Baptism and Regeneration," and with a recommendation from Mr. Gurney () Mr. Bickersteth had an interview with the Bishop of Norwich, who promised him ordination in about a twelvemonth, and dispensing with a university education set him to read "Pearson on the Creed, Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles, Tomline's Elements, Grotius, Pyle, and Clarke's Paraphrase."

But an event occurred in the affairs of the Church Missionary Society which hastened Mr. Bickersteth's ordination. Charges were brought against the Society's missionaries on the coast of Africa. They had moreover quarrelled among themselves, and though a very promising opening was offered by the establishment of Sierra Leone as a residence for Africans liberated out of the captured slave ships, little advantage was likely to accrue to the cause of missions, unless a master mind could go out, with full power from the Society, to promote unity among the missionaries, to correct abuses, and make arrangements for occupying this new field of labour. Mr. Bickersteth was at once fixed upon, and as the emergency was great he was ordained deacon on the 10th of December, 1815, by the Bishop of Norwich, who gave him letters dimissory to the Bishop of Gloucester, by whom he was ordained priest on the 21st. Having seen the hope of years realized, and having preached ten times in the few days that elapsed between December 10th and December 25th, and having bid adieu to his wife and parents and lucrative business, and made arrangements for carrying on all his plans of religious improvement at Norwich, he cheerfully embarked for Africa, January 3rd, 1816.

Mr. Birks rightly describes the voyage to Africa, thirty-five years ago, as very different from what it is now; and the climate to which he was going was then more than ever "the grave of the white man.' But Mr. Bickersteth's devotion to the cause he had taken up drew out a response from the hearts of all, and brothers, sisters, nay cautious father, prudent affectionate mother, loving wife, all were willing that he should undertake the perilous expedition.

On arriving at his destination, after a very rough passage and a voyage of two months, Mr. Bickersteth at once set to work heart and soul to accomplish the objects of his mission. He was only four months in Africa, but in that time the whole organization of the Society's mission had passed under his review. The schools, the dwelling-houses of the missionaries, the diet of the young Africans, the grounds of the mutual suspicion between the missionaries, in short every thing that could add to the efficiency of the mission and could ensure its comfort was as laboriously examined by Mr. Bickersteth as was the evidence in the great law case in Devonshire, when he dictated to five clerks at the same time and wrote himself while he dictated."2 At the same time his constant missionary journeys and earnest addresses to his fellow labourers imparted an 1 Vol. i. pp. 251, 2. 2 Vol. i. p. 213.

energy to their endeavours, which previous to his visit was apparently wanting.

He returned to England in August, 1816. As joint secretary of the Society in London he was not long in making his influence felt. Whatever favour he had hitherto towards the Church Missionary Society was heightened still more by the actual sight of the heathen. Having the Church Missionary house as his residence and a home for the missionary students, he commenced a series of journeys, which as he correctly says, "were more extensive than any he had taken in Africa," travelling northward, southward, to Ireland, to Scotland,-in every locality making collections for his favourite object. The list given for one year is only a sample of that for the many other years in which he laboured in the same way.

In 1817 he preached and attended meetings in sixty-five different places in every part of England, being in one month at Penzance, Colchester, and Tamworth, and in one week at Bath, Leicester, and Nottingham, at a time when travelling was very tedious. Notwithstanding his weak voice, which made his hearers think that he was going into a consumption, he preached one hundred and eighteen sermons in one year for his society. And though at Plymouth he found it difficult to do any thing owing "to the effects of Dr. Hawker's Antinomian teaching," his efforts were crowned with very great success.

This constant absence from home and from his spiritual duties at Wheeler Chapel was a very great perversion of his sacred calling, and no one lamented it more sincerely than Mr. Bickersteth. He "saw the temptations of a wandering life," he complained that his "constant absence scattered his afternoon congregation," and when he became a parent of a family, he felt "bitterly how little he was able to do for the spiritual welfare of his children."3 He longed to retire from his office as secretary, and his friends made ineffectual attempts to get some preferment for him. At last, in 1829, he made the purchase of Wheeler Chapel, of which he had hitherto been lecturer, and having stipulated that he should be only twelve Sundays on missionary journeys, he set to work with what time he could spare from the office to do good among his flock.

Whatever disappointments he had hitherto had at Wheeler Chapel from the congregation going away after Mr. Pratt and Mr. Mortimer, and the pews being unlet, vanished away directly he began to give time and trouble to the work of the ministry. Feeling probably that this was a more legitimate sphere for a clergyman than his office as secretary, he proposes that his Church Missionary work shall be limited to five hours a day, and that he should only be absent six Sundays in the year. But as this was

1 Vol. I. p. 333.

VOL. XII.

2 Page 330.

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3 Page 395.

not acceded to by the Committee, and he had been obliged to differ from many of his friends about the Islington Institution, he seriously thought of resigning his office. While in this state of suspense and when he had almost made up his mind "for his own sake and that of the Church Missionary Society" to continue on some little time longer, Mr. Abel Smith came to hear Mr. Bickersteth preach, with a view of seeing whether he should like to give him a piece of preferment now in his hands. The impression was favourable; and consequently in October, 1830, Mr. Bickersteth left Wheeler Chapel, the Church Missionary office, and the committee, and began life almost we may say afresh as rector of the valuable living of Watton.

No one could have gone to Watton with more earnest desires to do his duty in his parish than Mr. Bickersteth, or with a clearer appreciation of the dangers to which he would be liable in his new sphere; "visiting unweariedly every part of my parish from house to house with many tears and much prayer," was his idea of the pastoral office and for the first year he seems to have been a very constant resident in his parish, taking the whole duty himself, and devoting himself to his flock. After a while however, in 1831-2, a Curate is appointed, and we find Mr. Bickersteth once more travelling for the Church Missionary Society,-the principal events of this period being the publication of his hymn book, and the part he took in the differences which sprung up in the Bible Society.

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In 1833, a very considerable change took place in his views on prophecy indeed we may say from this period that his mind was given to the subject of unfulfilled prophecy, more than to any other theological question, and that all his teaching, addresses, sermons and letters are coloured as it were by his views on prophecy. Previously, we find him "regretting the prophetical spirit which had sprung up among his Evangelical brethren," and saying "all good men are afloat on prophecy, and the immediate work of the LORD is neglected for the uncertain future." In those days he had looked forward to the conversion of the world by the spread of missions, and the use of the ordinary means of grace. The revolutions on the continent, the ill feeling which existed among the lower orders in England, the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and the Cholera, gave a bias to his reading of Scripture, and after a while he became a Millennarian; holding that the Coming of CHRIST was at hand, that He would found a glorious kingdom at Jerusalem, from which centre of dominion, He would rule the world in righteousness, before the final resurrection and the judgment.2 We need not add that this change led him to take up the cause of the Jews' Society,3 as warmly as that of the Church Missionary Society,

1 Vol. i. p. 427.

2 Vol. ii. p. 44-48.

3 For a long time the claims of this society were advocated on the principle that the Jews required a distinct apparatus from other nations for their conversion; we

it being part of this view of prophecy that the Jews should be restored as a nation to the land of their forefathers, and go out like the Apostles of old to convert the world to CHRIST. Mr. Bickersteth had once reproved Mr. Simeon for speaking too strongly in favour of the Jews. He wrote upon a piece of paper: "600,000 Jews and 600,000,000 Gentiles, which is the most important?" Mr. Simeon wrote as a reply, "but if the conversion of the 600,000 be life from the dead to the 600,000,000, what then ?"

Having brought prophecy to bear upon the passing events of the day, Mr. Bickersteth came before the Church more as a partizan than he hitherto had done. The "Tracts for the Times" in 1836 beginning to attract public attention, are classed, "as another door to that land of darkness where the man of sin reigns;" Rome is put down as the "Antichrist and the mystery of iniquity;" an attack is made upon the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, because their tracts and publications departed from the vital principle of the Reformation. In the same year he warmly espoused the cause of the European, now Foreign Aid Society, and preached the Anniversary Sermon of the Reformation Society.2

These new claims went on dividing his time more and more every year, until in 1839, he could hardly have been said to have been resident more than a few months in Watton.3

His constant work and locomotion began at last to tell upon Mr. Bickersteth's constitution; in October, 1841, he has an attack of paralysis, and though sufficiently recovered to be present at Bishop Alexander's consecration,—a great era in Mr. Bickersteth's reckoning, he was completely debarred from duty for several months, and on his return from Brighton, passed the whole of 1812 in his parish. One would have expected that this year at least would have been devoted to Watton, but Mr. Birks' account of how the day was spent at the Rectory, shows that little time was left for parochial intercourse. The whole morning was given up to his correspondence, then followed his literary employment, a walk with his family before dinner, a short talk by the fireside after dinner, and then at four o'clock he went out to his schools and parish of 800 souls!

In 1843, he once more resumed his extra-parochial work, first, endeavouring to obtain a pledge from the Society for Propagating the Gospel, that they would employ no clergyman of what he called Tractarian opinions; then taking an active part in a protest against Tractarianism, which came out with four thousand signatures,

believe this idea is pretty much exploded among its supporters, who like Mr. Bickersteth mostly bring prophecy to bear upon their cause.

1 Vol. ii. p. 62.

2 As might be expected, the Parker Society as "a set off to the Library of the Fathers,'' met with a cordial supporter in Mr. Bickersteth.

3 Vol. ii. p. 140.

Vol. ii. p. 200.

and going into every part of England for his favourite societies. In 1844, his zeal seemed to outrun the prudence of the committee of the Missionary Society, for contrary to their earnest entreaty he went down to preach in Mr. Drummond's and Sir W. Dunbar's chapels. The event proved that this was only a remonstrance drawn out from the secretaries by the fear of losing their recently obtained Episcopal sanction; for on his return a member of the London Committee congratulates Mr. Bickersteth on having "cleared the way for any clergyman hereafter going to Edinburgh or Aberdeen for the Society."

The latter years of Mr. Bickersteth's life were devoted to an association which never met with much countenance from the party to which he belonged, and which now is almost entirely unconnected with it, the Evangelical Alliance. The first steps towards forming it were taken in 1845, in consequence of the Maynooth grant; and though a very dangerous and nearly fatal accident interfered for some months with Mr. Bickersteth's taking an active part in the preliminary arrangements, nevertheless at the end of the year, he was able to attend the opening meeting and was the life and soul of the movement. His friends were too wise in their generation, to make common cause with their dissenting brethren in England and Scotland, and their unepiscopal brethren on the continent, against Rome or any other enemy; they did not see any advantage likely to arise from it; and knew too well that by admitting their new allies to an equality, they would only be countenancing a body, who would be as ready as ever to upset the State Church. But Mr. Bickersteth's warm heart and confiding nature overleapt these considerations, and while he readily admitted his regret at the acrimony of dissenters, boldly declared what was of course perfectly true, "that he had more in common with a religious dissenter than with Dr. Pusey or a worldly clergyman."

The Irish famine of 1817-8, opened another undertaking to Mr. Bickersteth, which, as was likely in his state of mind, he took up very warmly, viz. the Conversion of Roman Catholics in Ireland

Mr. Bickersteth's prophetical views so entirely possessed his mind, and his terror at the inroads of Romanism was so great, and he was so thoroughly convinced that he was embarking in a righteous cause, that we cannot bring ourselves to blame his part in this transaction of his declining years. But viewed abstractedly it was an unworthy expedient to take advantage of their starving condition, as an opportunity of asking them to change their religion.

The events of 1849 and 1850 are so recent that we may pass them by in a few words; suffice it to say that in 1849 Mr. Bickersteth was equally grieved by Mr. B. Noel's secession and Sir H. J. Fust's decision on the Gorham Case; the year was spent as usual

1 Vol. ii. p. 271.