Images de page
PDF
ePub

I had been so long picking up by scraps. I do not remember ever to have read any book with such raptures as I did that. If it was poison, as some then said, it was so sweet to me that I drank it greedily to the bottom of the cup; and I rejoice to say, that those doctrines are the choice of my heart to this day.

'A sermon preached by Mr. Horsey, of Northampton, at the rhantism of an infant, and some conversation with Mr. Hunne, then on probation at Road, had drawn my mind to the subject of baptism; but I do not recollect having read any thing on the subject till I applied to Mr. Ryland, sen., to baptize me: he lent me a pamphlet, and turned me over to his son, who after some time baptized me at Northampton.

'The people at Barton had a great wish to embody themselves as a church, and wished me to settle with them; and Mr. Sutcliff was invited to give them his advice, and preach a sermon on the occasion. I staid to hear him; and he then discoursed with me very affectionately upon the propriety of joining some respectable church, and being appointed to the ministry in a more regular way. I saw the propriety of what he said; but having no acquaintance with any church in particular, I at last concluded to offer myself to that at Olney. This I did, and was received; and, what I still wonder at, was appointed to the ministry. I perfectly recollect that the sermon which I preached before the church, and on hearing of which they sent me out, was as weak and crude as any thing could be, which is or has been called a sermon.'

C

'Soon after this a number of circumstances, which it would be tiresome to read, and which may be better known on the spot, removed me to Moulton. From that time I became more known to the ministers, so that any further enlargement is unnecessary. The causes of my removal from that place to Leicester, and from that place to India, are known to you. I may only observe, that reading Cook's voyages was the first thing that engaged my mind to think of missions.

'A few reflections on the above shall conclude this account.

1. It is still to me a matter of thankfulness that I had so general a knowledge of the bible when I was a child. By that means my mind was furnished with a body of subjects, which, after I had more acquaintance with evangelical truth, were ready upon every occasion, and were often influential upon my heart when I had but little leisure to read. To this the constant reading of parts of scripture in the church contributed not a little, and, perhaps, the reading of the bible when at school still more.

2. If I am a converted person, of which I have great reason to doubt, I must say that it is entirely by the grace of God, and in full opposition to the natural bias of my mind. I practised falsehood, and, even after I was under concern, attempted to make the great God a party in a scene of dishonesty and lying. Yet I have reason to believe that the greatest change which ever took place in me

was about that time-a time in which I had

evidently gone to a greater length in sin than ever before.

'3. I am convinced that some sins have always attended me, as if they made a part of my constitution: among these I reckon pride, or rather vanity-an evil which I have detected frequently, but have never been free from to this day. Indolence in divine things is constitutional: few people can think what necessity I am constantly under of summoning all my resolution to engage in any thing which God has commanded. This makes me peculiarly unfit for the ministry; and much more so for the office of a missionary. I now doubt seriously, whether persons of such a constitution should be engaged in the christian ministry. This, and what I am going to mention, fill me with continued guilt. A want of character and firmness has always predominated in me. I have not resolution enough to reprove sin, to introduce serious and evangelical conversation in carnal company, especially among the great, to whom I have sometimes access. I sometimes labour with myself long, and at last cannot prevail sufficiently to break silence; or, if I introduce a subject, want resolution to keep it up, if the company do not show a readiness

thereto.

4. The proofs I have of the evil tendency of my heart, and my frequent and often reiterated falls into sin, convince me that I need the constant influence of the Holy Spirit; and that, if God did not continue his loving-kindness to me, I should as certainly depart from Him, and become an open profligate, as I

exist. I see that there is no temptation but would be sufficient to destroy me, if God did not interfere; and that I as much need pardon, and divine influence to support me, and maintain the work in my heart, as I formerly did to convert me. If I ever get to heaven, it must be owing to divine grace, from first to last.

'I have now only to desire of you that the above may not be published; though I have no objection to your publishing any parts thereof, provided you so conceal names and other allusions, as that it may never be known that it is an account of me. Every publication of this kind, if the author be known, makes him more public; and, as it is very uncertain whether I shall not dishonour the gospel before I die, so as to bring a public scandal thereupon, the less is said about me the better.'

It may occur to some who read these pages, that so bare and rugged a representation of his juvenile conduct should either have been spared from the record, or accompanied with some qualifying statements. Had it been so, I am aware it would have rendered it less revolting to the taste of many, and have gratified the feelings of some whom I affectionately esteem, and to whose judgment I could have wished to defer. But, in committing this document to the press, I neither felt at liberty to withhold any part of it, nor so to remodel and disguise it, as that, though it might have accorded better with general taste, and the frequent usage of biographical writing, would yet destroy its identity. More harm is often done in morals

by that squeamish sensibility, felt or feared, which leads to the exhibition of vice under thin and flimsy veils, than is likely to follow from its coarse and naked deformity. biographers should pourtray and

showing it forth in Both painters and describe faithfully,

or resign their office. But they are sometimes painfully anxious to make their subject and their hero perfect. We wish a career to be brilliant throughout, first and last, a character altogether consistent and homogeneous; and are impatient of anomalies and incongruities, which yet are incessantly occurring in the intellectual and moral world. Hence, the delicacy with which any adverse disposition, or militant principle, will be touched; and the pains sometimes taken to invest a positive delinquency with something of a romantic air, beguiling the unwary heart of the careless reader into a partial tolerance of evil, because it happens to be in association with one destined to ultimate distinction. Hence, too, the singular avidity with which every thing is seized up and reported upon, which may seem to be a scintillation from a promising intelligence; though perhaps the question asked, or the sentence uttered, may possess but little not to be met with in the sayings of ten thousand others. It is readily conceded that, if the literal faithfulness which Mr. Carey has observed in describing his early character and youthful conduct, were to be an indispensable law to all who undertake a similar office for themselves, there would be found but one here and there, who would consent to 'write memoirs of himself.'

« PrécédentContinuer »