sensibility but they were all the children of nature, not of art; and especially Pedicord and Tunnell. A sailor one day chanced to pass by where Tunnell was preaching,-stopped a considerable time to listen,-and was observed to be much affected. He then went to his companions, and said, I have been listening to a man who has been dead, and has been to heaven. He is now returned, and is telling the people all about the other world;' and declared he had never been so much affected with any thing he ever saw or heard.

And truly, to see Tunnell, who generally very much resembled a dead man, and hear him, with a strong musical voice, pour forth a flood of heavenly eloquence, which he frequently did, it would seem as if he were a messenger from the invisible world. I have heard his auditors say, 'The face of Tunnell shone to-day as the face of an angel.'

Gill was eagle-eyed, and by those whose optics were strong like his, he was deemed one of a thousand: but to the weak eyed he often soared out of sight. When hearing him, I resembled a favorite spaniel, with which, when a boy, I was sent to guard the fields of corn against the depredations of the pilfering crows. How often have I seen my Fidell dart off in pursuit of them, as if he expected soon to lay the pilferers captive at my feet. While they flew low, he exerted every nerve; but when they soared on high, I have seen him stop, sit himself down, and howl;-doubtless with distress, because he could follow them no farther. Gill was not therefore a favorite preacher of mine. But in conversation, when an opportunity was enjoyed to ask questions, I have seldom, if ever, known his equal. Not Jonathan and David were, either to other, more tenderly attached than Tunnell and Gill.

Pedicord was handsomely formed. His countenance bespoke intelligence, and much sensibility. His voice was soft, and remarkably plaintive; and he had the art of touching his hearers at once. I have seen the tear start, and the head fall, before he had uttered three sentences, which were generally sententious. Nor did he raise expectations to disappoint them. And if he could not, like Tunnell, bind his auditors with chains of adamant, he could draw them after him with cords of silk. Never was a man, in our parts, more tenderly beloved than he: and had the umpirage been left to me which of the three was preeminent, I should have said,—there was none like Pedicord;-but-he was my spiritual father.

To these I might add twenty more, who had nearly equal, and some of them in some respects paramount claims, with those I have named; and it is much to be regretted that so few of them have left any written memorials of themselves. T. WARE.

Salem, (N. J.,) Dec. 30, 1830.

104

PORTRAIT OF ST. PAUL.

The Portrait of St. Paul: or, the True Model for Christians and Pastors. Translated from a French Manuscript of the late Rev. John William de la Flechere, Vicar of Madeley. BY REV. JOSHUA GILPIN, Vicar of Rockwardine, in the county of Salop. One volume 12mo. pp. 342. New-York, published by J. Emory & B. Waugh, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the Conference Office, 14 Crosby-street.

AFTER the Holy Scriptures, and, in subordination to these, the works of Mr. John Wesley, the writings of John Fletcher are held next in estimation, we believe, by the whole body of Wesleyan Methodists throughout the world. One of the least excellencies of his works, (though this is by no means a small one,) is the purity of his language ;--such, says Mr. Wesley, as scarcely any foreigner ever wrote before. It is, indeed, remarkable, that one to whom the English tongue was not vernacular, (for Mr. Fletcher was a native of Switzerland,) and who could not speak it at all till after his arrival at manhood, should in no very great while afterward have become one of the best writers in the language,—even in that Augustan age of English literature. He had, indeed, commenced the study of the rudiments of the English tongue before he left Geneva, in the then celebrated university of which he had pursued his general studies in letters and the sciences, with most distinguished assiduity and ability, and with corresponding success. We do not recollect to have seen it any where stated at what precise time, or period of his age, he first visited England. It was certainly, however, some considerable time after he had left the university. For, subsequently to this, he was sent by his father to Lentzbourg, a small town in one of the Swiss cantons, where he acquired the German language, and afterward spent some time at home, in studying Hebrew, and perfecting his acquaintance with mathematics. He also visited Portugal and Flanders, with a view of adopting a military life, instead of the clerical, for which his parents, and we doubt not his Father in heaven, had designed him. Before he had arrived at the age of twenty, says his excellent biographer, (the late Rev. Joseph Benson,)

'His theological studies gave place to the systems of Vauban and Cohorn, and he evidently preferred the camp to the church. All the remonstrances of his friends, on this apparent change in his disposition, were totally ineffectual; and, had it not been for repeated disappointments, he would have wielded another sword than that of the Spirit. Happily, his projects for the field were constantly baffled and blasted by the appointments of that God, who reserved him for a more important scene of action. His choice of the army is, however, to be imputed rather to principle than inclination. On the one hand, he detested the irregularities and vices to which a military life would expose

him on the other, he dreaded the condemnation he might incur, by acquitting himself unfaithfully in the pastoral office. He conceived it abundantly easier to toil for glory in fields of blood, than to labour for God, with unwearied perseverance, in the vineyard of the church. He believed himself qualified rather for military operations, than for spiritual employments, and the exalted ideas he entertained of the holy ministry determined him to seek some other profession, more adapted to the weakness of humanity.*

Mr. Fletcher afterward himself stated that he went through his studies with a design of entering into holy orders; but that, upon serious reflection, feeling himself unequal to so great a burden, and disgusted by the necessity he should be under (at Geneva) to subscribe the doctrine of predestination, he yielded to the desire of some of his friends who wished him to go into the army. But just before he was quite engaged in a military employment, he met with such disappointments, (by the good providence of God doubtless,) as occasioned his visiting England. The following anecdote respecting him and his companions on their arrival, beside its interest in other respects, will serve to illustrate the remark above made of his nearly total ignorance of the English tongue at that period.

Coming to the custom-house in London, with some other young gentlemen, none of whom could speak any English, they were treated with the utmost surliness and ill manners by some brutish custom-house officers. These not only took out, and jumbled together, all the things that were in their portmanteaus, but took away their letters of recommendation, telling them, "All letters must be sent by the post."

From hence they went to an inn; but here they were under another difficulty. As they spoke no English they could not tell how to exchange their foreign into English money; till Mr. Fletcher, going to the door, heard a well dressed Jew talking French. He told him the difficulty they were under with regard to the exchange of money. The Jew replied, "Give me your money, and I will get it changed in five minutes." Mr. Fletcher, without delay, gave him his purse, in which were ninety pounds. As soon as he came back to his company, he told them what he had done. They all cried out with one voice, "Then your money is gone. You need never expect to see a crown or a doit of it any more. Men are constantly waiting about the doors of these inns, on purpose to take in young strangers." Seeing no remedy, no way to help himself, he could only commend his cause to God. And that was enough. Before they had done breakfast, in came the Jew, and brought him the whole money.'†

He afterward, for about eighteen months, under the direction of a gentleman to whom he had been recommended for the purpose, applied himself diligently to the study both of the English language particularly, and of polite literature in general. At the expiration of this time he became a tutor in the family of Thomas Hill, Esq., in Shropshire. It was during his residence in this family that he

* Benson's Life of Fletcher, pp. 23-4.

↑ Ib. pp. 25-6,

had the first notice of the people called Methodists. The follow ing is his own account of this important era (important to millions beside himself) in the eventful history of his valuable life.

'When Mr. Hill went to London to attend the parliament, he took his family and Mr. Fletcher with him. While they stopped at St. Albans, he walked out into the town, and did not return till they were set out for London. A horse being left for him, he rode after, and overtook them in the evening. Mr. Hill asking him why he stayed behind? He said, "As I was walking, I met with a poor old woman, who talked so sweetly of Jesus Christ, that I knew not how the time passed away." "I shall wonder," said Mrs. Hill, "if our tutor does not turn Methodist by and by." "Methodist, madam," said he, “pray what is that?" She replied, "Why, the Methodists are a people that do nothing but pray: they are praying all day and all night." "Are they?" said he, "then, by the help of God, I will find them out if they be above ground." He did find them out not long after, and was admitted into the Society. And from this time, whenever he was in town, he met in Mr. Richard Edwards's class. This he found so profitable to his soul, that he lost no opportunity of meeting. retained a peculiar regard for Mr. Edwards to the day of his death."*

And he

It might be well for such as think lightly of classmeetings as a means of grace, or that they at least have little or no occasion for them, to notice particularly the trait just mentioned in the character of Fletcher, and in what rank the privilege of meeting in a class was held in his estimation.

One of the earliest works composed by Mr. Fletcher was his admirable treatise entitled, 'An Appeal to matter of fact and common sense or a rational demonstration of man's corrupt and lost estate.' It was written previously to his engagement in the Calvinistic controversy; but not published till a year or two afterward. Of this excellent work his able and evangelical biographer says, 'I hardly know a treatise that has been so universally read, or made so eminently useful.'†

With the exception of the work just named, and that the title of which is placed at the head of this article, Mr. Fletcher's pen, while health permitted him to write at all, was chiefly employed on controversial subjects. His works, indeed, are a monumental proof that controversy, even with the most provoking and bitter antagonists, may be conducted, and most triumphantly too, without the slightest inconsistency with the heavenly ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Few men, probably, whose lives were not protracted to a greater length than his, were ever more deeply, more intensely, or (from the time that he was providentially called or rather forced into this field) more constantly engaged in controversy, than this holy man of God. Yet we doubt whether any man, since the days of the Apostles, was ever more thoroughly imbued with a spirit of the most ardent, pure, and exalted piety,-more sincerely

* Benson's Life of Fletcher, pp. 27–8.

Ib. p. 165

and uniformly meek and lowly in heart,-or more literally clothed with humility. Reluctant praise has been extorted for him, as a controvertist, even from opponents of the theological system which he vindicated. A reviewer of his Life by Benson, in the Christian Observer for June 1805, admits without hesitation that he believes Mr. Fletcher's motives for writing his controversial pieces were pure and upright; that in his manner of conducting the controversy, he had decidedly the advantage of his antagonists; that he was an acute and animated disputant, and undoubtedly superior in talents and learning to all his opponents. His biographer most justly adds, that his controversial works were a model also of a Christian temper, as well as of convincing argument.

Although Mr. Fletcher was at first very reluctantly drawn to engage in controversy, and often would have relinquished it had a sense of duty permitted him, yet there is abundant reason to believe that ultimately he did not repent the toil he had gone through, in discussing and elucidating the important topics in his various works. And certain we are that, however painfully to himself, he was thus made of God the honored and successful instrument in proving and elucidating the most vital truths of Christianity, in refuting pernicious and destructive errors, in exhibiting and exhorting to the most exalted Christian privileges, and in exposing and warning against the dangers which most imminently threaten the spiritual life. His writings uniformly tend to humble the pride of man, to exalt the grace and love of God in Christ, to check equally Antinomianism on one hand, and Pharisaism on the other, and to guard all professed followers of the Lord Jesus against lukewarmness and indolence, whether in spirit or in conduct.

His own opinion of the utility and necessity of controversy on some occasions, (while, as to his own feelings, he declared at the same time that he often longed to be out of it,) was expressed in his own peculiarly easy and happy manner as follows. Mr. Hill, one of his opponents, had said,

'That a concern for "mourning backsliders, and such as have been distressed by reading Mr. Wesley's Minutes, or the Vindication of them," had induced him to write: "Permit me to inform you in my turn," says Mr. Fletcher,* "that a fear lest Dr. Crisp's† balm should be applied, instead of the balm of Gilead, to Laodicean loiterers, who may haply have been brought to penitential distress, obliges me to answer you in the same public manner in which you address me. Some of our friends will undoubtedly blame us for not yet dropping the contested point; but others will candidly consider, that controversy, though not desirable in itself, yet properly managed, has a hundred times rescued truth groaning under the lash of triumphant error. We are indebted to our Lord's controversies with the Pharisees and Scribes for a considerable part of the four Gospels. And, to the end of the world, the church will bless God for the spirited manner in which St. Paul, in

*Third Check.

Dr. Crisp was an Antinomian in doctrine.