for the garner. Bunting has followed his brethren and companions into the presence-chamber of their common Lord, matured in grace and usefulness, and emphatically may it be said that his "works do follow" him. Since the death of John Wesley no man's personal influence has been so much felt in the general economy of Methodism as that of Jabez Bunting. He was so intimately associated from a very early period of his ministry with its minutest and grandest interests, that a biography of him without "notices of cotemporary persons and events," would have been as incomplete as the volume before us is satisfactory. It is very seldom, we here gladly take occasion to say, that a son's biography of his father is so successfully executed as this. Two sons survive Jabez Bunting. William Maclardie and Thomas Percival. The former is a well-known Methodist minister, who, on account of delicate health, has for some years been a supernumerary. What we still believe to be a tolerably correct pen and ink portrait of him will be found in "Sketches of English Wesleyan Preachers," published by the Book Concern a few years ago. The second son, and author of this memoir, is a solicitor of high standing, and, as the reader of the volume will conclude, adds to a good education and rare natural abilities, independence in matters of opinion, a thorough manliness of nature, strong practical good sense, and a genial but correct appreciation of men and things. With these qualities are blended a thorough, and often severely tried, loyalty to the Church of his father and his own choice. It is but a small share of the commendation due to him for the execution of his delicate task, to say that his filial affection and reverence never degenerate into blind eulogium or fulsome praise. We detect one instance, however, of what we consider a wide departure from good taste, namely, the introduction (pp. 65-67) of a narrative truly horrifying in its details, and the relevancy of which to the subject in hand we cannot perceive. And by the way, for the author's benefit in any future edition, we may mention that there is a singular confusion of persons on page 15. We could not guess who "the father and his four sons were, but for the abrupt introduction of "John Marsden, the eldest of the brothers."

Jabez Bunting was born at Manchester, May 13, 1779, misprinted in the American edition of the biography 1799. His parents were Methodists, humble in origin and in circumstances. "Of my father's ancestors," says Mr. Percival Bunting, "so far back as I can trace them, the heralds tell me nothing. I read in quiet churchyards in the Peak of Derbyshire the simple story that they were born and died. In that secluded district, a land of moor and mist, FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-2

050

M59
V. 42

they tilled the soil, or wrought painfully beneath the ground for the sustenance denied them by its sterile surface." William Bunting, the father of Jabez, however, neither tilled the surface of the ground nor wrought beneath it, but followed the business of a tailor. He appears to have been a man of some force of character, and a "good and quiet man who worked hard for his family." Radical in political sentiment, he sympathized with the promoters of the first French Revolution, "a feeling," quaintly observers the biographer, "which was shared by many tailors and some philosophers." The absurd and indefensible spirit of caste which pervades English society, led young Bunting's schoolmates to taunt him as the "son of a Methodist tailor," and he seems to have felt the sneer, for he made complaint of it to his parents. But "wisdom was justified of her children," and ere long "Jabez was more honorable" than his revilers. William Bunting's wife was a person of fine, even superior character. Her early religious convictions were matured under a sermon preached by the Rev. Richard Boardman, at Monyash, in Derbyshire, while on his way to Bristol to embark for New York, from 1 Chronicles iv, 10, the prayer of Jabez. She afterward perpetuated her grateful remembrance of that discourse by the name she gave in holy baptism to her first-born, and it is somewhat remarkable that the first ticket which Jabez Bunting received, as a member of the Methodist society, had a portion of the same prayer for its text or motto.

The son inherited the unobtrusive uprightness of his father, and the unbending principle and intelligent piety of his mother. The father died when Jabez was about twenty years of age, but the mother lived for some years after he entered the ministry. Most touchingly and constantly, often at the cost of serious inconvenience and great self-denial, was his filial love shown to his surviving parent. Neither time nor circumstances limited his obedience to the "first commandment with promise.' This filial reverence was abundantly deserved. To her, mainly, he appears to have been indebted for his moral and religious training. That he was educated in Methodism as well as in piety, is evident from the fact that early and potent outside influences of another character never caused him to swerve from his attachment to that denomination. His earliest preceptors were Presbyterians, and he spent the most impressible period of his life, that from sixteen to twenty years of age, in daily and intimate association with an influential Unitarian. Yet he was ever loyal to Methodism, although probably to this ordeal he owed much of that catholicity, religious and ecclesiastical, which illumined his Christian character through life.

Jabez Bunting's education was good, even classical. At a very early age he was "apt to teach" and preach. "Almost as soon as he could speak, he began to preach in a garret at home, donning one of his father's shirts and reading the service of the day." (As. was then much the custom, he attended the Church of England with his parents.) One would suspect that the youngster was burlesquing the "priestly robe" by the substitution of so common a garment, only that the biographer assures us that "he did not play at preaching," but was always serious and devout, and was even filled with righteous anger if his sisters, his only hearers, were undevotional or impatient. Notwithstanding this propensity, Jabez was from childhood uncommunicative about his religious feelings, and his allusions to them, even in converse with his mother, were few and brief. Of his mother's unwearying efforts to unseal the fount of feeling in his breast, his biographer beautifully says:

"His parents prayed and waited; prayed with an earnestness and a faith none the less that he was yet a child.' Who could tell how soon the light might dawn which should reveal the claims, alike imperative, of God's holy, law and of his blessed Gospel? Mothers, and some fathers too, know surely when the old, short stories, which touch with equal charm the infant and the savage, begin to tell; when lips which lie has never soiled relax and quiver with a new emotion; and fitful eyes, now gay, now serious, but fixed at last in steady wonder, drop tears of tender sadness into bosoms shaken by a tumult of gratitude, hope, and joy. There was a first time when Mary Bunting and her son Jabez thus communed and clave together; when she found the key of his young heart; fitted it, O how gently in the ready wards; then tremblingly turned it round, and found the priceless treasure which years of toil and patience, none too many, had laid up there.

"Her son had seen his twelfth birthday, and the dew' and 'the small rain' had thus distilled upon him, but the clouds of genuine repentance had not yet gathered, and there were no immediate tokens of the storm which was soon to shake, but to settle his spirit. But presently there came a sound of abundance of rain."

That refreshing, vivifying rain came through that man of God— a son almost equally of consolation and of thunder-the Rev. Joseph Benson. Jabez Bunting attended his ministry in Manchester, and Benson became his spiritual father. Young Bunting, however, did not commence meeting in class until late in the year 1794, when in company with a young friend, James Wood, he made that more formal avowal of his "desire to flee from the wrath to come, which union with the Church implies." It may be useful to the many readers of the biography to point out the distinction between the Mr. James Wood here alluded to, and another Mr. James Wood spoken of in later chapters of the book. The latter was the Rev. James Wood, in heart and in aspect "an apostle of God." The former was a layman, in after years the senior of the firm of Wood

and Westhead, not unknown some years ago on this side of the Atlantic. Their names, "jointly and severally," were a passport for all that was honorable and enterprising in commerce, and their benevolence, always judiciously exercised, was proverbial. Mr. Wood became a highly acceptable local preacher, and, unharmed by long years of worldly prosperity, filled that and other important offices in the Wesleyan Church until he was called to join the Church of the first-born in heaven.

At the age of sixteen Jabez Bunting entered the family of Dr. Thomas Percival, of Manchester, whom the biographer describes as "the busy physician, author, and philanthropist." Mr. Bunting was to "continue his studies under Dr. Percival's own eye, learn the medical profession, reside in Dr. Percival's family, and be the companion and assistant of his literary labors." Although it is nowhere so said, it is probable that the study of medicine was but secondary to the other pursuits, and this perhaps more from the pupil's than from the preceptor's choice. Mr. Bunting remained in this position four years, and a warm and lasting friendship was formed between Dr. Percival and himself. During this period he was earnestly engaged in the cause of religion. He founded, and was the life of a "Society for the Acquirement of Religious Knowledge," the object of which was subsequently defined as "improvement in religious knowledge, experience, and practice." At a still later period it became a Prayer Leader's Society, working on a thoroughly efficient system. The "Rules of the Manchester Methodist Prayer Meetings," drawn up by Mr. Bunting, are given in the appendix, and we earnestly commend their perusal and study to all pastors and prayer leaders, of our own Church especially.

On the first of August, 1798, Jabez Bunting preached his first sermon at a place called Sodom, which, if rightly named, must have greatly needed the purifying influences of Methodism. His friend Mr. James Wood accompanied him, and always maintained that that first effort was never excelled by the preacher in after years, "either in matter, manner, or manifest effect." There is good reason for believing, however, that either this opinion was hastily formed, or that the peculiar circumstances somewhat biased Mr. Wood's generally sound judgment, for it has been remarked that "no mere youth, let his powers of mind and elocution be what they may, ever exercised a ministry like that of Jabez Bunting in the maturity of his manhood." And yet it is undoubtedly true that Mr. Bunting's "maturity," as a preacher, or more properly as a sermonizer, was reached at a very early age. His published sermon on "Justification by Faith," perhaps the most complete and faultless

doctrinal sermon that was ever preached or penned, was the product of some of the first years of his ministry. It became a standard publication, and went through numerous editions; but the author, we believe, never gave it either emendation or enlargement. Dr. Bunting never had a large supply of sermons, considering the frequency with which he preached, and the publicity and popularity of his pulpit services; and on reference to the list of texts. which he had prepared sermons upon, and bringing them to the test of memory, we draw the conclusion that nearly all the sermons he was accustomed to preach were prepared during his four years of probation. His incessant occupations afterward afforded little time for the composition of sermons. But we are forestalling our narrative.

Jabez Bunting remained on the local preacher's plan for a year. It is often said, and has come to be generally believed, that about the time when he entered the itinerant ministry, candidates for that holy office were accepted without due examination and probation. We much doubt that there are good grounds for this belief. Jabez Bunting certainly entered the itinerancy through no such open gate, nor found nor sought any such royal road. He was first a local preacher on trial; then his name appeared upon the "Plan," as fully accredited; and when he yielded to the conviction that he must give himself wholly to the ministry, his qualifications for the work were openly canvased in the "quarterly meeting;" by that body he was recommended to the "district meeting," composed of itinerant preachers only, and thence to the Conference, (1799,) which received him on probation, and stationed him at Oldham, about eight miles from Manchester. He went there on foot, carrying on his shoulders a pair of saddle-bags containing his equipments. The Rev. John Gaulter, of whom the biographer gives a genial and lifelike pen-portrait, and tells a characteristic anecdote,* was his superintendent. In his new sphere, he soon gave the Church assurance of the future man. Some question being mooted in the quarterly meeting, during the discussion of which the preachers were expected to retire, he "stood by his order," and refused compliance with a custom which had no warrant in Methodist law. Some of the good brethren marveled at young Methodism's audacity, and one of them, temporarily giving way to anger, declared that "a good rule had that day been set aside to please that proud son of Adam, Jabez Bunting." But the laity soon learned that they had no truer, stancher

"I have read every book in the English language," he said one day in conference; but he was put to instant confusion by the inquiry, I think, of Mr. Blanshard, the book steward, whether he was master of "Tom Thumb."