From the North British Review

At Everton, in Bedfordshire, not far from the spot where John Bunyan had been a preacher and a prisoner, lived and labored a man not unlike him, the most amusing and most affecting original of all this school — John Berridge. For long a distinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and for many years studying fifteen hours a day, he had enriched his masculine understanding with all sorts of learning; and when at last he became a parish minister, he applied to his labors all the resources of a mind eminently practical, and all the vigor of a very honest one. His mind was singular. So predominant was its Saxon alkali, that poetry, sentiment, and classical allusion, whatever else came into it, was sure to be neutralized into common sense — pathetic, humorous, or practical, as the case might be; and so strong was his fancy that every idea in re-appearing sparkled into a metaphor or emblem. He thought in proverbs, and he spake in parables; that

granulated salt which is so popular with the English peasantry. And though his wit ran riot in his letters and his talk, when solemnized by the sight of the great congregation and the recollection of their exigencies, it disappeared. It mightstill be the diamond point on the sharp arrows; but it was then too swift and subtile to be seen. The pith of piety — what keeps it living and makes it strong — is love to the Saviour. In this he always abounded. “My poor feeble heart droops when I think, write, or talk of anything but Jesus. Oh that I could get near Ilim, and live belie vingly on Him! I would walk, and talk, and sit, and eat, and rest with Him. I would have my heart always doating on Him, and find itself ever present with Ilim.” And it was this absorbing affection which in preaching enchanced all his powers, and subdued all his hazardous propensities. When ten or fiftQen thousand people were gathered on a sloping field, he would mount the pulpit after Venn or Grimshaw had vacated it. A twinkle of friendly recognition darted from some eyes, and a smile of comic welcome was exchanged by others. Perhaps a merry thought was suspected in the corner of his lips, or seen salient on the very point of his peaked and curious nose. And he gave it wing. The light-hearted laughed, and those who knew no better hoped for fun. A devout stranger might have trembled and feared that it was going off in a pious farce. But no fear of Father Berridge. He knows where he is, and how he means to end. That pleasantry was intended for a nail, and see, it has fastened every ear to the pulpit-MEMOIR. XXlll

door. And now lie proceeds in homely colloquy, till the bluntest boor is delighted at his own capacity, and is prepared to agree with what he says who makes so little parade and mystery. But was not that rather a home-thrust? “Yes, but it is fact; and sure enough the man is frank and honest;” and so the blow is borne with the best smile that can be twisted out of agony. “Nay, nay, he is getting personal, and without some purpose the bolts would not fly so true.” And just when the hearer’s suspicion is rising, and he begins to think of retreating, barbed and burning the arrow is through him. His soul is transfixed, and his conscience is all on fire. And from the quiver gleaming to the chord these shafts of living Scripture fly so fast that in a few minutes it is all a field of slain. Such was the powerful, impact, and piercing sharpness of this great preacher’s sentences — so suited to England’s rustic auditories, and so divinely directed in their flight, that eloquence has seldom won such triumphs as the Gospel won with the bow of old eccentric Berridge. Strong men in the surprise of sudden self-discovery, or in the joy of marvellous deUverance, would sink to the earth powerless or convulsed; and in one year of “campaigning” it is calculated that four thousand have been awakened to the worth of their souls and a sense of sin. He published a book, “The Christian World Unmasked,” in which something of his close dealing and a good deal of his drollery survive. The idea of it is, a spiritual physician prescribing for a sinner ignorant of his own malady. “Gentle reader, lend me a chair, and I will sit down and talk a little with you. Give me leave to feel your pulse. Sick, indeed, sir, very sick of a mortal disease which infects your whole mass of blood.” After a good deal of altercation the patient consents to go into the matter, and submits to a survey of his life and character.

Many readers might think our physician not only racy but rude. They must remember that his practice lay among farmers and graziers and ploughmen; and if they disUke his bluntness they must remember his success.

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