyglot, containing the New Testament, found only 
 in a very few copies. In acknowledging the gift through 
 his secretary, Mr. Pettigrew, " His Royal Highness " writes 
 that gentleman " commands me to say that he trusts, when- 
 ever you come to London, you will honor him with a visit, 
 when he will be very proud to show you his library, and be 
 most happy to make the acquaintance of a man for whose 
 talents and character he has so exalted an opinion." Dr. 
 Clarke, in reply, " made his humble acknowledgments, 
 and should he come to town would feel himself hon- 
 
 * " Primo autem commemorandi quorum favore chartam a vectigalibiis 
 immunem habuimus, quod quinque abliinc annis (scil. 1652) a concilia 
 secretion primo concessum, postea a Serenisimo D. PROTECTORS ejusque 
 concilia, operis promovendi causa, benigne confirmatum et continual um
 
 396 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ored in receiving any commands from his Royal 
 Highness." 
 
 Being in London about three months after, to preach for 
 the Missionary Society, the doctor was invited to meet the 
 royal duke at Kensington Palace. "I went," says he, 
 writing to Miss Clarke, " and was received by his Royal 
 Highness in his closet, and was led by himself through his 
 library, where he showed me several curious things, and 
 condescended to ask me several Bibliographical questions, 
 desiring his librarian from time to time to note the answers 
 down. Dinner came. The company : His Royal High- 
 ness; Dr. Parr, the highest Greek scholar in Europe; Sir 
 Anthony Carlisle; the Rev. T. Maurice, of the British 
 
 Museum ; the Hon. Gower, Colonel Wildman, Sir 
 
 Alexander Johnstone, Lord Blessington, Mr. Pettigrew, and 
 Adam Clarke. We sat down about seven o'clock, and din- 
 ner was over about half past nine. I wished much to get 
 away, though the conversation was to me unique, curious, 
 and instructive, fearing your mother would be uneasy. I 
 cannot give you the conversation, but you may judge by 
 the outline. . . . 
 
 " I was informed 1 must remain till all the company had 
 departed, which was about twelve o'clock.' When they 
 were all gone, the duke sat down on the sofa, and beckoned 
 me to come and sit beside him, on his right hand ; and he 
 entered for a considerable time into a most familiar conver- 
 sation with me. At last a servant in the royal livery came 
 to me, saying, ' Sir, the carriage is in waiting.' I rose up, 
 and his Royal Highness, rising at the same time, took me 
 affectionately by the hand, told me I must come and visit 
 him some morning when he was alone, (which time should 
 be arranged between me and his secretary,) bade me a 
 friendly ' good-night,' and I was then conducted by the ser- 
 vant to the door of the palace, when, lo, and behold, one of 
 the royal carriages was in waiting, to carry a Methodist 
 preacher, your old weather-beaten father, to his own 
 lodgings."
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD. 397 
 
 Iii the following November Dr. Clarke presented the duke 
 with copies of the parts of his Commentary which had then 
 been completed, and along with them a letter describing the 
 history of the work, and the studies which had produced it. 
 Referring to the pains he had taken to set the doctrines of 
 the Bible in the clear light of evidence, he adds : " On all 
 such subjects I humbly hope your Royal Highness will never 
 consult these volumes in vain. And if the grand doctrines 
 which prove that God is loving to every man, and that from 
 his infinite and eternal goodness he wills, and has made pro- 
 vision for, the salvation of every human soul, be found to be 
 those alone which have stood the above sifting and exami- 
 nation, it was not because they were sought for beyond all 
 others, and the Scriptures bent in that way in order to favor 
 them, but because these doctrines are essentially contained 
 in and established by the oracles of God." 
 
 The Duke of Sussex, acknowledging this offering in a long 
 autograph letter, expressed his belief in the Divine origin 
 and truth of the holy volume, and his despair of ever being 
 able fully to understand all its mysteries. This, however, 
 says he, " ought in no wise to slacken our diligence, nor 
 damp our ardor, in attempting a constant research after the 
 attainment of truth ; as we may flatter ourselves, although 
 unable to reach the goal, still to approach much nearer to 
 its portals." And again: "The objects, besides many others, 
 which seem to have occupied the greatest and most valuable 
 part of your active life, cannot fail of being most interesting to 
 the historian, the theologist, the legislator, and the philosopher. 
 To these details I shall apply myself; and as my heart and 
 mind improve, I shall feel my debt of gratitude toward you 
 daily increasing an obligation I shall ever be proud to own." 
 
 In April, 1825, he was favored with another invitation to 
 Kensington. The Doctor was accompanied this time by his 
 son, Mr. J. W. Clarke, who had been included by his Royal 
 Highness's command. Writing to Miss Clarke, her father 
 says : " We reached Kensington about six o'clock. The 
 duke soon made his appearance, for by this time the whole
 
 398 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 company were in the pavilion, and singling me out, took me 
 by the hand, and led me forward to two Indian gentlemen, 
 saying, ' Here is my friend, Dr. Adam Clarke, who will 
 speak Persic or Arabic with any of you.' Previously to 
 dinner all the company were ushered into the room where 
 the MSS. and early printed books are kept. The Duke of 
 Hamilton remarking upon the probable date of some of 
 them, from their illuminations, John gave two or three opin- 
 ions, heraldically,* which were happy and decisive. . . . 
 The profusion of plate was amazing. I ate about an ounce 
 of turbot and did not taste one drop of fluid of any kind. 
 His Eoyal Highness two or three different times recom- 
 mended viands from the head of the table to John, and 
 pledged and sent him some Trinity College ale. He soon 
 felt at home, and took his part in discussions on antiquities 
 and heraldry, which were well received. . . . The conver- 
 sation referred to several points of language and criticism." 
 Hitherto the Doctor had been the guest of the Prince ; 
 but, on coming to reside at Haydon Hall, he had the honor 
 of receiving his Royal Highness in more than one friendly 
 visit. On the first occasion he was accompanied by Mr. 
 Pettigrew, his librarian. Dr. Clarke received his august 
 visitor with a true-hearted and genial politeness. During 
 dinner the prince entered freely into social and intellectual 
 conversation, and spent several hours after with the Doctor 
 among his books. Sometime subsequently the duke made 
 a second visit, having previously intimated his wish to have 
 the pleasure of dining at Haydon Hall. He came as early 
 as two o'clock, and employed the interval before dinner in 
 reading portions of the Bible, and making references in He- 
 brew criticism. f He was greatly delighted with inspecting 
 a set of Hebrew manuscripts which Dr. Clarke had been for- 
 
 * In the art of heraldry John Clarke was second to very few. 
 
 t The superintendent of the Windsor Circuit (the Rev. A. Strachan) 
 was at the Hall that day ; and talking over the visit afterward, said, 
 " Do you think, Doctor, that the Prince is a converted man?" " I do 
 not know what you would do," replied he; " but I think I should not 
 )ii"itiito to give him a note upon trial."
 
 HONORED BY THE GREAT AND GOOD 399 
 
 tunate enough to purchase from the Vanderhagon family in 
 Holland; manuscripts which Kennicott mentions in the 
 introduction to his great Bible, with the lamentation that 
 with all his efforts he had not been able to have access to 
 them for collation. It was just subsequent to this visit that 
 the Rev. Joseph Clarke, the Doctor's youngest son, was ap- 
 pointed chaplain to the Duke of Sussex. 
 
 In closing these details, we must remark that the venera- 
 tion and honor in which Dr. Clarke was held in his lifetime 
 have now long survived his own appearance among us, and 
 seem to gather new strength as years roll on. In the 
 very week in which these lines are penned, the public news- 
 papers give an account of a meeting held in the court-house 
 in the town of Coleraine for the purpose of founding " a me- 
 morial to Dr. Adam Clarke, in the erection of a Methodist 
 chapel at Port-Stewart, in the parish of Agherton, where he 
 was brought up ; and of a memorial obelisk and statue, to 
 be raised at Portrush, as the most conspicuous site, and in 
 the focus of observation for travelers and tourists to the 
 Giants' Causeway." It appears that such a purpose has been 
 formed not only by the Methodists of that part of Ireland, 
 but by the great body of the most influential inhabitants. 
 Among the names of the managing committee are those of a 
 nobleman, Lord Robert Montague, a member of Parliament, 
 five justices of the peace, the treasurer for the county, several 
 military officers, four aldermen, a number of the clergy, and 
 some of the principal landed gentlemen in that part of the 
 kingdom ; the chairman, J. C. Knox, Esq., of Jackson Hall.* 
 
 * This project has since taken its finally definite character. " The 
 Adam Clarke Memorial," (under the patronage of the Right Hon. the 
 earl of Antrim, and John Crombie, Esq., J. P., D. L.,) is to consist of a 
 " school, church, and minister's house, at Port-Stewart, and an obelisk 
 and statue at Portrush, near Coleraiue." The foundation stone of the 
 obelisk was laid in September, 18.57, with great public solemnities. The 
 base is seven feet square and eight feet high, from which the monument 
 will rise to a height of forty-two feet ; which, taking the elevation of the 
 site, will be equal to one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the 
 sea. Close to the base will be the statue of Dr. Clarke, contributed by 
 public offerings in America. Two eminent men from thnt, side of the At-
 
 400 
 
 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Such demonstrations reflect an honor on those who make 
 them, as well as on the character of him whom they are de- 
 signed to commemorate. As opposed to the too common 
 and heartless ingratitude of the world, the veneration shown 
 for men who have widened the horizon of human knowledge 
 or helped to confirm our souls in virtue, is something beau- 
 tiful and desirable. When human society shall be regene- 
 rated from its blind debasement, such benefactors will 
 receive the reverence of nations. 
 
 lantic represented the Methodist Episcopal Church in the proceedings of 
 the day Dr. M'Clintock, lately editor of the Methodist Quarterly Keview, 
 and the Eev. W. H. Milburn, lately chaplain to the Congress.
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 401 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 "THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
 and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a 
 tinkling cymbal." The good works of the Christian derive 
 their life and splendor from love, without which they would 
 be " dead works," and nothing worth. Of this principle the 
 venerable man whose history we are now reviewing had an 
 abiding conviction. That " vital spark of heavenly flame," 
 the love of God kindled in his soul, by the Eternal Spirit, 
 revealed itself in a life of humble piety toward the great 
 Supreme, and ceaseless efforts to promote the welfare of 
 mankind. The more he knew of Christ his Saviour by a 
 communion which grew more intimate with his years, the 
 stronger were the impulses of his mind and heart to walk 
 as he also walked who " went about doing good." 
 
 This living Christianity took one of its many forms of ex- 
 pression in sympathy for the friendless poor, a.nd especially 
 for those who were of the household of faith, whom he called 
 " the representatives of Christ, and God's best friends." A 
 few words from an early letter, written in Guernsey, will 
 show the nature of this feeling : " William Mahy, our local 
 preacher, was obliged to put his four little innocents to bed 
 in the day-time, and cover them up, to prevent them from 
 starving ; not having a morsel of coal to burn, nor money 
 to purchase any. Had a portion of the cash wasted in the 
 above way" (referring to a piece of extravagance) "been 
 appropriated to the relief of this distressed good man, how 
 gladly would the first scribe in heaven have registered it hi the 
 annals of eternity ! When I consider the suffering state of 
 these ' more righteous than I,' I can scarcely eat my morsel
 
 402 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 with contentment. If there is meaning in the expression 
 ' a bleeding heart,' I think I have it for the poor. My very 
 soul seems to feel for them throughout the world, as my 
 father, my sister, my mother, and my brethren. Forgive 
 me, if, in detailing on this subject, which oppresses my 
 heart, I have forgotten to write about the full salvation you 
 inquired after ; but is it not found in the compassions of 
 Christ 1 And were not these exercised in continual outgo- 
 ings for the poor? He lived for the poor, he died for the 
 poor; and blessed is he who remembereth the poor, even 
 supposing he is not able to help them. I know I feel the 
 spirit and power of Christ, as I feel love modified into com- 
 passion and pity." And this feeling led him to do whatever 
 in him lay to relieve the distressed, and to do it in the 
 Christian way, without the trumpet-tongue of the Pharisee, 
 and not letting his left hand know what his right hand did. 
 When he had little, of that little he gave willingly. He 
 literally broke his bread and shared his morsel with the 
 hungry, and taught his children to do the same. We have 
 given an illustration of this on a former page.* Writing 
 to Mrs. Clarke from the Bristol Conference, in 1798, he 
 says : " I have just found out poor Mrs. C., with her 
 mother and sister, living together in an indifferent upstairs 
 room, St. James's Churchyard, Horsefair. I must give her 
 something. But what shall I do ? I have but 2s. 6d. I 
 must break in upon my conference guinea." We transcribe 
 these words with delicacy ; but do it to show what manner 
 of a man Dr. Clarke really was. In after life, when Provi- 
 dence gave him more, he was able to make his donations 
 more weighty: "Give poor Ellen that guinea for me." 
 
 "Give Mrs. a guinea for me." "I have just heard 
 
 that Mr. has become a bankrupt, and is in great dis- 
 tress. Can you show him any kindness? I have sent by 
 Mrs. S. two guineas, which you will give to him, with my 
 love. Do not delay.f" 
 
 * See page 214. 
 
 1 1 find from his letters, that in his journeys in Ireland he went about
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 403 
 
 The exercise of his medical skill often gave him great 
 consolation, as he was, enabled thus to relieve distress and 
 to save life. He exulted, also, in witnessing good done by 
 others. Writing on a journey, he mentions an inscription 
 on a house in Rochester with which he was delighted : it 
 
 set forth that Mr. had by will bequeathed a certain 
 
 sum to be laid out at all times upon poor travelers, " six 
 of whom every night (provided they be neither rogues nor 
 proctors) may have their supper and a night's lodging, and 
 fourpence a man next morning." " Was not this noble 1" 
 says he. " Peace to the manes of this honorable fellow !" 
 
 He set others to do good ; not only by the general tenor 
 of his doctrine and life, but by organizing associations for 
 works of mercy to the body and the soul. Of this the Stran- 
 gers' Friend Society is a blessed monument. 
 
 . But Dr. Clarke's benevolence took a wider range than 
 the necessities of the body. Not content with supplying 
 according to his power the hungry with food, and clothing 
 the naked with a garment, but recognizing the loftier des- 
 tinies of our nature, he used every means at his command 
 to meet the wants of the immortal mind. In the poorest 
 orphan he beheld a being who could be brought to the 
 knowledge of God as a Father, and become the heir of an 
 endless life. To further the great cause of religious educa- 
 tion was with him, therefore, a prominent duty ; and by his 
 long-continued appeals on behalf of Sunday schools, those 
 important institutions were greatly aided. But in the year 
 1830 his attention was especially attracted to a providential 
 opening for the establishment of some day schools in certain 
 destitute neighborhoods in that part of Ireland where he 
 himself had spent his childhood. A Christian friend, Miss 
 Birch, who had already greatly aided him in his charitable 
 enterprises, now united with three other ladies in placing 
 funds at his disposal for this good work. The Rev. Samuel 
 
 with an open-handed bounty among the poor. At Millbrook one severe 
 winter he gave shelter and food to some twenty poor sailors from Liver- 
 pool.
 
 404 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Harpur, superintendent of the Coleraine Circuit, had corre- 
 sponded with him on the subject, and pointed out such local- 
 ities as, having been left in entire destitution, presented the 
 strongest claims. These preliminaries were followed up by 
 a personal visit on the part of the doctor himself, who in 
 the spring of 1831 accomplished a long itinerancy in the 
 north of Ulster, " about Magilligan, on Ahadowey ; the upper 
 part of the parish of Mocosquin ; a place called Cashel, near 
 the mountains of Newtownlimavaddy, and on the side of 
 the river Bann ; the sea-coast parts of the county Antrim ; 
 Portrush and its vicinity, where there was a large and in- 
 creasing population, and where for miles there was no school 
 of any kind, nor any sort of instruction, and where, conse- 
 sequently, ignorance and vice had almost uncontrolled sway." 
 As soon as the means were in existence, he gave Mr. Har- 
 pur the power to commence operations ; so that, before hjs 
 arrival, schools had been opened at Portrush and some 
 other places, and suitable masters engaged for those yet 
 contemplated. We give a specimen from a copious diary 
 kept on his pilgrimage of mercy : 
 
 " April 13. Mr. Holdcroft and myself left Coleraine in 
 a car, and proceeded to Port-Stuart and Portrush. . . . 
 I have scarcely ever seen a sight jnore lovely ; though the 
 children are all miserably poor, and only half clothed, they 
 are all quite clean, their hair combed, and even their bare 
 feet clean also. There are eighty children, and all b.ehaving 
 with decorum thus strangely changed in their conduct and 
 habits. Wicked words no longer heard, and decency of 
 behavior everywhere observable. They hav not only 
 learned prayers, but how to use them. I discoursed with 
 some of the principal inhabitants, who bore the strongest 
 testimony to the great good already produced not only 
 among the children, but also among the parents. They are 
 at present ill off for a place sufficiently large; and I am 
 struggling hard to get a piece of ground, on which a chapel 
 and school-house may be erected, and believe I shall ulti- 
 mately succeed,
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 405 
 
 " April 14. We set off again this morning to visit the 
 schools in the hill country. Here (at Cashel) were sev- 
 enty-five children, and not one pair of shoes among the 
 whole. The children are in fine order, and promise well. 
 The aspect of the country would almost affright one the 
 most bleak and wild that can be imagined. Never did 
 charity sit down in the form of an instructress more in her 
 own character than in this waste. The school-house is large. 
 I have agreed to take the place, pay the debt, and give 
 1 10s. to put it in repair. Every Lord's day it is now full 
 of attentive hearers ; for the master is a preacher. 
 
 " April 18. We went to-day to a place called Croagh, 
 Avhere the whole youth of a large and populous district have 
 been long without education. It had been published that I 
 was expected. When we got within a mile of the place, 
 we saw squads of children with their mothers coming down 
 the hills and over the moors from all quarters to the school- 
 house, which is little more than half finished. So a farmer 
 had prepared a barn meantime. I proclaimed an adjourn- 
 ment to the barn, about half a mile off; and, setting out, 
 they all filed after me, children and mothers. When at the 
 place, I addressed the parents out of doors, and laid down 
 the rules and conditions on which the children were to be 
 admitted. Then, standing at the barn-door, I admitted 
 them, one by one, to the number of one hundred and thirty- 
 three ; introduced the master ; gave his character and 
 qualifications ; specified the sort of teaching the children 
 were to receive ; the discipline under which they were to 
 be brought : to learn their duty to God, to their parents, to 
 each other ; to pray ; to avoid every evil in word and deed, 
 in spirit, temper, and desire ; to be industrious, cleanly, 
 orderly, respectful to their superiors, affectionate to their 
 relatives, kind and obliging to their equals. After a good 
 deal of exhortation, I then proceeded to bring all the chil- 
 dren out of the barn, laying my hands upon their heads, and 
 praying to God for his blessing upon them alL" 
 
 Such is an extract from this pleasing record of operations
 
 406 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 which resulted in the establishment of schools which have 
 ever since been centers of intellectual, religious, and social 
 benefit to the neighborhoods where they stand. Toward 
 the close of his life, Dr. Clarke made them over to the care 
 of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
 
 A yet more weighty undertaking was the establishment 
 of a mission to the Zetland Isles. To this truly apostolic 
 work Dr. Clarke brought the latest vigor of his life. The 
 youthful evangelist in the sunny islands of La Manche, now 
 changed by the lapse of years to the gray-headed elder, 
 bends his way to tell the inhabiters of the storm beaten 
 rocks of the "ultima Thule" the majesty and grace of the 
 same Redeemer. 
 
 It was at the Conference of 1822, the year of the Doctor's 
 third presidency, that, in an extensive discussion on the 
 missionary agencies of Methodism, the late Rev. Danjel 
 McAllum, M.D., laid before his brethren an impressive 
 account of the almost destitute condition of the Zetlanders 
 as to the means of religious instruction. Dr. Clarke list- 
 ened to those details with more than usual interest. He 
 had himself descended, on the mother's side, from a family 
 which from remote generations lived the life of Scottish 
 islanders in the Hebrides ; and^ this circumstance would 
 probably give a finer edge to the sensibility with which he 
 felt the speaker's appeals. Under the influence of these 
 feelings he rose, urged on the Conference the duty of taking 
 the work at once in hand, and concluded by proposing that 
 two missionaries should be thereupon appointed to the Zet- 
 land Isles. The difficulty as to expenses he would not per- 
 mit to interfere with the favorable leaning of the Conference 
 toward the enterprise ; already resolving that all he could 
 do, or induce others to do, should be called freely into exer- 
 cise to promote this plain work of mercy. Accordingly 
 two ministers, the Rev. John Raby and the Rev. Samuel 
 Dunn, were set apart for the new mission. 
 
 No sooner had the Doctor returned from Conference, 
 than he commenced operations for raising the neccessary
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 407 
 
 funds. There lived at that time at Pensford, near Bristol, 
 a gentleman of great honor and piety, Robert Scott, Esq., 
 who, with his excellent lady, was always willing to help the 
 preachers in their enterprises to make the Saviour known 
 to the nigh and to the far-off. To him the president made 
 his first appeal ; and with what effect, the annals of that 
 mission will never case to show. Mr. Scott gave the 
 promise of a hundred pounds per annum for the support of 
 the missionaries, and of ten pounds toward every chapel to 
 be built in the islands. In fulfilling this promise, he 
 always exceeded the amount at first stipulated, while his 
 admirable wife, and her sister, the late Miss Granger, of 
 Bath, added also their handsome donations. It should also 
 be mentioned, that Mr. Scott subsequently bequeathed the 
 sum of three thousand pounds in trust for the Zetland mis- 
 sions. Dr. Clarke was one of the trustees. From the 
 Honorable Sophia Ward, Miss Birch, Miss Williams, and 
 other ladies, he also received considerable amounts in addi- 
 tion, by which he was enabled to inaugurate this undertak- 
 ing with a fair prospect of perpetuity and success. 
 
 The brethren appointed began and continued the arduous 
 task assigned them in the spirit of true Christian missiona- 
 ries. They went from isle to isle, in storm and sunshine 
 alike, to dispense the word of life to a scattered population, 
 who heard them with gratitude, and gave good evidence too 
 that the Gospel had come to them not in word only, but 
 with powerful grace. In this work the two preachers had 
 to endure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Their 
 employment exposed them to much physical discomfort and 
 danger, and their way was sometimes rendered the more 
 discouraging by the opposition of the few Scottish clergy 
 located in the islands. Though the state of the people suf- 
 ficiently proved that this evangelic help was painfully 
 needed, those gentlemen were far from being disposed to 
 accord it their welcome. This, however, did not deter the 
 two brethren or their successors from doing their duty, and 
 doing it with a blessed return.
 
 408 LIFE OT 1 ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 To describe the minute and earnest interest which Dr. 
 Clarke took in this mission would require details too mul- 
 titudinous for our limits. By referring to the twelfth vol- 
 ume of his Works, the reader will find a variety of papers, 
 geographical, statistical, epistolary, and narrative, all bear- 
 ing on the subject. Twice the Doctor undertook a pilgrim- 
 age by land and sea to visit the missionaries on their far- 
 off stations, to see the people for himself, and to preach 
 among them the riches of Christ. The first voyage was in 
 1826. On account of his then advanced period of life, and 
 his frequent ailments, the project gave Mrs. Clarke and the 
 family no small uneasiness ; but their fears were allayed by 
 the words of faith with which he addressed them. " It 
 seems," said he, " a work which God has given me to do ; 
 I must go on till he stops me. To sacrifice my life, at the 
 command or in the work of God, is, as to pain or difficulty, 
 no more to me than a burnt straw. My life is his, and he 
 will not take it away out of the regular course, unless 
 greatly to his glory and my good. ... If I am enabled to 
 take the journey, fear not for me ; for I shall be most cer- 
 tainly supported through it. I am sure God will not bury 
 me in the Northern Ocean." 
 
 Of this expedition we have a full account in a journal 
 kept at the time. On the 1st of June, with his son, Mr. 
 John Clarke, he left London ; and at Edingburgh he was 
 joined by Messrs. Campion and Mackey. It was not till 
 the Oth that they could secure a passage to the islands, 
 which at length was accomplished in the Admiralty's cutter, 
 the " Woodlark," Captain Trembly. " We got o pretty 
 well till (June 15) we came to the Pentland Frith. 
 Here was a monstrous sea, tide conflicting with tide raised 
 the billows to a fearful height ; but, as the wind was fair, 
 our cutter cut through all. Near the Fair Isle the wind 
 changed, and blew a hurricane; the sea wrought and was 
 tempestuous. We seemed to have arrived at the end of 
 the globe, where nature existed in chaotic uproar. There 
 appeared a visible rage and anger in every wave ; such
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 409 
 
 trernenduous thunder, while the waves and the Lillows of 
 the Almighty went over us. ... At length the angry wind 
 chopped about, the storm became more moderate, and we 
 had at least a fair gale, though the sea was still tremend- 
 ous." On the 17th they dropped anchor in Bressa Bay, 
 and the barren mountains of Zetland rose to their view. 
 On landing he found three of the preachers, " who had been 
 on the look-out three days." On the morrow, Sunday, 
 June 18, he preached in the new chapel at Lerwick, " a 
 light airy building, in every respect a credit to the place." 
 The congregation large, respectable, attentive. The Sunday 
 school had eighty children ; the teachers, some of the most 
 respectable of the youth of the town. On Tuesday evening he 
 preached again, and in a discourse on the " Sum and Sub- 
 stance of Apostolic Preaching," (subsequently published,) 
 gave an exposition of the doctrines of the Methodists. The 
 rest of the week he spent in perambulations and passages 
 among the islands, making minute observations on the 
 country and the condition of the people, and imparting to 
 them in conversation and public addresses counsels which 
 he thought would do them good. He speaks highly of the 
 hospitality he received from several families ; but notes 
 that, on returning to Lerwick, " what with the incessant 
 pain I had suffered, my different water passages, the long 
 and fatiguing walks, and this last ride" (among the moun- 
 tains and rocks) " on the ponies, I was most excessively 
 wearied ; indeed, so ill as to be obliged to take to my bed, 
 where I suffered more pain than I have felt for years." 
 
 " June 29. I have met all the preachers, and made provi- 
 sional appointments and arrangements which are for the 
 Conference to ratify. I feel utterly incapable of additional 
 fatigue. My natural force is abated, my eye is become 
 dim, and my days of extra labor are over. 30th. Distrib- 
 uted blankets, rugs, flannel shawls, and hymn-books among 
 the poor people. July 2. Preached to a large and deeply 
 attentive congregation from Luke xiii, 23 : ' Are there 
 few that be saved V and in the evening from Rom. xv, 4."
 
 410 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 This sermon, on " God's Mercy in the Gift of Revelation," 
 was afterward published, with a dedication " to the gentry 
 and inhabitants of the town of Lerwick." 
 
 The voyagers embarked on board the " Norna " on the 
 6th of July, and gained the bay of Aberdeen after six days' 
 conflict with the winds and tides. On the 12th the doctor 
 arrived in Edinburgh, and proceeded home most gratefully, 
 though with pleasure chastened by the painful intelligence, 
 which met him in the Scottish capital, that his dear friend 
 and brother-in-law, Mr. Butterworth, was no more. 
 
 Two years later Dr. Clarke made a second visitation to 
 those remote stations. " I am now preparing (February 
 20, 1828) to take another voyage to Shetland. There are 
 some things that remain to be done for that interesting peo- 
 ple, which I think no man can do but myself. My life is 
 the Lord's ; I take it in my hand, and make it a most free- 
 will offering to him. His work there is the most glorious, 
 deep, extensive, and steady I have ever known ; for its sup- 
 port God has given me the hearts of the people, who have 
 most liberally helped me. The preachers have been faith- 
 ful and laborious. When I saw the effects of the labors of 
 those two young men, Messrs. Dunn and Raby, I have been 
 astonished." 
 
 The party on this second occasion embarked at Whitby 
 on the 18th of June ; the passage excellent, as on the 21st 
 they landed at Lerwick, having seen the sun that morning 
 " rising between two and three o'clock no previous night." 
 From that day to the 18th of July, he was hard at work in 
 various parts of the Zetland group, " from Sumburgh Head 
 south, to the Scaw of Unst in the north." In the Societies 
 he found, in Lerwick 420 members ; in Walls, 455 ; North 
 Mavin, 115; Yell, 250; besides a number in Foula and 
 the Fair Isle. He met the Sunday-school children, " to dis- 
 cover the most necessitous, that 1 might provide them with 
 some clothing ;" and on the 26th and 27th of June he em- 
 ployed thechief part of the day in apportioning clothing of dif- 
 ferent kinds to the extremely poor in the different islands.
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 411 
 
 " Having invited the magistrates, professional gentlemen, 
 and merchants of the town to dine with me on board the 
 'Henry,' they came; and for the place and circumstances 
 the dinner was satisfactory, and all seemed pleased. The 
 conversation turned upon subjects of science, and matters 
 in which the reality of the invisible world is concerned, and 
 was upon the whole both useful and improving. 
 
 " Sunday, July 6. Having crossed the high hills, a con- 
 geries of serpentine rocks, we passed Haroldswick, and at 
 length reached Northwick, (lat. 61,) the farthest town or 
 habitation north in the British dominions. Here I preached 
 on Job xxii, 21 : ' Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be 
 at peace ; that thereby good may come unto thee.' There 
 was no other sermon preached on this day between this spot 
 and the North Pole. A press of people. I returned on 
 foot, accompanied by six persons who had come sixteen 
 miles to hear the preaching. I took them aboard to dine, 
 and they are just gone off in our boat to regain the shore, 
 most deeply affected." 
 
 On the llth he laid the foundation stone of a chapel in 
 the island of Foula. Once more arrived in Lerwick, early 
 on Sunday, the 13th, " I went on shore to enjoy the luxury 
 of clean things and a good washing. By the time this was 
 done the preaching hour arrived, and without eating a mor- 
 sel I had to go into the pulpit. It is strange I should have 
 been capable of this after exposure on the deck for twenty 
 hours. I found power in preaching. 
 
 " July 17. Weighed anchor and stood out of Bressa 
 Sound. May God grant us a prosperous voyage ! Several 
 friends came aboard, and many are following along shore to 
 get the last view of us. God be with this people forever." 
 
 The full journal of these voyages may be seen in the 
 twelfth volume of Dr. Clarke's Works, along with several 
 other papers relating to the Zetland Isles and the Wesleyan. 
 missions there. The same volume contains, also, a valuable 
 mass of correspondence with the missionaries. 
 
 The manifestations of benevolence unfolded in this chap-
 
 412 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 ter must not be regarded as fitful impulses or isolated facts 
 in the conduct of Dr. Adam Clarke, but as occurrences 
 which are but parts of a series which formed the general 
 tenor of his life ; a life spent in doing good, sanctified, 
 adorned, ennobled by the spirit of that genuine Christianity 
 which magnifies God in the highest, and creates the fruits of 
 peace and good-will among men. 
 
 " Thy care was fixed, and zealously employed 
 To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, 
 And hope that reaps not shame."
 
 THE FRIEND. 418 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FKIEND. 
 
 IT may be inferred, from the traits of his character inci- 
 dentally unfolded in the past narrative, that Dr. Clarke's 
 personal disposition had a strong tendency to inspire and 
 reciprocate those sweet and elevating sentiments which 
 come under the common name of friendship. And in no 
 man were the elements of this social virtue more vigorous 
 or more strongly developed. True worth always found in 
 him a sincere and generous admirer ; and by whomsoever a 
 feeling of affection was shown for himself, it was sure to 
 create in his soul, and call forth in his conduct, a grateful 
 return. His benevolent instincts, naturally strong, were re- 
 fined by the sanctifying grace of God ; and his friendship, 
 worthy of the name, was warm in its nature and profitable 
 in its effects. It had a heartiness which made itself sub- 
 stantially felt by those who shared it ; far from an artificial, 
 capricious, and vanishing sentiment, it became one of the 
 realities of his life and their own. Hence most of the 
 friendships he formed were prolonged with the days of mor- 
 tality, and many of them have been resumed, we have rea- 
 son to believe, in that region of love where the spirits of 
 the just are made perfect. 
 
 In his intercourse with friends there was a peculiar charm 
 about Dr. Clarke's conversation, arising from the intrinsic 
 value of what he said, combined with his kindly and cheer- 
 ful manner of saying it. In mixed company, like many 
 other great scholars, he was often silent and awkwardly re- 
 served ; but, surrounded with men and women of congenial 
 principles with his own, his mind and heart gave freely 
 forth the precious things with which they were stored. The
 
 414 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 endless variety of knowledge he had amassed from the 
 books of all human literature, from the living book of 
 society, from God's book of nature, and, above all, from 
 God's written book of revelation, was all laid under contri- 
 bution to instruct the mind, make the heart cheerful, and the 
 life better. What Herder said of J. P. Richter may be 
 affirmed of Dr. Clarke's conversation : " Every time that 
 we are together he opens anew the treasures that the three 
 wise men brought the gold, frankincense, and myrrh ; and 
 the star always goes before him." 
 
 Among the friends of Dr. Clarke were persons of all 
 grades of society, even from the prince to the peasant and 
 the mechanic. He found, too, a sacred and refining pleasure 
 in good female society ; and in the number of those who 
 were privileged to be ranked with his intimate friends were 
 several ladies distinguished for their talents and piety. 
 Such was Mrs. Tighe, the admired authoress of " Psyche." 
 Of this celebrated lady there is no separate biography ; but 
 a copious and well-written account of her has been given in 
 Mrs. R. Smith's Memoir of the Rev. Henry Moore; in 
 whom, as in Mr. Wesley and Dr. Clarke, the poetess had a 
 devoted friend. We may also mention Mrs. Hall, the sister 
 of Mr. Wesley, who was not inferior to the other members 
 of that remarkable family in the gifts of genius and the vir- 
 tues of religion ; Miss Sarah Wesley, the daughter of Charles, 
 who entertained for Dr. Clarke, to her dying hour, the 
 warmest sentiments of veneration ; Miss Tooth, a mutual 
 friend, who still survives them ; Mrs. Agnes Bulmer, another 
 poetess whose harp is now tuned to the songs of the blessed ; 
 Mrs. Mary Cooper, of whose saintly life the Doctor himself 
 wrote the memorial ; and Miss Mary Freeman Shepherd, 
 whom I mention last, being wishful to give an idea of her 
 extraordinary character in some extracts from her letters to 
 Dr. and Mrs. Clarke. Though a native of England, Miss 
 Shepherd was, on her mother's side, of Italian ancestry, by 
 descent from the Faletti of Piedmont, a family which once 
 held the rank of sovereign princes. She received her edu-
 
 THE FRIEND. 415 
 
 cation in a convent at Rome, and was brought up as a mem- 
 ber of the Romish Church. But her mind soon proved it- 
 self too high for the puerilities of the Papal system; and, 
 though she unhappily retained a nominal union with it, her 
 theological principles and religious affections were brought 
 by degrees nearer and nearer to the evangelic creed, and to 
 union with its true confessors of every name. She was an 
 earnest admirer of Mr. Wesley ; and when Dr. Coke was 
 at Paris during the Revolution time, as mentioned on a 
 previous page, Miss Shepherd, being then resident in a con- 
 vent in the Faubourg St. Germaine, did him good service 
 by her influence with the commissioner for ecclesiastical 
 property, in extricating him from the embarrassment arising 
 from the purchase of a church for which he could get no 
 congregation. Gifted with uncommon vigor of intellect, and 
 being an habitual student, she became one of the eminently 
 learned persons of the day. Her knowledge of Hebrew, 
 both Biblical and rabbinical, was excellent ; and her love 
 for the welfare of the Hebrew people themselves, ardent, 
 prayerful, and profound. Let us hear her : 
 
 " In 1789, when I was at Rome, provoked at the shocking 
 insults and indignities which I daily beheld in the public 
 streets exercised without constraint on the poor, harmless, 
 unoffending Jews, I said to David Toscano, one of the teach- 
 ers in the synagogue in the Ghetto, and my instructor in 
 rabbinical Hebrew : ' My good friend, I wonder at your 
 patience under such treatment : nay, more, I deem it coward- 
 ice, unworthy the descendants of Abraham, Joshua, and 
 Caleb. You are at least eighteen hundred Hebrews in the 
 Ghetto. Give me but eight hundred, ay, only five hundred 
 resolute men from among you, and I, although a woman, 
 will put myself at your head, and engage, with the help of 
 the God of Israel, to drive before me like a flock of geese all 
 this long-coated dastardly herd of priests and monks, with 
 which Rome is now filled, to the disgrace of Christianity.'* 
 
 * The reader will, doubtless, appreciate the courage of this warlike 
 Lidy. In regard to some of the extracts following, we must interpose a
 
 416 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 " This was his noble, generous answer : ' O signora, we 
 feel your love, your zeal for Israel, to our inmost souls. 
 But, ill as we are used, we must remember it is our 
 duty never to forget that, persecuted all over the globe, 
 Rome permitted us here an asylum, and the free exer- 
 cise, in this Ghetto, of our religion. Rome still, though 
 under humiliating guidances, tolerates the Hebrews within 
 her walls. These insults are part of the curse denounced 
 on the infractors of his law by the just and holy God. We 
 have sinned, we bow our heads ; but must not lift up our 
 hands against the people and nation that received us into 
 its bosom when none else would. And when our justly 
 angered God will turn our captivity, he can and will do it 
 without our ingratitude to Rome. But we tremble for your 
 safety, should you too warmly speak in our favor.' ' Never 
 fear. Is not the Lord God of your fathers able to protect 
 me ? He will ; and I will speak and spare not.' And so I 
 did. A few days after, being with Santini, one of the con- 
 suls at Rome, I repeated to him the above conversation with 
 D. Toscano, neither suppressing nor softening a syllable. 
 In a very angry tone Santini said, ' Do you know you may 
 be sent to the Inquisition for this ?' ' Yes, I do know it. 
 Send me, if you dare. It shall" be the worst day's work you 
 ever did. I dare to venture everything, rather than not let 
 you know how deserving the poor Jews are of better treat- 
 ment than you show them.' . . . Yet, for all this, I was loved 
 by the people at Rome ; respected by those of higher rank, 
 and treated with distinguished notice and every courteous 
 attention at the Vatican library, museum, and Pope's palace, 
 
 word or two. Though the writer of these remarkable letters was, to a 
 great extent, estranged from Romish superstitions and observances, yet 
 the influence of her early associations is too plainly traceable in the 
 sequel ; and of this some whose intimacy she enjoyed had melancholy 
 proof. It ia hardly needful to remark, in addition, that no creature can 
 innocently affect to be more benevolent than the groat and blessed Maker 
 of all. Hence the encomium on the Jews who prolonged their prayers, 
 in order to afford the more relief to the souls in perdition, must be quali- 
 fied, oilier fancies, which will occur to the reader, are more or less in- 
 nocent; but the tone of them is by no means tlu; most salutary.
 
 THE FRIEND. 417 
 
 and every place of note in the city. But my poor, loving, 
 grateful Jews trembled for my safety ; and the day I left 
 Rome two stout young men were sent by the synagogue to 
 keep in view my post-chaise, and put up at the same inn, all 
 the road through the'Papal territories. All unknown to me 
 [was] their kindness ; only I saw another chaise, with the 
 curtains drawn in front, following mine, until, at the inn at 
 Sienna, the two Hebrew youths respectfully came up, took 
 their leave, and told me that 1 was now safe in Tuscany. 
 Nor was this all. Scarce had I been two hours in Leghorn, 
 when a near relation of David Toscano. with the second 
 rabbi of the synagogue, the amiable, pious, and learned 
 Rabbi Castello, came to my hotel, with every tender of 
 kindest services. And thus they did at every place, fore- 
 stalling my arrival at Avignon, etc. Letters came before I 
 came ; the kindness was prepared to meet me ; and all this 
 to an inconsiderable nobody, only for loving their nation, 
 and speaking in their favor. O God, remember them for 
 good ! 
 
 "That gratitude, and even humanity toward the brute 
 creation, (for the Hebrews neither hunt, shoot, angle, nor 
 horse-course, nor bull-fight, cock-fight, etc.,) is a character- 
 istic of Israel, who that reads their Scriptures, their law, 
 their history, can deny ? The very reveries of their rabbins 
 in sending Pharaoh's daughter, soul and body, like Elijah, 
 into heaven, for saving the life of Moses, testify ; [and so] 
 the ass that carried Abraham to Mount Moriah, prolonged 
 in life to carry Moses to deliver Israel, and as miraculously 
 preserved to carry the King Messiah to his triumphant reign ; 
 Noah's dove, Elijah's ravens, Daniel's lions, and every 
 creature that had done services to Israel [all being] put in 
 a place of happiness in the day of the Messiah's triumph. 
 Even in these rabbinical ideas, how beautiful on the mount- 
 ains of Israel appear, to the heart that feels, the very wander- 
 ing feet of erring gratitude ! There is something too won- 
 drous, good-natured, and pitiful, in that notion of theirs, that, 
 during the holy prayers of flio synagogue on the Sablnilh.
 
 418 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the very damned are permitted to come out of hell, and en- 
 joy their Sabbath. And, accordingly, the Jews begin their 
 prayers as soon, and end them as late as possible, to give 
 even the damned a longer holiday ! Now this, I must own, 
 is far kinder than our priests. The Jews prolong their 
 prayers, for the lost spirits' ease, without getting a farthing 
 profit by it. Ours, alas ! no penny, no Pater no, 
 not for the poor suffering souls, their own brethren, in 
 purgatory ! 
 
 " I remember reading that beautiful passage in Exodus : 
 ' Moses was fourscore years old when he stood before 
 Pharaoh.' I observed to the Jew that taught me Hebrew 
 in Paris, Mordecai Ventura, interpreter of Oriental languages 
 at the Royal Library : ' How admirably Moses gives us to 
 understand that the Most High so long delayed to deliver 
 Israel, that Pharaoh, and she who had reared him up as her 
 son in her father's palace, might live to a good old age, and 
 die in peace, before Moses was sent to inflict the plagues of 
 Egypt, lest the rod of Moses should be soiled by ingrati- 
 tude.' ' Observe still more,' eagerly exclaimed Ventura, 
 ' when the waters of Egypt were to be smitten and turned 
 into blood, God commands Aaron, not Moses. They had 
 borne him up safely in the bulrush-ark on their bosom. 
 Could he strike them with a curse 1 Aaron owed them no 
 debt : he might smite. The same, when the dust of Egypt 
 was to be smitten. . . Aaron was to stretch his hand and 
 smite not Moses, whom that land had forty years fed with 
 regal dainties. Aaron had toiled coarsely and fared scantily 
 at the brick-kilns.' 
 
 " In the sacred writings throughout, there is a holy vein 
 of gratitude. Edom is the brother ; so is Ishmael ; hurt 
 them not. Moab and Ammon, children of Lot ; vex them 
 not unprovoked. Thou wast a stranger kindly received at 
 first in Egypt ; ever remember the benefit hate not an 
 Egyptian. Remember the kindness of Jethro ; so the Kenits 
 dwelt in Israel. Jesus must needs pass through Samaria; 
 there caused he the streams of Jacob's well, the living, life-
 
 THE FRIEND. 419 
 
 giving waters of salvation, to flow to Shechem, to more than 
 repair the murders of Simeon and Levi."* 
 
 We will make room for another, written to Dr. Clarke on 
 occasion of one of his family bereavements : 
 
 " Open and read this letter in some calm, happy moment. 
 It is on a tender subject, and as much as you can bear ; more 
 than you could, in a less exalted frame of thought. May 
 the good Spirit of the most holy God give healing benedic- 
 tion to a poor Samaritan's chirurgery. 
 
 " Your letter, my dear sir. most forcibly recalls the well- 
 known reply of ./Eneas to Dido. Yet, be assured that, so far 
 from seeking to renew your griefs, of the losses that caused 
 them I was totally ignorant, or I had left my good Balmar 
 embalmed in his virtues at Paris, But since I have brought 
 him over to London in my letter, may we not make some 
 worthy use of him ? You say, ' Had he reared his departed 
 children up to one, two, and five years old, he would have 
 felt very differently.' Undoubtedly ; and the more he felt 
 the more would those feelings have furnished fire and wood 
 for the burnt-ofFering. To people in the laborious classes 
 of life in Paris, and more especially when of Balmar and his 
 wife's serious, domesticated cast of mind, tenderly loving 
 each other, industrious, prospering in their industry, both of 
 them of good natural understanding, cultivated by a plain, 
 useful education, improved by religion, and by religion raised 
 to that simplex munditiis of Christian elegance in mind and 
 manners, [with] feelings acutely alive to every fine impulse 
 and ofttimes expressed with a refinement of delicacy that 
 would have done honor to a prince, of which I could give 
 instances : to him and his wife children must have been very 
 desirable ; at least a boy, to be the pleasant auxiliary of 
 his labors, the staff of his declining years ; a girl, the com- 
 fort and companion of them both, the nursing-mother of their 
 age, and with her brother the joint inheritor of their sub- 
 stance and virtues. With an if if God had so pleased 
 he and his wife would have been glad their children had, 
 * Letter to Dr. Clarke.
 
 420 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 lived. God took away all his children did not leave 
 him one. Yet he not only submitted, but with Abraham's 
 faith gave them up to God ; and, with the tears of a father, 
 could sing nevertheless the song of ascension, Psalm cxxii. 
 " You have lost six children, it is true ; but God hath 
 left you six. He took away all, every one of Balmar's. 
 But half of yours are left ; and not one, you own, has yet 
 given you the heart-ache. Had their mother so written I 
 should have made large allowance for the tenderness of our 
 weaker sex. But you, a man, not only 'Adam' but 'JsA,' 
 is it thus that you strengthen your wife ? Your lovely 
 Adam, and angel Agnes, I saw them continually in my 
 mind's eye ; and as you pictured the little boy standing at 
 your knee, playing with your watch-chain, at half-past one, 
 in the full light of day methinks his action reads this les- 
 son : 'Beloved father, as the links of the chain of your watch 
 to your little Adam, so are the things of this lower world, 
 mere toys and the playthings of a child. As these links, 
 few in number, to number beyond the reach of numbers to 
 express ; so are the years of the life of man upon earth, to 
 the countless years of eternity. Yet on these counted years 
 hang the countless years of eternity ! attached thereto, as 
 this horologer, the recorder of the^ hours, which we call a 
 watch. Within, closed up in the inward case, therefore un- 
 seen, is a moving spring. Its effects are visible in the 
 moved hands on the dial-plate, as they mark the minutes and 
 hours ; ere they shall thrice have moved round this dial-plate, 
 time will be no longer measured out to your darling Adam. 
 lie will no more be the son of fleeting time, but an heir of 
 eternity. The mortal in three short hours is going to be 
 clothed with immortality. Weep not, father ; whither I go 
 you also shall come. Your infant precursor, whose affec- 
 tions, improved not here through weakness, hi heaven will 
 bmithe the uncontaminated air of innocence, and, as it were, 
 prepare an unimpeded ascent to your prayers. My father, 
 perhaps I may be permitted to be a ministering spirit of 
 good to my parents and brethren.' I think, then, how it
 
 THE FEIEND. 421 
 
 would grieve your child, while thus employed, to see heart- 
 rending pangs heave his father's bosom, while his child, more 
 alive than ever, is hovering over him a guardian-angel ! 
 And sainted Agnes O, could she touch her father's heart 
 and lips with a burning coal from the altar, and give him a 
 view like that of Isaiah the year that King Uzziah died, both 
 heart and lips would burst forth into joyful praise that God 
 had taken his Agnes to himself in the beauty and purity of 
 holiness. . . . Nay, were she only till the great day in the 
 bosom of Abraham, and heard from that patriarch's own 
 mouth the narrative of his victory over a father's feelings, 
 when commanded not only to give up, but to sacrifice his 
 only and beloved Isaac, not only the son of hope, but the 
 heir of promise, thirty-six years of age, Abraham 136 ; no 
 demur, no delay ! . . . . 
 
 " O love henceforward the descendants of such a father, 
 even though he should be of the Ashtarothin's congrega- 
 tion. For Abraham's sake tenderly pity them, though en- 
 crusted all over with the sufferings of Polander or German. 
 What people can boast of a father like Abraham, to whom 
 the God of righteous judgment could assign such blessings ? 
 And blessed Miriam, the mother of Yehoshua, stabat non 
 recumbens stabat Mater by the cross of her Son. These 
 are examples more worthy of imitation than David crying, 
 ' O Absalom, my son, my son !' Yet there was some ex- 
 cuse for his sorrow. His son at least went to the spirits 
 in prison ; yours are gone to heaven. Would that we 
 were all there !" 
 
 A few detached sentences may be added, from some 
 other letters of this learned and amiable woman to Dr. 
 Clarke. 
 
 " My mind's constitution is the reverse of somber. In 
 my best moods, I leap as the roebuck over mountains of 
 spices ; in its worst it bursts forth as the volcanoes of Etna 
 and Vesuvius ; yet thanks, immortal thanks, to the Almighty 
 who stilleth the raging of the winds and of the sea !" 
 
 "Med culpa, mea maxima culpa ! I mourn, I grieve not
 
 422 LIFE OF ADAM (JLAKKE. 
 
 as a slave before his master, but as a child broken-hearted, 
 to have offended so good a Father ; thus to have dishonored 
 my Father's image and name, and degraded mine own dig- 
 nity of ifature. Yet I sink not hopelessly. ' Choose life,' 
 my Father God still says, ' and live.' All the commands 
 of God, perceptive or prohibitory, the whole Thorath Ado- 
 nai* are for man's benefit ; the kind teachings and enlight- 
 ening of the wisdom of eternity, guiding the short-lived 
 child of time in the straight and sure road of everlasting 
 happiness. 
 
 " ' Choose life, and live.' ' Thine arm is too short to 
 reach life ; but thou art free to choose ; then only choose 
 life, and 1 the Lord will bring it to thee.' " 
 
 " I am persuaded that the history of Job is a real matter 
 of fact. Have you a mind to read good Father Louis de 
 Grenada's sermons in old French, f of the days of Charles IX ? 
 There is much sound timber in them, enough to furnish a 
 whole town of modern buildings. 
 
 " When in your notes you come to Isaac's blessings to 
 Esau, you will observe how literally they were ratified by 
 God, and will see strong proof that Esau was not abhorred 
 of him, and how very nobly and lovingly he acted toward 
 his overreaching brother at their meeting ; nor did he ever 
 retract from their reconciliation. I beseech you also to 
 point out the just penalties levied on the joint frauds of 
 Kebekah and Jacob. After she sent him to Laban, she 
 never more beheld him ; and even she herself disappears ; 
 for no further mention is made of her by upright, truth- 
 loving Moses no, not so much as of her death, while of 
 only her nurse Deborah is much honoring record." 
 
 Miss Shepherd died at an advanced age in 1815. 
 
 In referring to some of the good men for whom Dr. 
 
 Clarke cherished a personal and peculiar love, we should 
 
 give the highest place to Mr. Wesley. For him Adam 
 
 Clarke ever felt the reverence of a disciple, and the sacred 
 
 * " Law of the Lord." t Translated into it from the Spanish.
 
 THE FRIEND. 423 
 
 affection of a son ; and, to his latest days, the memory of 
 tokens of the particular esteem with which that distinguished 
 servant of God had regarded him, yielded a ceaseless con- 
 solation and joy. 
 
 Among the friends of his early manhood was Andrew 
 Coleman, who had been a schoolfellow with him at Agher- 
 ton, and afterward became one of the first-fruits of his min- 
 istry, and, like himself, a preacher of the Gospel. One of 
 the first essays of Adam Clarke's pen was a memorial of 
 this young evangelist's short but beautiful career in Avhich 
 he writes in simple and heart-moving terms of " the. very 
 tender friendship which subsisted between these two." He 
 fell asleep in Jesus, June 18, 1786, aged eighteen years, 
 and soon gained the blessed region where the inhabitant 
 shall no more say, " I am sick." He had the happiness of 
 seeing his mother and grandmother brought to an acquaint- 
 ance with the truth before his departure ; and his last words 
 to them, as his purified soul prepared to take its flight into 
 the eternal world, were, " Follow me." 
 
 Another of his Irish friends was Alexander Knox, Esq., 
 a gentleman whose name is well known in the literary and 
 ecclesiastical circles of both islands, as an elegant theologi- 
 cal scholar,* and a man of influence in the Church of En- 
 gland. He was a most intimate friend of the late Bishop 
 Jebb. His parents were Methodists, and he himself was a 
 devoted admirer of Wesley, whose principles on experi- 
 mental religion found a deep response in his heart, and kept 
 him, in later years, from going further than he evidently 
 would have otherwise gone, into that semi-Romish Utopia 
 where so many Churchmen in our day have wandered to no 
 profit. 
 
 In Samuel Drew, the Cornish metaphysician, the Lord 
 gave to the juvenile ministry of Mr. Clarke a convert who 
 will indeed shine in his " crown of rejoicing " in the day of 
 Christ. Drew soon became a preacher, and his father in 
 the Gospel was not a little proud of him in that capacity. 
 * One, however, whose theology was not evangelical.
 
 424 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 His high opinion of him as an expositor of the truth in the 
 pulpit, was frequently expressed in terms of characteristic 
 warmth. The sanctified life and useful labors of this Chris- 
 tian philosopher were ever contemplated by his friend with 
 an apostolic triumph. " These two " also are made eter- 
 nally one in spirit, through Him who redeemed them, con- 
 verted them, employed them in his service, and hath now 
 glorified them together. 
 
 Of the Rev. John Pawson we have spoken before. Meth- 
 odism in her traditions has placed him among her saints. 
 Between him and Dr. Clarke there grew up a friendship 
 which never died. The last act of Pawson was to write 
 these words : 
 
 "Wakefield, Friday, March 28, 1806. O my Adam, 
 my most affectionately beloved and esteemed friend and 
 brother, for whom God knoweth I ever had a sincere 
 regard, but now tenfold more than ever, what I have ex- 
 perienced of the power, goodness, unmerited mercy, and 
 love of God, during this affliction, is not to be described. 
 
 the soul-transporting views of that heavenly felicity 
 with which my soul hath been favored ! Praise the name 
 of the Lord with me, and for me ; and tell all my beloved 
 London friends, that John Pawson dies a witness of the 
 saving power of those precious truths which have been 
 taught, and believed, and experienced among us from the 
 beginning." 
 
 A veteran of the same stamp was the Rev. James 
 Creighton, one of the clergymen of the Establishment who 
 adhered to Mr. Wesley, and took part in the Methodist 
 ministry ; a man of learning, and of useful life both in the 
 pulpit and the press. His last testimony also occurs in a 
 letter to Dr. Clarke : " I am endeavoring to weather out the 
 last storms of life, hoping ere long to gain the port at last. 
 
 1 have had a pretty rough passage of it, all the way; but 
 I am fully convinced that it was best so, and that the re- 
 pose will be the sweeter when we get to the haven where 
 we would be.
 
 THE FRIEND. 425 
 
 ' O, what is death ? 'Tis life's last shore, 
 Where vanities are vain no more ; 
 Where all pursuits their goal obtain, 
 And life is all retouch'd again.' 
 
 I bless God I have no fear, nor gloomy thought ; yet it is 
 not ecstasy or triumph ; a calm internal peace, with a firm 
 reliance on the promises of God, through the atoning 
 blood." 
 
 Mr. Richard Mabyn, of Camel ford, at whose house Mr. 
 Clarke in his Cornish days found a pleasant home, had in 
 him a loving and devoted friend. When each had become 
 a much older man, Dr. Clarke, in one of his letters to Mr. 
 Mabyn, writes thus : " I may say that but few hours to- 
 gether have elapsed since the year 1784, in which I have 
 not thought of you and my most affectionate mother 
 Mabyn ; and I have never thought of you without a blessed 
 mixture of gratitude to my benefactor, reverence to my 
 teacher, warm affection to my parent, and delight to my 
 friend." 
 
 Joseph Carne, Esq., F.R.S., of Penzance, as well as his 
 venerable father, William Carne, Esq., had a high place in 
 the esteem of Dr. Clarke, both for the great debt which the 
 cause of Methodism owes to those gentlemen in the West 
 of Cornwall, and for the scientific, religious, and social em- 
 inence of a family at whose house the doctor in his occa- 
 sional visits always found a most congenial sojourn.* 
 
 Of the late Mr. Exley, of Bristol, the brother-in-law and 
 friend of Dr. Clarke, I can scarcely trust myself to begin to 
 write, lest the terms which the feelings of my heart dictate 
 should wear the injurious look of exaggeration. He was a 
 man admirable not only for acuteness of intellect, and pro- 
 found mathematical and scientific research, but for simplicity 
 of character, benevolence of feeling, and sanctity of life. 
 He wrote several works in the higher branches of science, 
 
 * The late Mr. John Carne, the Eastern traveler, and author of " The 
 Lives of eminent Christian Missionaries," and various other works was 
 also an intimate friend of the Clarkes.
 
 426 LIFE OF AUAM CLAHKK. 
 
 and an exposition of the first chapter of Genesis, in which 
 be seeks to harmonize the Mosaic history of the creation 
 with the conclusions of modern geology. To the Meth- 
 odists in Bristol, among whom he had been a member, 
 leader, and local preacher for half a century, growing in 
 grace, and turning many to righteousness, the death of 
 Thomas Exley was like the going out of a lamp in the 
 temple of God. 
 
 The name of another inestimable brother-in-law of Dr. 
 Clarke, Mr. Butterworth, for many years member of Par- 
 liament for Coventry and for Dover, highly respected by 
 men in the first ranks, has already appeared with frequency 
 in the foregoing pages. In him the country lost a faithful 
 servant, the Church a faithful member, and the poor a faith- 
 ful friend. Take an instance: One day in each week he re- 
 ceived at his own house the applications of such as needed 
 pecuniary relief, or advice in their exigencies. His servant, 
 on being once asked how many petitioners he had on that 
 day admitted, answered, " Nearly a hundred." Into these 
 cases Mr. Butterworth entered, in order to make his chari- 
 ties at once discriminating and efficient. The religious and 
 social character of this good man is ably unfolded in a 
 Funeral Sermon by the Rev. Richard Watson, preached at 
 Great Queen-street Chapel, on the'words of St. Paul, Gala- 
 tians i, 24 : " And they glorified God in me." 
 
 The Rev. Henry Moore must also be mentioned as one 
 of Dr. Clarke's early companions, and as his counselor too ; 
 a fellow-laborer with him in the same ministry for fifty 
 years, and also the sorrowing friend who committed at last 
 his remains to the grave. I may state it as a noticeable 
 fact, that Mr. Moore performed the funeral solemnities over 
 five members of the family. He buried the doctor himself, 
 in 1832; Mrs. Clarke, in 1836; one of their sons, and two 
 of their grandchildren, in 1840, himself being then in the 
 eighty-eighth year of his age. 
 
 That eminent Greek scholar, the late Hugh Stewart Boyd, 
 Esq., stood related to Dr. Clarke, not only by consanguin-
 
 THE FKIEND. 427 
 
 ity, but by a cordial sympathy of disposition, and, so far as 
 learning is regarded, of employment and pursuit, as well. 
 In classical and patristic erudition he was second to few of 
 his contemporaries. He was remarkable for the strength 
 of what may be called a verbal memory, which he well im- 
 proved by enriching his mind with choice passages of the 
 sacred and classic writers. I have now on my desk a 
 memorandum dictated by himself, entitled "The Number 
 of Lines which I can repeat," namely : " Greek prose : Sep- 
 tuagint, 30; Greek Testament, 120; Gregory Nazianzen, 
 1,860 ; Basil, 460 ; Chrysostom, 640 ; Gregory Nyssen, 15 ; 
 Methodius, 35 ; Heliodorus. 30 ; a few passages of heathen 
 writers, 90. Total of Greek prose, 3.280. Greek verse : 
 Greg. Naz. Carmina, 1,310; Synessi Hymni, 156; Homer, 
 330; ^Eschylus, 1,800; Sophocles, 430; Euripides, 350; 
 Pindar, 90 ; Meleager, 83 ; Bion, 91 ; Moschus, 120 ; Poem 
 in Life of Plotinus, 10. Total of Greek verse, 4,770. I 
 cannot repeat many hundred lines in one consecutive series. 
 The longest passage of prose which I can repeat is 322 
 lines ; the longest of verse, 270 lines. 
 
 " If I keep the passages from the Septuagint and New 
 Testament for Sundays, and repeat the rest on week days, 
 they will occupy four weeks, if I repeat about 327 lines a 
 day. The lines from ^Eschylus are equal to more than one 
 fifth of the whole of his Tragedies now extant." 
 
 Mr. Boyd published two volumes of translations, consist- 
 ing of passages from the most eloquent of the Fathers, 
 especially Chrysostom, Basil, and Nazianzen. He also 
 wrote a dissertation on the Greek Article, especially viewed 
 in its use in passages of the New Testament which have a 
 bearing on the grand truth of the Godhead of Christ. The 
 piece is inserted in Dr. Clarke's Commentary, at the end of 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians ; though we may just remark 
 that the learned commentator himself had no great faith in 
 what may be called the graminatico-theological doctrine of 
 the Greek Article. 
 
 Mr. Boyd suffered in his latter years from loss of sight ;
 
 428 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 but Divine ruercy had so blessedly enlightened the eyes of 
 his mind as to enable him to see and love Him who is invis- 
 ble. He had those qualities of character which attracted 
 friendships and kept them inviolate. His blindness is the 
 theme of a sonnet by Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
 who studied Greek under Mr. Boyd's tuition ; and with 
 what effect, her spirited translation of the " Prometheus 
 Bound" will testify. There is another sonnet in the same 
 volume,* occasioned by the death of Mr. Boyd in 1848, in 
 which she sings of the feelings excited by some tokens of 
 friendship he bequeathed to her. 
 
 " Three gifts the Dying left me JSschylus, 
 
 And Gregory Nazianzen, and a clock, 
 
 Chiming the gradual hours out like a flock 
 
 Of stars whose motion is melodious. 
 
 The books were those I used to read from, thus 
 
 Assisting my dear teacher's soul to unlock 
 
 The darkness of his eyes. Now mine they mock, 
 
 Blinded in turn by tears ! Now murmurous 
 
 Sad echoes of my young voice years agone, 
 
 Entoning from these leaves the Grecian phrase, 
 
 Return, and choke my utterance. Books, lie down 
 
 In silence on the shelf within rny gaze ; 
 
 And thou, clock, striking the hour's pulses on, 
 
 Chime in the day which ends these parting days." 
 
 Mr. Boyd has left a large collection of papers, which 
 should not be suffered to perish in oblivion. Many of his 
 letters also to Dr. Clarke are richly worthy of publication. 
 
 Another literary friend of Dr. Clarke, Mr. Charles Fox, 
 we have already had occasion to mention. With that accom- 
 plished person, when resident in Bristol, he passed many a 
 profitable hour, in the cultivation of those Eastern studies 
 with which they had both become enamored ; and when 
 each had removed from that locality, they still corresponded 
 for mutual help. Nor was Mr. Clarke's communication 
 with his friend without a most beneficial religious, as well 
 as intellectual fruitage ; as it tended to confirm his some- 
 
 * Poems, vol. i.
 
 THE FRIEND 429 
 
 what wavering mind in the truth of the Gospel, and to lead 
 him to seek and find the salvation of God. Mr. Fox was 
 the author of an extensive peom called "Leila and Mej- 
 noon," written after the manner of the Persian poet Hafiz. 
 This, together with several other manuscripts, came into 
 Mr. Clarke's care after the death of the author. 
 
 With these and many others, whose names, if recorded 
 here, would swell into a long and sad necrology, Dr. Clarke 
 lived in those beneficial intercourses which gave a solace 
 to their earthly life, and helped to fit them for a heav- 
 enly one. 
 
 Dr. Clarke's was a friendly heart, kind and considerate. 
 He wished to avoid giving offense to any one, as much as in 
 him lay, and was pained at the thought of having possibly 
 done it inadvertently. Here is an instance : He had been 
 to the Isle of Wight, and, during a short sojourn at West 
 Cowes, the guest of Mr. Charles Pinhorn, a worthy gentle- 
 man who is now almost the only surviving relict of the first 
 generation of Methodists in the island. Mr. Pinhorn, being 
 in London shortly after, sought an interview with the Doc- 
 tor, but was unable to see him except for a few minutes in 
 the vestry of Lambeth Chapel before Dr. Clarke went into 
 the pulpit. The following extract of a letter he received 
 shortly after from the Doctor will illustrate our remark : 
 
 ' MY DEAR SIR, 1 wish there may be no mistake in our 
 meeting last Sabbath at Lambeth. When I came down 
 into the vestry after preaching, I looked about to see you ; 
 but, not finding you, I asked some of the friends, ' Did they 
 know whether Mr. Pinhorn, of the Isle of W T ight, who was 
 in the vestry when I first entered it this morning, had left 
 the chapel V They said they did not know. ' Will you 
 look into the chapel and see.' One and other said they did 
 not know him. I waited several minutes, but no appear- 
 ance of Mr. Pinhorn. I was vexed, because I wished to 
 speak to you; and I thought my apparently distant manner 
 might have given you offense. The truth is. I hardly speak
 
 430 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 to any person before I enter the pulpit. I generally feel the 
 work much on my mind, and avoid as much as possible 
 speaking even to my most intimate friends, till I come down 
 from the pulpit. If, therefore, there appeared in me any 
 slight or neglect toward you, put it far away from your 
 mind, for I assure you it had no existence, and this letter, 
 written simply on the subject, is a proof that nothing of the 
 kind was either in the intention or the feeling. I do not 
 know that I have ever been in any strange place for these many 
 years, in which I was so well pleased with the affectionate 
 respect that was paid me as in West Cowes. . . . You have 
 been once, I am informed, at my house, when I happened to 
 be on a journey. If you ever come near the place again, 
 and will spend a night with us, and look about you, I shall 
 be glad to see you." 
 
 The frequent removals to which a Methodist minister is 
 liable, broke in upon the continuity of personal converse, 
 but never obliterated the image of a friend from his heart. 
 When, journeying, he revisited an old circuit, he improved 
 every hour in reviving the feelings of the " auld lang syne " 
 at the homes and hearths which memory had rendered sa- 
 cred ; and some of his letters to Mrs. Clarke, written at 
 those times, are crowded with the details of these rapid and 
 numerous visits. His friendships had the seal of perpetuity ; 
 and with few men have there been so small a number of 
 exceptions. When such did occur, they grieved his gener- 
 ous mind. But these cases were rare ; -the love which 
 grew up between Adam Clarke and those who were worthy 
 of his affection, proved itself stronger than the storms of 
 life, or the tides of death ; and those of the number who 
 still survive him cherish the memory of the words and acts 
 by which that love was expressed, among the most sacred 
 treasures of the heart.
 
 THE HUSBAND. 431 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE HUSBAND. 
 
 WE have already narrated the circumstances in which this 
 holy relation was entered upon by the subject of our mem- 
 oir. The union then consecrated endured, with an ever- 
 effectual benediction, through the long years of a diversified 
 but happy life. In the case of Adam Clarke and Mary 
 Cooke, the marriage solemnity was the outward and visible 
 sign of an inward, spiritual, and imperishable oneness the 
 sacrament of an everlasting love. 
 
 In the partner of his life Dr. Clarke ever found that 
 Providence had given him "a help meet." Mrs. Clarke 
 possessed not merely the graces of a pleasing exterior, but 
 those inward virtues of which St. Peter speaks as the true 
 adorning of the holy woman, and which are in the sight of 
 God of great price. She had a cultivated mind, a sound 
 judgment, and a regenerated heart. She was the worthy 
 companion, and often, to good results, the wise counselor 
 and serviceable helper, of her hard-working and grateful 
 husband. A mother in Israel, and a mother at home, she 
 brought up a large family, and at the same time fulfilled 
 what Mr. Wesley called, in reference to her gracious con- 
 duct, " the office of a deaconess," in discharging, in every 
 circuit, the duties of a class-leader and a visitor of the sick 
 and poor. 
 
 These good works were coeval with her religious life. 
 At Trowbridge, where she was brought up, she no sooner 
 became a subject of converting grace, than it displayed its 
 effects in those incipient efforts at usefulness by which Miss 
 Cooke was enabled to give important aid to the then feeble 
 cause of Methodism in that town. So, onward from year
 
 432 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 to year, through the course of her extended life, with ever 
 enlarging knowledge and deepening experience, she labored 
 with unobtrusive but successful endeavor to lead persons of 
 her own sex into and onward in the way to heaven. 
 
 At home her influence formed the character of a remark- 
 able family, the members of which in death and life have 
 called her blessed. As to her husband, in all the changing 
 scenes of their checkered history, her abiding and sanctified 
 love, revealing itself in ceaseless ministries for his and their 
 comfort in mind, body, and estate, shed a ray of solace up- 
 on the darkest hours, and heightened and perfected the bliss 
 of those which were most prosperous. 
 
 It is only to give a more true idea of this lovely character 
 that I take the liberty to select a few sentences from one or 
 two of her letters to Mr. Clarke. The following gives a 
 specimen of those dispositions, sweet and blessed, which 
 gave such a charm to his home. It was written so far back 
 as the year 1791, at the time when they were just leaving 
 Dublin for Liverpool, Mr. Clarke having already left for 
 the Manchester Conference.* I may just observe, that her 
 beautiful writing is in the old Italian hand, so unlike the in- 
 significant and illegible scrawl in which some young ladies 
 are now taught to afflict the eyes of those who have the task 
 of reading their compositions. 
 
 " My spirit deeply feels how tedious are the moments of 
 separation. Indeed, my best beloved, as thou art all the 
 world to me, so now, in losing thee, I wofully experience 
 that I have lost all things except my God. Blessed be his 
 holy name, he supports me still ; and, was it not for his 
 peculiar aid at this time, my heart would sink into hopeless 
 melancholy. My spirits are exceedingly low, and the 
 friends' well meant and kind officiousness serves to increase 
 the dejection they strive to remove. The Turk,f poor com- 
 passionate creature, says, ' You cry so much, no good, no 
 good ; consume you.' Yesterday I was very weak ; ia the 
 evening could just stand alone. Through the night, while 
 * See pnisre 152. t Pnge 151.
 
 THE HUSBAND. 433 
 
 the rain poured in torrents against the windows, gloomy 
 were my thoughts of the worst that could befall you. -All 
 the horrors of shipwreck were in a lively manner present to 
 my imagination. At length I found something like compo- 
 sure from the thought that perhaps at the coming of the 
 rain the wind changed in your favor. ... I have to-day 
 gathered my little unpacked things into one place. This 
 has helped to draw my mind from the thought of separa- 
 tion, and to bring the idea of reunion, seeing all my stuff 
 and little matters drawn up in order for .embarkation. To- 
 day I feel better, because I hope by this time you are in 
 Liverpool. If we follow, we have promises of company. 
 William Higley is determined on the voyage ; and the poor 
 Turk, if spared, will be our companion. He says, ' Me no 
 sick ; me take care John and Adam. Madame Clarke sick, 
 Phoebe sick.' John is recovered charmingly, and with re- 
 turning health he is also getting his good tempers back 
 again. Adam is but poorly, thin, and sickly. I cannot 
 help thinking that he will by and by follow his precious sis- 
 ter. 1 see her in him more and more." 
 
 From another letter: "Bristol, 1789. Mary Clarke to 
 the dearly beloved of her spirit wisheth all peace, with 
 every present and future blessing his heart can desire, or 
 the God of love and omnipotence bestow. I have been led 
 this morning to pray that my dear husband may be assisted 
 by the Spirit of wisdom and power to declare the counsel 
 of the Holy One unto the people ; and in consequence I feel- 
 a comfortable persuasion that his word shall not fail of 
 some good effect. I have often a presentiment of the power 
 of the coming word, by having, as it seems, an infused en- 
 ergetic cry after it in my soul. I know not when I have 
 felt more of it than last Thursday week, in the evening, when, 
 immediately after singing the verse preceding the sermon, 
 every power of my spirit instinctively (if I may say so) as- 
 cended in one ardent ejaculation, ' Grant, O my God, the 
 spirit of wisdom unto the speaker, and let thy power be 
 manifested now among the people !' My soul then returned 
 
 2ft
 
 434 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 in confidence that a blessing should be given. Directly you 
 gave out for a text, ' The work of righteousness shall be 
 peace ; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assur- 
 ance forever.' If you look back, you will remember that 
 I believed not in vain, but according to my faith so was it 
 then ; and so have I generally found it. ... 
 
 " I am myself nearly as well as I can yet expect to be ; but 
 suffered much, very much, yesterday, by abstaining some 
 hours too long from food. But from painful experience per- 
 haps I shall learn a lesson of wisdom. As for little John, 
 he is loving and saucy, and would give you a hundred kisses 
 if you were here, though you sent him never a one. . . . 
 Frances sends her love ; and as for me, believe that with all 
 possible affection I am thine most truly." 
 
 When, in subsequent years, the doctor was carrying on 
 his extensive literary undertakings, the few hours he could 
 spa iv tor the pen were rendered more unbroken than other- 
 wise they could possibly have been, by the intervention of 
 Mrs. Clarke in receiving visitors and transacting minor 
 affairs connected with the business of the Society and cir- 
 cuit, with which, by practice, she had become as conversant 
 as any superintendent among us. She kept all the book ac- 
 counts ; in the doctor's absence, on his numerous journeys, 
 opened all the letters which came for him, and, condensing 
 the contents of them within the compass of one, for the sav- 
 ing of postage, transmitted it as a report to him. Thus, 
 under date, " London, February, 1806," she states that one 
 
 letter was from Mr. , asking the loan of a few pounds ; 
 
 another, from Mr. Wrigley, concerning money matters of 
 Mr. S. ; another, from Mr. Boyd, containing family 
 affairs; another, from Mr. Entwisle, just arrived, "which I 
 have not yet had time to read through, but chiefly relating 
 to chapel-building, expenditure, and ways and means, all 
 submitted to you, as chairman of the district ;" another, 
 from Mr. M'Q., " the largest size folio sheet, full, full 
 on all sides and in every corner. It contains many good 
 things, many learned things, many strange things, many un-
 
 THE HUSBAND. 435 
 
 accountable things, with the promise of many more things 
 yet to come. A bundle of letters also, of three folio sheets, 
 is come from Mr. Drew, addressed to Mr. Woolmer, and 
 sent by him for Mr. Benson, to publish in the Magazine. 
 It is a dialogue between himself and a Deist, on the top of 
 a coach." 
 
 It will be evident that Dr. Clarke's confidence in his wife 
 was perfect He had no secrets to conceal from her, nor 
 wished to have. Their minds were in sound and healthy 
 unison. His own personal life, and his public life, with all 
 its encouragements and discouragements, were perfectly 
 known to her ; and that, with a return of gentle and 
 wise counsel, and holy comfort, which greatly smoothed 
 his pathway. 
 
 By her pen, too, she helped her husband not a little. She 
 would transcribe a manuscript for the press ; and at times, 
 I imagine, she lent some aid in original composition, getting 
 forward such works as admitted of that kind of participation. 
 I speak not on this point with certainty, except the degree 
 of it which may be gathered from an expression here and 
 there of the Doctor's. Thus, writing to her from Ireland : 
 " Cannot you and John prepare a few sheets of the Concord- 
 ance? The book is in the back study, and he knows the 
 volume of Calmet from whence he is to correct the proper 
 names. See YOU to the definitions, if there be any. A few 
 sheets will do." 
 
 While engaged on the Commentary, " it was his frequent 
 practice, at the close of the day at Millbrook, to read the 
 notes he had written to Mrs. Clarke, and take her opinion 
 of them. Sometimes, after he had done work, she would 
 read aloud to him and the listening family some amusing 
 and instructive book."* 
 
 Such was she of whom it is no small honor to say, that 
 
 she was worthy of being the wife of Dr. Adam Clarke. And 
 
 for a more ample account of this exemplary lady I refer the 
 
 reader to a work published by her daughter in 1851, with 
 
 * Familv memorandum.
 
 436 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 the title of " Mrs. Adam Clarke, her Character and Corres- 
 pondence ;" a volume which deserves a place by the side of 
 the Memoirs of Mrs. Fletcher, Lady Maxwell, Mrs. Hester 
 Ann Rogers, Mrs. Tatham, Mrs. Agnes Bulmer, and those 
 other sanctified females whose "Holy Living" has adorned 
 so beautifully the religious communion to which they 
 belonged. 
 
 Dr. Clarke knew the value of the gift which heaven had 
 conferred upon him in this companion of his days. With 
 each passing year his love became more tender, and the 
 honor in which he held her, more high and sacred. The an- 
 niversary of their wedding was always a time of grateful 
 joy. On one of those days, being away, he writes to her : 
 " This day I have kept with comfort for above forty years. 
 You are more regardless of these kinds of observances than 
 I naturally am : with me such things have much weight ; 
 and now, being absent, I wish to show you that I carry the 
 remembrance of it, and my respect for it, two hundred miles 
 beyond my own dwelling." On another, he presents her 
 with a tender poem ; and on another, with a gold watch, 
 " the beautiful dial of which," he tells her, " is an emblem 
 of thy face ; the delicate pointers of thy hands ; and the 
 balance, of thy conduct in thy family." The only difference 
 which the lapse of years made in his admiration of her was 
 to strengthen it. Cowper's sweet lines seem as if they had 
 been written to express the sentiments of this true-hearted 
 spouse : 
 
 " Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, 
 Are still more lovely in my sight 
 Than golden beams of orient light, 
 
 My Mary. 
 
 " To be the same through good and ill, 
 In wintry change to feel no chill, 
 With me is to be lovely still, 
 
 My Mary." 
 
 In truth, religion, with its ever indestructible and celestial 
 band, had made their union everlasting. They were one in
 
 THE HUSBAND. 437 
 
 Christ, and were persuaded that neither death nor life, nor 
 things present, nor things to come, could separate them. 
 They knew that, when time with them would be no more, 
 they should live together with the Lord ; and in the years 
 of this life they lived to him. For the God before whom 
 they walked, and who had fed them all their days, and re- 
 deemed them, was their sun and shield, giving them grace, 
 and about to give them glory, they walking uprightly. 
 Their wish and vow, their purpose and their prayer, so to 
 do, and so to be, might have been well told in the words 
 which Lavater, in one of his household hymns, puts upon 
 the lips of a Christian wife and husband : 
 
 " To bear, endure, and love, and give, 
 Be ours long as on earth we live ; 
 In tranquil confidence of soul, 
 To consecrate to Thee our whole : 
 Hade wiser with the flight of days, 
 In joy and sorrow, Thee to praise ; 
 Till, in blest death, our souls depart, 
 Till we behold Thee as Thou art." * 
 
 * " Dulden, tragen, lieben, geben, 
 Einfaltvoll undfrohlich ruhn ; 
 Immer nach der Welsheit streben, 
 
 Was wir thun. nur Dir zu thun : 
 Dir nur darken alle Freuden, 
 Dir nur leiden wenn wir leiden, 
 Dir im Tode noch vertraun, 
 
 Wollen wir, bis wir Dich schaun /"
 
 438 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FATHER. 
 
 OF the twelve children of Dr. and Mrs. Clarke, two died 
 in infancy, four others in childhood ; and of the six who rose 
 to be men and women, three daughters only survive. The 
 loss of the six, one after another, bent the parents in unut- 
 terable grief. " None," says the father, when the first of 
 these afflictions occurred, " none can tell our woe. I feel I 
 have lost part of my own being in the loss of my child. 
 Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon us. Thou 
 Eternal Power, we bow before thee, we submit to thee." 
 In training aright those who lived, Dr. Clarke found the 
 solace, as well as the solicitude, of his life. Though so ex- 
 tensive an itinerant, he was nevertheless greatly in love with 
 the domestic state, and never so happy as when he had his 
 children around him. Once when Mr. Ward of Durham 
 called on him when in London, " on being ushered into the 
 room, he found him seated with one child on his knee, en- 
 circled in an arm ; another child in the cradle, which he was 
 rocking to repose with his foot; a book in one hand, which 
 he was attentively reading, and a potato in the other." A 
 scene like this might have been often witnessed. 
 
 When the labors of the study were over he used to amuse 
 himself with his little ones, who quickly assembled at his 
 well-known call of " Come all about me !" Then was heard 
 the joyous shout, along with the rush of the youngsters to 
 claim the first kiss, or obtain the best seat upon his knee. 
 Sometimes he would dispose of them on his person ; one 
 round his neck, one hanging on each shoulder, one clasping 
 his waist, one seated on each foot ; and with an infant in his 
 arms, he would, thus furnished, be the happiest of the group.
 
 THE FATHER. 489 
 
 The sports of the evening finished, each alternately kneeled 
 at their mother's knee for prayer ; and when ready for re- 
 pose, Mr. Clarke, when not out preaching, " invariably car- 
 ried them himself up to bed, put or playfully threw them 
 in, and tucked them up for the night. But, before retiring 
 himself, he always visited each bed, to see if all was right. 
 To his well-known voice, pretty early in the morning, they 
 would start up, unpin each child its own bundle of clothes, 
 (which almost from infancy it had been taught to fold up,) 
 and dress with all possible expedition ; for, from childhood, 
 he would never permit waste of time by dilatory habits, any 
 more than slovenly neglect through affected attempts at ex- 
 pedition." So writes one of the family. 
 
 In their secular education he not only afforded them the 
 privilege of his own tuition, but, as his ministerial duties 
 would render all systematic operation impossible, he was 
 careful to secure them the best professional instruction with- 
 in his resources. He was not content without giving his 
 daughters a useful and elegant, and his sons a practical and 
 learned education. But, above all, it was Mr. Clarke's su- 
 preme concern to give them a Christian one ; to, implant in 
 their memory at the very outset of life, when dogmatic in- 
 struction becomes a necessity, those absolute truths which, 
 under the influcn'ce of the blessed Spirit of God, will develop 
 in the soul and the conduct the virtues of holiness and relig- 
 ion ; to illustrate those truths in cheerful yet serious con- 
 versation ; to try to exemplify them in his own spirit, tem- 
 per, and behavior be-fore their eyes, letting them see Christ 
 in him, and thus drawing them by the cords of a inan, and 
 by the bands of love, to his Saviour and theirs. He knew 
 that their renewal unto salvation must be the work of God ; 
 but he knew, also, that he, as their father, had duties to per- 
 form which might be instrumontally indispensable toward 
 that blessed result. '* Let those parents," he would say, 
 " who continue to excuse themselves by observing, ' We 
 cannot give grace to our children.' lay their hand on their 
 heart, and sav whothor thev ever knew an instance where
 
 440 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 God withheld his grace while they were, in humble subservi- 
 ency to him, fulfilling their duty ? The real state of the 
 case is this : Parents cannot do God's work, and God will 
 not do theirs ; but if they use the means he will never 
 withhold the blessing." 
 
 In the parental government of his children, Mr. Clarke 
 blended an inflexible integrity of discipline with a cheerful 
 open-hearted love. He considered that these should be 
 united in a father's conduct toward his rising family. " It 
 is not personal fondness," remarked he. " nor parental auth- 
 ority, taken separately, that can produce beneficial effect. A 
 father may be as fond of his offspring as Eli, and his chil- 
 dren be sons of Belial ; he may be as authoritative as the 
 Grand Turk, and his children despise and plot rebellion 
 against him. But let parental authority be tempered with 
 fatherly affection, and let the rein of discipline be steadily 
 held by this powerful but affectionate hand, and there shall 
 the pleasure of God prosper. Many fine families have been 
 spoiled, and many ruined, by the separate exercise of these 
 two principles. The first sort of parents will be loved, with- 
 out being respected ; the second will be dreaded, without 
 either respect or esteem." 
 
 He was a frequent correspondent with his children when 
 away from them. On his journey^ he would describe to 
 them remarkable localities, with their historical associations, 
 rendering his letters both instructive and engaging. At 
 other times he reiterated with his pen the solemn counsels 
 which they had often heard from his lips. Thus, to one of 
 his daughters at school : " Youth is the time in which learn- 
 ing can be obtained. I find that I can now remember very 
 little but what I learned when I was young. I have, it is 
 true, acquired many things since ; but it has been with dif- 
 ficulty, and I cannot retain them as I did those which I gained 
 in my youth." 
 
 Arid again, from another letter : " All, rny dear child, that 
 can be done for you by human means, is being done ; but, 
 to make you what you should be, you must look to God,
 
 THE FATHER. 441 
 
 that he may supply that teaching which is beyond the pow- 
 er of human influence and skill ; and, that you may get it, 
 you must be sensible that you need it, and must pray to 
 God to give you that sensibility that is, that he may show 
 you how stupid, foolish, and ignorant you are in all matters 
 which concern the salvation of your soul, and how much 
 you stand in need of that pardon and holiness which were 
 purchased by the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and 
 passion, the death and burial, the glorious resurrection and 
 ascension of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 Pray for these blessings, and do not be contented without 
 them ; and then you will be not merely ' worthy of your 
 father,' who is a poor worthless creature, but worthy of that 
 glorious name of Christian which you bear; and, being a 
 partaker of the Divine nature, God will count you worthy 
 of an inheritance among the saints in light." 
 
 So when, as years passed on, the young people entered 
 upon life for themselves, he still, by intercession with God, 
 and by all kind offices within his own power, endeavored to 
 promote their welfare. On the birth of a granddaughter we 
 find him writing as follows: "To Joseph and Matilda 
 Clarke : May the blessing, grace, and peace of the eternal, 
 all-glorious, infinitely perfect, and ineffably benevolent Trin- 
 ity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One incomprehensible 
 and adorable Deity, the Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer 
 of mankind, rest on, ever support, and eternally save our 
 son Joseph B. B. Clarke, his wife Matilda, and their firstborn 
 child, by whatsoever name* she may be called. May he, 
 our son Joseph, in his sacred office ever preach Jesus the 
 Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, to the conviction 
 of sinners, the conversion of penitents, and the establishment 
 of bejievers on their most holy faith! May Matilda his 
 wife be ever blessed as a mother and a Christian, and live 
 long distinguished by all the graces that adorn those charac- 
 ters ! And may their firstborn child grow up in stature and 
 favor with God and man ! And may she and her parents 
 * Alice.
 
 442 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 live long, innocently, piously, and usefully ; and, after hav- 
 ing served their God in their generation, may they triumph 
 over death in a glorious resurrection ! May they be united 
 to the Father of Eternity, through the Son of his love, by 
 the Eternal Spirit, to contemplate the Divine perfections, to 
 see them as they are, and thus to enjoy an unutterable hap- 
 piness, where duration is eternal, and where time shall be 
 no more. Amen! Amen!" 
 
 To and for another, his daughter Mary Ann, on her birth- 
 day : " Sovereign of the heavens and of the earth ! behold 
 this my daughter on the anniversary of her birth. I bring 
 her before thee: Fill her with thy light, life, and power. 
 As in thee she lives, moves, and has her being, so may she 
 ever live to thee ! Strengthen her, O thou Almighty ; in- 
 struct and counsel her, O thou Omniscient ! Be her Prop, 
 her Stay, her Shield, and her Sword. Put all her enemies 
 under her feet ; deck her with glory and honor ; make her 
 an example to her family, a pattern of piety to her friends, 
 a solace to the poor, and a teacher of wisdom to those who 
 are ignorant and out of the way. By her may thy name 
 be glorified, and in her may the most adorable Saviour e\vr 
 see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. Amen, 
 amen. So be it ; and let her heart hear and feel THY Amen, 
 which is, So it shall be. Hallelujah." 
 
 Habitually happy as he was in the bosom of his family, 
 there were occasions which had an especial and sacred joy- 
 ousness in the domestic history. Such was that when 
 parents and children alike received the holy sacrament 
 together ; thus acting, as the Doctor expressed it, " like a 
 patriarchal family of old, et cum Deo inire fcedus, making 
 a covenant with God, which should put them in an especial 
 manner under his protection." 
 
 Such, also, was that when, the Commentary being finished, 
 the sons and daughters " determined on presenting their 
 father with a large silver vase, in memorial of the comple- 
 tion of a work which they had seen him so long, so labori- 
 ously, and so anxiously prosecuting. . . . Without acquaint-
 
 THE FATHER. 443 
 
 ing the Doctor with the purpose of the invitation, the two 
 elder sons requested their parents and the family to dine 
 with them in St. John Square. After dinner, the vase, cov- 
 ered from the sight, was introduced, and placed at the head 
 of the table. Dr. Clarke's eldest son then rose, and in the 
 name of each of the family uncovered and offered it, with an 
 appropriate address, to their revered parent. For a few 
 moments he sat incapable of utterance ; then, regarding 
 them all, he rose, spread his hands over this token of his 
 children's love, and pronounced his blessing upon them indi- 
 vidually and collectively. 
 
 " His eldest son then filled the vase with wine, which his 
 father raised first to his own lips, then to those of his beloved 
 wife, and afteward bore it to each of the family present ; 
 he then put it down, and in a strain of the most heartfelt 
 eloquent tenderness addressed his children in the name of 
 their revered mother and himself in terms they will never 
 forget." 
 
 Of the three sons of Dr. Clarke who survived him, each 
 has now followed his parents to the other world. The eld- 
 est, John Wesley Clarke, was a gentleman whose extensive 
 antiquarian and heraldic studies both qualified him for the 
 situation he held under government, and, combined with a 
 genial sociality of disposition, rendered him a most agreea- 
 ble companion. He had a great love for the science of 
 botany, and delighted to spend whole weeks in the country 
 in pursuing it, during which he would domesticate himself 
 in cottage or farm-house, and live as one of the family. He 
 was a loving son and brother. He died after a short illness 
 in February, 1840, and was buried with his parents at City 
 Road Chapel. 
 
 Theodoret Samuel Clarke, after an apprenticeship to Mr. 
 Woodfall, the printer, carried on that business for some 
 years ; during which he continued and finished the printing 
 of his father's Commentary, which had been begun by 
 Woodfall. Theodoret's education and subsequent studies 
 enabled him to superintend accurately the typography of
 
 444 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 that work, which abounds with quotations from the Biblical, 
 classical, and Eastern languages. Thus the Commentary 
 was, as we may say, the work of the family. The Doctor 
 wrote it, the sons printed, and Mr. Butterworth, the brother- 
 in-law, published it. Theodoret left business, and went 
 abroad for a time ; but after his return lived generally near 
 his parents, spending his days in various works of useful- 
 ness. He died at Brighton in 1843, in the faith and hope 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Butterworth Bulmer Clarke was, of all 
 his sons, the one most after his father's own heart. Some 
 time after the completion of a good school education, fol- 
 lowed by the privilege of reading Greek with his relative, 
 Mr. Boyd, he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where he graduated Bachelor and Master. In July, 1825, 
 he was ordained by the Archbishop of York, 1 believe as 
 curate to Archdeacon Wrangham. He afterward held two 
 curacies in London, was appointed chaplain to the Duke of 
 Sussex, became incumbent of St. Matthew's, Liverpool, and 
 then removed to Henbury, near Bristol, where he married 
 (Miss Brook) the lady who so largely shared with him some 
 of the labors of his enlarged sphere of ecclesiastical duty, 
 as curate of Frome, and then rector of West Bagborough, 
 near Taunton, and inspector of schools for the diocese of 
 Bath and Wells ; an office which called forth powers with 
 which he was admirably endowed for its faithful discharge. 
 His printed reports show not only great official diligence, 
 but a philosophical and Christian estimate of the principles 
 of education, giving them a claim to permanent considera- 
 tion. The bishop showed his appreciation of Mr. Clarke by 
 giving him a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Wells. We 
 have seen how he assisted his father in bringing out the 
 second volume of the " Sacred Literature," a task for which 
 he was soundly qualified by his classical and patristic learn- 
 ing. He published also a volume of sermons, and a Biblio- 
 graphy of Oriental manuscripts in his father's library. He 
 had, especially in his last years, a strong personal resem-
 
 THE FATHER. 445 
 
 blance to the Doctor. This amiable clergyman died rather 
 suddenly at Nice, in 1854, in the fifty eighth year of his 
 age. Pie had gone abroad with his family, for the sake of 
 their health and his own ; and, leaving them at Nice, had 
 come again to England to discharge some pressing duties. 
 This done, he returned to his family, and on the way, turn- 
 ing aside to visit the tomb of a beloved son who had died 
 two years before at Toulon, and been interred at Hieres, he 
 was himself seized with sudden death from a malady of the 
 heart, and was buried with his son, among the myrtles and 
 palm-trees in the cemetry at Hieres.* 
 
 * A son of the prebendary, the Rev. Adam Clarke, has recently entered 
 holy orders. We should not omit to mention, also, the Doctor's much 
 esteemed nephew, Mr. John Edward Clarke, the son of his brother 
 Tracy ; a man of great erudition, as may be seen from the able disserta- 
 tion inserted by his uncle in his commentary on the thirteenth chapter of 
 the Revelation.
 
 446 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 CHAPTER YIL 
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 THERE needs no concluding eloge on the religious charac- 
 ter of Dr. Adam Clarke, as his whole biography is one. 
 Let the readers look back and form their own estimate. 
 His personal and public life was one sustained manifestation 
 of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost ; and the record of it 
 traced on these pages, is designed not to exalt idolatrously 
 a fellow-creature, but to offer an humble tribute to the 
 praise and glory of that sovereign grace which made itself 
 apparent in his whole history. "The saints," as Luther 
 said, "are not to be praised for themselves, but for their 
 Saviour ; they shine like dew-drops on the hair of the heav- 
 enly Bridegroom."* The sanctified glorify the Sanctifier. 
 Such was the principle which governed Dr. Clarke's inward 
 and outward life, that Christ in all things might be 
 magnified. 
 
 The varied experiences of his inner and spiritual life are 
 not sufficiently known to warrant an attempt, on our part, to 
 give a professed account of them. The biographies of 
 many good men are enriched with extracts from registries 
 made by themselves of the dealings of Divine grace with 
 their souls. But Dr. Clarke left no such documents. In- 
 deed, he appears to have been averse from things of that 
 kind. He began to keep a diary, but left it off as early as 
 1785. When sometimes asked whether he would not pub- 
 lish his journal, or leave it to be published, he used to say : 
 " I do not intend any such thing ; the experience of all relig- 
 ious people is nearly alike ; in the main entirely so. When 
 * Tibchredcn.
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 447 
 
 you have read the journal of one pious man of common 
 sense, you have read a thousand. After the first, it is only 
 a change of names, times, and places ; all the rest is alike." 
 The Rev. Joseph Clarke, knowing his father's mind, com- 
 mitted those early journals to the flames.* 
 
 Dr. Clarke's religious experience was the work of God's 
 Holy Spirit in the soul ; begun, continued, and perfected. 
 It was begun in true regeneration. That adorable Being 
 who alone " can bring a clean thing out of an unclean " 
 renewed his heart in righteousness ; and to the grace thus 
 given in his youthful prime Adam Clarke Avas faithful. 
 Day by day he watched unto prayer, and walked humbly 
 with God. Working out his salvation with fear and 
 trembling, while God wrought within him to will and to do 
 of his own good pleasure, he became established in grace, 
 and endured to the end. 
 
 He sought and found what every man is obligated to 
 seek, and every Christian believer privileged to find the 
 clear knowledge of pardon, and of adoption to be a child of 
 God ; and the witness of his acceptance in the Beloved was 
 never removed from his soul. In his autobiography he 
 gives an unequivocal statement to that effect. It appears 
 
 * In recording Dr. Clarke's sentiments on this point here raised, we 
 lire not to be understood as adopting them in full. An eminent living 
 divine, the learned Dr. Fred. Augustus Tholuck, of Halle, inclines to a 
 very different opinion. " O that we were richer, in our German lan- 
 guage," he writes, " in biographical works which are adapted to illus- 
 trate and promote a truly elevated and practical Christianity, by laying 
 open the sanctuary of the inner life ! It may be said that more awaken- 
 ings have proceeded from the written lives of those eminent for piety, 
 than from books of devotion and printed sermons. We are able, at least, 
 in the circle of our own knowledge, to address a great number of Chris- 
 tians and among them names of the first rank in the religious world 
 who are indebted essentially to works of biography for the confirmation 
 and stability of their spiritual life. The writer can assert this in regard to 
 himself. He can make such an acknowledgment respecting a book to 
 which he knows that not a few in Europe, America, and Asia, will bear 
 a similar testimony. The biography of the missionary Martyn opened in 
 my own life a new era of religious progress. 1 ' 1 (Preface to vol. i, of a 
 scries of Biographies, in German, for Sabbath reading.)
 
 448 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 also in a letter written to Mr. Wesley, when Mr. Clarke 
 was in the Norwich Circuit in 1784, that, while at Trow- 
 bridge, he had received powerful convictions of a need of 
 the entire sanctification of his heart ; that he had become 
 acquainted with a good man, a local preacher, " who," says 
 he, " was a partaker of this precious privilege ; and from 
 him I received some encouragement and direction to set out 
 in quest of it, endeavoring, with all my strength, to believe 
 in the ability and willingness of my God to accomplish the 
 great work. Soon after this, while earnestly wrestling with 
 the Lord in prayer, and endeavoring, self-desperately, to 
 believe, I found a change wrought in my soul, which I en- 
 deavored through grace to maintain amid grievous tempta- 
 tions. My indulgent Saviour continued to support me, and 
 enabled be with all my power to preach the glad tidings to 
 others." These sanctifying graces were evidently strength- 
 ened during the latter part of his residence in the Norman 
 Isles, on the bed of sickness in Dublin, and in the days of 
 labor at Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, and London, dif- 
 fusing their effectual influence on all his life. 
 
 On the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption I heard 
 him preach a sermon only a few months before he ceased 
 to be among us ; in which, after reminding us that there 
 can be no true happiness for man but in the enjoyment of 
 the favor of God, he went on to prove that such felicity 
 must be impossible without a testimony from God to the 
 conscience that he adopts the pardoned sinner to be his 
 child ; and that this evidence is not to be inferred merely 
 from texts of Scripture, however rightly applied, but ascer- 
 tained from an interior oracle of the Holy Ghost, creating 
 peace in believing and inspiring che dispositions by which 
 we say in life and word, " Abba, Father !" " This," said 
 he, "is what I wish you not to rest without. Do not face 
 death without it ; do not ! How awful to go to appear be- 
 fore the living God, if you have not the testimony in your 
 own souls that you are born of him ! John Bunyan well 
 describes a poor, wretched, self-deceived pilgrim, who had
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 449 
 
 trusted to a vague and general belief, without actual con- 
 version, coming to the gate of the celestial city, but refused 
 an entrance, because ' he had no certificate to be taken in.' 
 * He fumbled,' says he ' in his bosom for it, but he found 
 none. Then 1 saw the shining ones commanded to bind 
 him head and heels, and throw him into the hole at the side 
 of the hill.' Beware, lest thou art as he." 
 
 This calm assurance was maintained in Dr. Clarke by the 
 habit and life of faith. " What have I to boast or trust in ?" 
 writes he : "I exult in nothing but the eternal, impartial, 
 and indescribable kindness of the ever blessed God ; and 
 I trust in nothing but in the infinite merit of the sacrifice 
 of Christ, a ruined world's Saviour, and the Almighty's 
 fellow. Then what have I to dread ? Nothing. What 
 have I to expect] All possible good; as much as Christ 
 has purchased, as much as heaven can dispense. ' The 
 Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not want.' " 
 
 He was often exceedingly blessed in his own soul, in the pul- 
 pit, while made a blessing to hundreds. Thus on one occasion, 
 as already mentioned, he exclaimed, " I would not have 
 missed coming to this place to-day for five hundred pounds. 
 I got my own soul blessed, and God has blessed the people." 
 
 This good teacher was himself teachable. We have re- 
 marked with what docility he would sit at the feet of the 
 humblest Christian who could teach him a lesson in the things 
 of God. u I meet regularly once a week. I find it a great 
 privilege to forget that I am a preacher, and come with sim- 
 ple heart to receive instruction from my leader." 
 
 And in making his own election sure he felt the neces- 
 sity of constant self-government. Self-denial was his habit- 
 ual rule ; and sometimes, in things perfectly allowable, he 
 was induced to forego a lawful gratification for the good of 
 others. In one city where he was stationed, he found tho 
 use of wine carried to too great an extent in some of the 
 circles he visited, and made a resolution to abstain, for tho 
 sake of giving a practical testimony against it; taking but 
 two glasses of wine during the whole year, though in a
 
 450 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 wasted state of health, which would have rendered the 
 moderate use of wine of great service to him. 
 
 The fear of God developed in his disposition an habitual 
 reverence for things sacred. Thus, in passing an abbey or 
 a ruined chapel, he has been observed to take off his hat, 
 as a token of veneration. And this feeling was strongly 
 unfolded in regard to the Holy Scriptures. He would often 
 study them on his knees. The very sight of a Bible seemed 
 to do him good. Once when a servant, wanting something 
 to set against the door of the parlor to keep it open, seized 
 the Bible and placed it on the ground, " Poor Margaret," 
 quoth- the Doctor, " has no religion, or she would have paid 
 more respect to the book of God than to put it to that use." 
 He then took occasion to intimate that he could not endure 
 the material of which the sacred book is composed to be 
 desecrated in any way, and that even the page of a printed 
 book which had upon it the Divine name was sacred in his eyes. 
 
 He had an overflowing sense of the goodness of God. 
 Gratitude to the parent of good had become a glowing af- 
 fection of his soul, which, like the altar's trembling flame, 
 was never suffered to expire. " I have enjoyed the spring of 
 life; I have endured the toils of its summer; I have culled 
 the fruits of its autumn ; I am now passing through the 
 rigors of its winter; and I am neither forsaken of God, nor 
 abandoned by man. I see. at no great distance the dawn of 
 a new day ; the first of a spring that shall be eternal. It is 
 advancing to meet me'! I run to embrace it. Welcome, 
 eternal spring ! Hallelujah !" This was written about two 
 years before his death. 
 
 These gracious dispositions tuned his mind to benevolence 
 toward all men, and especially those who were of the house- 
 hold of faith. Dr. Clarke was a genuine catholic. He 
 could say, with Jerome: "I am a Christian and the son of 
 a Christian, bearing on my forehead the token of the 
 cross ;"* and he reverenced and loved sincere piety where- 
 
 " (Jhrixtin-nu* *nm, et Christianifilius, portans infronte men vexiHum 
 w." AJ Panlinum.
 
 THE SAINT IN LIFE AND DEATH. 451 
 
 ever he found it, and under whatever conventional title. 
 Names with him were next to nothing. Still, there was one 
 branch of the Church with which he was more intimately 
 united, and through which he held communion with the oth- 
 ers. He was a Methodist; and if he had been disposed to 
 glory in any name, it would have been hi that one. The 
 Methodist people were his people, and their God his God. 
 Among them he had been called, and among them he lived, 
 and labored, and died. One month before his death he wrote 
 the following testimonial. It has been printed before, but I 
 insert it here without scruple, as it is evident, from the 
 words of the preamble, he wished it to be permanent. 
 
 " IN PERPETUAM EEI MEMOEIAM : 
 
 " I have lived more than threescore years and ten ; I have 
 traveled a good deal by sea and land ; I have conversed 
 with and seen many people, in and from many different 
 countries ; I have studied all the principal religious systems 
 in the world ; I have read much, thought much, and reasoned 
 much. And the result is, I am persuaded of the simple 
 unadulterated truth of no book but the BIBLE ; and of the 
 excellence of no system of religion but that contained in 
 the Holy Scriptures, and especially CHRISTIANITY, which is 
 referred to in the Old Testament, and fully revealed in the 
 New. And while I think well of, and wish well to, all relig- 
 ious sects and parties, and especially to all who love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in sincerity, yet, from a long and thorough 
 knowledge of the subject, I am led most conscientiously to 
 conclude that Christianity itself as existing among those called 
 Wesleyan Methodists is the purest, the safest, and that which 
 is most to the glory of God and the benefit of men ; and that 
 both as to the creed there professed, the form of discipline 
 there established, and the consequent moral practice there vin- 
 dicated. And I believe that among them is to be found the 
 best form and body of divinity that has ever existed in the 
 Church of Christ from the promulgation of Christianity to 
 the present day. To him who would ask, ' Dr. Clarke, are
 
 452 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 you not a bigot 1 without hesitation I would answer, ' No, 
 I am not ; for, by the grace of God, I am a Methodist.' 
 Amen. ADAM CLARKE." 
 
 On another occasion : " For nearly fifty years I have lived 
 only for the support and credit of Methodism : myself and 
 my interests, the Searcher of hearts knows, were never ob- 
 jects of my attention. I came into the Connection with an 
 upright heart and one dominant principle ; and, by the help 
 of God, I will retain it to the end." 
 
 He did so. Such were his feelings to the last. Speak- 
 ing to some of the ministers not long before his departure, 
 he said : " My heart is with you ; and when my spirit has 
 passed away, if God permit, it shall return and be a stirring 
 spirit among you again !" 
 
 The last characteristic of Adam Clarke's practical reli- 
 gion we can here commemorate is its perseverance. It was 
 " by patient continuance in well-doing " that he sought for 
 glory and immortality. He occupied till the Master came, 
 and died wearing the harness. "The broad shadows and 
 the setting sun " might have warranted his retirement from 
 the field of toil ; but he wrought on, the more solemnly in 
 earnest for that the work was still pressing and the moments 
 were few. Here is a memorandum noted down (April 9th) 
 in the last year of his life: " The Missionary Secretaries are 
 in want of help for their coming anniversary, and have come 
 in the most earnest and affectionate manner begging me to 
 help them. I have at once submitted, though it is likely to 
 throw work upon me which I shall scarcely be able to bear. 
 I had been previously engaged to Birmingham and Sheffield. 
 I must be in Birmingham on the 22d and 23d, return to 
 London for Queen-street on the 27th, and Southwark on the 
 29th, then set off for Sheffield, where I must be May 5th 
 and 6th, and get, if I can, to Belfast or Donaghadee on the 
 12th. I am in an indifferent state of health ; and there is 
 too much reason to believe that all this traveling and 
 preaching, corning so close together, will overset me."
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 453 
 
 In some of these services he came out in almost unparal- 
 leled grandeur. " Who," said the poet Montgomery, refer- 
 ring to those at Sheffield, " who among us does not remem- 
 ber, nay, which of us can forget, his two discourses the 
 simple energy with which they were poured forth, the unc- 
 tion of the Holy One which accompanied them, and the de- 
 vout feeling so interfused as to overpower the sense of ad- 
 miration which the learning, the love, the transcendent ability 
 displayed in the composition were calculated to excite ?" 
 
 On the Doctor's arrival home from Ireland his family 
 were shocked by the alteration in his appearance. He con- 
 lessed that his strength was prostrated, but seemed most 
 concerned lest he should be disabled from further work. 
 One of his daughters having come over to Hay don Hall to 
 see her father upon his return, he said, " See, Mary, how the 
 strong man has bowed himself; for strong he was. But it 
 is God who has brought down, and he can raise up. He 
 still owns the word I preach ; he still continues my influ- 
 ence among the people ; and hence it is plain he has yet 
 other work for me to do." 
 
 In July, at the Liverpool Conference, his name was in- 
 serted as supernumerary under the heading of the Windsor 
 Circuit, being that in which Haydon Hall is situated ; * but 
 along with this notification was added the following N.B. : 
 " Though Dr. Clarke is set down supernumerary for Wind- 
 sor, he is not bound to that circuit, but is most respectfully 
 and affectionately requested to visit all parts of our Connec- 
 tion, and labor according to his strength and convenience." 
 
 With this " roving commision," as he called it, he pre- 
 pared himself to concur ; engagements as usual beginning 
 to crowd upon him with the new Methodistic year. But He 
 whom he had so faithfully served, and longed still to serve, 
 was about to say, " It is enough." 
 
 The year 1832 was one of the seasons of the Asiatic 
 
 * This was not the first occasion when the Doctor was minuted u 
 " supernumerary." I find the term in connection with his imrue when 
 engaged in the Record Commission in London.
 
 454 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 cholera in England. That inscrutable pestilence had swept 
 away a multitude of people ; and among the places which 
 Dr. Clarke had been called to visit while the malady was at 
 its height, Liverpool was one. The subsequent event proved 
 that he returned to his home smitten with its influence. 
 Yet, under these circumstances, he went forth to acquit him- 
 self of what he considered to be the obligation of duty, 
 though with the seal of death upon his brow. 
 
 His first effort was at Frome, where he visited his worthy 
 son, then curate of that parish ; who had solicited the Doc- 
 tor's presence at a meeting to promote an excellent institu- 
 tution which he had organized for the bodily and spiritual 
 relief of the poor. Writing to Mrs. Clarke on his arrival at 
 Frome, he says : " The constant traveling and labor, confine- 
 ment in the Conference, etc., greatly fatigued me; and 
 almost every day I am expecting to be knocked up. Never 
 was my mind more vigorous, and never my body so near 
 sinking." The plans of his son " for the amelioration of the 
 condition of the poor" had excited great attention in Frome ; 
 and at the meetings some persons of great eminence in the 
 neighborhood took a part on the platform, among whom 
 were the. bishop of the diocese, the Earl of Cork, and the 
 Marquis of Bath. The speech delivered by the Doctor made 
 a great impression. The founder of the Strangers' Friend 
 Society, and the preacher of mercy for fifty years, was at 
 home on the theme of the day ; and all felt that a man of no 
 ordinary presence was among them. One expression only 
 wo can note, as showing the instinct of eternity which was 
 growing stronger in him daily. Referring to the pleasing 
 circumstance that the present charity combined all ranks of 
 society in the neighborhood as its supporters, and to the 
 presence of the bishop, the peers, the members of Parlia- 
 ment, clergy, and gentry, as " a grateful sight," he added : 
 "Thus also it is even with the economy of heaven; since 
 concerning it we hear of thrones, and dominions, and princi- 
 palities, and powers ; for orderly government seems to be 
 well pleasing to God. What other degrees may be required
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 455 
 
 to constitute the harmony of the celestial hierarchy, I know 
 not ; but I shall soon be there, and then I shall know the 
 whole !" 
 
 From Frome, after a little sojourn at Weston-super-Mare, 
 he went to Bristol, and preached on the 19th at Westbury, 
 near that city. From Bath and Pinner, we find him corres- 
 ponding by letter with two ladies, Mrs. Tomkins and Miss 
 Birch, on some calamities which had befallen the Zetlanders, 
 for whom they had shown much generosity, and whom he 
 again commends to their compassion. He left Bath for 
 London on the 20th of August ; and the next day, after visit- 
 ing and giving his blessing to his daughters in town, he 
 reached his home at seven in the evening. And here it will 
 be better to recite what followed, not in my own, but in the 
 words of his daughter ; for they have a sacredness which 
 should not be intermeddled with. She tells us, that after 
 her father's return home, " in the morning and evening family 
 worship, it was remarked that he invariably prayed in refer- 
 ence to the cholera, by name, ' that each and all might be 
 saved from its influence, or be prepared for sudden death;' 
 and, as regarded the nation at large, ' that it would please 
 Almighty God to turn the hearts of the people to himself, 
 and cut short his judgment in mercy.' 
 
 " On Saturday, August 25th, he summoned the family as 
 usual, and it was observed he commenced his prayer with 
 these words : ' We thank thee, O Heavenly Father, that we 
 have a blessed hope through Christ of entering into thy 
 glory.' On rising from his knees, he remarked to Mrs. 
 Clarke, ' I think, my dear, it will not be my duty to kneel 
 down much longer, as it is with pain and difficulty I can rise 
 up from my knees.' 
 
 " Being engaged to preach at Bayswater on the Sabbath 
 morning, a friend had promised to come for him in his 
 chaise, which he accordingly did. Previously to their set- 
 ting off he called a servant, and gave her a piece of silver, 
 saying, 'Take that to poor Mrs. Fox, with my love and 
 blessing. Perhaps it is the last I shall ever give her.' He
 
 456 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 took a little refreshment, and, ascending the chaise, drove 
 out of the gate forever. 
 
 " On the way to Bayswater his conversation was cheerful ; 
 but on arriving he appeared fatigued ; and, as the evening 
 advanced, he was unusually languid. Several friends called 
 upon him ; and on the Rev. Thomas Stanley requesting him 
 to fix a time for preaching a charity sermon, Dr. Clarke re- 
 plied, ' I am not well : I cannot fix a time; I must first see 
 what God is about to do with me.' 
 
 " At supper he was languid and silent ; and, in the hope 
 of gaining upon his appetite, his kind and considerate friend 
 Mrs. Hobbs had got for him some fish, to which he was al- 
 ways partial ; but he could not eat of it, and took a little 
 boiled rice instead. 
 
 " Ever since Dr. Clarke's return from Bristol he had been 
 affected with some degree of diarrhoea ; but now, contrary 
 to custom, it was not attended with the slightest pain. On 
 being pressed to take something for it, he took ginger and 
 rhubarb, but refused every other recommendation. . . . 
 
 "The diarrhoea increased all night. On the Sabbath 
 morning he was heard to be up very early, but this was no 
 unusual thing. At six o'clock, however, he requested the 
 servant to call Mr. Hobbs, who obeyed the summons with 
 all speed, and on coming down saw Dr. Clarke standing with 
 his great-coat on, his traveling bag in his hand, his hat lying 
 on the table, just ready for- a journey. Addressing Mr. 
 Hobbs, he said, ' My dear fellow, you must get me home 
 directly ; without a miracle I could not preach. Get me 
 home I want to be home.' Mr. Hobbs, seeing him look 
 exceedingly ill, replied, ' Doctor, you are too ill to go home ; 
 you had bettor stay hero. At any rate, the gig is not fit for 
 you : I will go and inquire for a post-chaise, if you are de- 
 termined to return.' 
 
 " Shortly after Mrs. Hobbs came down, with Miss Hobbs 
 and Miss Everingham, the servant having informed these 
 ladies of Dr. Clarke's indisposition. 
 
 " By this time he had sunk into a chair ; and, finding him
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 457 
 
 very cold, they had got a fire, and the three ladies were rub- 
 bing his forehead and hands, while Mr. Hobbs sent with the 
 gig for a medical gentleman Mr. Greenly, a friend of the 
 family, who chanced to have come to town on the preceding 
 evening from Chatham, where he had professionally attended 
 the cholera hospital. In the mean time Mr. Hobbs had 
 called in a medical man in the neighborhood, and sent off to 
 inform his sons of their father's illness. Mr. Theodoret ar- 
 rived shortly, and Mr. John not long after, accompanied by 
 the doctor's nephew, Mr. Thrasycles Clarke, who had been 
 for many years a surgeon in the Royal Navy, and had fre- 
 quently seen cases of cholera in the East. 
 
 " As soon as the medical gentlemen saw Dr. Clarke, they 
 pronounced the disease to be cholera. The family wished 
 him to be taken up stairs ; but he was by this time so weak, 
 that it was found he could not get up. A small bed being 
 in the adjoining room, he was conveyed there, and laid down 
 upon it. Mr. Hobbs then said, ' My dear doctor, you must 
 put your soul into the hands of your God, and your trust in 
 the merits of your Saviour.' To which Dr. Clarke could 
 only faintly reply, ' I do I DO.' 
 
 " Dr. Wilson Philip arrived about nine o'clock. All the 
 means that skill, experience, and attention could devise and 
 employ were used to arrest the disease. 
 
 " Service time having arrived, the chapel, as usual on such 
 occasions, was filled. An aged minister, after reading 
 prayers, ascended the pulpit, and announced that Dr. Clarke 
 was laboring under an attack of cholera. The impression 
 may be better imagined than described. 
 
 " A friend of Dr. Clarke's, Mr. Thurston, on hearing this, 
 immediately left the chapel, and hastened to the house of 
 Mr. Hobbs, to learn if indeed it could be true, and if, in the 
 dismay and hurry of the family, Mrs. Clarke had been sent 
 for. He immediately drove off to Haydon Hall to bring 
 Mrs. Clarke, who arrived a little before four in the after- 
 noon. On her entering the room, Dr. Clarke feebly ex- 
 tended his hand toward her. One of the doctor's daughters,
 
 458 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Mrs. Hook, on hearing that her father was indisposed, 
 though she knew not the extent of the calamity, had set off 
 for Bayswater ; and her father opened his eyes feebly, and 
 strove to clasp his fingers upon her hand. But he had not 
 attempted to speak but twice ; once in the morning, when he 
 asked his son Theodoret, ' Am I blue V and again at noon, 
 on seeing him move from his bedside, he asked, with appar- 
 ent anxiety, ' Are you going V 
 
 " Dr. W. Philip again visited him in the afternoon ; but 
 Mr. Thrasycles Clarke and Mr. Greenly never left his room, 
 nor relaxed in their efforts to save a life they saw to be fast 
 hastening away. The female members in this kind family 
 forgot all personal risk in attending upon the affliction of 
 one who had to them been so often the minister of peace. 
 His two sons chafed his cold hands and feet frequently in 
 the day, and often stepped behind his head to lift him higher 
 on the pillow. Hope did not abandon them; nor could 
 Mrs. Clarke be brought to believe that death had made a 
 sure lodgment, and that life was fast sinking under his 
 power. 
 
 " From the first, Dr. Clarke appeared to suffer but little 
 pain. The sickness did not last long, and a slight degree of 
 spasm which succeeded it had all passed away before eleven 
 o'clock in the forenoon. But there was a total prostration 
 of strength, and difficulty of breathing, which, as night ad- 
 vanced, increased so much, and proved so distressing to 
 Mrs. Clarke, that she was obliged to be removed into the 
 adjoining room. 
 
 " A few minutes after eleven Mr. Hobbs came into the 
 room where she was sitting, and in deep distress said, ' I 
 am sure, Mrs. Clarke, the doctor is dying.' She passed 
 with him once more into the sick chamber, and said, 
 'Surely, Mr. Hobbs, you are mistaken; Dr. Clarke 
 breathes easier than he did just now ;' to which Mr. Hobbs 
 in strong emotion replied, ' Yes ; but shorter.' 
 
 " At this moment Dr. Clarke heaved a short sob, and his 
 spirit went forth from earth to heaven."
 
 THE SAINT, IN LIFE AND DEATH. 459 
 
 Deep and solemn was the feeling which the announcement 
 of the death of Dr. Adam Clarke produced in London, and 
 throughout the land. The Methodist communion felt that 
 they had suffered few such losses since the day when their 
 founder himself was removed to his eternal rest. And not 
 only the body to which he more intimately belonged, but 
 good men of every name deplored his departure with a sin- 
 cere and religious lamentation, as if bereaved of a personal 
 counselor, companion, and friend. The tribute which was 
 written by Fresenius when the illustrious John Albert Ben- 
 gel died, might with the greatest propriety have been em- 
 ployed to express the sentiments of multitudes in every 
 Church when the grave received this venerable divine to its 
 dark repose : 
 
 " A pillar falls ; a light expires ; a star, which shone so 
 brightly in the visible heaven of the Church, stops its course, 
 withdraws, and mingles with the supernal glory of the spirits 
 made perfect. 
 
 " An angel of peace, who was as pious as he was labor- 
 ious, as childlike as he was learned, as rich in spirit as he 
 was acute in mind, as humble as he was great, as modest 
 as he was circumspect in his walk and business of life. 
 
 " A friend of God expires, whom the Eternal Wisdom 
 led into her chambers ; to whom were opened the outgoings 
 of that light which enlightens human minds, the powers of 
 that word which quickens souls, the treasures of that grace 
 which allures, leads, and saves us. 
 
 " A great spirit leaves the earth, who, whether he meas- 
 ured the heights, or sounded the depths, showed himself 
 equally able. The most sacred of all books was his invalu- 
 able treasure. He numbered and proved even words and 
 points. He ventured into the obscure depths of theology ; 
 and posterity will be able to judge to what extent he found 
 footing. What to others seemed dry, to him was verdure ; 
 what appeared despised by the many, was to him the source 
 of light and power, spirit and life. 
 
 " He was eyes to the blind, a leader to the weak, a pat-
 
 460 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 tern to the strong, a luminary to the learned, an ornament 
 to the Church. 
 
 " A treasury is closed, in which the Lord of all the treas- 
 ures of grace had laid up wondrous wealth of knowledge 
 and wisdom. A teacher, mighty in the Scriptures, is no 
 more. Sigh, children ; your fathers fall asleep." 
 
 Return, O Lord, and let thy work appear unto thy ser- 
 vants, and thy glory unto their children ! 
 
 May we who are still alive, and remain unto this day, 
 seek the footsteps of our blessed predecessors, and be fol- 
 lowers of them who now inherit the promises ! 
 
 And let the rising youth of the Church set before them 
 the great example of these men of God. Let them study 
 their writings, enter into their views, aspire to the attain- 
 ment of the end for which they lived, from motives noble 
 as their own, and pray to be baptized with a double portion 
 of their spirit. The work the world needs is not yet done; 
 it demands a host of men strong, resolute, and faithful as 
 Adam Clarke. We are verging upon times which will task 
 the loftiest energies of martyrs, and heroes, and apostles. 
 Both Providence and prophecy are alike sounding their 
 trumpet call to the candidates for this great career of toil 
 and triumph. Immeasurable rewards open to the view of 
 the faithful, and the crown of glory shines in the hand of the 
 Judge ; but the victory can only be won by the brave, and 
 the race run by the swift.
 
 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 OF ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES FROM DR. CLARKE'S 
 CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 THE passages, seven in number, marked with the asterisk, 
 have been already printed ; the rest, I believe, are now for 
 the first time given to the light. 
 
 DATE OF DR. CLARKE'S BIRTH. FAMILY DESCENT. 
 
 Dublin, 1825. I am at Mr. Adam Boyd's. . . . His 
 brother John was my godfather. I have got from Adam 
 the following information : " My brother John was sent 
 from Dublin to Castle-Dawson to do some important work. 
 He returned the next year, 1761. In the interim he stood 
 godfather for you. You were, therefore, born in 1760 or 
 1761." This is certainly bringing the question into a nar- 
 row compass. Tell John that he proves positively that his 
 aunt, my grandmother Clarke, was an immediate descend- 
 ant of the earls of Kilmaronock, whose family name was 
 Boyd. His own grandfather was always called Kilmaro- 
 nock, as standing close to the earldom. 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Letter to Mr. Wesley, from Norwich, 1784. Since I was 
 justified I have expected and prayed for the inestimable 
 blessing of a heart in all things devoted to God ; which, soon 
 after I received pardon, I found to be indispensably neces- 
 sary. But, meeting with little encouragement, I obtained 
 it not, and so spent that time in offering a maimed sacrifice. 
 I continued in this state, or at most advancing slowly, till I
 
 462 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 came to this kingdom, when you ordered me into the Brad- 
 ford circuit. Here the good Lord was pleased to give me 
 a sight of the unspeakable depravity of my heart, and in 
 such a measure that the distress I felt was as painful in sus- 
 taining as it would be difficult in describing. I suppose, at 
 that time, had there not been a sea between me and my na- 
 tive country, and a want of money to carry me thither, it is 
 probable I should have made a speedy departure from the 
 work in which I was engaged. I regarded nothing, not even 
 life itself, in comparison with having my heart cleansed 
 from all sin; and began to seek it with full purpose of soul. 
 Thus I continued till December, 1782, when I opened my 
 mind to a local preacher, who, I have heard, was a partaker 
 of this precious privilege. From him I received some en- 
 couragement and direction ; and I set out afresh, endeavor- 
 ing to believe in the willingness of my God to accomplish 
 this great work. Soon after, while wrestling in prayer, and 
 endeavoring, self-desperately, to believe, I found a change 
 wrought in my soul which I endeavored through grace to 
 maintain, amid grievous temptations and accusations of the 
 subtle foe, who seemed now determined either to spoil me 
 of my confidence, or to render me as miserable, through 
 reiterated temptations, as I was before when mourning the 
 inbeing of his infernal offspring. But my indulgent Saviour 
 continued to support and encourage me, and enabled me 
 with all my power to preach the glad tidings to others ; so 
 that I soon saw more of the effects of the travail of my Re- 
 deemer's soul than I had seen before. . . . But to this day 
 I am in doubt respecting the work in my own soul, not 
 being able with propriety either to affirm that it is (fully) 
 done, or to deny it as undone. I am in a strait betwixt 
 two ; a fear of denying, lest thereby I should forfeit what I 
 have received, or grieve the blessed Spirit ; and again, a 
 fear of affirming that it is done, lest I should deceive my- 
 self. When you consider this, dear sir, you can easily 
 perceive how much I stand in need of your advice and 
 direction.
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 463 
 
 THE ORDINATION AND SACRAMENT QUESTION, ETC. 
 
 At ten o'clock the London and Bristol trustees were ad- 
 mitted. Mr. Pine was spokesman. He read an address 
 and resolutions. They were : 1 . That there be no ordina- 
 tion, no ecclesiastical titles among the preachers ; that Bap- 
 tism and the Lord's Supper never be administered by any 
 who are not episcopally ordained; and that there be no 
 preaching in church hours in any place, except where the 
 people without a dissenting voice are for it. 2. That the 
 spiritual and temporal concerns of the Societies be so sepa- 
 rated that the preachers shall manage the former, the trus- 
 tees and stewards the latter." 
 
 Here I cannot help remarking their wonderful consistency. 
 They agree that the spiritual concerns of the Societies be 
 left to the preachers ; yet they pretend to interfere with the 
 Lord's ordinances, times of preaching, etc. Are not these 
 the spiritual concerns of the Society ? And does not their 
 first proposition contradict this latter ? Lastly, they make 
 a proposal " that all the preachers who are of their mind do 
 unite with them, (unless the Conference grant their request,) 
 and pledge themselves to give them all countenance and 
 support." Here you see they fully intend to divide us, that 
 they may rule the roast. But know all men by these pres- 
 ents, that Adam Clarke will never be a trustee preacher. 
 They would abolish ordinations and titles, merely that, be- 
 ing kept in a lower character, they might with the more 
 propriety lord it over us. If ordination and the sacraments 
 be given up, some preachers will undoubtedly withdraw, 
 among whom Adam Clarke will be found. Letter from the 
 Bristol Conference, 1794. 
 
 The Conference has opened with reading the Minutes of 
 the several Districts. The London folks recommend travel- 
 ing bishops. Letter from the Manchester Conference. 1799. 
 
 The regular Conference business is not yet entered into. 
 Not one character yet examined. Yet we have been doing 
 important business; you will see all by and by. I told
 
 464 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE> 
 
 you J. Dutton was here. He is exactly the same thing he 
 was. There are, it seems, objections against his preaching ; 
 and Mr. P., who has had them all detailed from Mr. E., 
 says he thinks he will not be received into full connection. 
 He told me the objections. They appear to me to be su- 
 premely ridiculous. Judge from a specimen : J. Dutton 
 has a text for every day in the week, which he takes from 
 the calendar ; J. Dutton made an electrifying machine at 
 Howden ; J. Dutton uses hard words in his preaching, 
 which the people cannot understand ; such as exhibit, exag- 
 gerate, manifest, etc. Ha ! ha ! ha ! * Ibid. 
 
 The characters were next gone into. Not one charge of 
 moral evil against a soul. Three or four have left us, 
 whom we would have expelled had they remained among 
 us. What a mercy it is that God has permitted me to travel 
 seventeen years, and there never was the smallest objec- 
 tion brought against me at any Conference, directly or indi- 
 rectly ! May he continue to preserve me. Ibid, 1799. 
 
 THE ESSAY ON TOBACCO. 
 
 I can tell you a piece of strange news. The Methodists 
 of Congleton were remarkable for their immoderate attach- 
 ment to tobacco, etc. When my pamphlet got to the place 
 it was read by several. Mr. and Mrs. Shadford, who had 
 used this pernicious weed for forty years, gave it up at a 
 stroke ; the rest of the Society followed the example. They 
 then began to mourn and pray for forgiveness. God poured 
 out his Spirit upon them, and such a revival has taken place 
 as hath seldom been heard of. The Society is more than 
 doubled ; and Mr. Reece, who is the assistant, and Mr. 
 Shadford, both declared in Conference to-day that the whole 
 of the revival was, under God, owing to the pamphlet. Mr. 
 Shadford added, that both himself and his wife had great 
 reason to magnify God for it, as they were now better in 
 their health, in their souls, and in their circumstances. Mr. 
 
 * Mr. Dutton was received.
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 465 
 
 Reece said, the pamphlet has got into all the neighboring 
 Societies, and is doing immense good. 
 
 THE USEFUL SEEMON. 
 
 1794. I preached yesterday at ten o'clock at Salford, to 
 a very great congregation. Several thought it the most ex- 
 cellent sermon I ever preached. With me it is a maxim, 
 " The sermon that does good is a good sermon." You re- 
 member Mr. Berwick mentioning a Mr. and Mrs. Broad- 
 hurst ; he found peace at his class last Friday, and she 
 found a clear sense of pardon under the sermon yesterday. 
 This is worth my visit to Manchester. I dined at Mr. 
 
 A 's, where I met Miss and Mary Marsden. I then 
 
 met the select band, and great was our rejoicing together. 
 In the evening I preached at Oldham-street to a very large 
 congregation ; but, as usual in that chapel, I made very 
 poor work. I met the Society, which was at least two- 
 thirds of the congregation, for most would stay ; and found 
 it a time of enlargement and power. 
 
 BUDLEIGH-SALTERTON CHAPEL. 
 
 Bristol, 1809. I have not seen Mr. Wood's family. He 
 went down to Taunton yesterday to open Mr. Lackington's 
 chapel, who, it appears, is willing to give it up to the Meth- 
 odists on certain conditions ; one of which is, that the 
 preachers who officiate in it shall wear gowns. If he had 
 said that each shall be supplied with a new coat, it would 
 have been better. 
 
 STUDIES. 
 
 To his son John. We have agreed that you shall stay 
 at least a year at your uncle Johnson's, which I hope you 
 will spend to the very best advantage. Enter radically into 
 everything you attempt to learn ; and never, never be con- 
 tented with superficial knowledge in anything. Go through 
 the Persian Pentateuch with as much speed as you can, and 
 afterward read the Baktyor Nameh. Get every rule and 
 example of Jones's Grammar by hoart. and then you will 
 
 '
 
 466 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 be able to go through anything you may meet with. I sup- 
 pose your uncle has the grammar. I have spoken to him to 
 put you immediately to geometry, and after to learn 
 Euclid's Elements. This, I hope, you will apply yourself 
 to diligently. It will be of the greatest advantage to you 
 through life. Do not read to hurt your eyes. Be sure you 
 never read with bad light, or late at night ; if you do, you 
 will infallibly ruin your eyes. Pray much ; and take care 
 that you give no way to evil tempers. God alone can save 
 you from them. 
 
 THE CAUSE OF CUEIST HAS THE FJKST CLAIM. 
 To Mr. Boyd, 1815. Your piece on St. Paul is too val- 
 uable not to be brought in somewhere [in the Commentary.] 
 I wish I had had it when I wrote the character of that apos- 
 tle at the end of the Acts. However, I will watch for a 
 proper place to introduce it. I am going off this day to a 
 missionary meeting at Birmingham, from which I shall not 
 be able to return till the middle of next week. This will 
 make a great breach in my time; but I believe the work 
 to be of God, and therefore feel it my duty to perform it in 
 the best manner I can. 
 
 METHODISM FEARS NO FOE. 
 
 To Mr. Boyd, 1817. I am much surprised to find that 
 any of our preachers should " labor hard to dissuade you " 
 from publishing your pamphlet against Methodism ; for, 
 although I have a very high respect for your learning and 
 abilities, I am sure that Methodism has nothing to fear from 
 anything that you or any other person can write on the sub- 
 ject in question. The most subtle casuists in the land have 
 long ago done what they could, and Methodism continues 
 now, as it was then, as inexpugnable as the pillars of the 
 eternal hills. It has confuted all the arguments and calum- 
 nies ever brought against it; and if you can bring anything 
 new worthy consideration, it will in all probability confute 
 that too. You should bring forward no argument that has
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 467 
 
 been answered ; because that would expose you to the cen- 
 sure of writing on a subject which you did not understand. 
 For we do not fully understand a subject, if we are ignor- 
 ant of what has been said or written pro or con. . . . Have 
 you counted the cost, and answered to your own satisfaction 
 the Cui bono? But I must not proceed, lest you should 
 think that I too was joining in the strong dissuasions of 
 Messrs. M. and K., to prevent you from publishing. As 
 your friend, I would ; but, as fearing for my system, I 
 would not. You would have smiled had you heard the 
 conversation on your letter when it came last night. . . . 
 Mary Ann, who has studied both sides of the question, and, 
 as you know, has made some progress even in metaphysics, 
 pleasantly said : " Well, if Mr. Boyd be so weak as to go to 
 press with anything of this nature, I know not but I may be 
 weak enough to answer him ; and shall take for my motto 
 2 Kings xix, 21 : 'This is the word that the Lord hath 
 spoken concerning him ; the virgin the daughter of Zion 
 hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter 
 of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee !'" Now, if you 
 cannot laugh at the quaintness of this conceit, you will laugh 
 at poor Mary's presumption. Well, they all wish you 
 were here, and they would give you some better work than 
 polemic divinity. 
 
 THE TENANT OF THE CAVERN. 
 
 To Mr. Boyd, 1817. In passing along Red Bay, on my 
 journey from Belfast coastwise to Bally castle, I observed 
 several caves opening to the sea. Our driver stopped, and 
 I went into one where I saw a smith's forge, but no person. 
 I went into a second, and saw a woman about sixty years 
 of age, who had made it her residence. She keeps a goat, 
 which browses about the fields, and furnishes her with milk. 
 She gave us some, for which we gave her ample pay. Ob- 
 serving the roof and floor of this wretched habitation to be 
 damp, I asked her how she could live in it, especially in 
 winter. She said she did very well, except when the wind
 
 468 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 blew from the sea ; and she was then very cold. Her bed 
 is never otherwise than damp throughout winter or summer. 
 She is a good Catholic, and swears hard when a little pro- 
 voked. She gave me to understand that she " sold a drop 
 of whisky." I was astonished at the power of accommoda- 
 tion which belongs to human nature ; by habit and resolu- 
 tion a man may make all circumstances his own, and live 
 anywhere but in the fire or under water. 
 
 THE THREE WITNESSES. 
 
 To Mr. Boyd, 1817. I have settled the point on the 
 three heavenly Witnesses. After I had written my note 
 on 1 John v, 7, and my dissertation at the end of that Epis- 
 tle, I looked over Person ; * but I found nothing essential 
 to add to what had been said. I have, however, quoted him, 
 and have examined authorities which he never saw. 
 
 A BIETH FEOM ABOVE. 
 
 To the same. Well, we are getting on to Christmas. 
 May we all be born of incorruptible seed ! A birth from 
 above beggars all earthly nobility. To them who believe 
 in His name, the Lord Jesus gives power, egovaiav, the 
 privilege and authority, to become'the sons of God. This, 
 my dear Boyd, I wish you and myself; that, belonging to 
 the heavenly family, we may be kings and priests unto God, 
 
 THE PEINCESS CHAELOTTE. 
 
 To his son John, 1817. Mr. Fisher wishes much to 
 have some memoirs of the princess ; can any authentic be 
 procured ? If I had a few well attested facts relative to her 
 education, manner of thinking, political intentions, sayings, 
 actions, etc., I think I could draw up a good thing ; some- 
 thing that would set the nation right, and vindicate the con- 
 duct of the regent ; for I cannot help thinking that he has 
 been unjustly blamed. Besides, I do think that the nation 
 * Letters to Travis on the Genninonoss of 1 John v, 7.
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 469 
 
 has made too much of this death. We have acted as if the 
 throne were vacant, or as if we had no legitimate stock, or 
 the present ruler were acting a most unconstitutional part, 
 and there were hope for the empjre only in the life of the 
 princess. Now, the reverse of all this is true ; and I should 
 like to have some excuse for a pamphlet which might set all 
 to rights. Green would glean up all that the newspapers 
 have ; and you and he, and some others, might get me all I 
 want. N. B. Naples and Spain could only inherit in the 
 Stuart line ; but they are cut off by the Act of Settlement 
 in the posterity of Sophia, being Protestants. 
 
 MODERN SCIENCE. 
 
 To Mr. Boyd, 1818. I consider the whole system of 
 philosophy unsettled, and chemistry and medicine to be 
 retrograde. Even in my short life I have seen many 
 changes ; systems, which seemed to have been demonstrated, 
 overturned from their very bases. Two years ago I talked 
 with my old preceptor, Dr. Perceval, under whom I studied 
 chemistry at Trinity College. I mentioned the doubts he 
 proposed in his concluding lecture relative to that system 
 which then seemed to have obtained universal credit, and 
 that he had lived to see all these doubts realized. He ob- 
 served that he had equal doubts concerning the present sys- 
 tem of chemistry, and had reason to believe that all our 
 boasted modern discoveries would in process of time be en- 
 tirely nullified. As to the geologists, they are as deeply in the 
 mud as the chemists are in the mire. There is no end to 
 their world-making ; and, in my mind, they are worthy of 
 little regard. The foundation of God alone standeth sure, 
 and to this they will all turn back when the pure light 
 shines upon them ; or rather, when they permit it to shine 
 into them. Have a little patience, and all will come about. 
 The bombast of the present system will soon make its last 
 explosion.
 
 470 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 THE LAND'S END.* 
 
 Oct. 11, 1819. I write this on the last projecting point 
 of rock of the Land's End ', upward of two hundred feet per- 
 pendicular above the sea, which is raging and roaring tre 
 raendously, threatening destruction to myself and the narrow 
 point of rock on which I am sitting. On my right hand is 
 the Bristol Channel, and before me the vast Atlantic Ocean. 
 There is not one inch of land from the place on which my 
 feet rest, to the American continent. This is the place 
 where Charles Wesley composed those fine lines : 
 
 " Lo, on a narrow neck of land, 
 'Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand," etc. 
 
 The point of rock is about three feet broad at its termina- 
 tion ; and the fearless adventurer will here place his foot, to 
 be able to say that he has been on the uttermost inch of 
 land in the British empire westward. On this spot the foot 
 of your husband now rests, while he writes the words of the 
 same hymn : 
 
 " God ! my inmost soul convert, 
 And deeply on my thoughtful heart 
 
 Eternal things impress : 
 Give me to feel their solemn weight, 
 And tremble on the brink of fate, 
 
 And wake to righteousness. 
 
 ST. AUSTELL CHAPEL.* 
 
 Oct. 22. I am just come in after preaching here. The 
 crowd was immense. They had just enlarged the chapel, 
 building a new end and gallery to it. When I was about 
 to take my text, the gallery gave way ; the timbers fairly 
 came out of the walls, yet it did not fall down but the con- 
 fusion was awful. I was close to the gallery, and distinctly 
 saw the peril ; and, had it come down, I knew I must have 
 been the first victim ; but at least two hundred others 
 would also have been killed. I stood in my place ; for, had 
 I moved, universal terror would have taken place, and many 
 must have fallen victims to an impetuous rush. The chapel
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 471 
 
 was soon nearly emptied, and no one was hurt. Many 
 came back again, and I preached ; but I knew not till the 
 end of the service all the miracle it required to save us. 
 Then it was found, that owing to the pressure in the gallery, 
 the timbers being too short, they had started out from the 
 walls two feet,* and the gallery actually shook, having noth- 
 ing but its pillars to support it. Our son John being be- 
 neath could see this plainer than I could at the time ; and he 
 saw also, that, if it fell, he must be killed if he kept his 
 place, which was immediately before the pulpit ; but, as 
 he knew that his father must be the first victim, he reso- 
 lutely kept his situation, expecting eternity every moment. 
 But enough of this. It makes one's blood run chill. This 
 is the last crowd I ever wish to see. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 To his son John, 181^. Some time ago you requested 
 me to set about writing my life. This is a task which I 
 have contemplated, but long feared to attempt ; but I have 
 felt more on the subject since you wrote to me, and have 
 lately been obliged to think deeply, as I received credible 
 information that my Life is cut and dry, ready for the eye 
 of the public as soon as my heart is cold. I came in here 
 (Liverpool) last Wednesday evening. In a private conver- 
 sation with Mr. Drew, he most solemnly begged and charged 
 me to begin the work ; for some hackneyed, hunger-bitten 
 scriveners were ready to praise me to death in prose, and 
 murder me in verse. I believe all my conversations^ and 
 anecdotes which I have related concerning myself and my 
 family, for several years past, have been carefully taken 
 down and preserved. Mr. Comer took up the same subject, 
 and most instantly begged me to defer it no longer ; because 
 I suppose, they all see I am going ; and I am led to think 
 myself that I may be soon gone. Well, what should I do ? 
 This Comment is still hanging heavy on my hands ; but, it 
 is true, I am free from the Records. This gives a measure 
 * Some of the timbers, of course.
 
 472 LIFE OF ADAM CLAKKE. 
 
 of leisure, and saves from much anxiety. Laying every- 
 thing together with the Semel calcanda via, I sat down on 
 Friday in Mr. Comer's little study, and made a trial. All 
 seemed light, all recollection ; circumstances and incidents, 
 in their regular chronologic order, crowded upon me. I 
 began with the origin of the distinction of families ; accounted 
 for our name ; gave as far as I could, a history of our fam- 
 ily ; gave a short sketch of my grandfather ; then the his 
 tory of my father, his studies, projected voyage to America 
 employment, character, and death ; of my mother ; my 
 brother, his education, professional pursuits, voyages, death, 
 and of the children left by him, John, Adam, Thrasydes and 
 Edward ; then my own birth ; singularities of my childhood, 
 development of genius, commencement of studies, the la- 
 bors of my brother and self in our little farm, etc., etc. ; 
 and in twenty-three closely-written pages I have brought 
 myself on in my journey through life to the ninth year. 
 Unless death stop me, I shall not stop now till this be fin- 
 ished. I am delighted with it; it is all incident. I have 
 written it in the third person. This form can be altered, if 
 necessary ; the collection of the facts is the grand thing. I 
 have always had it in purpose to write my own life as Cai- 
 sar wrote his Commentaries. This [way] prevents egotism. 
 When Mr. Thoresby wrote his own^life, the pronoun "I" 
 occurred so often in it, that the printer was obliged to bor- 
 row /'s from his brother-printers, as his own had run out. 
 Your father has never been in the habit of speaking much 
 
 of himself; and it would ill become him, when about to 
 
 ' 
 
 pass the great deep, to occupy his time or that of his read- 
 ers with these ceremonious and generally unwelcome 
 pronouns. 
 
 THE FEAST OF REASON. 
 
 May, 1822. The company [at Kensington Palace] con- 
 sisted of His Royal Highness, [the Duke of Sussex,] Dr. 
 Parr, Judge Johnstone, Sir Anthony Carlisle, the Rev. T. 
 Maurice, the Hon. Gower, Solomon Da Costa, Hon.
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 473 
 
 Colonel Wildman, Sir Alexander Johnstone, Mr. Pettigrew, 
 Lord Blessington, and A. C. . . . To give you a sketch of 
 the conversation is impossible ; but I can give you some 
 outlines : The manners of the great were freely canvassed ; 
 the bench of bishops was dissected ; the degradation of the 
 Royal Society was deplored ; the character and conduct of 
 the late Sir Joseph Banks criticized ; the talents of the minis- 
 try estimated ; the Marquis of Londonderry characterized ; 
 several texts of Scripture, proposed by the Duke of Sussex, 
 discussed ; Bonaparte eulogized, as one who had never bro- 
 ken a treaty, and who, in the flush of victory ever offered 
 peace to his subdued enemies ; the probability of a Russian 
 war conjectured ; the writings of Aristotle praised ; the dif- 
 ferent species of Greek literature discriminated ; with many 
 other matters which I cannot now detail. 
 
 MISSIONAEY ANNIVERSAKY. 
 
 London, May 6, 1823. Yesterday we had our public 
 meeting. It was a very good one, and well attended. The 
 chief speakers were Mr. Hughes, (who is very ill, and I 
 think dying,) Sir George Rose, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Ste- 
 phen, (Master in Chancery,) Mr. Bacon, the statuary, Mr. 
 Williams, M. P., and others ; almost all were churchmen, 
 and seemed to rally around us. These eminent churchmen 
 bore the finest and the most decided testimony to the excel- 
 lence and glory of Methodism. The collection I believe 
 was large. I made some mistake in the account I sent you 
 of my work. Mr. Jay had got at Queen-street between 80 
 and 90, and two gold rings. My friends were determined 
 that none should go beyond me ; and my gleanings on Sun- 
 day morning, after Mr. Jay's harvest, were 92, 10s. My 
 collection on Thursday night was 72 ; and the before-men- 
 tioned at Queen-street was the largest collection made this 
 year in the city. So, you see, your old weather-beaten 
 father is still at the head of the poll. 
 
 During my speech yesterday I mentioned the Shetlands ; 
 and what was the consequence ? I had one ten pound note
 
 47-i LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 put in my hand, another ten pound, and a five pound. Mr. 
 Bunting, being afraid that I should get all the monish, warned 
 the congregation to give for the foreign missions ; and so I 
 got no more. However, I was content with what I did get. 
 
 PLEASANT VOYAGE TO IRELAND. 
 
 The sea was very smooth, and we were crowded with pas- 
 sengers ; several of them persons of distinction. We had 
 three clergyman, two of them D.D.'s ; three generals, Welsh, 
 Greaves, and Bingham ; several majors and colonels ; one 
 Indian judge ; some members of Parliament ; and some 
 ladies of rank. We had no less than five carriages on board, 
 with horses, servants, etc. We were crowded ; but such an 
 agreeable set I never met with in any place. All conversed 
 with me freely and frequently ; the generals, and the other 
 military men. On Sunday morning the ladies sent me a 
 message desiring me to preach ; the officers joined ; but, as 
 there were three clergymen, I thought it much better that 
 they should be asked, as they were very respectable and in- 
 deed pious men. They consented. An awning was placed 
 over the quarter-deck. One read prayers ; another, the les- 
 sons ; and the third preached. It was really a good sermon 
 of its kind, and read well by its author, Dr. Woodward, son 
 of the bishop of Cloyne. ... In the evening we got into 
 knots. I had invitations on all hands to visit different coun- 
 try-seats near Limerick and Cork, but was obliged to decline 
 them all, as my stay was to be so short. They tried me on 
 all subjects, religious, civil, philosophical, and literary. 
 Blessed be God, who has given me some brains, and enabled 
 me to cultivate them, I was not at a loss in any one instance, 
 but spoke largely on all. . . . After long sailing we got into 
 the Channel. The prospects on both sides the river were 
 most lovely. Our French horn blew different airs "Adeste 
 fideles? " God save the king," and some psalm-tunes ; and 
 the returning echoes were the finest I ever witnessed.
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 475 
 
 OPENING OF EASTBKOOK CHAPEL, BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE. 
 Sept. 4, 1825. I have now finished my work at this place. 
 It is evening, and, while the rest are gone to hear Mr. Les- 
 sey, I sit down to write to you. I preached this morning 
 at the Old Chapel. It was not a congregation, nor an as- 
 sembly, nor a concourse, nor a crowd, but a tremendous 
 torrent of human beings, produced by a conflux from the 
 thirty -two points of the compass, of this town and its vicinity. 
 I thought preaching would have been impossible ; and it 
 would have been so, had not W. Dawson got out into the 
 burying-ground, and carried off one thousand of the people 
 with him. I began at about half after nine, the chapel being 
 then thronged. To deceive me, one slyly stopped the clock 
 at a quarter before ten. I had in a few minutes perfect 
 stillness; preached till twelve, not knowing how time went 
 on. My voice was as loud as a trumpet, and I spoke till 
 body and soul were nearly bidding each other a final fare- 
 well. The spirit of glory and of God rested upon all ; and 
 I felt a hope that not a soul there would ever turn again to 
 folly. Though there had been already three collections, at 
 the first of which on Friday I got them 100, yet this morn- 
 ing I got upward of 100 more, besides what Mr. Dawson 
 ot in the yard. I came to my lodgings in a piteous state ; 
 a strong pain between my shoulders, indicating inflammation 
 of the diaphragm. . . . Leeds comes next. I almost dread 
 the human billows, the mountain-swells of thousands who 
 will be there. 
 
 THE FAR NORTH. 
 
 Northwick, Lat. 61 N., July 6, 1828. I have this day 
 had the highest honor of my life, having preached Christ 
 crucified to the inhabitants (on this line) of the very ends 
 of the earth ; beyond which the sound of the Gospel never 
 was heard, and indeed beyond which, in this direction, there 
 is no human inhabitant. The huge hills of serpentine rock 
 on either hand, with scarcely any vegetable covering, and
 
 476 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 of the islands and mainland on either hand, answering nearly 
 to the description of Ovid : 
 
 "Set locus extremis Scyihia glacialis in oris, 
 Triste solum, sterilis, sine f ruffe, sine arbore, tell us , 
 Frigus iners illic habitant, Fallorque, Tremorqve, 
 Jt jejuna Fames." Met. viii, ver. 788-91.* 
 
 , COUNSELS TO THE ZETLAND MISSIONAEIES. 
 
 God seems to have opened your way wonderfully to a 
 people who seem to be prepared for himself. I hope you 
 will be enabled to enter at every opened door ; and by all 
 means form societies in every place where you preach, if 
 possible. You remember what our Large Minutes say on 
 the subject ; that " where we preach often without doing this, 
 our seed has been sown by the wayside." If you can get 
 but a dozen to meet in a place, on our rules, form them into 
 a class ; and show everywhere the great advantages of this : 
 and this is what we mean in that article of the Apostles' 
 Creed, "1 believe in the communion of saints." It does not 
 mean [only] receiving the Lord's Supper together. . . . 
 Show that God's people acted in this way in all ages ; and 
 that, without such advantages, even the best disposed make 
 little advance in the divine life. 
 
 Preach the whole truth, but not in. a controversial way ; 
 and dwell especially on Christ's love to all sinners, salvation 
 by faith, the witness of the Spirit, and redemption from all 
 sin. I have often successfully combated the Presbyterians 
 with those words of their own Catechism : " Quest. 36. What 
 are the benefits which in this life do either accompany or 
 flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification ? Ans. 
 They are, assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy 
 
 * " Where frozen Scythia's utmost bound is placed, 
 
 A desert lies, a melancholy waste, 
 
 In yellow crops their nature never smiled, 
 
 No fruitful tree to shade the barren wild ; 
 
 There sluggish cold its icy station makes, 
 
 There paleness frights, and anguish trembling shakes ; 
 
 Of pining famine this the fated seat, 
 
 To whom my orders, in these words, repeat."
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 477 
 
 in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverence there- 
 in unto the end. Rom. v, 1, 2, 5; Prov. iv, 18; 1 John 
 v, 13 ; 1 Peter i, 5." From these you may show the people 
 what the doctrine of their forefathers was, and press them to 
 look for the same blessings. 
 
 Brother Dunn tells me that he is forbidden to preach in 
 the churches : so much the better. I do not wish you to 
 preach in any of their churches. You are Methodists. 
 Build on your own foundation. You cannot form classes, 
 if you preach in other men's churches and chapels ; and if 
 you do not form classes, you do not the work of Methodist 
 preachers. Go on believingly. Read much, pray much, 
 believe much. Visit the people from house to house. Take 
 notice of the children ; treat them lovingly. This will do 
 the children good, and the parents will like it. ... All my 
 family send their love to you. You have our constant, 
 earnest prayers. Letter to the Rev. J. Raby. 
 
 TO OBTAIN BELIEF IN DEPRESSION. 
 
 Bristol, April, 1828. I get ground but very slowly. The 
 easterly cold winds and wet weather are much against me ; 
 and, if some genial temperature do not soon prevail, I can- 
 not divine when I shall be able to remove. News came to- 
 day that Mr. Myles is dead. He preached on Good Friday, 
 Luke xxiii, 48 ; and gave the sacrament on Easter Sunday, 
 and died a few days after. To-day I have been able with 
 much pain to get on my coat. I have nothing new to add. 
 That my mind is low, very low, I need not say. May God 
 help me to look above, and, when I look, to see always the 
 brightness of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ ! 
 
 READING OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.* 
 And now, my dear Cecilia, I hope you are endeavoring to 
 live in time, so that you may live forever. I hope you read 
 your Bible. What think you ? After having more than 
 half a century read it so much, I formed the resolution on 
 Jan. 1, to read the Bible through once more. I read the
 
 478 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 New Testament in Greek, and the Old Testament in English, 
 collating it occasionally with the Hebrew: I bind myself to 
 one chapter in each daily ; but I have often read more, and 
 have read over the five books of Moses and the four Gospels. 
 This I find very profitable. Now I commend this to you : 
 and read so that your mind shall feel the reading, and then 
 the reading will profit you. To Miss Smith, February, 1830. 
 
 OTHEE KESOLDTIONS. 
 
 With the new year I felt a purpose to mend, particularly 
 in two things : First, to read my Bible more regularly ; and 
 to get through it once more before I die. Second, to bear 
 the evils and calamities of life with less pain of spirit : if I 
 suffer wrong, to leave it to God to right me; to murmur 
 against no dispensation of his providence ; to bear ingrati- 
 tude and unkindness as things totally beyond my control, 
 and consequently things on account of which I should not 
 distress myself; and, though friends and confidants should 
 fail, to depend more on my everlasting Friend. To Mrs. 
 Rowley, 1830. 
 
 PARENTAL CONFIDENCE.* 
 
 II y a quelque temps depuis que je vous ai ecrit en vous 
 proposant cette question : S'il me laudrait vous confier le 
 plus grand secret de mon ame, le garderiez-vous a vous, 
 sans le commettre a qui que ce soit? C'est a dire, pour- 
 riez-vous le garder inviolablement jusqu'a la mort 1 Vous 
 m'avez repondu, Ah que oui ! Eh bien, je vous dirai que 
 vous etes la seule personne au monde a qui je puis me fier. 
 Vous m'aiderez de vos conseils, et de votre adresse, et vous 
 ne me tromperez pas. C'est assez de termes g6neraux : 
 (jiiand j'aurai une affaire particuliere, je vous le confierai. 
 To the same. 
 
 IRISH EDUCATION. 
 
 1831. The letter I wrote to the Chief Secretary for Ire- 
 land, on the Education of the Irish poor, makes nearly nine
 
 SU4TLEMENT. 479 
 
 folio pages. It takes a view of the uneducated state of the 
 people, the ardent desires which the Irish feel for knowl- 
 edge, and their remarkable aptness to receive instruction ; 
 an account of the six schools which, in the course of April 
 and May of this year, I established in very neglected places 
 in the north ; the places of instruction ; the difference be- 
 tween education and cultivation; the great necessity for 
 girls' schools, and prudent, humane female teachers ; and 
 the easiness of educating the whole of the people. I have 
 asked no help from him, but have offered to aid others by 
 my experience. 
 
 OLD FRIENDS PRECEDE HIM TO THE GRAVE. 
 
 January 10, 1832. You may have heard that I was 
 sent for, at his earnest request, to see Mr. Baynes on his 
 death-bed. I went with all speed, and saw him on Thurs- 
 day morning ; stayed all night, and saw him on Friday. 
 He was in a truly glorious state. Took the coach that 
 evening to return. It was dark and foggy, and the fellow 
 had no lamps. I was apprehensive of danger. She was full 
 outside; and five, instead of four, within. A little short of 
 the Swan he swamped over the coach, and projected all the 
 outsides and the luggage into the ditch, broke the pole in 
 two, smashed the windows, and stove in the side of the 
 coach. I suppose I lay (for it fell on my side) fifteen min- 
 utes, with three persons on the top of me, before they could 
 get us out. I was only a little bruised on my right shoul- 
 der, but sadly trampled on ; and then had to stand more 
 than an hour, in the rain from above and the slush below, 
 before I could get relief. 
 
 The next day I received a letter from Mr. Scott, (of Pens- 
 ford.) and one from his wife, begging me to come to see 
 him, as his life hung in doubt, and he wished to see me be- 
 fore he died. I sent to town to take my place. After my 
 lute shaking, this is a serious experiment. Pray for your 
 poor father, who, through God's mercy, has been ever ready 
 to obev such calls.
 
 480 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Pensford, January 16. I got injto Bristol Wednesday 
 night very late, and set off the next morning for this place. 
 I found Mr. Scott ill ; but he would walk from room to 
 room, talk about the things of God, and appeared as if he 
 would yet weather a. few storms. But he has continued to 
 sink, and is now as low as well can be. But he is quite 
 sensible, and is very happy in God. He seems to dwell in 
 God, and God in him. I have not found a greater evidence 
 of complete salvation. His mouth is ever filled with the 
 high praises of God for what he has wrought in and for him. 
 He is full of admiration of the perfections of the Divine 
 Nature, and his wonderful condescension toward the fallen 
 race of man. " God is love," is a frequent ejaculation ; and 
 he seems to feed upon it, as the very food of his spirit. He 
 takes no food, but a little drink to wet his lips from time to 
 time. This morning he performed the last act of his life ; 
 namely, signing a cheque for 50 for Zetland. He would do 
 it, it being his last instalment ; and, though he had only to 
 sign his name, Mrs. Scott having filled up the cheque, yet 
 he was at least a whole hour before he could do this. His 
 right hand had lost its cunning, and its strength also. He 
 will no more grasp a pen. Having loved Zetland, he loved 
 it to the end. 
 
 From another letter. When he found he had succeeded 
 [in signing the paper], he spoke, as well as he could, these 
 remarkable words : " There, for the work of God in Zetland, 
 I send my last cheque to heaven for acceptance ; and the in- 
 habitants will see that the writer will soon be there him- 
 self." I turned the chair a little about ; he leaned himself 
 back, and sighed out, "Glory, glory be to God, for his 
 astonishing love to such a worthless worm ! O, God is 
 Love !" He is sinking very fast, and will, to every human 
 appearance, keep his next Sabbath in heaven. Talking of 
 resignation, he said to the doctor, " My soul is perfectly re- 
 signed to the Divine will. I have a full assurance of God's 
 love ; and it is no odds to me whether I be found in this 
 world, or in the world of spirits an hour hence."
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 481 
 
 From another. I seem to have been brought here to 
 learn to die ; and the lesson before me is both solemn and 
 instructive. Certainly Mr. Scott is dying a very noble 
 death. May God make my last end like his 1 
 
 Mr. Thomas Roberts, whom you must have known, one 
 of our preachers, now lies dead in Bristol. I hoped to see 
 him, but he was gone before I reached the city. I should 
 have been glad to see him : forty-seven years ago I sent 
 him out to preach his first sermon. He was an amiable, 
 sensible, and pious man. 
 
 THE ROYAL FBIEND. 
 
 January, 1832. This morning I have written a congratu- 
 latory letter to the Duke of Sussex, on his birthday, the 
 27th. 
 
 March 13. From every appearance I find, by laying 
 another load on an already overburdened horse, I may be 
 able to preach for the schools at Stoke-Newington on April 
 8th. This is as far as I can go. I hope Mr. Smith will take 
 care that there be no reporters of sermons suffered at City 
 Road, on Sunday, 25th. I must, if possible, be at Kensing- 
 ton Palace on the evening of the 24th, though I should stay 
 but half an hour ; as I have received the special invitation 
 of the royal duke to be there. [We make this extract to 
 show that the good feeling between the prince and the doc- 
 tor continued to the close of life.] 
 
 SUCCESSFUL EFFOETS. 
 
 May, 1832. Wherever I went, the congregations were 
 vast, and the collections for the missions great beyond ex- 
 ample. At Birmingham, 12 last year; it was 50 this. 
 At Sheffield, last year, 120 ; this year, 240. I went to 
 Thorncliffe, where, instead of thirty or forty shillings, I had 
 
 11 I got to Bruerton, and on Sunday preached at 
 
 Stafford, where we had good times. Miss B. gave me 2 
 for vour orphan-school, and 50 for my Irish schools. 
 
 31
 
 482 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 WHEN LAST IN IKELAND. 
 
 Coleraine, June 1832. I am here cooped up, a burden 
 to myself, and I fear to others, Since I got to this place, I 
 have not been able to go where I could do the work for 
 which I came till yesterday, when I was taken by Mr. 
 M'Alwine to visit the Portrush school, with the intention 
 of returning by Port-Stewart. But I was so exhausted, 
 when at Portrush, as not to be able to stand alone ; and 
 therefore, having looked around, I resumed my seat and got 
 back to Coleraine, to all my feelings worse for the journey. 
 
 For want of manufactures the streets and the country are 
 full of boys and girls more than half naked, having nothing 
 to do, and desiring to do nothing. Manufactories are a bless- 
 ing, independently of the means of living which they insure ; 
 as discipline and order, which they produce, are unnoticed 
 restraints on immorality and vice ; and " order is Heaven's 
 first law." The want of it is ruinous. I think how much I 
 owe to it. Had it not been for this, I should have read lit- 
 tle and written less. Time would have hung heavy on my 
 hand, and yet I should not have had enough of it for any 
 purpose of life. As everything should have its place, so 
 every place should have its proper occupant ; and habit and 
 caution will do the rest. 
 
 THE LAST CONFEKENCE. 
 
 July 22, 1832. I got to Liverpool last evening ; obliged 
 to travel all night and all yesterday. My friend? were look- 
 ing out for me. I have been to hear Mi. Entwisle in 
 Brunswick Chapel, on "All the promises of God are yea and 
 amen." I am got here almost in the very jaws of the cholera. 
 The man-servant of this family took it, and his wife took it 
 also. They have escaped with the skin of their teeth. The 
 mistress of our charity-school in this chapel, where we hold 
 our Conference, was taken last Saturday, and died in a few 
 hours. Her sister, who came to minister to her, returned 
 to her own house, was seized on the road, and was dead be- 
 fore twelve o'clock. Am I then, in the very same house
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 483 
 
 and chapel, out of danger, and likely to escape ? Yes ; if 
 God say, " The cholera shall not kill thee." I am waiting 
 the Divine determination. We expect a crowd of preachers. 
 I think when they are come, and see and hear as I do, they 
 will put their helm a-lee and seek safety on some other tack. 
 Liverpool is full of this ruinous disease. Now, my dear 
 Mrs. Tomkins, I commend you and yours to God, and the 
 word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and give 
 you all an inheritance among the saints in light. 
 
 From another, to Mrs. Smith. Hear of our state, and 
 pity us. We have had the cholera, with its concomitants ; 
 but, thank God, it is abating. My niece Burnett and her 
 child have been snatched out of the fangs of the poisonous 
 viper ; and now a burning atmosphere is absorbing all our 
 moisture. I keep as close as I can to the Conference, and 
 go limping on my staff. I am constantly in fever ; and Mr. 
 Hensman comes frequently to the chapel to examine my 
 state. Several of the preachers have been indisposed, less 
 or more ; but I trust we shall return with our ranks unbro- 
 ken. To-day I am finally set down supernumerary for 
 Windsor, with a roving commission. 
 
 To Mrs. Clarke. They are determined to commission 
 me to be a general visitant of the Churches, attend public 
 meetings, and make collections. Mr. Watson said privately 
 to me, that "they were resolved to make me an arch- 
 bishop." . . . Yesterday I delivered up the Zetland mis- 
 sions to the Conference ; also the 3,000 of my trusteeship, 
 which I held for them under Mr. Scott's will, and the 400 
 which I have from Miss Sophia Ward. I have offered also 
 the Irish schools, which I believe will be received. 
 
 Frame, August 9, 1832. To Mrs. Clarice. I believe I 
 told you I was obliged to preach at Stanhope-street, (Liver- 
 pool,) before the Conference, on Sabbath morning ; and a 
 glorious time it was. The preachers were greatly affected, 
 and poor Gaulter cried like a child. I returned over the 
 water, went to Mr. Forshaw's for dinner and sleep, and the 
 next morning set off, and got to Worcester in twelve hours.
 
 484 . LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 The Rowleys were well, and the cholera within a few doors 
 of them. I got some sleep, rose in time, and set off for 
 Bath, which I reached at seven in the evening. Yesterday 
 morning got a coach, and arrived at Frome before twelve ; 
 Found Matilda and children well, and Joseph full of anx- 
 iety, preparing for to-day's meeting. 
 
 Memorandum by the Rev. J. B. B. Clarke. For some 
 time I have been engaged in organizing a " Society for the 
 Amelioration of the Condition of the Poor" in the extensive 
 parish of Frome; and, wishing to obtain all the help in my 
 power, I wrote to my father, who had gone down to the 
 Conference at Liverpool, urging him to attend our public 
 meeting, and to preach the first sermon for the Society in 
 the Methodist chapel of the town. To this request he as- 
 sented, and wrote to say he hoped to be in Frome on the 
 morning of the 9th, which was the time appointed for the 
 meeting. 
 
 Much earlier in the morning than there was reason to 
 expect my father, I was passing through the hall, when I 
 saw the well known blue traveling-bag resting against the 
 wall ; and, filled with unexpected joy, I went to the dining- 
 room, which he had entered just before me. "The old 
 man, you see, Joseph, is come," sai4 he, with his usual tone 
 of kindness, as he placed his hand upon my head and kissed 
 me ; " though battered and tossed about, he has yet strength 
 to come at the call of his son." He sat down for a few 
 minutes while I took off his gaiters ; and then, as was his 
 frequent custom, he began to walk slowly, diagonally across 
 the room, asking various questions about myself and family, 
 and talking of the occurrences and company he had met 
 with on the road from Cheshire. It was then that I ob- 
 served a very marked difference in his appearance; his 
 cheeks had fallen in, and he was considerably thinner than 
 when I had last seen him. His step was slow and heavy, 
 with small remains of that elastic firmness for which his 
 walking was always remarkable ; and the muscles of his 
 legs had evidently much shrunk a sign of old age which
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 485 
 
 his straight and well-proportioned limbs had never before 
 shown. His neck also was apparently shorter. Besides 
 these symptoms of decay, when walking out with me, there 
 was more dependence on my arm, and on his staff, than 
 had ever been usual with him. 
 
 The conversation was chiefly occupied with family affairs, 
 and the plan of the intended Society. He entered into its 
 object, and appeared gratified at the extensive and influential 
 support which it had obtained. It was impossible not to 
 notice the depth of interest which he felt; all showed that 
 what he said and did were the results of feeling and con- 
 sideration. This observation applies to his whole stay with 
 me. . . . Constantly cheerful and pleasant, and even play- 
 ful ; but mingled with such blandness and holiness as at 
 once won you to love the man who thus felt, and looked, 
 and spoke. A touch of heaven seemed to have passed up- 
 on all his feelings, and he appeared as one who was not 
 preparing to be, but had already been, beatified ; his joy 
 was so pure, his kindness so heartfelt, his piety so intense, 
 his manners and voice so expressive of inward peace. Many 
 times, while we stayed together, was I compelled to give 
 way to the emotions of my heart, in the mental exclama- 
 tion : " Thou God of Love ! I bless Thee for my father." 
 
 THE FATHER'S REJOICING IN THE WORTHY SON.* 
 To Mrs. Smith, August 14, 1832. I have given you 
 some information relative to our operations at Frome on 
 the 9th; and you had some from Matilda. Give me leave 
 to make a reflection. What is your brother? Nothing 
 further than the curate of a vicar ? When you consider his 
 amazing plan to visit the thirteen thousand persons that 
 form he population of Frome, and relieve and instruct all 
 those who should be found to need instruction and relief, 
 you may call it Quixotish. When you consider his hav- 
 ing penetrated into every lane, and alley, and court, and 
 divided [the place] into fifty-three districts, and gone into 
 every house of all sects and parties, and prevailed upon a
 
 486 LIFE OF ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 sufficient number to occupy those fifty-three districts as 
 visitors, you may judge this to be a task Herculean ; and 
 when you further consider that this young man, without 
 patronage, but by his own moral weight, has projected and 
 established such a work, and has been capable of bringing 
 forward to the assistance of the institution all the constitu- 
 ted authorities of the place, the Marquis of Bath, the Earl 
 of Cork, the Lord bishop of the diocese, the county repre- 
 sentatives, the clergy, etc., you may well be astonished. 
 Such an effect he could not have produced, had not God 
 been with him. 
 
 ONE OF THE LAST LETTERS.* 
 
 Bath, August 20, 1832. To Mrs. Tomkins.l have 
 nearly finished my work in these parts, and must get home 
 as fast as I can. I have to preach the anniversary sermon 
 at Bayswater next Lord's day. I have had some hard work 
 hereabouts, but it has been owned of the Almighty. Though 
 far from being w'ell, I have had either incessant work and 
 traveling, or confinement and suffering, for nearly four 
 months ; and now I should have rest ; but that, I doubt, is 
 yet far from me. My wife has sent me a letter received 
 from the Zetlands, giving an account of a most calamitous 
 event. A horrible storm at sea has fallen upon the poor 
 fishing-boats ; upward of thirty, each containing five or six 
 men, are supposed to have perished. Many Methodists 
 were in them, and not a few leaders ; and the misery that 
 has fallen to our lot is, at least, forty widows, and more 
 than two hundred orphans. I thought I could have a little 
 rest, but now, to meet this calamity, I must collect my 
 little strength and set out afresh, to strive to meet and re- 
 lieve this loud and dismal cry. My dear Mrs. Tomkins, 
 you must endeavor to feel with me for them, and try what 
 you can do. 
 
 About seven weeks before his death, Dr. Clarke, in clos- 
 ing a short journal of his last visit to Ireland, does it with
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 487 
 
 the following words : " Thus terminates a journey remark- 
 able for affliction, disappointment, and suffering. I went 
 over to Ireland to work ; I could do nothing, being called 
 to suffer. My soul, hast thou learned any good les- 
 son ? Yes. 
 
 " What is it 1 It is this : that I have now such evidences 
 of old age as I never had before. Yet I believe my under- 
 standing is as clear, and my judgment as sound, as ever. 
 But, during my late detention and sufferings, have I repined 
 against God or his Providence felt that my lot was hard, 
 and that I was not permitted by him to do that work which 
 was for his glory 1 No ; I was only disappointed ; and I 
 endured the mortification without a murmur. I was enabled 
 to bow my neck to his yoke, or lie at his footstool. I felt 
 that he was doing all things well, that I was safe if in his 
 hands ; and therefore I could say, and did often repeat that 
 commendatory petition frequent among our pious fore- 
 fathers In manus Tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum 
 meum. 
 
 " The cholera was before me, behind me, round about me ; 
 but I was preserved from all dread. I trusted in the sacri- 
 ficial death of Jesus : no trust is higher ; and none lower can 
 answer the end. I have redemption through his blood ; and 
 I am waiting for the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel 
 of Jesus. 
 
 " I FEEL A SIMPLE HEART : THE PRAYERS OF MY CHILDHOOD 
 ARE YET PRECIOUS TO ME; AND THE SIMPLE HYMNS WHICH 
 I SANG WHEN A CHILD, I SING NOW WITH UNCTION AND DE- 
 LIGHT. 'E/wot yao TO tfiv, Xptardf ical TO aTroOavelv, 
 Ksodog. (Phil, i, 21.) r?/pd<7/ca> del, 7roA/ld pi6aaKOfiKvoq. 
 MAY I LIVE TO THEE, DIE IN THEE, AND BE WITH THEE TO 
 
 ALL ETERNITY. AMEN. AoAM CLARKE. 
 
 THE END.
 
 BOOKS AND PERIODICALS. 
 
 CARLTON & PORTER, 
 
 Agents of the Methodist Book Concern, 200 Mulberry-street, 
 New- York, would call attention to a few of their numerous 
 publications. 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ADVOCATE 
 
 Is a beautifully illustrated child's paper, edited by the distinguished friend of chil- 
 dren, the veritable FRANCIS FORRESTER, and is issued semi-monthly. The seven- 
 teenth volume will commence in October, 1857. The circulation is some 160,000 
 copies. Price 25 cents single, and 20 cents per copy when ten or more copies are 
 ordered to ono address. 
 
 SABBATH-SCHOOL BOOKS. 
 
 Of these we have about 1,100 bound volumes, besides multitudes of Question Books, 
 Hymn Books, Picture Books, Catechisms, Cards, and Tracts, adapted to children of 
 all ranks and ages, and we are adding to the number monthly. They are bein^ 
 ordered and prized by schools of all denominations. 
 
 Then we have a large list of other works, beautifully illustrated for gift-books for 
 children and youth, which are equal to any in the laud, such as, 
 
 Harry Bodd Price $0 50 Poor Nelly Price *0 38 
 
 Illustrated Olio 7O 
 
 Six Steps to Honor O 65 
 
 Uncle Toby'* Library, 18 vol.. 8 00 
 
 Pictorial Catechism O ?0 
 
 Child's Sabbath-Day Book O 25 
 
 Pictorial Gathering* O 65 
 
 Here and There O 15 
 
 Historical Series, 10 vols 8 5O 
 
 Henry's Birthday O 85 
 
 Bird-Book O 70 
 
 To those we may add the popular volumes, entitled, 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress Price $1 50 
 
 Path of Life O 50 
 
 Manly Character O 40 
 
 Brldul Greetings O 80 
 
 Chart of Life O 6O 
 
 The Successful Merchant O 4O 
 
 Young Man's Counselor.. Price 90 55 
 
 Young Lady's Counselor O 55 
 
 Young Man Advised O 75 
 
 Frank Harley O 2O 
 
 MlnlKterlng Children O '.'< 
 
 UbjectofUfe O T5 
 
 HIBBARD ON THE PSALMS, 
 
 Giving the time when, and the circumstances under which each Psalm was written, 
 is a new and splendid work for preachers, teachers, and for reading in family wor 
 ship. Price, S2 00. 
 
 We have BIBLES also, Royal Octavo and Imperial Quarto, in different styles of 
 binding, ranging in prices from S3 to $50 per copy. Besides, we have a large lUt of 
 Miscellaneous Works of various sizes and costs, on moral and religious subjects, 
 which only need to be known to be appreciated. 
 
 Catalogues will be sent, gratuitously, to all who order, and on 
 receiving the retail price of any of our books, we will forward 
 said books free of charge. Orders sent to us as above, or to 
 J. P. MAGEE, No. 5 Cornhill, Boston ; or J. L. READ, Pittsburgh, 
 Pa.; or to H. H. MATTESON, Seneca-street, Buffalo, N. Y.; or 
 SWORMSTEDT & PoE, Cincinnati, or any other Methodist Book- 
 sellers, will receive prompt attention.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CAKLTON & PORTER, 
 200 Mulberry-street, New York. 
 
 Ministering Children, 
 
 A Story showing how even a Child may be as a Ministering Angel 
 of Love to the Poor and Sorrowful. 
 
 Large 16mo., pp. 542. Price $0 90 
 
 Illustrated edition, gilt edges 1 25 
 
 Morocco, gilt. 200 
 
 This is one of the most moving narrations in the whole list of our pub- 
 lications. Its sale in England has reached FORTY THOUSAND copies. The 
 illustrated edition contains more than a dozen superb cuts on plate paper. 
 
 Life in the Itinerancy; 
 
 In its Relation to the Circuit and Station, and to the Minister's 
 Home and Family. 
 
 12mo., pp. 335. Price $1 00 
 
 Life in the Laity; 
 
 Or, the History of a Station. By Rev. L. D. DAVIS, Author of 
 " Life in the Itinerancy." 
 
 16mo., pp. 200. Price $0 50 
 
 Chart of Life, 
 
 By Rev. JAMES PORTER, D.D. 
 12mo., pp. 259. Price $0 60 
 
 The design of this book is to indicate thg dangers and securities con- 
 nected with the voyage of life, all which are accurately and admirably 
 described. 
 
 Heroines of Methodism ; 
 
 Or, Pen and Ink Sketches of the Mothers and Daughters of the 
 Church. By Rev. GEORGE COLES. 
 
 12mo., pp. 336. Price $0 90 
 
 Heroes of Methodism, 
 
 Containing Sketches of Eminent Methodist Ministers, and Char- 
 acteristic Anecdotes of their Personal History. By Rev. J. B. 
 WAKELEY. With Portraits of Bishops Asbury, Coke, and 
 M'Kendree. 
 
 12mo., pp. 470. Pries $1 00 
 
 Morocco 2 00 
 
 l.ife-like and interesting sketches of early Methodist preachers, their 
 (oils, hardships, und achievements, interspersed with anecdotes lively 
 and entertaining.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
 200 Mulberry-street, New York. 
 
 Stevens's History of Methodism, 
 
 The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, called Methodism, considered in its Different Denomina- 
 tional Forms, and its Relations to British and American Prot- 
 estantism. By ABEL STEVENS, LL. D. Vols. I & II. From the 
 Origin of Methodism to the Death of Wesley. 
 
 Large 12mo. Price per vol SI 00 
 
 A charming work full of thrilling facts, combined and stated in the 
 most interesting manner. The work has been read and highly indorsed 
 by the most distinguished authors. One says, " It is wonderfully read- 
 able;" and another, "I have been interested beyond measure." It will 
 be a standard for all Methodists for all time to come, and will be read by 
 thousands of Christians of other denominations. 
 
 It contains a new steel engraving of Rev. JOHN WESLEY, the best ever 
 seen in this country. 
 
 The volumes which are to follow will he put up in the same style, so 
 that those who get the whole will have uniform sets, though they buy but 
 one volume at a time. 
 
 Hymns and Tunes, 
 
 Hymns for the Use of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With 
 
 Tunes for Congregational Worship. 
 
 8vo., pp. 368. Boan, (20 per cent, discount to the trade.). . . $1 25 
 
 Morocco, marbled edges 150 
 
 extra gilt 2 00 
 
 This work embraces all the hymns in our standard Hymn Book, and no 
 
 more. It contains also more than three hundred of the most popular old 
 
 <ind new tunes in print, and is offered at a very low price for a book of its 
 
 cost, in the hope that it may be generally adopted. 
 
 Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, 
 
 Edited by W. P. STRICKLAND. 
 12mo., pp. 525. Muslin *1 00 
 
 This is one of the most interesting autobiographies of the age. The 
 sale of this remarkable book has averaged two thousand copies per month 
 since its appearance. Thirty-two thousand have been printed, and stil. 
 the orders come. It is useless to add anything by way of commendation. 
 The people will have it, and we are prepared to supply the continued 
 demand. 
 
 What must I do to be Saved ? 
 
 By JESSE T. PKCK, D.D. 
 
 18mo., pp. 192. Price ....$035 
 
 A new revival book, written by roqu.-st. designed to awnken the sinnet. 
 guide the peuitent to Christ, anil establish the young com u it.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
 200 Mulberry-street, New York. 
 
 Compendium of Methodism, 
 
 A Compendium of Methodism : embracing the History and Pres- 
 ent Condition of its various Branches in all Countries ; with a 
 Defense of its Doctrinal, Governmental, and Prudential Pecu- 
 liarities. By Rev. JAMES PORTER, D.D. Revised edition. 
 
 12mo., pp. 501. Price $1 00 
 
 This work has received universal favor. The facts that our bishops have put 
 it in the course of study for local preachers, and that it has been translated into 
 the German and Scandinavian languages, commend it to the confidence of all 
 Methodists. Its peculiar advantages are, 1. That it gives a connected history of 
 Methodism from the beginning in all countries, and in all its denominations. 
 
 2. That it shows our doctrinal agreements and disagreements with other sects. 
 
 3. That it exhibits the different systems of church government in the world, and 
 the relative merits of each. 4. That it explains and defends all our prudential 
 means of grace and other peculiarities as no other book does. It is a WHOLE 
 LIBRARY in one volume, and is a labor-saving as well as a money-saving pro- 
 duction. Its importance to preachers and others is indicated by the following 
 testimonials : 
 
 It is, in fact, a digest of Methodism. The arrangement and execution of the 
 several parts are admirable. The style is a model of perspicuity, ease, and vigor; 
 and in point of condensation, the volume is literally crowded with important 
 matter. We have hardly seen as great compactness without confusion, or an 
 equal number of pages from which so few could be eliminated without detriment. 
 Hut what is far more important than the mode of composition is the spirit which 
 pervades the work. The author writes with that candid discrimination so essen^ 
 tial to the proper discussion of the topics which he handles. Ed. of North. Adv. 
 
 This work is a valuable acquisition to our Church literature. It embodies 
 much important information, arrangfd in a natural and convenient form, anc! 
 attords a good general outline of Methodism. It is a work of much merit. I do 
 cheerfully commend it, as a whole, to the favorable consideration of our friends 
 and the public generally. T. MORRIS, Bishop of M. E. Church. 
 
 I like the book much. It will do good. Our people and friends ought to read 
 and study it thoroughly. It furnishes a satisfactory answer to the petty objec- 
 tions urged against the Methodists by a set of ecclesiastical croakers with which 
 we are everywhere beset. One gentleman, whom I let have a copy, after reading 
 it carefully, remarked, "It is the book needed ; I would not take twenty dollars 
 for my copy if I could not obtain another." REV. JUSTIN SPAULDING. 
 
 I have just finished the reading of this book, and I wish to express my decided 
 approbation of it. It should be a family book, a Sunday-school book, and I would 
 add especially, a text-look for all candidates for tlte ministry. J. T. PECK, D.D. 
 
 The work throughout is not a criticism on Methodist usages, but a statement 
 and defense of them. As such, we trust it will meet with the wide circulation it 
 deserves, both in and out of the Church. Methodist Quarterly Review. 
 
 We have examined the book, and most cordially recommend our friends, one 
 and all, to procure it immediately. No Methodist can study it without profit, 
 and gratitude to the great Head of the Church for the wisdom imparted to those 
 who have been the instruments employed in constructing the rules and regula- 
 tions under which the operations of this most successful branch of the Church 
 are conducted. Editor of the Christian Guardian, Toronto. 
 
 It is precisely the volume needed to instruct our people in the peculiarRies of 
 our system. The special character of Methodism is here developed in such a 
 manner as to show that it is specially excellent, and worthy of special zeal and 
 special sacrifices. It is very systematically arranged, and therefore convenient 
 for reference on any given point. To the Methodist, especially the " official " 
 Methodist, this book is fitted to be a complete manual; and to all others who 
 would understand what Methodism precisely is, as a whole, or in any specific 
 respect, we commend Dr. Porter's work as an ACKNOWLEDGED AUTHORITY. 
 A.. STEVENS, LL.D.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
 200 Mulberry-Street, New York. 
 
 Harmony of Divine Dispensations. 
 
 Harmony of the Divine Dispensations. Being a Series of Dis- 
 courses on Select Portions of Holy Scripture, Designed to show 
 the Spirituality, Efficacy, and Harmony of the Divine Revelation* 
 made to Mankind from the Beginning. With Notes, Critical 
 Historical, and Explanatory. By GEORGE SMITH, F. A. 3., 
 Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, of the Royal Society of 
 Literature, Fellow of the Genealogical and Historical Society, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 8vo., pp. 319. Sheep $150 
 
 Half calf 200 
 
 This is a new work, being reprinted from the London edition to corre- 
 spond with the " Patriarchal Age," " Hebrew People," and " Gentile 
 Nations," by the same distinguished author. It will be sold in connection 
 with the others, or separately. It is a profound work, and will have a 
 large sale. 
 
 Lady Huntingdon Portrayed, 
 
 Including Brief Sketches of some of her Friends and Co-laborers. 
 By the Author of " The Missionary Teacher," " Sketches of Mis- 
 sion Life," etc. 
 
 Large 16mo., pp. 319. Muslin $0 75 
 
 Morocco 1 75 
 
 Hibbard on the Psalms, 
 
 The Psalms Chronologically Arranged, with Historical Intro- 
 ductions, and a General Introduction to the whole Book. By 
 F. G. HIBBARD. 
 
 8vo., pp. 589. Muslin $2 00 
 
 Half Morocco 250 
 
 Morocco 500 
 
 This book occupies an important place in Biblical interpretation, and 
 
 is a valuable contribution to Biblical literature. 
 
 The Object of Life: 
 
 A Narrative Illustrating the Insufficiency of the World, and the 
 Sufficiency of Christ. With four Illustrations. 
 
 Large 16mo., pp.357. Price SO 75 
 
 Morocco 175 
 
 The Living Way; 
 
 Or, Suggestions and Counsels concerning some of the Privileges 
 and Duties of the Christian Life. By Rev. JOHN ATKINSON. 
 
 16mo., pp. 139. Price $0 40
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
 200 Mulberry-street, New York. 
 
 Reasons for becoming a Methodist, 
 
 Hy Rev. I. SMITH, for some Years a Member of the Close-Com- 
 munion Calvinist Baptist Church. Including a brief Account of 
 the Author's Religious Experience up to the Time of his becom- 
 ing a Methodist. 
 
 18mo., pp. 160. Price $030 
 
 This work was written by Rev. I. Smith, now a member of the New 
 England Conference. It was printed in Boston a few years ago, and 
 seventeen thousand copies have been sold. Knowing the work from its 
 first issue, and believing it to be calculated to do great good, we have 
 recently bought the plates, and shall soon bring out the nineteenth 
 edition, with some improvements. Brother Smith was formerly a Calvin- 
 istic Close-Communion Baptist, but being placed in circumstances obliging 
 him to consider the principles he professed to believe, he was led to re- 
 nounce them. He subsequently joined the Methodists, and became a 
 preacher. This book develops the reasons which influenced his action in 
 the premises, and they are well stated. Preachers who are molested by 
 Baptist influences, will find this work just the thing to circulate. We 
 have put it upon our list to extend its usefulness, more than to make 
 money out of it. 
 
 The Pioneers of the West; 
 
 Or, Life in the Woods. By W. P. STRICKLAND. 
 12mo., pp. 403. Price $1 00 
 
 This decidedly popular book, which sketches to the life the Pioneer Ex- 
 plorers, Settlers, Preachers, Hunters, Lawyers, Doctors, School Teachers, 
 and Institutions of the West, is meeting with an extensive sale. 
 
 The True Woman; 
 
 Or, Life and Happiness at Home and Abroad. By JESSE T. 
 PECK, D.D., Author of " The Central Idea of Christianity." 
 
 12mo., pp. 400. Price $1 00 
 
 Gilt edges 125 
 
 Gilt edges, beveled 150 
 
 Morocco 200 
 
 In this volume the author has illustrated his ideal of female character 
 iiy a series of didactic precepts and familiar examples. His standard is 
 not taken from the prevailing customs and opinions of society, but from 
 the highest teachings of Christian ethics. In his remarks on the intel- 
 fctual cultivation of woman, he condemns novel-reading in decided 
 i-erms, regarding it as a " crime, murderous to the heart, the intellect, 
 and the body;" while he as warmly recommends the perusal of literary 
 periodicals, and insists on having access to at least one daily or weekly 
 newspaper. The work isjwritten with great earnestness and feeling, with 
 fin occasional exuberance of expression. N. Y. Tribune.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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