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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

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Chiefly transcribed from the funeral sermon preached to his mourning congregation, by the Rev. John Alexander, of Norwich.

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DENTON, though but a small and scattered village in Norfolk, and one of "the least of the thousands of Israel," has had in it an Independent church, since the year 1655. As the first church-book is unfortunately lost, the name of the first pastor cannot now be ascertained; but it probably was the Rev. Thomas Lawson, who was ejected from the Denton rectory. The second pastor was the Rev. William Bidbank, who had been ejected from the rectory of Scottow, in Norfolk, and who is celebrated in the Nonconformist Memorial, as a man greatly beloved by all who knew him, on account of his sweet temper, obliging deportment, and excellent preaching." He was succeeded by the Rev. John Hurrion, who removed to Hare-court Meeting-house, Aldersgate-street, London, where he died, in 1731. The Rev. Julius Saunders was the next pastor, for about twenty-four years; and, at his death, his nephew, of the same name, succeeded him, and was ordained in 1750. The Rev. Thomas Bocking was ordained over the church in 1757; and, after a long and honourable pastorate, he was succeeded by the subject of the following memoir,

VOL. XX.

The Rev. Edward Hickman was born at Lavenham, in Suffolk, in the year 1786. His father, the Rev. William Hickman, who was at that time pastor of the church there, did not enter the ministry till he was nearly thirty years of age, and his early education had been very defective. "How then,” asks his son, in one of his letters, "did he stand his ground, and arrive at so much respectability? Next to the blessing of God, which he ever acknowledged with thankfulness and joy, the cause of his long-continued excellences will be found in a powerful natural intellect; a habit of careful observation; a constant aim to do his best; a freedom from all conceit; he knew what had been his disadvantages, and he endeavoured to overcome them, and at length he surpassed many who had enjoyed all the training of the schools. He had read but little; but that little he had read well, and he had thought much. One advantage he had possessed, which schools cannot always give; he had been in some lively, intelligent society; he had studied men rather than books; and this gave him an ease in conversation, for which he had a great talent, which falls to the

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lot of very few to possess. His life and my own have been very different; he conversed most with the living; I have conversed more with the dead; but I would give much, (if I may use the word much,) that I have learned for his talent of conversation." His mother survived his birth only a few months, but her name was always cherished by him with fond and filial affection. In one of his letters, when referring to the Memoirs of Sir William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth, he says, There is one circumstance in the life, which is of a truly delightful nature-the testimony it contains to a mother's worth. Sir William Jones was one, among many other instances, in which a mother has been the grand means, under God, of training the mind which, in after life, has expanded to the admiration of generations. It was thus in this instance. It was so in the case of the immortal President Edwards. I cannot calculate a mother's worth for time and for eternity. I had once a mother, who, though she left me almost an infant, and, certainly, insensible of her worth, as of her loss, yet oft, before her early death, she commended me to God, and urged, upon her dying bed, my being brought up in the fear of God, not for this poor world. I have oft visited her grave, over which the storms of fiftytwo winters have blown, and, I hope, those visits have ever been attended with the desire of blessing God for her prayers, her solicitude, and her example, which, from the testimony of others, was one of most sincere and decided piety. I trust, that all has not been lost, though here I could lay down my pen and weep."

That the child of parents such as these, should attain to considerable moral excellency, will not be surprising to those who are accustomed to reflect on the influence of parental piety, and who believe the promise of the everlasting covenant, "I will be a God unto thee, and unto thy seed after thee." Amidst even the vanity of childhood and youth, a pe

culiarly sweet and serious disposition began to be manifested by our lamented friend; he became, in early life, the great charm of the domestic circle; and his beloved sisters still cherish, with fond remembrance, many of the affectionate counsels and entreaties by which he urged them to seek an interest in the Saviour. In 1795 his father became pastor of the church at Wattisfield, where the Rev. Thomas Harmer had long and honourably laboured in the gospel; and in the following year, Edward went to school at Palgrave, where he spent about three years, and where his religious character became more decided. "To the boys at Palgrave," says he, in a letter, written three months ago, "I first preached-such preaching as it was; and there we held the first prayermeeting among the boys. I now look back to that preaching, miserable as it was, and to those broken prayers, and I am at times ready to say, 'Oh! that it were with me as in years that are past!' I can now visit the spot in the road between Wattisfield and Palgrave, where I felt deeply about my soul. It is true, that I was then much more the creature of feeling, than the subject of knowledge; though my father's preaching, and my own habits of observation and reading, furnished me perhaps with considerably more knowledge than is generally possessed by one so young as I then was." And in allusion to the same place, he says to another friend, "I came home at night, from the ordination at Diss, refreshed, having found much unmerited kindness. I was affected when I looked back to 1797, when I was nearly on the same spot, a schoolboy at Palgrave. Now I am going down the hill, on the right side of fifty, if, as Philip Henry says, I am going to heaven.”

Having earnestly desired the work of the ministry, and the opinion of his father and other persons being favourable to his own wishes, he was received as a student at the academy at Wymondley, in 1800, and whilst there,

his diligence to increase his own knowledge and holiness was connected with a constant desire to secure the spiritual welfare of the youthful relatives, from whose society he had been removed. "While you improve in the knowledge which is earthly," says he, "be concerned also to become acquainted with that wisdom which is of a spiritual nature; this is the most important of all knowledge; to know Jesus Christ and him crucified, is of infinite importance; all our happiness in this world, and all our expectations for another, rest upon it; however it may be neglected, its importance is the same. Think seriously that religion is the one thing needful; and may you be enabled, in your early years, to fix upon that good part which shall never be taken away from you." And in reference to his own conduct while a student, he says, in a recent letter, Thirty-seven years this day, I was on my way to Wymondley. I sometimes wish all those years to return, that I might have the opportunity of correcting many many things, too little thought of at the time; and yet now they give occasion to concern of mind. The cross of Christ is here the only relief. We should utterly sink, in the review of the past, could we not look there. One thing, however, gives me much satisfaction; and that is, in the years I spent at Wymondley I never grieved the minds of my tutors, nor was unpleasantly named to the trustees. I do not mean that I had no imperfections; very different is my view of myself. The remembrance of having passed through the house with comfort, now at the age of fifty-one, cheers me, and I try to impress it upon some young students."

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Having passed honourably through his college course, he accepted the invitation to become the pastor of the Independent church at Denton, and was ordained over it on the 20th of May, 1806. On that solemn occasion, the charge was addressed to him by his father, from Acts xi. 24; and the words were descriptive not only of

what he ought to be, but of what, through the grace of God, he actually became ; "for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." He was then only twenty years of age; and he entered on the duties of his responsible office, deeply impressed with a sense of his need of divine help and guidance, to render him a workman that needed- not to be ashamed." His mild and gentle spirit, tinged with some degree of pensive melancholy, possessed however an ardent desire for the acquisition of knowledge; so that whilst pursuing his ministry, he was a diligent reader, and a devout theological student. His first sermon at Denton, was from 1 Cor. i. 23, "We preach Christ crucified;" and to that great and gospel subject he steadfastly adhered, during the thirty-six years of his ministry; and the last sermon which he preached was on the nature and design of the atonement of Christ, from the words of the apostle in Galatians i. 4, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." To this subject he refers most impressively, in a letter written only a short time before he died. "Thirty-six years have passed away since I preached my first sermon at Denton, from the words, We preach Christ crucified.' I am greatly altered; then I was a youth; now I am broken down, and almost all who heard me are gone the way they shall not return; but my subject is unaltered, and I hope I enter into it more now than I could do then, though still I have to lament many and great defects." His ministry was directed to some of the neighbouring villages, as well as to Denton; and, by the blessing of God on his faithful labours, the church, which at his ordination was comparatively small, increased, and though enfeebled health and other circumstances, towards the latter part of his course, diminished the number of his hearers, yet many are the known fruits of his ministry; and when pastor

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