JOHN ANGELL JAMES; OR, AN APPRENTICE'S MORAL POWER. THE superior claims of moral to intellectual power, require enforcing on the young men of the present day. In our Universities and seminaries of learning, in the pulpit, and on the platform, intellect, like a presiding deity, sways the sceptre, and receives homage. Every age has had its great intellects. Antiquity exhibits an illustrious constellation possessing an energy the universe could not crush, and against the flight of whose magnificent genius no barrier could be placed. In more modern times, the names of Bacon, Baile, Leibnitz, Locke, Byron, and Hume are representatives of mental power. They have proclaimed the wonders of science, the principles of philosophy, and the harmonies subsisting among God's works. Genius is an adaptation to special work; talent is large mental capacity. To the mere possessor of neither do the elements of virtue attach. Far beyond the ability of man is it to claim either the one or the other. Mental capacity is settled at birth; and amid all the evolutions of terrestrial affairs,

"Pigmies are pigmics still, though perch'd on Alps,

And pyramids are pyramids in vales."

In that Book which is a revelation of God's mind in human language, it is clear as the light that God attaches primary importance to moral power. Were the globe carrying in its orbit a race of pure intelligences, to whom creation appeared as a mirror reflecting the glories of its Maker, intellect might be regarded under a different aspect to that in which it presents itself to man in his deteriorated condition. Mental power, grasping the material works of Deity in their laws and relationships, is impotent to raise man from impurity to sanctity, from misery to happiness. We find, therefore, that from the time when Noah preached righteousness, to the days of the heroic Apostle, the great benefactors of mankind

have been chiefly remarkable for their moral qualities. So it over will be. Not in the possession, but in the use, of talents is true excellence. The brilliant genius of Byron, and the universal talent of Hume, were powerless to make their possessors happy.

"Not in mental, but in moral worth, God excellence placed; and only to the good, To virtue, granted happiness alone."

The present age has its dangers. The efforts of science, and the fascinations of a cheap and sparkling literature, the attractions of Mechanics' Institutes, and of Young Men's Christian Associations, tend, perhaps, insensibly to divert the mind from the study and practice of moral excellence. Ambition fires the soul to climb the dazzling heights where fortune's sons have stood, and the wail of a dying world is unheard amidst the loud shouts of "excelsior." But the church in its various sections has been gathered, and heaven peopled, by the earnest labours of hearts beating high with a moral force; and when time's history shall close, and the destinies of mankind are sealed, the creations of genius, and the efforts of philosophy, will be forgotten; while "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."

About two years since, one of God's noble ones, the Rev. John Angell James, passed off the stage of action to realize the reward of holy toil in heaven. His Life, published during the present year,* is strikingly calculated to regulate the ambition, fire the zeal, and encourage the devotion of young men. The example of one whose career during a lengthened period has been a beautiful exhibition of manly piety, practical sense, and godly labour, is mighty in its

Life and Letters of John Angell James ; including an unfinished Autobiography. Edited by R. W. Dale, M.A., his Colleague and Successor. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

1861.

influence amidst the excitements of the lecture or reading room, and the temptations and cares of business. Born of humble parents, at the small town of Blandford Forum, in Dorsetshire, he spent his earlier years as an apprentice to a draper at Poole. In the history of most young men are certain turningpoints, crises of being, which frequently fix the destiny for ever. Let the reader of this page ask himself if, in days long passed, or now passing, seasons cannot be referred to calling for special courage, and upon the improvement of which the future position and character depended. At such times one act of resolution for God overcomes a thousand difficulties, and originates events big with unending results. An illustration is seen in the early history of John Angell James. A youth was engaged as an additional apprentice, who had been religiously trained, and who maintained his respect for the forms of religion. The apprentices all slept in the same room; and the first night this youth "knelt down by his bedside, and prayed in silence." Here was a moral act with power in it; and fifty years afterwards Mr. James, who from that moment felt the impression of eternal things, wrote: "I mention this fact not merely because of its influence upon my future history, but as showing the importance of letting our light so shine before others, that they, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father who is in heaven. We should never be ashamed of our religion, nor of the performance of its duties. It is of very great disadvantage to young men going out into the world to be lodged in the same chamber with others. It requires much moral courage, more than most possess, to pray amidst the gazing eyes and scornful looks of irreligious companions. I shall ever have reason to bless God for this act of Charles B." Brave youth! "That act" of true moral heroism shall be seen in hundreds of renovated homes on earth, and thousands of happy spirits in heaven, first led to the Cross by the ministry and the writings of the Pastor of Carr's-lane Chapel, Birmingham.

The Sunday school has, from the commencement of its history, proved a nursery for the Christian ministry as VOL. VII.-Second Series.

837

well as for the church. Here opportunity is furnished for exercising the talent, the zeal, and the piety of the heart pulsating in the energy of young life; and frequently has the spirit of some future watchman on Zion's walls panted for some wider sphere of toil while fulfilling its blessed duties. Employment in this honourable toil from pure love of the work, is evidence of a generous and noble nature. When first God's messengers gathered the ragged and destitute from the courts and alleys of our towns, paid instructers were employed as a necessity of the times; but speedily thousands of devoted sons and daughters of the church, without money and without price, entered into the work. In the Sunday-school, John Angell James felt his happiest delight; and the following record, made by him when in the height of his popularity, and all his honours thick upon him, is rich in lesson to teachers in the present day. "During the latter part of my residence at Poole, the Sunday-school, by the instrumentality of gratuitous teachers, came into pretty general use. An application was made to many of the young people, and to me among the rest, to come forward and assist in this work. I accepted the invitation, and took my place at the head of a class. The work was exceedingly agreeable to me, and I became much attached to my children, and much interested in their welfare. I needed no stimulating addresses from time to time to make me regular and punctual in my attendance; for the occupation was my delight. The other teachers were also devoted and in earnest. There was at that time less system in the methods of teaching, and none of the modern excitements of tea - parties, Sunday - school Unions, and teachers' meetings: we loved the employment, and found stimulus and reward enough in the work itself to keep us going on with it."

It is no object of this paper to unfold the life of this good man, but to impress two or three of the facts in his history, illustrative of moral excellence, upon the young people in our congregations and schools. Among the numerous and valuable works of Mr. James, none has produced more felicitous results than his "SundaySchool Teachers' Guide;" a book replete

338

with wise and elevating instruction. Many of the best volumes of modern times are but an expansion of sermons, lectures, or addresses, delivered on special and interesting occasions. So it was with this. During a brief residence at the Independent College at Gosport, young James exhibited the character of his mind in his devotion to the glorious writers of the Puritan school,-Owen, Bates, Charnock, Howe, and Baxter; together with the foreign Divines,-Turretin, Witsius, Pietel, and Jonathan Edwards.

The young man experiencing his richest delight in the pages of the "Cornhill," or "Temple Bar," will never be great either in thought or action. Twentyeight years before the birth of James, a small chapel, seating about eight hundred persons, was opened at Carr's-lane, Birmingham; or, as it was originally designated, "God's-Cart lane, from the circumstance of its having contained a small building which was an appurtenance of St. Martin's Church, and in which the carriage or cart was kept that was employed in Popish times for carrying the sacred vessels employed in religious processions of the Host." The church worshipping in this place was occupied by a respectable minority who separated from the old Nonconformist Church, which, having lost its attachment to the faith once delivered unto the saints, invited an Arian Minister, named Howell, to occupy the pulpit. The Carr's-lane Chapel was situated behind a row of small tenements, in the midst of poverty and ignorance, which led a writer of the time to observe in a spirit of levity and vulgar wit: "The residence of Divine light was totally eclipsed by being surrounded with about forty families of paupers, crowded almost within the compass of a giant's span, which amply furnished the congregation with noise, smoke, dirt, and dispute. If the place itself is the road to heaven, the stranger would imagine that the road to the place led to something worse." The pulpit had been successively occupied by a Mr. Wilde, Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Williams, whose writings tended so much to modify the Calvinism of that day, and by Mr. Brewer, who after a seven years' residence, fell into temptation, and left

with about half the church to occupy a building in Livery-street, formerly used as a riding school. There, by his popular talents and persevering industry, he attracted a considerable congregation. Such was the state of things when the young student at Dr. Bogue's College accepted an invitation to become the Pastor of Carr's lane Congregational Church, and where for nearly sixty years he became the centre of an influence which the world has felt. A wide and deep gulf separated the two churches till the year 1814, when a deputation visited Birmingham to form a London Auxiliary Missionary Society, and the catholic spirit of Mr. James eagerly embraced the opportunity to bridge over the chasm which had existed between them. The old sore was healed, and all parties were happier for the reconciliation. In the spring of the next year a Sunday-School Union was formed in Birmingham, and Mr. James was appointed to preach the sermon to the assembled children and teachers. The meeting was held in Mr. Brewer's chapel, "and the address delivered on that occasion was printed, and a second edition was soon called for. Upon revising it for the press, its author expanded it into the Sunday - School Teachers' Guide.'" From that work thousands have derived instruction and encouragement while grappling with the difficulties associated with Sabbathschool teaching.

With the entire history of Nonconformity in England during the past half century, the name of John Angell James has been intimately identified. During the whole period, by reason of his popular preaching talents, he was sought by all churches, and his practical sense gave him a high position in all the public movements of his own body. The London Missionary Society, and the Congregational Union, were greatly indebted to him during their formation and development. By his writings he has guided many a weary penitent to the Cross, cheered many a trembling believer, and aroused the sluggish energies of many who were halting by the way. His "Anxious Inquirer after Salvation" has been printed in ten different languages; and his "Earnest Ministry," and

"God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; He ordaineth His arrows against the persecutors." (Psal. vii. 11-13.)

The Psalmist representeth God and man as in a state of hostility against each other. The wicked man affronts His holiness, questions His justice, slights His wrath, breaks His laws, wrongeth His people, and saith, Tush, I shall have peace, though I add drunkenness to thirst. God for awhile giveth time and warning; but every moment can break in upon us; for He is able easily to deal with us hand to hand, for He hath a sword; at a distance, for He hath a bow. He is not only able to deal with men, but ready; for He is whetting His sword, and hath bent His bow. The arrow is upon the string, though not as yet shot out of it. What remedy then is there? There is but one exception. "If he turn not." If he be not reduced, and brought home to God, by a timely repentance, he falleth into the hands of the living God. No persons are in so dangerous a state as those that have an offer of peace, and despise it. "Let him take hold of My strength," (Isai. xxvii. 5,) when God is ready to strike. A man that is fallen into the power of his enemy will take hold of his arm. We are always in God's

power. His vengeance may surprise us before we are aware. What is our business then, but to be found of Him in peace-Manton's Christ's Eternal Existence, pp. 243, 244. Edit. 1685.

No. CXV.

"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." (2 Cor. ii. 11.)

What temptation can be named wherein Satan hath not acted as a serpent? Above all instances, let us take into consideration that of Eve, in the first transgression, wherein many things are to be observed: as, 1. That he chose the serpent as his instrument. Though we are ignorant of the depth of his design, yet he had a design in it of subtilty in what he was about to suggest, is plain from the text, "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field." It had been needless and impertinent to note the serpent's subtilty as Satan's agent, if he had not chosen it as advantageous to his purpose. 2. He set upon the weaker vessel, the woman; and yet such as, once gained, he knew was likely to prevail with the man, which fell out accordingly. 3. Some think he took advantage of her husband's absence; which is probable, if we consider that it is unlikely that Adam should not interpose in the discourse if he had been present. 4. He took advantage of the object. It appears she was within sight

of the tree. "She saw that it was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes." Thus he made the object plead for him. 5. He falls not directly upon what he intended, lest that should have scared her off; but fetcheth a compass, and enters upon the business by an inquiry of the affair, as if he intended no hurt. 6. He so inquires of the matter, "Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" as if he made a question of the command and his words were so ordered that they might cast some doubt hereof into her mind. 7. He, under a pretence of asserting God's liberality, secretly undermines the threatening: as if he had said, "Is it possible that so bountiful a Creator should deny the liberty of eating of any tree? To what purpose was it made, if it might not be tasted?" 8. When he finds that by these arts he has gained a little ground, and brought her to some kind of questioning of the

reality of the threatening; for she seems to extenuate it, "Lest we die ;" he grows more bold to speak out his mind, and plainly to annihilate the threatening, "Ye shall not die." This he durst not do, till he had gained in her mind a wavering suspicion, that possibly God was not in good earnest in that prohibition. 9. Then he begins to urge the conveniency of the fruit by equivocating upon the name of the tree, which he tells her could make them knowing as gods. 10. He reflects upon God as prohibiting this out of envy and ill-will to them. 11. In all this there is not a word of danger, but impunity and advantage promised. 12. This deadly advice he covers with a pretence of greater kindness and care than God had for them. See in this, as in a clear glass, Satan's way of policy. After this rate he proceeds in all his temptations.-Gilpin's Treatise on Satan's Temptations, pp. 68, 69. Edit. 1677.