attention to the instruction and government of their children. For a few years after he left school he appears to have assisted his father, who was a farmer. At the age of sixteen we find him teaching in a day school under the Rev. Dan Taylor, at Birch-cliffe, in the neighbourhood of Hebden Bridge; and on May 28, 1769, when in his seventeenth year, we hear of his becoming a member of the church meeting at Wainsgate, of which Dr. John Fawcett was pastor.

A year or two after joining the church he announced his desire to become a minister of the Gospel, and his friends, who saw that he was of a serious and studious turn of mind, and appeared to possess gifts suited to the ministry, having received his proposal with gladness, he for a short time underwent a course of study with Dr. Fawcett.

In January 1772, by the recommendation of Dr. Fawcett and the Wainsgate church, he was sent to Bristol College, then under the care of the Revs. Hugh and Caleb Evans. Although of a weakly constitution, it had long been his custom to perform all his journeys on foot, solely with a view to save a little money for the purchase of books; and consequently, although it was the depth of winter; he walked the whole of the way from his native place to Bristol (about two hundred miles), performing the journey in seven days, at an expense of something under twenty shillings. He left Bristol in 1774, and after staying six months at Shrewsbury, and six at Birmingham, came to Olney in July 1775.

II. FIRST SEVENTEEN YEARS AT OLNEY (1775-1792).

Mr. Sutcliff, who was now about twenty-three years of age, appears to have supplied the Baptist pulpit from his first arrival in Olney; he was entered as a member of the church on November 26, 1775, but was not ordained pastor until August 7, 1776.

In the spring of 1776 an important Baptist Association was held in the town, and on the second day Robert Hall, senr., who was chosen Moderator, read the General Letter to the Churches, which was afterwards published as "The Doctrine of the Trinity stated: in a circular letter from the Baptist

Ministers and Messengers assembled at Olney, Bucks, May 28, 29, 1776."

The public' meeting was held, not in the meeting-house, "which would not contain near half the people," but in the orchard, since called Guinea Field. The Rev. John Newton, whose garden, as we noticed, opened into the orchard, was present at all the services, and speaks in his Diary of his great interest in them; and the poet Cowper must have been aware of what was going on, for he could not easily walk in his garden without hearing the preaching and singing. During these two days the Vicarage was full of company, and Newton was carrying out to the letter Mr. Thornton's injunction concerning hospitality "to such as are worthy of entertainment." Newton himself preached on the following evening at the church; the ministers who remained in town went to hear him, and the next morning breakfasted with him at the Vicarage. To Sutcliff, especially, this was a memorable occasion, for then it was that he formed the acquaintance of Andrew Fuller, who little dreamt that May morning of the great work that he and Sutcliff, shoulder to shoulder, were destined to perform. Fuller had just been appointed to the pastorate of a church at Soham, where his income was the modest sum of £15 a year. About this time, too, Sutcliff made the acquaintance of John Ryland, jun., afterwards Dr. Ryland of Northampton. These three gifted men were about of an age, Sutcliff being only a few months older than Ryland, and Ryland a few months older than Fuller.

Among the ministers present at Mr. Sutcliff's ordination (August 7, 1776) were Dr. Fawcett and Rev. C. Evans, his former tutors, and Mr. Symonds of Bedford. Newton was also present, and gives a full account of the services in his Diary. The notice of them in the church-book concludes with the words, "O that it may be a day always to be remembered with joy," a wish that was signally realised.

During the early part of his ministry Mr. Sutcliff occupied rooms in the large house (since greatly altered) next to the Meeting-house, which then belonged to, and was the residence of, Mrs. Andrews; and by the kindness of this lady he was

able to expend the greater part of his income in the purchase of books. "No man had a higher value than he for literary treasures, or a more correct and extensive acquaintance with that description of books to which his attention was particularly directed. He was not a mere helluo librorum, but the strain of his conversation on all occasions showed that his mind was richly stored with what he read, and that he had a comprehensive view of the arguments and manner of different writers, which he readily communicated to others." 1

No sooner had he settled in Olney than he set himself earnestly to work for the welfare of his people. His great thirst for reading we have noticed; but he was not content with storing his own mind with wholesome matter and accumulating a valuable library for himself, he tried to get his people to do the same; and could he have had his own way every cottage would have contained its little library of well-selected and well-thumbed books. Although he did not write much himself, he did what, in the way of doing good, amounted to almost the same thing; it was his custom to recommend to his people and even to write recommendatory prefaces to books that particularly pleased him and seemed likely to be beneficial to the church.

There was but little remarkable in the manner of Sutcliff's preaching besides his intense earnestness. He made use of no gestures, and never practised oratorical effect.

"His aver

sion to ostentation," says Robert Hall, "might alone be said to be carried to excess, since it prevented him from availing himself of those ample stores of knowledge by which he could often have delighted and instructed his hearers. He had far more learning than the mere hearer of his discourses would have conjectured; for he seemed almost as anxious to conceal as some are to display." Thus when his tall form (he was six feet) rose from the pulpit his people knew that nothing would proceed from his lips but well-weighed thoughts, dressed in the simplest language, and uttered with customary earnestness.

On his first entering the ministry, like Ryland and Fuller, he had been inclined to the system of hyper-Calvinism, but

1 Life of Dr. Fawcett.

like them too, partly by reflection, and partly by reading the writings of Edwards, Bellamy, and Brainerd, first began to doubt of that system, and afterwards to be decided against it. To the works of Jonathan Edwards he was peculiarly partial. On account of this change in his opinions his preaching was disapproved by part of his hearers, and in the early years of his ministry at Olney he had to encounter a considerable portion of individual opposition; but "by patience, calmness, and prudent perseverance," says one of his friends, "he lived to subdue prejudice; and though his beginning was very unpretentious, from a small and not united interest he raised it to a large body of people and a congregation most affectionately attached to him." When he first came to Olney (in 1775) there were only 38 members, even as late as 1784 there were only 48; but the number steadily increased, and during the last seven years of his ministry there were upwards of 100.

In October 1782 Andrew Fuller removed from Soham to Kettering, where, instead of being sixty or seventy miles from his friends, Ryland, Sutcliff, and the elder Hall, he was within twenty miles of each of them. The younger Hall, afterwards the celebrated Robert Hall, aged about nineteen, was at this time at Aberdeen, reading "much of Xenophon and Herodotus, and more of Plato," with his companion James (afterwards Sir James) Mackintosh.

Sutcliff's name first became widely known beyond the neighbourhood of Olney in 1784, in the spring of which year it was agreed on his motion to set apart an hour on the evening of the first Monday in every month for social prayer for the success of the Gospel, and to invite Christians of other donominations to unite with them in it. The measure thus recommended was eagerly adopted by great numbers of the churches, and so marked a revival of religion ensued that it was afterwards regarded by the associated ministers and the missionaries as the actual commencement of the Missionary movement.

This same year Sutcliff became acquainted with William Carey, afterwards the famous missionary. Carey was a member of Mr. Sutcliff's church from July 14, 1785, to April 29, 1787; but as we shall deal with the career of this distinguished

K

man in the next sketch, it will suffice for the present to say that he was assisted in his studies by Mr. Sutcliff, who lent him books, aided him with advice, and right along manifested the greatest kindness towards him.1

Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that Sutcliff and Fuller were dragged into the missionary project by the importunities of Carey. All the meetings from 1784, when the motion for extraordinary prayer was accepted, even those before Carey began seriously to think about the matter, had a missionary tendency, and it is well known that Carey himself was strongly influenced by the spirit of the sermons preached by Sutcliff and Fuller on these occasions. All three had the same object at heart, the difference being that, whilst Carey was for instant action, the other two counselled deliberation and caution; and it was well for the success of the Mission that his impetuosity was balanced by their wisdom.

For the furtherance of his motion of 1784 Sutcliff in 1789 republished Jonathan Edwards' work entitled "An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in Extraordinary Prayer," which, according to the title-page, was "Printed at Boston in New England 1747, Reprinted at Northampton in Old England 1789." After stating that he does not consider himself answerable for every statement the book contains, Mr. Sutcliff concludes his preface in the following beautiful manner :-"In the present imperfect state we may reasonably expect a diversity of sentiments upon religious matters. Each ought to think for himself; and every one has a right on proper occasions to show his opinion. Yet all should remember there are but two parties in the world, each engaged in opposite causes; the cause of God and of Satan; of holiness and sin; of heaven and hell. The advancement of the one and the downfall of the other must appear exceedingly desirable to every real friend of God and man. If such, in some respects, entertain different sentiments and practise distinguishing modes of worship, surely they may unite in the above business. Oh for thousands upon thou

1 Mr. Sutcliff was still living at Mrs. Andrews's; consequently it was in this house that Carey received instruction in the dead languages and other subjects.