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these places, and being now clear of the world, and thereby delivered from a burden which had cost him, as he says, many prayers and tears, he set up business with the small remains of his money, and with a little credit; but, before he was half settled, Wesley exhorted him to free himself from all such engagements, and make the work of the gospel his whole pursuit. The advice of the master was a law to the obedient disciple. Olivers disposed of his effects, wound up his affairs, and prepared to itinerate in the west of England. "But I was not able," he says, “to buy another horse; and therefore, with my boots on my legs, my great-coat on my back, and my saddlebags, with my books and linen, across my shoulder, I set out in October, 1753."

Wesley, when he was not the dupe of his own imagination, could read the characters of men with a discriminating eye. He was not deceived in Olivers: the daring disposition, the fiery temper, and the stubbornness of this Welshman, were now subdued and disciplined into an intrepidity, an ardour, and a perseverance, which were the best requisites for his vocation. It was not long before one of his congregation at Tiverton presented him with the price of a horse, as well suited to him as Bucephalus to Alexander; for he was as tough and as indefatigable as his master. Indeed the beast, as if from sympathy, made the first advances, by coming up to him in a field where he was walking with the owner, and laying his nose upon his shoulder. Pleased with this familiarity, Olivers stroked the colt, which was then about two years and a half old; and finding that the farmer would sell him for five pounds, struck the bargain. "I have kept him," he says in his memoirs, "to this day, which is about twenty-five years, and on him I have travelled comfortably not less than an hundred thousand miles." On one occasion both he and his horse were exposed to a service of some danger at Yarmouth. The mob of that town had sworn, that if any Methodist came there, he should never return alive. Olivers, however, being then stationed at Norwich, was resolved to try the experi

ment, and accordingly set out with a companion, who was in no encouraging state of mind, but every now and then exclaimed upon the road, "I shall be murdered, and go to hell this day; for I know not the Lord." With this unhappy volunteer for martyrdom, Olivers entered Yarmouth; and having first attended service in the church, went into the market-place and gave out a hymn. The people collected, and listened with tolerable quietness while he sung and prayed; but, as soon as he had taken his text, they began so rude a comment upon the sermon, that one of his friends prudently pulled him down from his perilous stand, and retreated with him into a house, in one of those remarkable streets which are peculiar to Yarmouth, and are called Rows; and which are so narrow, that two long-armed persons may almost shake hands across from the windows. Though Olivers had rashly thrust himself into this adventure, he was prudent enough now to withdraw from it, and accordingly he sent for his horse. The mob recognised the animal, followed him, and filled the row. To wait till they dispersed might have been inconvenient; and perhaps they might have attacked the house; so he came forth, mounted resolutely, and making use of his faithful roadster as a charger on this emergence, forced the rabble before him through the row; but the women, on either side, stood in the door-ways, some with bowls of water, others with both hands full of dirt, to salute him as he passed. Having rode the gauntlet here, and got into the open street, a tremendous battery of stones, sticks, apples, turnips, potatoes, and other such varieties of mob ammunition, was opened upon him and his poor comrade: the latter clapped spurs to his horse, and gallopped out of town: Olivers proceeded more calmly, and watching the sticks and stones which came near, so as to ward them off, and evade the blow, preserved, as he says, a regular retreat.

Olivers was more likely led into this danger by a point of honour, than by any natural rashness; for, that he had acquired a considerable share of sound worldly prudence, appears from the curious account

which he has given of his deliberation concerning marriage. Setting out, he says, with a conviction that in this important concern "young people did not consult reason and the will of God, so much as their own foolish inclinations," he inquired of himself, in the first place, whether he was called to marry at that time; and having settled that question in the affirmative, the next inquiry was, what sort of a person ought he to marry? The remainder is too extraordinary and too characteristic to be given in any words but his own:-"To this I answered in general, such a one as Christ would choose for me, suppose he was on earth, and was to undertake that business. I then asked, but what sort of a person have I reason to believe he would choose for me? Here I fixed on the following properties, and ranged them in the following order: The first was grace: I was quite certain that no preacher of God's word ought, on any consideration, to marry one who is not eminently gracious. Secondly, she ought to have tolerable good common sense: a Methodist preacher, in particular, who travels into all parts, and sees such a variety of company, ought not to take a fool with him. Thirdly, as I knew the natural warmth of my own temper, I concluded that a wise and Gracious God would not choose a companion for ME who would throw oil, but rather water upon the fire. Fourthly, I judged that, as I was connected with a poor people, the will of God was, that whoever I married should have a small competency, to prevent her being chargeable to any." He then proceeds to say, that, upon the next step in the inquiry, who is the person in whom these properties are found? he immediately turned his eyes on Miss Green, "a person of a good family, and noted for her extraordinary piety." He opened his mind to her, consulted Mr. Wesley, married her; and having, "in this affair, consulted reason and the will of God so impartially, had abundant reason to be thankful ever afterwards."

The small-pox had shaken his constitution: for eight years after that dreadful illness his health continually declined; and he was thought to be far ad

vanced in consumption when he was appointed to the York circuit, where he had to take care of sixty societies, and ride about three hundred miles every six weeks. Few persons thought it possible that he could perform the journey once; but, he said, I am determined to go as far as I can, and when I can go no further, I will turn back. By the time he had got half round, the exercise, and perhaps the frequent change of air, restored, in some degree, his appetite, and improved his sleep; and, before he reached the end, he had begun to recover flesh: but it was twelve years before he felt himself a hale man. The few fits of dejection with which he was troubled, seem to have originated more in bodily weakness than in the temper of his mind. One instance is curious, for the way in which it affected others. While he was dining one day about noon, a thought came over him that he was not called to preach; the food, therefore, with which he was then served, did not belong to him, and he was a thief and a robber in eating it.— He burst into tears, and could eat no more; and having to officiate at one o'clock, went to the preaching house, weeping all the way. He went weeping into the pulpit, and wept sorely while he gave out the hymn, and while he prayed, and while he preached. A sympathetic emotion spread through the congregation, which made them receive the impression like melted wax: many of them "cried aloud for the disquietness of their souls ;" and Olivers, who, looking as usual for supernatural agency in every thing, had supposed the doubt of his own qualifications to be produced by the tempter, believed now that the Lord had brought much good out of that temptation.

After serving many years as a travelling preacher, he was fixed in London as the manager of Mr. Wesley's printing; an occupation which did not interfere with his preaching, but made him stationary. He never laboured harder in his life, he says; and finding it good both for body and soul, he hoped to be fully employed as long as he lived. Well might this man, upon reviewing his own eventful history, bless

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God for the manifold mercies which he had experienced, and look upon the Methodists as the instruments of his deliverance from sin and death.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

JOHN HAIME.-SAMPSON STANIFORTH.-GEORGE STORY.

AMONG the memoirs of his more eminent preachers, which Wesley published in his magazine, as written by themselves for general edification, is "A short Account of God's Dealings with Mr. John Haime." Satan has so much to do in the narrative, that this is certainly a misnomer. It is accompanied by his portrait, taken when he was seventy years of age. What organs a craniologist might have detected under his brown wig it is impossible to say, but Lavater himself would never have discovered in those mean and common features, the turbulent mind, and passionate fancy, which belonged to them. Small inexpressive eyes, scanty eye-brows, and a short, broad, vulgar nose, in a face of ordinary proportions, seem to mark out a subject who would have been content to travel a jog-trot along the high-road of mortality, and have looked for no greater delight than that of smoking and boozing in the chimney-corner. And yet John Haime passed his whole life in a continued spiritual ague.

He was born at Shaftesbury in 1710, and bred up to his father's employment of gardening. Not liking this, he tried button-making; but no occupation pleased him and indeed he appears, by his own account, to have been in a state little differing from insanity; or differing from it in this only, that he had sufficient command of himself not to communicate the miserable imaginations by which he was tormented. He describes himself as undutiful to his parents, addicted to cursing, swearing, lying, and Sab

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