Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers Part 19

[166] Rotherham and Masbro' are one town, only separated by the River Rother.

[167] "Masbro' Chapel Manual" for 1881, whence many of these particulars are taken. See also Miall's "Congregationalism in Yorks.h.i.+re."

[168] Dr. Edward Williams became president in 1795. He edited the works of Jonathan Edwards, and was the author of a once famous controversial treatise on "Divine Equity and Sovereignty."

[169] "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18.

Thorp was regularly ordained to the pastorate, and a chapel was built for his ministry, where he preached till his death, at the age of fifty-two, 8th November, 1776. He was a friend of the pious and eccentric John Berridge,[170] Vicar of Everton, who gave his watch to Thorp as a token of esteem. John Thorp's son, William, was a far more famous preacher than his father, and held a conspicuous place at the beginning of this century as pastor of the Castle Green Church, Bristol.

Representatives of the family belonging to a _third_ and _fourth_ generation of preachers still hold an honorable position as Established or Free Church ministers.

[170] "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18.

WILLIAM HUNTINGDON, S.S., CALVINISTIC METHODIST PREACHER.

One of the most eloquent and famous preachers in London at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, when eloquent and famous preachers were by no means rare, was _William Huntingdon_, whose portrait may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington, London. Huntingdon's father was a farm laborer in Kent named Hunt. How the name Hunt grew into the more dignified Huntingdon (or Huntington) we cannot tell; probably through some whim of his own, for this eccentric man took liberties with his name, as the reader will see presently. He seems to have combined shoemaking with his other avocations, for one notice speaks of him as by turns hostler, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver.[171]

He was not favored with any early education, but by careful self-culture of his first-rate natural gifts acquired the rare art of speaking with an ease and elegance and force that pleased all sorts of hearers. Long after he had begun to attract crowds by his eloquence he worked for his daily bread as a cobbler. Many a sermon was made with his work on his lap and a Bible on the chair beside him. A chapel was built for his ministry in Tichfield Street, London, and when it proved too small, the congregation moved to a larger building erected in Gray's Inn Road.

[171] "Imperial Dictionary of Biography," vol. iv.

Edinburgh: Blackie & Son.

In his diary, 22d October, 1812, H. C. Robinson[172] says, "Heard W.

Huntingdon preach, the man who puts _S.S._ (sinner saved) after his name. He has an admirable exterior; his voice is clear and melodious; his manner singularly easy, and even graceful. There was no violence, no bl.u.s.ter; yet there was no want of earnestness or strength. His language was very figurative, the images being taken from the ordinary business of life, and especially from the army and navy. He is very colloquial, and has a wonderful Biblical memory; indeed, he is said to know the whole Bible by heart. I noticed that though he was frequent in his citations, and always added chapter and verse, he never opened the little book he had in his hand. He is said to resemble Robert Robinson of Cambridge."[173]

[172] Vol. i. p. 402.

[173] The eminent Baptist minister of St. Andrew's Chapel, 1761-1790, predecessor of Robert Hall.

In regard to the S.S. which he persisted in writing after his name.

Huntingdon says, "M.A. is out of my reach for want of learning; D.D. I cannot attain for want of cash; but S.S. I adopt, by which I mean '_sinner saved_.'" He married as his second wife the wealthy widow of Alderman Sir J. Saunderson, once Lord Mayor of London. His death occurred in 1813, at Tunbridge Wells.[174] One of his best known works is ent.i.tled "The Bank of Faith," an extraordinary record of his own personal experience in ill.u.s.tration of the doctrine of special providence. His sermons, etc., were published in no less than twenty volumes.

[174] Huntingdon wrote his own epitaph, part of which reads--"Beloved of his G.o.d but abhorred by men. The Omniscient Judge at the Great a.s.size shall ratify and confirm this, to the confusion of many thousands; for England and its metropolis shall know that there hath been a prophet among them."

REV. ROBERT MORRISON, D.D., CHINESE SCHOLAR AND MISSIONARY.

A maker of wooden clogs and shoe-lasts is hardly a shoemaker, in the commonly understood sense of the term, yet he stands in a very close relation to the gentle craft, and for this reason we may not unfairly claim _Robert Morrison_ of Newcastle as a member of the ill.u.s.trious brotherhood of the sons of St. Crispin. Dr. Morrison was the pioneer of modern missions to China, and did for the people and language of that country what another shoemaker did for the people of Bengal. The youthful Northumbrian had only a plain elementary education, and after he became an apprentice, spent all his spare time in reading religious books. At the age of nineteen he gave up his humble trade and began to study under a minister, who pa.s.sed him on in two years to the academy at Hoxton, where he made such progress, that in a short time he was sent to London to study Chinese under Sam Tok, a native teacher, with a view to his becoming a missionary to China, in connection with the London Missionary Society. In 1807, he sailed for that country, and his rare gifts as a linguist were shown in the publication of a Chinese version of the Acts of the Apostles, after only three years' labor, in 1810. The Gospel of Luke appeared in 1812, and the entire New Testament in 1814.

With the help of William Milne he issued the Old Testament shortly after the last date. His labors were not confined to the translation of the Sacred Scriptures. His greatest work was a "Dictionary of the Chinese Language," published in 1818 by the Hon. East India Company at a cost of 15,000. He also edited a Chinese grammar. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow.

In 1817, Dr. Morrison accompanied Lord Amherst in his emba.s.sy to Pekin, and afterward, as the last great work of a n.o.ble life, founded an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, to whose funds he left the bulk of his property. On his return to England in 1823 for rest and change, his great gifts and labors as a linguist and a missionary were cordially recognized in many quarters. The Royal Society made him a member, and King George IV. honored himself, as well as his distinguished subject, by seeking an interview with him. In 1826 he returned to the field of his missionary labors. On his death at Canton in 1834, England lost her best Chinese scholar, and one of the most devoted, self-sacrificing, and useful missionaries who ever left her sh.o.r.es.

THE REV. JOHN BURNET, PREACHER AND PHILANTHROPIST.

The eloquent and popular minister of Camberwell Green Congregational Church, the _Rev. John Burnet_, who divided his time and energies between preaching and philanthropic labors, is claimed by the craft as one of the most gifted and useful men who have sprung from their ranks.[175] He was of Highland descent, and was born in Perth, 13th April, 1789. His early education at the High School of Perth must have given him great advantage over most youths of the _souter_ fraternity.

How long he plied the awl we cannot say. Soon after his union with a Christian Church in Perth his friends discovered his gifts as a speaker, and encouraged his adoption of the ministry as a profession. To this end they supplied him with funds, and for a time he studied with much advantage under the Rev. William Orme of Perth. In 1815 Mr. Burnet removed from Perth to Dublin, and soon afterward became an agent of the Irish Evangelical Society. His labors at Cork proving acceptable to the Independent Church there, he was invited to become their pastor, and for fifteen years was well known by all the Protestants of the district as an eloquent and faithful preacher. The growth of his congregation led to the building of a handsome new chapel for his ministry in George Street.

But his labors were not confined to these localities (Cork and Mallow).

His biographer states that "he continually visited the other towns and places in the South of Ireland, preaching in the court-houses, market-places, and frequently in the halls of the resident n.o.bility and gentry--all the Protestants gladly giving him the requisite facilities.

On these journeys he had usually a free pa.s.s by the mails and coaches, but he travelled a good deal on horseback."[176]

[175] See Campion's "Delightful History," p. 83.

[176] "Congregational Year-Book" for 1863, pp. 214-216.

To the obituary notice given in the Year-Book I owe the facts given in this sketch.

It would have been an easy matter for Mr. Burnet to enter Parliament, if he could have been persuaded to quit the ministry and devote himself entirely to political life; for he was popular with the Liberals of his day, had rare gifts as a speaker, and was thoroughly acquainted with politics. But the best efforts of his friend Joseph Sturge, and the offer of ample means to maintain the position of a member of Parliament, failed to induce him to accept the flattering offer. He was constantly employed as a platform speaker, and never refused his aid to any cause "affecting the rights of the people or the progress of humanity."

For many years he was on the Committee of the Bible Society, the London Missionary Society, the Irish Evangelical and the British and Foreign Sailors' Societies. Yet with all this public work he never neglected the duties of the pastorate, but occupied his pulpit efficiently from Sunday to Sunday, and held several meetings during the week for the instruction of his people. In 1845 his brethren of the Independent Connection showed their esteem by electing him to fill the chair of the Congregational Union.

In 1825 Mr. Burnet was summoned to give evidence before a committee of the House of Lords on the state of the Catholic population in Ireland.

At first he declined to attend, saying that he could not leave his work, for he had no one to supply his place in his absence. But a second summons made it clear that he was bound to obey orders, and he accordingly went up to London and gave the committee the benefit of his extensive acquaintance with the religious condition of the South of Ireland. His visit to London brought him again into the company of his old friend Mr. Orme, who introduced him to the congregation, of which Mr. Orme was the pastor, at the Mansion House Chapel. On his death in 1830, Mr. Burnet was invited to succeed his friend as the pastor of the church. This pastorate he held for thirty-two years, till the day of his death. In 1852 the new and costly building opposite Camberwell Green was built, the congregation removing thither from the old "Mansion House."

Mr. Burnet was best known for his philanthropic labors, chiefly in connection with the anti-slavery cause. In this work he labored side by side, and on intimate terms of friends.h.i.+p, with Wilberforce, Brougham, Zachary Macaulay, Lord Macaulay, Sir T. F. Buxton, and other advocates of freedom for the slave. "His labors," it is said, "in committee were continuous and valuable, and his good sense and sound judgment were not seldom needed in the conduct of this great movement. He went frequently on deputations to the Government, and was obliged to spend much time at the House of Commons to be near the anti-slavery leaders in all times of difficulty, and by this means became acquainted with the leading public men of the day, who admired his straightforward character, readiness, and humor." He died at the age of seventy-three, June 10th, 1862.

JOHN KITTO, D.D., THE BIBLICAL SCHOLAR.

Very few ill.u.s.trious men have been so heavily handicapped in the race of life and the pursuit of knowledge as the eminent Biblical scholar, _John Kitto_, who was born at Plymouth, 4th December, 1804.[177] Added to poverty, the want of proper food and clothing, he had to endure in early life the deprivation of natural guardians and friends, terrible cruelty from a master under whose care he was placed, and, worst of all, the entire loss of the sense of hearing, so that from the age of twelve to the day of his death he never could hear a sound of any description.

Deeply pathetic is the story of his early life as told by himself in his journal and letters. His father was a working mason at Plymouth, who had lost a good business by intemperate habits. When John was only four years old, his grandmother, who could not endure the sight of his misery at home, engaged to bring him up. This good woman was the guardian angel of Kitto's childhood, and did more, perhaps, than any one else to mould his character. It was a sad day for him when she was compelled by poverty and illness to break up her home and go with her little ward to live with his parents. He had already become fond of reading, and had even tried his hand at writing tales for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his childish companions and the more serious purpose of earning a few pence to buy books. One day, when working with his father, he fell from the top of a house thirty-five feet high, and was carried home in a state of unconsciousness. After lying in this state for a fortnight, he awoke to discover to his dismay that he was absolutely deaf. He had asked for a book which a neighbor had lent him just before the accident, and when his friends found that he could not hear their reply, one of them took up a slate and _wrote_ upon it. "Why do you not speak?" he cried. "Why do you _write_ to me? Why not speak? Speak, speak!" "Then," he tells us, "those who stood around the bed exchanged significant looks of concern, and the writer soon displayed upon his slate the awful words, 'YOU ARE DEAF!' Did not this utterly crush me? By no means. In my then weakened condition nothing like this could affect me. Besides, I was a child; and to a child the full extent of such a calamity could not be at once apparent. However, I knew not the future--it was well I did not; and there was nothing to show me that I suffered under more than a temporary deafness, which in a few days might pa.s.s away. It was left for time to show me the sad realities of the condition to which I was reduced."

[177] "Memoirs of John Kitto, D.D.," by R. E. Ryland, M.A. Edinburgh: William Oliphant & Sons, 1856.

At the age of fifteen he was sent to the workhouse, scarcely understanding what was being done with him. On realizing his true position in this place, "his anguish was indescribable." Yet in Kitto's time this place was hardly like an ordinary modern workhouse. It had long borne the name of _The Hospital of the Poor's Portion_, was founded in 1630 by Gayer, Colmer, and Fowell, and endowed in 1674 by Lanyon with 2000, and in 1708 was converted into a poorhouse by Act of Parliament.

It had apartments for boys, who were admitted on Hele's and Lanyon's charities. Young Kitto was kindly treated by the guardians, even being allowed to go out every day, and for a long time to sleep at home. His occupation was the making of _list shoes_, in which he became so proficient that he was sent out as an apprentice to a shoemaker in the town, who treated him so savagely that the humane guardians quashed the agreement and took him again under their care. But even in this wretched situation, where he was often compelled to work sixteen or eighteen hours a day, the poor deaf boy managed to go on with his studies; and in his interesting work called "The Lost Senses," published twenty years afterward, he remarks, "Now that I look back upon this time, the amount of study which I did, under these circ.u.mstances, contrive to get through, amazes and confounds me."

About a year after his return to the poorhouse, certain gentlemen in Plymouth, who had come to hear of his superior abilities and pa.s.sion for reading, drew up a circular asking for funds to enable him to devote his time entirely to study. This appeal was so successful that the poor workhouse boy was placed under the care of a good friend, named Mr.

Barnard, to board and lodge, and allowed to go to the public library for the purpose of reading and study. His course as a student was now fairly open. In a few years he published his first book, "Essays and Letters,"

with a short memoir of the author. In 1825 his friend Mr. Groves of Exeter was the means of sending him to the Church Missionary Inst.i.tution, London, where for a time he was employed as a printer. For two years he resided at Malta in the service of this Society. After this, an arrangement was made with his friend Mr. Groves which proved of the utmost possible service to the diligent student, whose mind had long been set on travelling as a means of increasing his knowledge. Mr.

Groves asked Kitto to accompany him to the East. Five years were spent in a journey through Russia, Persia, and Asiatic Turkey, during which "the deaf traveller" obtained the vast stores of information of which he made such good use in the various works written on his return to England. In 1833 he was engaged by Mr. Charles Knight, the well-known publisher, to write for the _Penny Magazine_, and wrote for that journal a number of articles ent.i.tled "The Deaf Traveller." He contributed many articles also to the _Penny Cyclopaedia_. His best known works are "The Pictorial Bible," "The Pictorial Sunday Book," "Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature," "The Lost Senses," "Journal of Sacred Literature," and "Daily Bible Ill.u.s.trations," a work of great value, in eight volumes. In 1844 the University of Giessen conferred on him the diploma of D.D., and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Notwithstanding his immense labors and the great value of his writings, he was, toward the close of his life, considerably embarra.s.sed by pecuniary difficulties, which were alleviated, but not entirely removed, by a Government pension of 100 per year. John Kitto died and was buried at Cannstatt, in Germany, 25th November, 1854, at the age of forty-nine.

SCIENCE.

WILLIAM STURGEON, THE ELECTRICIAN.

The name of _William Sturgeon_, so honorably connected with the science of electricity and magnetism, has a fair claim to be entered on this list. Sturgeon was a Lancas.h.i.+re man, born at Wittington in that county in 1783. All his youth was spent at the shoemaker's stall. On arriving at manhood he abandoned this quiet, peaceful occupation for the life of a soldier. After two years' service in the militia he enlisted in the Royal Artillery. Like William Cobbett, he found it possible to read in the midst of the distractions of the barrack-room. His chief attention was given to the study of electricity and magnetism, which at that time were attracting a great deal of attention on the part of men of science.[178] The first proof Sturgeon gave of special and extensive knowledge on the subject was in the papers which he contributed to the _Philosophical Magazine_ in 1823-24. In 1825 he published an account of certain magneto-electric appliances, for which the Society of Arts awarded him their silver medal and a purse containing 30. About this time, that is, soon after leaving the army, he was appointed to the chair of experimental philosophy in the East India Company's Military Academy at Addis...o...b... His pamphlet, published in 1830, on "Experimental Researches in Electro-Magnetism and Galvanism," described his own experiments, which issued in an improved method of preparing plates for the galvanic battery; a method still found, in many respects, to be the best. He invented the electro-magnetic-coil machine, now used very frequently by medical men in giving a succession of shocks to the patient, and still preferred by the faculty to other instruments for this purpose. This industrious and original investigator was also the inventor of a method of driving machinery by electro-magnetism; but he little dreamt, it may be, of the extent to which electricity would be employed in these days as a motive power and for lighting purposes. He edited the "Annals of Electricity, Magnetism, and Chemistry," and published his own works in one volume a few years before his death. Like many inventors, he never made a fortune, but died poor. A Government pension of 50 per annum came to relieve him of his cares only the year before his death, which occurred in 1850.

[178] Magneto-electricity was discovered by Oersted in 1820.

POLITICIANS.