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senses, so that he would not assert positively that he had done, said, or seen any one thing-looked upon himself as a vision, and upon all nature as the same-it is difficult to say how he could be satisfied that scripture itself existed, that the characters of black and white in which it was writ were themselves real-much less how the ideas they conveyed were founded in truth.

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Methodism was in danger of deceiving the hearts of some, and breaking the hearts of many, by exacting this witness of the spirit alike of all. Physical temperament has much to do with the capacity to receive it. When the saintly Herbert lay a long time prostrate on the ground before the altar in Bemerton church, and afterwards told his friend that he had now put off all worldly thoughts, and hereafter should live to God, the Methodist might contend, with apparent reason, that the spirit testified to himand so perhaps it did; but what will he say of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who, before the publication of his infidel book De Veritate,' &c., fell upon his knees, and earnestly besought God to give him a sign that he sanctioned the publication, and fully satistied himself, and declared the same to others, that this sign he had? Surely the witness of the spirit' was not here too? The two men were brothers--and, different as their courses proved, the constitutional elements of both were alike, and had some share in either of these scenes. Let us not be misunderstood; we are not arguing that there is no such thing as the testimony of the spirit-far be that from us—we believe that there is, and that good men have it ; all we contend for is this, that the paroxysms in which John Wesley and his followers made it of necessity to consist, are trumpets that give a very uncertain sound.

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But to proceed with our memoir-Adam Clarke continued to store his mind with such knowledge as a self-educated boy of active parts, slender means, and few opportunities, could command, grudging not a daily walk of many miles, early and late, in the depth of winter, to gain some acquaintance with French-never having found, as he says, a royal road to any branch of learning. His parents now made another effort to fix him in an honest calling, and a linen merchant of Coleraine, a relation of his own, was the man chosen to take him apprentice. With him he remained some time, but was never bound, satisfied with his situation chiefly as it gave him a more ready access to the ministry of the Methodists. At length, through the intervention of one of the preachers, he was recommended to the notice of John Wesley, who proposed to receive him at Kingswood school, an establishment of Wesley's own projecting, and originally intended for the sons of itinerant preachers. Accordingly he set sail for England, and his employer, Mr. Bennet, must have released a boy from his service, we imagine, with hearty

good-will,

good-will, who, to the plain questions of a plain tradesman, would make answer in such rigmarole as the following, the sceptical scruples of which we have already spoken being then upon him, 'Have you been at ?-I think I have, Sir.' 'Did you see Mr.?I believe I did, Sir.' 'Did you deliver the message? -I think so,' &c. Come what might, it was clear that Adam was not to make his fortune by cloth.

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At this same precious school of Kingswood he arrived in a cold wet day of autumn, and with three-halfpence in his pocket. There he was thrust, by the churlish Nabals of the place, into a miserable unfurnished chamber-fed thrice a day upon scanty supplies of bread and milk, not being allowed to join the family meals; and dressed before a large fire (the only one he saw there) with Jackson's itch ointment-it being presumed that such application could not be ill bestowed upon any one who proposed to be a student at Kingswood; meanwhile poor Adam was as innocent of any disease of the kind here intimated, save an itching ear,' as the child unborn. Here the poor lad worked in the garden to keep himself warm, and found a half-guinea in a clod. The inmates of this place were in general heartless persons enough, but in the present instance they could not reconcile it to themselves to deprive a forlorn boy of this God-send, for such it seemed to be, who proposed, however, on his own part, to resign it; and with six shillings of the sum, which was all that he had in the world, he gallantly bought Bayley's Hebrew Grammar, the foundation of his future acquirements in Oriental literature, and of the character by which he was principally known. Soon afterwards Wesley himself arrived at Bristol, and delivered his victim from this strange preparation for the ministry.

'Mr. Wesley took me kindly by the hand. Our conversation was short," Well, brother Clarke, do you wish to devote yourself entirely to the word of God?" I answered, "Sir, I wish to do and be what God pleases." He then said, "We want a preacher for Bradford (Wilts), hold yourself in readiness to go thither; I am going into the country, and will let you know when you shall go." He then turned to me, laid his hand upon my head, and spent a few minutes in praying to God to bless and preserve me, and to give me success in the work to which I was called.'

6

So this raw boy went forth to preach: his call to the ministry from God being found in the casual opening of his Bible, some time before, upon John xv. 16, Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should bring forth fruit,' &c. -and from man, in the imposition of John Wesley's hands. It might have occurred to him, that, if this sortilege through Scripture was good for directing the priest, it was equally good for directing

the

the people, and would supersede the necessity of any ministry whatever. But the disposition there was in Adam Clarke, which appears on very many occasions, to construe the accident of the moment into a message to him from the Almighty, now received a serious check. It chanced that he had scrawled a few verses from Virgil on the wall of his lodging; the preacher who succeeded him resented this unknown tongue, which he was not Daniel enough to interpret and added a remark that it was pride in the writer which thus led him to make his learning known- that he should send that passion to hell, and prepare for eternity.' Adam Clarke, in this instance, like Jerome of old, considered himself under the lash of an angel for his Latinity; and not being probably very conversant with the writings of South, who would have told him that if God had no need of human learning, he had still less need of human ignorance-he yielded to the direction of this fanatic, fell on his knees forthwith in the middle of the room, and solemnly promised God that he would never more meddle with Greek or Latin as long as he lived! He had accordingly the satisfaction of receiving the commendation of his friend for his docility, and his assurance that he had never known one of the learned preachers' who was not a coxcomb. Thus did he cut himself off from the study of these languages for four years-the one, that of the Scriptures themselves, the other, that of many of the Fathers and most of the commentators-and betook himself forsooth to French, that not being laid under the interdict of this barbarian. At the end of this lustrum, thinking the best thing he could do with such a vow was to break it, he resumed his studies, though to great disadvantage, and ran the risk of the coxcombry they might engender. He grew, however, more cautious on the subject of special interpositions as he grew older. In a letter written near the end of his life, on putting out apprentice a boy for whom Adam Clarke felt an interest, and addressed to his schoolmaster, we perceive the following passage:

My dear sir,-Speaking to you and to your excellent wife, sub rosà, I do not think that the offer of the gentleman in question, whoever he may be, is a matter much to rejoice in; and though I am a decided advocate for acknowledging God in all his ways, I do not see the particular reason why the said gentleman should "go and lay the matter before the Lord," whether he should take "for six years without a fee, a lad brought up as the son of Mr. and Mrs. M'Kenny, and educated by Mr. Theobald, his parents providing him all the time with clothes, washing, and pocket-money." I need not quote to you, nec Deus intersit,'

Conference now met at Bristol, and thither Adam Clarke hastened-had the advantage of hearing seven sermons on the

Sunday

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Sunday of its sitting-the last, an awakening one;' and, after only eleven months' probation as an itinerant preacher, was admitted into full connexion. On this occasion, the candidate has to answer certain inquiries previous to ordination, for the satisfaction of Conference; one of which, and one characteristic of the sagacity of the framer, is-' Are you in debt?' Now, it happened that Adam Clarke had borrowed a halfpenny in the morning, from one of his brother-preachers, to give to a beggar. Should he acknowledge that he was in debt, the sum would seem ridiculous: should he deny that he was in debt, the fact would not be true. 'He dissolved the difficulty in a moment,' (we are triumphantly told,) by answering-"Not one penny." Thus both his credit and conscience were saved. The reader,' it is added, 'may smile at all this; but the situation to him was, for some hours, very embarrassing.' The scruple might be the scruple of a Methodist, but the evasion was that of a Jesuit. Adam Clarke greatly ripens in sound Christian knowledge as he advances in years, and the time soon came when he would have thought the knot and the solution of it equally contemptible.

We have now launched the stripling in his circuit; but he was without a horse. A gentleman, however, at Bradford-one of that class who heretofore loved our people, and built them a synagogue'-would give the young preacher a horse; and, amongst other good qualities for which he extolled him, he was an excellent chaisehorse. There seems to be something in matters of horse-flesh that puts to the proof the virtue of a saint. Amongst the various animal forms in which the devil tempted St. Anthony, we do not recollect that the horse was one :-it would surely, for a saint, have been the most trying of all. 'One of my horses,' quoth John Wesley, who happened to be present, and heard the conversation, 'troubles me much; he often will not draw. Had not I better take your horse, Mr. R., and let brother Clarke have mine? He may be a good hack, though a bad chaise-horse.' The exchange was made, to the great delight of Adam Clarke, too happy to find himself in John Wesley's saddle. But, alas! not ten miles could he travel without the creature coming at least once upon his knees. Adam's friends endeavoured to persuade him to part with a beast which he rode at the extreme hazard of his neck; but it had been John Wesley's horse, and was precious in his sight. However, at last, when he had stumbled beyond forgiveness-having pitched his idolatrous rider upon his head, disturbed the vertebræ of his backbone, and seriously injured him for three years-Adam Clarke consented to change him with a farmer who had a high reverence for John Wesley, and promised to use him mercifully.'

We now come to some of those scenes of itinerancy on the several

several circuits to which he was appointed :-Bradford, Norwich, Cornwall, the Norman Isles, &c.-those picturesque adventures, grotesque hardships, moving accidents by flood and field,' which give to the course of the early Methodist-preacher something of the stirring character of a campaign, or the wildness of an expedition of knight-errantry, sublimed, however, by the dignity of the cause in which he was embarked-scenes and sufferings which altogether served to animate his spirit, brace his limbs, and lead him on to old age with eye undimmed and force unabated. This life of religious adventure had evidently great charms for Adam Clarke, so that after he had become himself Emeritus, he twice visited the Shetland Isles-(overlooked by Wesley)-where he had established, with incredible pains, a Methodist missionerected numerous chapels-and maintained several preachers out of funds which his own personal influence enabled him to raise. And the glee with which the old man encounters the storms of those inhospitable seas-hails the Sumburgh Head -traverses the barren mountains and morasses of the island, on his sure-footed native pony-describes the frank aspect and blue-green glance of the Shetlander, the oculus herbeus of Plautus-watches the poor women (for the men were all at the fisheries) tripping down the hills in troops to hear the word-visits the voe, or bay, where the islanders had just dispatched a shoal of whales which they had driven in their boats upon the shallows, a treasure which they owed, as they said, to the Doctor's arrival among them, who does not appear to discourage the notion-all bespeak both the zeal of the man for the success of the religious service to which he was devoting himself, and the tenacity with which he still clung to habits redolent of his youth.

But the fascination which attended the exercise of a ministry so primitive sometimes blinded him to the position in which he stood, and led him to forget that, though a preacher, he was not an apostle. Clarke is repelled from the house of a boorish farmer in Cornwall, who professes a distaste for furnishing the Methodist preacher, man and horse, with good accommodation—a repugnance to Methodist preaching in general,-'he will have no more of it—and a desire, very unequivocally expressed, that his selfinvited pastor should lose no time in proceeding to Bodmin. Now, we can make allowance for a little effervescence of spleen in a man who had already ridden as far as was pleasant, (especially if on John Wesley's horse,) and who had been allowed, by the goodwife, before her lord came in, to pull off his boots, empty his saddle-bags, and eat apple-pie-when he had again to pack up, and be going; but we are not quite prepared to go along with him either in the curse or the conclusion of the following paragraphs :Now,

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