Conversion to God
The time was now near wlieu God would draw me to Himself. AutoWo-Mr B, with whom I lived, being in want of money, took’”
another apprentice for the sake of the premium. A youth was engaged who had been religiously educated, and who maintained an external respect for the forms of godliness. The apprentices all slept in the same room. The first night of this youth’s lodging with us, he knelt down by his bedside and prayed, in silence of course. The thought instantly occurred to me, as I looked with surprise upon the youth bending before God, “See there the answer of your prayers — there is somebody to lead you into the way of religion.” This made me thoughtful and somewhat uneasy. I do not recollect that I said anything to my feUow-apprentice, nor can I now remember whether I immediately commenced the practice of prayer daily. I think it probable I did, and that, emboldened by this example, I prayed too. I mention this fact, not merely because of its influence upon my future history, but as shewing 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 a 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 so
LIFE OP JOHN ANGELL JAMES.
Autobio- most possess, to pray amidst the gazing eyes and scornful looks of
graphical.
irreligious companions. I shall ever have reason to bless God for
this act of Charles B.
After a while I observed that Charles, as soon as the shop was shut, used frequently to go out for an hour. I had no reason to suppose that he went into any bad company, and at length discovered that his visits were paid to a pious shoemaker, or rather cobbler, who by hard labour earned just enough to live in the most frugal manner. I prevailed upon my fellow-apprentice to allow me to accompany him to his pious friend. He could not very well deny me, and yet was not perhaps overjoyed at the proposal. With a mixture of curiosity, trembling, and vague expectation of religious benefit, I went with Charles to the pious cobbler’s. The house was small, mean, ill-furnished, and in a low situation. The shoemaker was unprepossessing in his appearance, having bad eyes, and being rather dirty: but both he and his wife received me kindly, and yet with some suspicion. I found that it was what 1 wanted; both the man and his wife were eminently pious and communicative. There was a gentleness and softness in their manners which were above their rank. The shoemaker was a rigid Calvinist, yet he had none of the dogmatism and pride and captiousness of the Antinomian school. The first book to which he introduced his young neophyte was that farrago of spiritual pride and presumption, Huntington’s “Bank of Faith.” To the pure all things are pure, and good John Poole, for such was the cobbler’s name, fed upon it as a feast of fat things, and considered it the very marrow of the gospel. I did not enter very deeply into the subject, but thought it very wonderful. The good man used to pray with us, and at length got us to attempt the exercise of prayer with him. In order to take ofi” all fear from my mind, he requested me, the first time I prayed, to go and stand in a small place that was boarded off, in which coals and other matters were kept. Here in this dark corner I stood to pour out an audible prayer for the first time with a fellow-creature. Just about the time of my going first to John Poole’s, Mr Sibree of Frome-came to Poole, and preached from these words, “Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you,” (Isa. xxx. 18.)Autobio-The sermon produced a very deep effect upon my mind, and brought ^^^^”^ my impressions and Hoating convictions to a point, which the good shoemaker’s instructions served to confirm. My views of religion were still very dim and indistinct, and my progress slow; yet I had a decided taste and relish for spiritual things, and my visits to my good AquUa and Priscilla were constant and delightful Just about this period Mr Ashburner, the old minister, was laid aside, and Mr Keynes, afterwards my brother-in-law, came and preached at Poole for several months. His sermons were impressive, and were blessed of God to keep up my attention to eternal realities. Mr Kejnies was succeeded by Mr Durant, whose ministry often and deeply affected me.
The cobbler’s house, when I saw it last spring, had hardly Editorial.
been altered since the time that Mr B ’s apprentices used to
make it their daily resort. It is on the left hand of Fish Street, at the end near the quay. The street is narrow and dirty, and the house deserves the description given of it in the Autobiography; it is “small, mean, and in a low situation.” “In this room on the right,” said John Poole’s son, who took me to see the place,” my
father used to work, and Mr James, and Charles B, and one
or two others, would come in two or three times a-day to talk with him; sometimes several of them together, and sometimes one would come alone; and while my father went on with his work, the young men and he used to talk together about religion.” The shoemaker’s chairs being probably somewhat scanty, and perhaps not very strong, the j’oung men bought a bench for their own use. “And this is the wall, sir,” said ray guide, “that they put it against, and there they used to sit.” The room is not more than eight or ten feet square.
The little circle at the shoemaker’s was enlarged by two more Autohioyoung men, who were permitted to join us. We usually all met ^’’^^’^’^ on a Sabbath evening after sermon at his house for prayer and praise, and very sweet and sacred were the seasons we there spent.
LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.
Autobio- It was the vernal season of my religious life, when all was lively
graphical,
and budding. I now attended an early prayer-meeting on a Sunday morning at the vestry before breakfast, and occasionally engaged in prayer, though I believe with more fervour than correctness. The sermons seemed very solemn and interesting to me, and religious exercises in general very delightful. My religious affections were very strong, but my knowledge limited. 1, of course, understood that I was to be saved from my sins by Christ, yet I had very crude notions of justification and other great doctrines of the New Testament. I was now thoroughly engaged to the subject of religion, and had given myself up to the company of the Lord’s people.
Editorial. An old gentleman, still living in Poole, gave me a very characteristic illustration of Mr James’s earnestness during the early period of his religious life. One Saturday evening Mr James had gone over to Blandford to see his friends, and, of course, was not expected at the seven o’clock prayer- meeting the next morning, “But, sir,” said the old gentleman, “I happened to be a few minutes late that morning, and when I came to the door of the vestry, I found the meeting had begun, and I thought that from the voice it was John James who was praying, but could not believe that he had got back from Blandford so early. However, when I got in, I found that there he was. After the meeting was over, he came up to me with his smiling face, and said, ‘Oh, why could you not come in time? I have walked over from Blandford this morning, and got here before you.’ As Blandford is about twelve or fourteen miles from Poole, he must have started soon after three o’clock.”
AutoTiio- But all this while great imperfections attached to me. Mr and giap ca. g excessively annoying in their conduct; they
treated their apprentices like menial servants, and required of them services which respectable young men ought not to be expected to perform. I did not stand this test of my temper so well as I ought. I now see that I should have remonstrated with more meekness, and submitted with more gentleness. I gave too much AufoWoreason to them to reproach me, and did not display proper meek- ^’’^’^’^^^ ness. The situation became irksome and disagreeable to me. Ha I I sought more grace to be humble and contented, I should have been more consistent, and have grown more in grace. I was notwithstanding much valued by them I believe, and considered both trustworthy and clever in business.
I one time gave occasion to my good friend the shoemaker to grieve over me, by going to an election ball; not that I danced, for I was never taught, but merely went for an hour or two to see what was going on. It was more a matter of curiosity, and of petty vanity at having an opportunity of going to a ball, than any particular taste for such things; but I ought not to have been there. My then present feelings were incompatible with such amusements. Liv pious friend, who watched over me with a jealous eye, wisely reproved me, and with such delicate gentleness as endeared him to my heart. I was also betrayed by curiosity into another inconsistency, and that was to go and see a mimic play, got up by a few young men of the town. WhUe in the room, my conscience so severely reproved me, that its accusations were like scorpion stings. I was situated under a large beam, and I trembled through my whole frame lest it should fall and crush me to death: as soon as I could,- 1 left the place, and jumped for joy when I found myself safe on the outside of the house. I mention these things to prove that there may be a work of grace going on in the soul when some appearances in yoxmg converts would lead us to suspect the reaUty of the change. Even after the soul is converted to God, it does not see all at once the full extent of its duty. Corruption gets for a little while the upper hand in the struggle.
During all this time I never had exchanged a word with Mr Durant, though I greatly desired to converse with him, and have stood at the corner of a street watching him to his lodgings, with a bursting heart, and longing to speak to him, but without courage to accomplish my wish. This has shewn me the propriety of the modern practice of ministers of setting apart
LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.
Autobio- times to converse with inquirers, and inviting them to come for
graphical. ....
instruction and encouragement. In all congregations there must be many persons in such a state of mind as I was then in, and who require the kind care and attention of the pastor, who, like his Divine Pattern, should gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom. In consequence of having no experienced spiritual guide beyond the good shoemaker, I had no one to direct my reading, and indeed, if books had been recommended to me, I had no opportunity to read them, being engaged in the shop from the moment I left my chamber till nine or ten o’clock at night. Among the books which I did read, and which greatly impressed my mind, were the sermons of President Davies of America, than which, even to this day, I know of no finer specimens of the hortatory, evening style of preaching.* He made Baxter his model, and in intense earnestness he well imitated his master.
I wish our young ministers would drink into the spirit of these pungent discourses, from the effect of which, upon my own youthful heart, I learnt much of the kind of preaching likely to interest the popular mind. I was also much interested and affected by Maurice’s “Social Religion Exemplified,” as abridged by Dr Williams, a book which should be read by all who would wish to see how beautiful are the principles of the Congregational mode of church- government, when carried out in a scriptural manner and to their proper extent. When retiring from the shop wearied with the business of the day, this book had charm enough to keep me awake, and to draw many tears from my eyes.
It wUl be seen by what I have related that my religious character was a gradual, and not a sudden formation: there was no pungent conviction of sin, no poignancy of godly sorrow, no great and rapid transition of feeling, nor any very clear illumination of knowledge; but there were many evidences of a real change. My delight in
* “The composition of Davies’s sermons of New England is too equable and elaborate, and wants reUef and shade; but I must confess, no discourses ever appeared to me so adapted to awaken the conscience and impress the heart. In reading them, one seems always to feel that they were written by a man who never looked off from the value of a soul and the importance of eternity, or sought for anything but to bring his hearers under the power of the world to come.” — Jay’s Autobiography. ~’&mi. prayer was very great; when alone in the shop, when riding in Autobiothe country on my employer’s business, I could not help pouring s™?^^’*^ out my heart to God In one thing, as I have already said, I was extremely injudicious, and that was, I allowed my feelings so far to get the upper hand of my judgment as to pray so loud, that though I was in the attic I was heard in the lower parts of the house, and exposed both myself and the exercise I was engaged in to no small degxee of ridicule. Young converts in the ardour of their first love oftentimes want judgment. Still I did not intend to be ostentatious, and really enjoyed the exercise of prayer as an act of communion with God.
My joy in the company of the Lord’s people was very great; they were my chosen companions, their conversation was my delight, and a happy circle, as they then appeared to me, I had. Through the medium of my good friend the shoemaker, I became acquainted with several of the members of the church, of great worth and much esteemed. There were also several young people who, like myself, met at the house of this good man for conversation and prayer. One of these, WUUam L, was a respectable
young man, engaged as an apprentice to an ironmonger, whose mind appeared to be in some measure under religious influence for awhile, and yet there were acts of his, of which I was aware, that ought to have made me suspect the sincerity of his reUgion, and deliver to him the language of faithful warning. After a while he strangely apostatised from his religious conduct, and went into downright infidelity, upon the principles of Thomas Paine. The town of Poole was at that time deplorably infected with the disciples of that reviler and blasphemer of God’s Holy “Word. A band of them used to meet at the house of an apostate Quaker, to strengthen the bands of each other’s iniquity, and to pour contempt
upon the Sacred Scriptures. Poor William L fell into the
snare, and became so ardent a proselyte that he copied out the whole of Paine’s “Age of Reason,” and sat up at night for that purpose. This did not occur tiU after I left Poole. His iafidehty, however, was soon shaken for a while, in consequence of a dangerous illness which brought him within sight of the grave; his alarm and agony of mind were extreme. He sent
SG
LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES,
Autobio- for our common friend, beneath whose roof we had so often giaphical. poured out the confessions of his guilt in abandoning the Bible, cried for mercy to his offended and insulted Saviour, and ordering his infidel manuscript to be brought, made his deeply affected visitor burn the whole before his eyes. He found infidelity a wretched companion on a bed of sickness, a miserable comforter in prospect of death. He recovered, and for a season returned to the good old paths which he had forsaken. But as a washed sow returns to the mire, and the dog to his vomit, he relapsed again, I believe, to infidelity, and became a callous, practical rejecter of religion, though I am not sure that he continued a speculative blasphemer. Of his end, or whether he has come to his end, I know nothing.
Another of niy companions became, I believe, a drunken profligate; and as for poor B, who was in some sense the
occasion of my conversion, his history was a melancholy one. He inherited considerable property, which, having no knowledge of business nor any business habits, he gradually frittered away, and then went to America, where he wandered about from place to place, reduced, I believe, in some periods of his history to the lowest straits. A letter of his to a friend in Poole, the last, I believe, he ever wrote to this country, now lies before me, and a sad detail it is; speaking of his poverty, he says, “I have not a solitary dollar.” He died I hope safely; though long after he reached America he confessed in a letter I received from him, that at the time we used to meet at the good shoemaker’s he was a stranger to the power of true religion. I can never think of his name but with a pang of remorse; in his distress he applied to me for assistance, and not being at the time very well able to afford substantial relief, and not being satisfied as to his character, I was dilatory in replying to his application, till when I would have helped him he was beyond the reach, and I hope the need, of sympathy or succour.
Such, then, were the three friends with whom I used to meet at the house of John Poole, and with whom I took sweet counsel and walked to the house of God in company. Precious and hallowed were the seasons we spent there, when on a Sabbath evening, after the public services of the day were over, we united Autobioin prayer and praise, and still prolonged the Sabbath for the exercises of sacred friendship.
But there was another of my Poole friends, with whom, at a later period of my residence in that town, I became acquainted, and who still continues a consistent follower of the Lamb, a preacher of the gospel, and a pastor of a Christian church, — I mean a Mr Tilley, then a tailor; a truly humble, pious, devoted sei-vant of the Lord. Sweet indeed and profitable was my intercourse with him. He changed his views on the subject of baptism, and became an immersionist. I was at that time nearly persuaded to embrace the same sentiments. As there was no Baptist congregation in Poole, my friend went to Wimbourne, a distance of six miles, to be baptized. I remember the time well, as I accompanied him on his way on the Sabbath morning selected for the ceremony, and see myself now shaking him by the hand at the stile when we parted, and wishing that I was going with him. Little events determine the future destination of men. Had I been at that time my own master in all respects, it is every way probable I should have become a Baptist, and thus the whole course of my life would have been naturally changed. I consider it a mercy, of com-se, that I was not then led away by my friend, but continued in the sentiments which subsequent reflection convinced me were true.
My religion during its earlier stages at Poole was strangely imperfect. I now see that it partook of an error very common, I mean an error of defect in the range and sphere of its operation: it was too much a religion of the imagination and the feelings. I courted, and not unfrequently enjoyed, the luxury of weeping under sermons. The mellifluous tones of Mr Durant’s musical voice, like the breath of heaven passing over the strings of an ..Slolian harp, swept over the chords of my excitable heart, and set them all in motion; but I was not sufficiently aware of the functions of conscience, that religion is a universal thing, dictating how everything is to be done, and following us with its commands, constraints, and warnings into every department of
LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.
Autobio- action. My judgment was not sufficiently enlightened as to the
grApLicill... rr. T 1
motives and extent of duty, nor my conscience sufficiently tender as to its performance. I did many things which I now see to be wrong, and left undone many things which I now see to be right.
It was not to be looked for that my dear relations could long be ignorant of the change which had taken place, or indifferent about it. I could not at first gain courage to inform them of it; and, indeed, it came on so slowly and imperceptibly that it was difficult for me to decide when and how to make the first communication. It is matter of notoriety that there is a strange, perhaps sinful, reserve between near relatives on the subject of personal and experimental religion. There is scarcely any subject on which it is so difficult to converse as this. Probably this is partly instinctive, the soul being thus taken olF from man, and led more directly to God; but like other instincts it may be carried too far, and become criminally excessive; and were religious education conducted as it should be, and religion in that high state to which it should attain, there would be less of this religious bashfulness than there is between religious parents and their children.
The first disclosure to my dear and anxious mother that her son John, of whom she had already become somewhat proud, was concerned about his soul, was the discovery in his greatcoat pocket on one of his visits to his father’s house of a Bible. Overjoyed at the incident, and rejoicing in the discovery more than if it had been of a bank-note of large amount given to her, she made some inquiries, though I now forget how far I was communicative on the momentous topic; nor am I quite certain whether even this incident was not preceded by a disclosure to my sister Jane, to whom for a few minutes I will advert. From some cause or other, though younger than my sister Harriet, afterwards Mrs Kejnies, she became a kind of second mistress, a deputy-mother in the family, and almost usurped maternal control; yet I do not think it was assumed out of the least disrespect to our dear mother, who, being of a kind, easy, gentle, and consenting disposition, gave up the reins pretty much into the hands of this her second daughter. Harriet had neither taste nor disposition for this; she was a lively, thoughtless, sprightly girl, a good singer, and fond of company; but Jane was sedate, thoughtful, and fond of manag- Autobiographical.
ing. She superintended our meals, clothes, and in fact governed us the younger ones. Her reign was not altogether impartial, — she favoured Thomas, and persecuted, in a little way, James. Jane was our instructress on the Sabbath; to her we said our catechism and hymns, though I believe my father heard us read the Scriptiu-es. Alas! this was all he did for our religious instruction. Jane’s mind was the first in our family which was impressed with the subject of religion; and to her, but by what means I do not now recollect, I opened my mind on this sacred and momentous theme. It is probable, that knowing the state of her mind I disclosed to her my own, and it is not unlikely that the Bible which my mother found in my pocket had been given me by my sister. A correspondence on the subject of religion was immediately commenced, which was maintained for some years, and from which I learn more of my religious history at that time than I can gather from my memory.
The future state of our famUy, considering the remissness of my father, for he never had family prayer during the earlier part of our history, and at the same time the very unattractive and unimpressive nature of the public means of grace we were under, is a subject of adoring wonder, gratitude, and praise.
To return now to my residence at Poole. I never became a professor of religion there, for I was never invited to join in the communion of the church. It was not then so customary as it now is to call out persons from the congregation that may be pious or anxious, and to invite them into fellowship. If the ministers and churches and parents were too backward in those days, I believe we in these days are too much in haste to press persons into communion.
I never engaged in any other way of usefulness at Poole than as a Sunday-school teacher. I was solicited to go to a neighbouring village and address the people, and had some intention to do so. I fixed upon this passage as the subject of my intended discourse, — “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” I had begun to pen down some thoughts; but by some cause or other my intention was not fulfilled.