CHAPTER III.

“SMALL PROFITS DO GREAT THINGS.”

The Lackington family had been farmers in the parish of Langford, near Wellington, in Somersetshire. They weremembers of the Society of Friends, and held a respectable position in the locality. For some cause, not fully explained in the memoirs, James Lackington’s father was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Wellington. He made an imprudent marriage, and for a time forfeited his father’s approval and favor; but when the good-wife proved herself to be a very worthy and industrious woman, the old man relented and set his son up in business. This, however, was of no advantage to him; in fact, it proved his ruin. He might have remained a steady and hard-working man, bringing up his children honorably, if he had remained a journeyman. The position of a master presented temptations that were too much for his weak disposition. Lackington’s own words will best describe his unhappy circumstances in youth and the character of his father. “I was born at Wellington, in Somersetshire, on the 31st of August (old style), 1746. My father, George Lackington, was a journeyman shoemaker, who had incurred the displeasure of my grandfather for marrying my mother, whose maiden name was Joan Trott.... About the year 1750, my father having several children, and my mother proving an excellent wife, my grandfather’s resentment had nearly subsided, so that he supplied him with money to open shop for himself. But that which was intended to be of very great service to him and his family eventually proved extremely unfortunate to himself and them; for as soon as he found he was more at ease in his circumstances he contracted a fatal habit of drinking, and of course his business was neglected; that after several fruitless attempts of my grandfather to keep him in trade, he was, partly by a very large family, but more by his habitual drunkenness, reduced to his old state of a journeyman shoemaker. Yet so infatuated was he with the love of liquor, that the endearing ties of husband and father could not restrain him: by which baneful habit himself and family were involved in the extremest poverty; so that neither myself, my brothers, nor sisters, are indebted to a father scarcely for anything that can endear his memory, or cause us to reflect on him with pleasure.”

James, as the oldest child in the family, fared for a time rather better than the rest. He was sent to a dame-school and began to learn to read; but before he could learn anything worth knowing, his mother, who was obliged to maintain her children as best she could, found it impossible to pay the twopence per week for his schooling. For several years his timewas divided between nursing his younger brothers and sisters and running about the streets and getting into mischief. At the age of ten he began to feel a desire to do something to earn a living. His first venture in this way showed his ability and gave some promise of his success as a man of business. Having noticed an old pieman in the streets whose method of selling pies struck the boy as very defective, the boy was convinced that he could do the work much better. He made known his thoughts to a baker in the town, who was so pleased with the lad’s spirit that he at once agreed to take the little fellow into the house and employ him in vending pies in the streets, if his father would grant permission. This was soon obtained. In this queer enterprise young Lackington met with remarkable success. He says: “My manner of crying pies, and my activity in selling them, soon made me the favorite of all such as purchased halfpenny apple-pies and halfpenny plum-puddings, so that in a few weeks the old pie merchant shut up his shop. I lived with this baker about twelve or fifteen months, in which time I sold such large quantities of pies, puddings, cakes, etc., that he often declared to his friends in my hearing that I had been the means of extricating him from the embarrassing circumstances in which he was known to be involved prior to my entering his service.”

Such a story is a sufficient indication of character. It exhibits the two qualities which distinguished him as a man—good sense and courage. Another story of his boyhood is worth telling for the same reason. He was about twelve years of age when he went one day to a village about two miles off, and returning late at night with his father, who had been drinking hard as usual, they met a group of women who had turned back from a place called Rogue Green because they had seen a dreadful apparition in a hollow part of the road where some person had been murdered years before. Of course the place had beenhauntedever since! The women dared not go by the spot after what they had seen, and were returning to the village to spend the night. Lackington and his father laughed at the tale, and the dauntless boy engaged to walk on in front and go up to the object when they came near it in order to discover what it was. He did so, keeping about fifty yards ahead of the company and calling to them to come on. Having walked about a quarter of a mile, the object came in sight. “Here it is!” said he. “Lord have mercy on us!“ cried they, and were preparing to run, ”but shame preventedthem.” Making a long file behind him, the order of procedure of course being according to the degree of each person’s courage, they moved on with trembling steps toward theghost. Although the boy’s “hat was lifted off his head by his hair standing on end,” and his teeth chattered in his mouth, he was pledged in honor and must go on. Coming close to the dreaded spectre, he saw its true character—“a very short tree, whose limbs had been newly cut off, the doing of which had made it much resemble a giant.” The boy’s pluck was the talk of the town, and he “was mentioned as a hero.”

His merits as a pie vender had made him a reputation, and now an application was made to his father to allow James to sell almanacs about the time of Christmas and the New Year. He rejoiced immensely in this occupation and drove a splendid trade, exciting the envy and ire of the itinerant venders of Moore, Wing, and Poor Robin to such a degree that he speaks of his father’s fear lest these poor hawkers, who found their occupation almost gone, should do the daring young interloper some grievous bodily harm. “But,” he says, “I had not the least concern; and as I had a light pair of heels, I always kept at a proper distance.”

At the age of fourteen he was bound for seven years to Mr. Bowden of Taunton, a shoemaker. The indentures made Lackington the servant of both Mr. and Mrs. Bowden, so that, in case of the death of the former, the latter might claim the service of the apprentice. The Bowdens were steady, religious people who attended what Lackington calls “an Anabaptist meeting,”i.e., we presume, aBaptistchapel, for the Baptists long bore the opprobrious epithet which was first given to them in Germany and Holland at the time of the Reformation. The Baptists of Taunton in 1760 seem to have been a dull, lifeless class of people, if we may judge from the type presented in the family of the quiet shoemaker with whom James Lackington went to live. Yet they were on a par with the vast majority of churches, established or non-established, in that age of religious apathy in England. The boy accompanied the family twice on the Sabbath to the “meeting,” and heard, yet not heard, sermons full of sound morality, but devoid of anything like vigorous, soul-searching, and soul-converting gospel truth, and delivered, withal, in the flattest and most spiritless manner. The ideas of the family were as circumscribed as their library, and that was small and meagre enough, in all conscience. It may be worth while togive an inventory of its contents. It will cover only a line or two of our space, and will be of some use to those, perhaps, who are apt to mourn their own poverty as regards books, and their small advantages, though, perchance, they may have access to free libraries or cheap subscription libraries, or may be able to buy or borrow all they could find time to peruse if only they had the wish to read. Imagine a youth with any taste for literature living in a sleepy town like Taunton in 1760, and looking over his master’s bookshelves and finding there a school-size Bible, “Watts’ Psalms and Hymns,“ Foot’s ”Tract on Baptism,“ Culpepper’s ”Herbal,” the “History of the Gentle Craft,” an old imperfect volume of receipts on Physic, Surgery, etc., and the “Ready Reckoner.” Bowden was an odd character, evidently. One of his strange customs is thus described: “Every morning, at all seasons of the year and in all weathers, he rose about three o’clock, took a walk by the river’s side round Trenchware fields, stopped at some place or other to drink half a pint of ale, came back before six o’clock and called up his people to work, and went to bed again about seven.”

“Thus,” says Lackington, “was the good man’s family jogging easily and quietly on, no one doubting but he should go to heaven when he died, and every one hoping it would be a good while first.”

The visit of “one of Mr. Wesley’s preachers” led to the conversion of the two sons of Lackington’s employer, and set the young apprentice on a train of thought and inquiry which eventually led him also to cast in his lot with the Methodists. He was then about sixteen years of age, and had so little knowledge of reading that he gladly paid the three halfpence per week which his mother allowed him as pocket-money to one of the young Bowdens for instruction. Yet he had at this time no literary taste, and no thought beyond the limited round of devotional reading, which consisted chiefly of the Bible, and the tracts, sermons, and hymns of the Wesleys. His desire to hear the Methodist preachers was so great at this time, that one Sunday morning, when his mistress had locked the door to prevent his going out for this purpose, he jumped out of the bedroom window, fondly imagining that the words of the ninety-first Psalm, the eleventh and twelfth verses, which he had just been reading, would be sufficient guarantee of his safety in perpetrating such an act of rashness and folly. The last three years of his apprenticeship were spent in the service of hismaster’s widow, Mr. Bowden having died when Lackington had served about four years. When he was just twenty-one, and about six months before the expiration of his time, a severe contest for the representation of Taunton in Parliament took place, and the friends of two of the candidates purchased his freedom from Mrs. Bowden’s service in order to secure both his vote and his services. The scenes of excitement and dissipation into which he was thrown at this time unsettled his mind, and for a time entirely ruined his religious character. The election over, he went to live at Bristol, and lodged in a street called Castle Ditch, with a young man named John Jones, a maker of stuff shoes, who led him into dissipation. Jones, however, had been pretty well educated, and managed to awaken in Lackington’s mind a desire for more knowledge than he then possessed. He was, indeed, wofully ignorant, had no idea of writing, and when he began to feel a thirst for general reading, confesses that he dared not enter a bookseller’s shop because he did not know the name of any book to ask for. His friend Jones picked up at a bookstall a copy of Walker’s “Paraphrase of Epictetus,” which seems to have charmed the young shoemaker immensely, and to have turned him for a time into a regular stoic.

The taste for reading once awakened, he soon grew weary of a life of sin and folly. One evening he turned into a chapel in Broadmead to hear Mr. Wesley, who was preaching there. The old fire of religious enthusiasm was once more enkindled, and burned as fiercely as ever. His companions were soon brought to join the Wesleyan Society, and for a time the little knot of shoemakers working together lived a life of intense religious devotion, working hard and singing hymns or holding religious conversation all day, reading the works of leading evangelical divines during the greater part of the night, and seldom allowing themselves more than three hours’ sleep.

The religious was combined with the philosophic mind. He bought copies of such books as Plato on the “Immortality of the Soul,” Plutarch’s “Lives,” the “Morals of Confucius,” etc.; and, speaking of this time, he says: “The pleasures of eating and drinking I entirely despised, and for some time carried the disposition to an extreme. The account of Epicurus living in his garden, at the expense of about a halfpenny per day, and that when he added a little cheese to his bread on particular occasions he considered it as a luxury, filled me with raptures. From that moment I began to live on bread and tea,and for a considerable time did not partake of any other viand, but in that I indulged myself three or four times a day. My reasons for living in this abstemious manner were in order to save money to purchase books, to wean myself from the gross pleasures of eating, drinking, etc., and to purge my mind and make it more susceptible of intellectual pleasures.”

Leaving Bristol in 1769, he lived for a year at Kingsbridge, Devonshire, where he worked as a maker of stuff and silk shoes. In 1770 he went back to Bristol, and lodged once more with his old friends, the Joneses. At the end of that year he married Nancy Smith, an old sweetheart, whom he had fallen in love withsevenyears previously, “being at Farmer Gamlin’s at Charlton, four miles from Taunton, to hear a Methodist sermon.” Nancy was dairymaid then, and was accounted handsome; she was a devout Methodist, and an amiable, industrious, thrifty woman. But they were wretchedly poor at the time of their marriage, and had to go and live in lodgings at half a crown a week. “Our finances,” he remarks, “were but just sufficient to pay the expenses of the (wedding) day, for in searching our pockets (which we did not do in a careless manner), we discovered that we had but one halfpenny to begin the world with. ’Tis true we had laid in eatables sufficient for a day or two, in which time we knew we could by our work procure more, which we very cheerfully set about, singing together the following strains of Dr. Cotton:

‘Our portion is not large indeed,But then how little do we need!For Nature’s calls are few.In this the art of living lies,To want no more than may suffice,And make that little do.’

‘Our portion is not large indeed,

But then how little do we need!

For Nature’s calls are few.

In this the art of living lies,

To want no more than may suffice,

And make that little do.’

“The above, and the following ode by Mr. Samuel Wesley, we did scores of times repeat, even with raptures:

‘No glory I covet, no riches I want,Ambition is nothing to me:The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grantIs a mind independent and free.‘By passion unruffled, untainted by pride,By reason my life let me square;The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied,And the rest are but folly and care.‘Those blessings which Providence kindly has lentI’ll justly and gratefully prize;While sweet meditation and cheerful contentShall make me both healthy and wise.‘How vainly through infinite trouble and strifeThe many their labors employ;When all that is truly delightful in lifeIs what all, if they will, may enjoy.’”

‘No glory I covet, no riches I want,Ambition is nothing to me:The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grantIs a mind independent and free.

‘No glory I covet, no riches I want,

Ambition is nothing to me:

The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant

Is a mind independent and free.

‘By passion unruffled, untainted by pride,By reason my life let me square;The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied,And the rest are but folly and care.

‘By passion unruffled, untainted by pride,

By reason my life let me square;

The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied,

And the rest are but folly and care.

‘Those blessings which Providence kindly has lentI’ll justly and gratefully prize;While sweet meditation and cheerful contentShall make me both healthy and wise.

‘Those blessings which Providence kindly has lent

I’ll justly and gratefully prize;

While sweet meditation and cheerful content

Shall make me both healthy and wise.

‘How vainly through infinite trouble and strifeThe many their labors employ;When all that is truly delightful in lifeIs what all, if they will, may enjoy.’”

‘How vainly through infinite trouble and strife

The many their labors employ;

When all that is truly delightful in life

Is what all, if they will, may enjoy.’”

Sound sense and true philosophy this; and sorely did the young shoemaker and his much-enduring wife feel the need of such philosophy to hearten and console them when four and sixpence a week was all they had to spend on eating and drinking, and when, as he states, “strong beer we had none, nor any other liquor (the pure element excepted); and instead of tea, or rather coffee, we toasted a piece of bread, at other times we fried some wheat, which, when boiled in water, made a tolerable substitute for coffee; and as to animal food, we made use of but little, and that little we boiled and made broth of.” That the cheerful sentiments with which they set out in life did not fail them under the stress of such hardships as these is sufficiently shown by the statement with which he closes the chapter which deals with this part of his history: “During the whole of this time we never once wished for anything that we had not got, but were quite contented, and with a good grace in reality made a virtue of necessity.”

After three years Lackington resolved to go to London in the hope of meeting with better work and pay. It was indeed dire necessity that drove him to take this step. Incessant suffering and semi-starvation seemed inevitable if he remained in Bristol. His wife had been extremely ill almost from the beginning of their residence in the city, probably owing to the change from country air and active employment to the close atmosphere and sedentary occupation to which she was now accustomed. Her continued illness and his own hopeless state of poverty drove him to make the venture. Accordingly, having given her all the money he could spare, he set off for the metropolis, and arrived there in August, 1774, with half a crown in his pocket.

Once in London, the tide of his fortune turned. He soon found plenty of work and got good wages. In a month his wife was sent for, and the two worked so industriously and lived so economically, that before long Nancy changed her cloth cloak for one of silk, and her worthy husband indulged in the luxury of agreatcoat, the first he had ever worn. When he had been in London about four months he received tidings of the death of his grandfather, who had left ten pounds apiece to each of his grandchildren. He was so ignorant ofmoney matters that he had no notion of obtaining the money except by going down to Somersetshire to fetch it, and the sum was accounted so prodigious, that he at once set off to claim his property; “so that,” he says, “it cost me about half the money in going down for it and in returning to town again.“ ”With the remainder of the money,“ he adds, ”we purchased household goods; but as we then had not sufficient to furnish a room, we worked hard and lived hard, so that in a short time we had a room furnished with our own goods; and I believe that Alexander the Great never reflected on his immense acquisitions with half the heart-felt enjoyment which we experienced on this capital attainment.” Now and then he visited the old bookshops and added a few books to his small library. One Christmas Eve he went out with half a crown in his pocket to purchase the Christmas dinner. Passing by an old bookshop, he could not resist the inducement to turn in and look over the stock. He intended to spend only a few pence on some book; but a copy of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” which he very much coveted, was so tempting a prize, that, without hesitation, he laid down his half-crown for the purchase of it. On returning home, he had no slight difficulty to persuade his wife of “the superiority of intellectual pleasures over sensual gratifications.“ ”I think,” said he to his patient spouse, “that I have acted wisely; for had I boughta dinner, we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the pleasure would have been soon over; but should we live fifty years longer, we shall have the ‘Night Thoughts’ to feast upon.”

In June, 1775, one of his Wesleyan friends looked in on Lackington and his wife as they sat at work making boots and shoes, and told them of a “shop and parlor” which were then to let in Featherstone Street, where it was suggested Lackington might obtain work as a master-shoemaker. He at once fell in with the proposal, and added that “he would sell books also.” He does not seem to have formed any intention of bookselling previous to this interview, but the prospect of having a shop of his own led him to think how easy and pleasant it would be to combine the two kinds of business. He says in his ownnaïvemanner: “When he proposed my taking the shop, it instantly occurred to my mind that for several months past I had observed a great increase in a certain old bookshop, and that I was persuaded I knew as much of old books as the person who kept it. I further observed that I loved books, and that if I could but be a bookseller, I should then haveplenty of books to read, which was the greatest motive I could conceive to induce me to make the attempt.” His friend engaged to procure the shop, and Lackington bought “a bag full of old books, chiefly divinity, for a guinea,” which, together with his own little library and some scraps of old leather, were worth five pounds. With this stock he “opened shop on Midsummer Day, 1775, in Featherstone Street, in the parish of St. Luke.”

He borrowed five pounds from a fund which Wesley’s people had raised for the purpose of lending out on a short term to men of good character who were in need of help in business or domestic difficulties. No interest appears to have been required, and he states that the money was of great service to him. At this time they lived in the most economical and sparing manner, “often dining on potatoes, and quenching their thirst with water,” for they could not forget the trials through which they had passed, and, haunted by the dread of their recurrence, were determined, if possible, to provide against them.

After six months his stock had increased to £25. “This stock I deemed too great to be buried in Featherstone Street; and a shop and parlor being to let in Chiswell Street, No. 46, I took them.” His business in the sale of books proved so prosperous, that, in a few weeks after removing to Chiswell Street, he disposed of his little stock of leather and altogether abandoned thegentle craft. At this time his stock consisted almost entirely of divinity, and for a year or two he “conscientiously destroyed such books as fell into his hands as were written by free-thinkers: he would neither read them himself, nor sell them to others.” He makes some curious and sagacious remarks on bargain-hunters who frequented his shop at this time, while his stock was low and poor, and who in their craze after “bargains” often paid him double the price for dirty old books that he afterward charged when he had a larger stock, and had adopted the principle of selling every book at its lowest paying price. These people, he observed, forsook his shop as soon as he began to introduce better order and to appear “respectable!”[3]He had not been long inChiswell Street, before both his wife and himself were seized with fever. She died and was buried without his having once seen her after her illness. The shop was left in the care of a boy, his house was put in charge of nurses, who robbed him of his linen and other articles, kept themselves drunk with gin, and would have left him to perish. The timely presence of his sister saved his life, and several Wesleyan friends saved him from ruin by locking up his shop, which the nurses and boy together would soon have emptied. Although he wrote the whole story in after-years in a vein of flippant sarcasm and irreverence for religion, he was constrained to acknowledge his great obligation to the friends whose religion prompted them thus to act the good Samaritan to him in his dire extremity. “The above gentlemen,” he says, “not only took care of my shop, but also advanced money to pay such expenses as occurred; and as my wife was dead, they assisted in making my will in favor of my mother.“ ”These worthy gentlemen,“ he adds, ”belong to Mr. Wesley’s Society (and notwithstanding they have imbibed many enthusiastic whims), yet would they be an honor to any society, and are a credit to human nature.”

In 1776 he married Miss Dorcas Turton, a friend of his first wife. It seems to have been her influence, to a large extent, that drew him away from Wesleyanism and religion. She was a woman of considerable education, and a great reader, kindly and affectionate in her disposition, a dutiful daughter to her aged and dependent father, whom she had supported after his failure in business by keeping a school. But she seems to have had no thought of religious truth as a basis for character and an impulse to right conduct, and her absolute indifference to religion soon told on the mind of a sensitive and impulsive man like Lackington. “I did not long remain in Mr. Wesley’s Society,” he writes, referring to this same year 1776, “and, what is remarkable, I well remember that, some years before, Mr. Wesley told his society in Broadmead, Bristol, in my hearing, that he could never keep a bookseller six months in his flock.”

Two years afterward Lackington entered into partnership for three years with Mr. Denis, anhonest man, as he is emphatically styled, who brought a considerable sum of money into the business, by means of which the stock was at once doubled, and the sales vastly increased. Lackington now proposed the issue of a sale catalogue, to which his partner reluctantly consented. Both partners were employed in writing it, but thelarger share fell to Lackington, whose name alone appeared on the title-page. It was issued in 1779, and the first week after its publication the partners took, what they regarded as the “large sum” of twenty pounds. Denis, finding his money pay better in business than in the Funds, invested a larger sum in stock, but when Lackington, who according to the terms of the agreement was sole purchaser, began to buy, as his partner thought, too largely, they had a dispute over the matter and dissolved partnership on friendly terms a year before the term of partnership had expired. Denis, to the end of his life, remained friendly with Lackington, and used to call in every day on passing his shop to inquire what purchases and sales he had effected, and now and then thehonest manlent his old partner money to help in paying bills.

In 1780 he resolved to giveno creditto any one, and to sell all his books at the lowest price bearing a working profit. The effect of this new method of doing business was remarkable in many ways. Long credit seems to have been common in the trade in those days, most bills were not paid within six months, many not within a twelvemonth, and some not within two years. “Indeed,” he adds, “many tradesmen have accounts of seven years’ standing; and some bills are never paid”(!) After recounting the disadvantages of the credit system, he says: “When I communicated my ideas on this subject to some of my acquaintances, I was much laughed at and ridiculed; and it was thought that I might as well attempt to rebuild the Tower of Babel as to establish a large business without giving credit.” The offence given to some old customers was very great, and for a time he lost them, but they soon returned on learning how much lower his books were now marked than those of other booksellers. As to others who would only deal on credit, he cared little when he observed their anger, very wisely remarking that “some of them would have been as much enraged when their bills were sent in had credit been given them.” The booksellers themselves were not a little annoyed by the innovations of the dauntless trader, and appear to have said some bitter things about him and his stock. Some of them were “mean enough to assert that all my books were bound insheep,” and he adds, in language that does him credit, “As every envious transaction was to me an additional spur to exertion, I am therefore not a little indebted to Messrs. Envy, Detraction & Co. for my present prosperity, though, I assure you, this is the only debt I am determined not to pay.”

This adoption of the “no credit” system was the first decided step toward Lackington’s wonderful success in business. In five years his catalogues contained the names of thirty thousand books, and these were generally of a much better description.

The most startling innovation he made in the trade of bookselling, and the one which led to the largest amount of opposition on the part of his fellow-tradesmen, was in regard to the way of dealing with what are called “remainders.” When a bookseller found a book did not sell well, it was his custom to put what remained into a private sale, “where only booksellers were admitted, and of them only such as were invited by having a catalogue sent them.“ ”When first invited to these trade-sales,“ he says, ”I was very much surprised to learn that it was common for such as purchased remainders to destroy one half or three fourths of such books, and to charge the full publication price, or nearly that, for such as they kept on hand. For a short time I cautiously complied with this custom.” But he soon became convinced of the folly of this practice, and resolved to keep the whole stock of books and sell them off at low prices. By this means he disposed of hundreds of thousands of volumes at a small profit, which amounted to a larger sum in the end than if he had destroyed three out of four and sold the rest at the original retail price. This course made him many enemies in the trade, who tried to injure him, and even did their best to keep him out of the sale-rooms. It was, however, of no avail: his business increased enormously, his customers appreciating his method, whether the booksellers did or not. He often bought enormously; “West says he sat next to Lackington at a sale when he spent upward of £12,000 in an afternoon.”[4]It was no uncommon thing for him to buy several thousand copies of one book, and at one time he hadten thousandcopies of Watts’ Psalms and the same number of his Hymns in stock. Of course he found it necessary to sell out rapidly, or business would soon have come to a dead-lock; for, as he justly observes, “no one that has not a quick sale can possibly succeed with large numbers.“ ”So that I often look back,“ he remarks, ”with astonishment at my courage (or temerity, if you please) in purchasing, and my wonderful success in taking money sufficient to pay the extensive demands that were perpetually made upon me, asthere is not another instance of success so rapid and constant under such circumstances.” It is interesting to notice how trifling a circumstance it was which led him to adopt the plan of selling every article at the lowest remunerative price. “Mrs. Lackington had bought a piece of linen; when the linen-draper’s man brought it into my shop three ladies were present, and on seeing the cloth opened asked Mrs. L. what it cost per yard. On being told the price, they all said it was very cheap, and each lady went and purchased the same quantity; those pieces were again displayed to their acquaintance, so that the linen-draper got a deal of custom from that circumstance; and I resolved to do likewise.“ He admits that he often sold a ”great number of articles much lower than he ought, even on his own plan of selling cheap, yet that gave him no concern,“ ”but if he found out that he had sold any articles too dear,“ he declares that ”it gave him much uneasiness.“ He reflects in his own simple fashion: ”If I sell a book too dear, I perhaps lose that customer and his friends forever, but if I sell articles considerably under their real value the purchaser will come again and recommend my shop to his acquaintances, so that from the principles of self-interest I would sell cheap.”

The following observations of a shrewd observer are worth quoting as a testimony to the change which had begun to come over the minds of the people of this country in regard to reading, about a hundred years ago: “I cannot help observing that the sale of books in general has increased prodigiously within the last twenty years [1791]. According to the best estimation I have been able to make, I suppose that more than four times the number of books are sold now than were sold twenty years since. The poorer sort of farmers, and even the poor country people in general, who before that period spent their winter evenings in relating stories of witches, ghosts, hobgoblins, etc., now shorten the nights by hearing their sons and daughters read tales, romances, etc.; and on entering their houses, you may see ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Roderick Random,’ and other entertaining books stuck up on their bacon-racks, etc.; and if John goes to town with a load of hay, he is charged to be sure not to forget to bring home ‘Peregrine Pickle’s Adventures;’ and when Dolly is sent to the market to sell her eggs she is commissioned to purchase ‘The History of Pamela Andrews.’ In short, all ranks and degrees nowread. Butthe most rapid increase of the sale of books has been since the termination of the late war.”[5]

He tells the story of his going to reside in the country and set up a carriage, horses, and liveried servants in his own quaint and self-complacent style. “My countrylodgingby regular gradation was transformed into a countryhouse, and the inconveniences attending astage-coachwere remedied by achariot.” This house was taken at Merton in Surrey. Referring to the captious remarks of his neighbors, he says: “When by the advice of that eminent physician, Dr. Lettsom, I purchased a horse and saved my life by the exercise it afforded me, the old adage, ‘Set a beggar on horseback, and he’ll ride to the devil,’ was deemed fully verified; they were very sorry to see people so young in business run on at so great a rate!” The occasional relaxation enjoyed in the country was censured as an abominable piece of pride; but when the carriage and servants in livery appeared, “they would not be the first to hurt a foolish tradesman’s character, but if (as was but too probable) thedocketwas not already struck, the Gazette would soon settle that point.” It appears that some of these wiseacres speculated as to the means by which the fortunate bookseller had made his large fortune. Some spoke of alotteryticket, and others were sure that he must have found a number of “banknotes in an old book to the amount of many thousand pounds, and if they please can even tell you the title of the old book that contained the treasure.“ ”But,” he jocosely remarks, “you shall receive it from me, which you will deem authority to the full as unexceptionable. I found the whole of what I am possessed of, in—small profits,boundbyindustry, andclaspedbyeconomy.”

It is curious to notice the frank and simple manner in which he speaks of his profits, and of the way in which he did his business. “The profits of my business the present year [1791] will amount to four thousand pounds,“ he writes, and goes on to say that ”the cost and selling price of every book was marked in it, whether the price is sixpence or sixty pounds, is entered in a day-book as they are sold, with the price it cost and the money it sold for; and each night the profits of the day are cast up by one of my shopmen, as every one ofthem understands my private marks. Every Saturday night the profits of the week are declared before all my shopmen, etc., the week’s profits, and also the expenses of the week, then entered one opposite another; the whole sum taken in the week is also set down, and the sum that has been paid for books bought. These accounts are kept publicly in my shop, and ever have been so, as I never saw any reason for concealing them.” He speaks in the same letter of selling more than one hundred thousand volumes annually, and adds, in his own complacent manner, “I believe it is universally allowed that no man ever promoted the sale of books in an equal degree!”

Lackington at length quitted Chiswell Street, and took the enormous building at the corner of Finsbury Square, which was styled “The Temple of the Muses,” and to which the public were invited as the cheapest bookshop in the world. He declared in his catalogue that he had half a million of books constantly on sale, “and these were arranged in galleries and rooms rising in tiers—the more expensive books at the bottom, and the prices diminishing with every floor, but all numbered according to a catalogue which Lackington compiled by himself.”[6]His profits on the first year’s trade at “The Temple of the Muses” amounted to £5000. He retired from business in 1798, having made a large fortune.

His capacity for business was remarkable. Until he was nearly thirty years of age he had no opportunity of exercising it. But once having given up the gentle craft, in which he was no great proficient, he proved himself one of the smartest and cleverest business men in London. We can readily pardon the simple vanity of the self-made and self-taught merchant prince who writes about his recently acquiredchariotin the following strain: “And I assure you, sir, that reflecting on the means by which the carriage was procured adds not a little to the pleasure of riding in it. I believe I may, without being deemed censorious, assert that there are some who ride in their carriages who cannot reflect on the means by which they were acquired with an equal degree of satisfaction.” For several years, both before and after he retired from business, he made a journey through different parts of England and Scotland, calling at the chief towns, such as York, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Carlisle, Lancaster, Manchester, Bristol, and inspecting the bookshops. His observations areof the most quaint and out-of-the-way character. At Newcastle he found nothing more remarkable to record than “the celebratedcrow’s nestaffixed above the weather-cock on the upper extremity of the steeple in the market-place,” and the famousbrank, an iron instrument, shown in the town-hall, and used in olden time to punish notorious scolds. At Glasgow the most notable spectacle, and one that calls forth a considerable amount of remark, is that of the washerwomen, whose practice of getting into their tubs, placed by the river-side, and dollying the linen with their bare feet, awoke his profound astonishment. Of his visits to Bristol and the west of England, the scene of his early life, he gives the following curious and interesting account: “In Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, Taunton, Wellington, and other places, I amused myself in calling on some of my masters, with whom I had, about twenty years before, worked as a journeyman shoemaker. I addressed each with, ‘Pray, sir, have you got any occasion?’ which is the term made use of by journeymen in that useful occupation when seeking employment. Most of those honest men had quite forgot my person, as many of them had not seen me since I worked for them, so that it is not easy for you to conceive with what surprise and astonishment they gazed on me. For you must know that I had the vanity (I call ithumor) to do this in my chariot, attended by my servants; and on telling them who I was, all appeared to be very happy to see me. And I assure you, my friend, it afforded me much real pleasure to see my old acquaintances alive and well.” Coming to Wellington, his birthplace and home during boyhood, he says: “The bells rang merrily all the day of my arrival. I was also honored with the attention of many of the most respectable people in and near Wellington and other parts, some of whom were pleased to inform me that the reason of their paying a particular attention to me was their having heard, and now having themselves an opportunity of observing, that I did not so far forget myself as many proud upstarts had done; and that the notice I took of my poor relations and old acquaintance merited the respect and approbation of every real gentleman.”

Lackington’s kindness to his own relatives, and to the poor, was one of his best qualities. In fact, he declares in 1791 that he would have retired from business five years previously if it had not been for the thought of his poor relations, many of whom were helpless, and whom he felt bound to relieve and protect. Besides supporting his “good old mother“ for manyyears, he says, ”I have two aged men and one aged woman whom I support: and I have also four children to maintain and educate; ... many others of my relations are in similar circumstances and stand in need of my assistance.” He also made provision for the support of the very aged parents of his first wife, Nancy.

On abandoning business he left his third cousin George Lackington at the head of the firm, while he and his wife went to live at Thornbury in Gloucestershire, in order to be in the neighborhood of the Turtons, his wife’s relations. He bought two estates in Alvestone, on one of which was a genteel house, where he lived in good style for several years. Here he employed his time in visiting the sick and poor, and sometimes inpreaching. For he had now returned to the faith of a Christian, and threw himself with his accustomed ardor into all kinds of religious work. His contrition for the severe and ungracious things he had said of the Wesleyans in the first editions of his “Memoirs” was evidently very deep. He acknowledges in plain terms that he owed to them all his early advantages, and the moral and mental awakening which opened before him a new path in life. He says, in the introduction to his last edition of his book, “If I had never heard the Methodists preach, in all probability I should have been at this time a poor, ragged, dirty cobbler.... It was also through them that I got the shop in which I first set up for a bookseller.”

He built a small chapel at Thornbury on his own estate, where the Wesleyan ministers regularly officiated. In 1806 he removed to Taunton, where he resided for about six years, built a chapel at a cost of £3000, adding £150 a year for the minister.

On the decline of his health in 1812, he went to live by the seaside at Budleigh Sulterton, in Devonshire. Here also he erected a chapel which cost £2000, and endowed it with a minister’s stipend of £150 per annum.

James Lackington died of paralysis in the seventieth year of his age, on the 22d of November, 1815, and was buried in the Budleigh Churchyard. None will deny the successful bookseller the right to the Latin motto with which he has adorned the frontispiece to the first edition of “Memoirs and Confessions,” viz.,Sutor ultra crepidam feliciter ausus.[7]

REV. S. BRADBURN

THE SHOEMAKER WHO BECAME THE PRESIDENT OF THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE.

“I was a poor ignorant cobbler.”—Samuel Bradburn, Life of Samuel Bradburn, p. 227.

“During forty years Samuel Bradburn was esteemed the Demosthenes of Methodism.”—Abel Stevens, LL.D., quoted on title-page of Life of S. B.

“I have never heard his equal; I can furnish you with no adequate idea of his powers as an orator; we have not a man among us that will support anything like a comparison with him.... I never knew one with so great a command of language.”—Dr. Adam Clarke.

“The generous and noble-minded Samuel Bradburn, whose ability as a public speaker was all but unrivalled.”—Rev. Thomas Jackson, President of the Wesleyan Conference.

In the winter of 1740 the press-gang men were busy at their abominable work in most of the maritime and inland towns of England, and, among other places, Chester seems to have sent certain unwilling recruits to make up the rank and file of the army, and replenish the navy of His Majesty King George II. Many are the tales of cruelty which belong to this miserable period in the history of our army and navy. Thousands of able-bodied men were carried away by main force from their peaceful occupations, from home and friends, and everything that was dear to them, and compelled to do duty for their country in foreign climes. Sons, husbands, fathers of families, steady, honest, industrious, law-abiding citizens, or worthless waifs and strays, it mattered not—all who might be of service, and could be easily caught, were seized and hurried off to the nearest military or naval depot, and were soon lost sight of by their distressed relations, and were, perhaps, never heard of again until their names were reported in the list of killed and wounded in battle. Now and then the life of enforced military or naval service was tolerable and even pleasant from a soldier’s or sailor’s point of view and ended happily enough with an honorable discharge and pension. A wretched beginning had not always a wretched course and a miserable ending, for the Briton of those days was a much-enduring creature, and had strong notions about “serving his country,” and soon learned to tolerate and even enjoy a condition of things which, to say the least, was unjustifiable and tyrannical.

An incident connected with the life-story of the subject of this sketch will illustrate some of the worst features of the system referred to, and show the sort of hardship and injustice to which “the free and noble sons” of Britain were exposed up to a time almost within the memory of men still living. Two men sat drinking and chatting in a friendly manner in an ale-house in Chester one night early in the year 1740. It does not seem that either of them was the worse for liquor, or that anything unpleasant had passed between them to spoil the pleasure of their intercourse. In fact, the two men had knowneach other years before, and both seemed glad to renew their acquaintance. The younger of the two was only twenty-one years of age, and had been married but a few days previously to a young woman of nineteen summers, to whom he was deeply attached. After staying as long as he deemed expedient he rose to go home, when to his amazement the pretended “friend” and old acquaintance turned upon him with the words, “You shall not leave this room to-night; you have now no master but the king, and you must serve him, as you have taken his money.” Guessing what was meant, the poor fellow felt in his pocket and found that his companion had secretly slipped three guineas into it as king’s bounty. It was vain for the enraged and distracted young man to throw the money on the floor, and declare he would none of it nor the king’s service, that he was but just married, and had no wish to be a soldier, for armed men stood round the door and prevented escape. It was vain also to appeal to the magistrates of that day, for though they must have been perfectly well acquainted with the nefarious tricks of pressmen and recruiting officers, they accepted the evidence of the officer against the recruit, and adjudged him a legal soldier, because, forsooth, he had received the king’s bounty and so enlisted. Such was the experience of Samuel Bradburn’s father, and in two days after the event just narrated he was hurried off to his regiment, without a chance of saying good-by to his friends or making any further efforts for his own release. Their grief, and the agony of mind endured by the young bride, may be imagined. She had no choice but to part from him, perhaps forever; or to get permission to attach herself to the regiment, and follow her husband’s fortunes as a soldier. No true woman and worthy wife would hesitate long, and the noble-hearted Welsh girl[8]soon resolved not to leave her husband. The regiment was ordered to Flanders, and took part in several battles, in one of which Bradburn was severely wounded, and on the conclusion of the war in 1748 ordered to Gibraltar, where Samuel was born, 5th October, 1751, and where he spent the first twelve years of his life.

The soldier’s family numbered thirteen children, and as his pay was but scanty, it may be supposed that the education of each of its members could not have been a very important or costly affair. In short, we haveanotherstory to add to thosealready told of a life of singular devotedness and usefulness which had no fair foundation of sound and thorough education. Bradburn himself declares that he went to school for only a fortnight during his twelve years’ life at Gibraltar. The fee was a penny a week, and on its being raised to three halfpence the boy was removed, for the father’s poor pittance would not allow of the extra strain upon it of a halfpenny per week. And so, says the biographer, almost with an air of triumph, “the education of one of the greatest modern pulpit orators cost onlytwopence!”

Bradburn’s father appears to have been a remarkably thoughtful and exemplary sort of man for a soldier, in those days. Though he never united with the Methodists, he was much attached to them, and had derived great profit from their preaching at the camp in Flanders. His children were brought up in a strictly religious manner, always going to service on Sunday, and being compelled to read a daily portion of Scripture, and repeat a Scripture lesson from week to week. According to his light, he did his best to bring his children up well; and one of them, at all events, profited by his training, for Samuel became very thoughtful and serious, and was accounted, by his neighbors, one of the best boys in the town.

On his discharge from the army Bradburn went to live in the old city from which he had been so cruelly carried away about twenty-three years before. Samuel was then nearly thirteen years of age, and a situation was soon found for him as an out-door apprentice to a shoemaker, to whom he was bound for eight years. Brought up under the influences of Methodism, and accustomed to listen to a class of preachers who had done more than any others to awaken and keep alive the flames of religious revival and zeal, young Bradburn’s mind was always more or less under the influence of deep religious conviction. His history, as a youth, presents the most astonishing contrasts of religious fervor and sinful excess. Yet his worst moods did not last long, and, however far he went in the way of transgression, his consciousness of the evil of sin never left him, and he had always sufficient moral sensibility left to make him profoundly miserable when he dared to reflect. Acts of daring wickedness, and defiant or profane language, only served as a cover to a troubled heart and a restless conscience. The story of his early life, with its alternate seriousness and folly, anxiety about his soul’s welfare and mad recklessness, reads wonderfully like that of John Bunyan. How like the records ofthe life of the Bedford tinker are these entries in the diary of the Chester shoemaker: “One evening, being exceedingly cast down, and finding an uncommon weight upon my spirits, I went to preaching, and while Mr. Guilford was describing the happiness of the righteous in glory, my heart melted like wax before the fire. In a moment all that heaviness was removed, and the love of God was so abundantly shed abroad in my heart, that I could scarcely refrain from crying out in the preaching-house.“ ... ”When preaching was over, I went into a place near St. Martin’s Churchyard, which adjoined the preaching-house, and there I poured out my soul before the Lord in prayer and praise, and continued rejoicing in God my Saviour most of the night.” He was then less than fourteen years of age; his companions at the work-room were of a godless sort, and after a few months’ enjoyment of mental peace and joy, their injurious influence began to tell upon him. By degrees he abandoned his prayerful habits, and surrendered himself to the power of evil, until at length he “became acquainted with the vilest of the vile,” and imbibed their spirit and followed their example. To what depths he sank the following sentences from his diary will show: “It is impossible to express the feelings of my mind, on some occasions during this apostasy from God; especially once, when one of the greatest reprobates I ever knew was constrained to own that he was shocked to hear me swear such oaths as I often did.[9]... For a moment I felt a degree of compunction, but gave away to despair and drowned the conviction.” The reproof which Bunyan received under similar circumstances led him to drop the practice of swearing; but Bradburn went on in his evil ways as resolutely as ever. For several years he seems to have led a reckless life, joining in vicious company, indulging a passion for “gaming,” or gambling, to such an extent that he would even go to bed and rise and dress again when the rest of the household were asleep, in order to go out through the window and join his gambling and betting companions. At last he became so enamoured of sinful follies that he snatchedthe opportunity, which a few words of complaint from his father afforded, to take offence and leave home, “in order to go and lodge with some abandoned young men, in order to have his full swing without being curbed by any one.” His wages were but small, and as he took half of them home he had but a small pittance to live upon: yet such was his craze at this time for bad company and “gaming,” that he lived often for two days on a penny loaf, and went in rags rather than confess his error to his parents and ask their aid. One good quality kept him from utter ruin at this time, and it seems to have been the only one that remained in a lively state. He speaks of “the affection he had for his mother, whom he still loved as his own soul.” He could not endure her tears and tender reproofs, and left his home in order that he might not have to suffer the constant reproach of her good character and loving entreaties. To such lengths will a passion for sinful amusements drive even a youth of sensitive nature and generous disposition. Nothing can be more deplorable than the account he gives of his sinful infatuation at this the worst period of his youthful career. “I spent almost a twelvemonth in this truly pitiable way of life, and during that time do not remember enjoying one satisfactory moment. My clothes were now almost worn out, and my wages were not sufficient to supply me with more; yet, such was my folly, I still persisted in the same way, glorying even in my shame, till my life seemed nearly finished, and the measure of my iniquity almost full; and, to all appearance, there was but a step betwixt me and everlasting death.”

At eighteen years of age this miserable course of sin came to an end. Bradburn was led “by the hand of Providence to work in the house of a Methodist.” He had about this time, also, become so weak and ailing in health, as the result of his pernicious habits, that he was compelled to yield to his parents’ entreaties to go and live at home. Good example, kind words, and wise counsel, combined with the beneficial effects of separation from his old companions, soon began to tell upon his conscience. As might be expected, the sense of sin, when once it was awakened in him, was most intense. It was no wonder that such a youth as Samuel Bradburn should have “experiences” which men of a milder temperament are strangers to, and cannot perhaps appreciate. After he had mused for a time, and thought upon his ways, he became suddenly, and, as it seemed then, most unaccountably convinced of sin, and led to cherish the most anxious concern to find peace with God.“One evening,” he writes in his diary, “at the close of the year 1769, while I was making a few cursory remarks on the season, and looking at some decayed flowers in a garden adjoining the house I worked in, I was suddenly carried, as it were, out of myself with the thought of death and eternity.... My sins were set as in battle array before me, particularly that of ingratitude to a good and gracious God. This caused my very bones to tremble, and my soul to be horribly afraid. Hell from beneath seemed moved to meet me.... The effects of those convictions were such that I could scarcely reach home, though but a little way off. I went to bed, but found no rest. I sunk under the weight of my distress, gave myself up to despair, and for some time lost the use of my reason.” For several days the poor sin-stricken youth lay as if in a high fever, and raved of judgment and perdition. It was three months ere he entered into a state of quiet, firm, intelligent, Christian faith, bringing peace and rest to his mind. His excellent and godly master helped him somewhat during this long and terrible struggle in the “slough of despond.” Several “evangelists,” in the character of gospel ministers, pointed out the way of life to him, but they were not of so much service as might have been expected. A “roll which he carried in his hand,” on which was written, “The Door of Salvation Opened by the Key of Regeneration,” was of great value in showing the way to the blessedness he sought. In fact, it was during the reading of this little treatise on the life of faith that his spirit first seemed to hear the divine words, “Peace, be still.” There could be no mistake about the young shoemaker’s conversion. Account for it as men might, the change was marvellous, and infinitely beneficial, as we shall see, no less to his neighbors than to himself; for Samuel Bradburn was intensely social, and bound to influence his friends in one way or another, as well as to be influenced by them. It was impossible for him to remain inactive when a great impulse moved within him. The desire to go out and speak of the joy he had found, and the means by which he had found it, soon became a ruling passion. It is the desire which makes the philanthropist, the preacher, the missionary. The language in which he attempts to describe that indescribable joy of the renewed heart is but another reading of the old gospel truth: “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”[10]Alludingto the reading of the little book above mentioned, he says: “Such an unspeakable power accompanied the words to my soul, that, being unable to control myself, I rose from my seat and went into the garden, where I had spent many a melancholy hour; but, oh, how changed now! Instead of terror and despair I felt my heart overflowing with joy, and my eyes with grateful tears. My soul was in such an ecstasy that my poor emaciated body was as strong and active as I ever remember it, and not at that time only, for the strength and activity remained. I had now no fear of death, but rather longed to die, knowing that the blessed Jesus wasmySaviour; that God was reconciled tomethrough Him; that nothing but the thread of life kept me from His glorious presence. Now the whole creation wore a different aspect. The stars which shone exceeding bright appeared more glorious than before. Such was my happy frame that I imagined myself in the company of the holy angels, who, I believed, were made more happy on my account, and doubtless those ministering spirits did feel new degrees of joy on seeing so vile a sinner, so wretched a prodigal, come home to the arms of his heavenly Father.[11]O Thou eternal God!“ he exclaims, ”Thou transporting delight of my soul! preserve and support, me through life, that I may at last enjoy the heaven of love which I then felt overpowering my spirit.”

Bradburn at once joined the Methodist Society at Chester. His master’s son, a boy of twelve, and many other young people, began to attend the “class-meetings” about the same time. Among his work-fellows, also, there were some who rejoiced in the light which now filled young Bradburn’s soul, and their conversation and hymn-singing while at work, and their union in prayer before quitting the workroom at the close of the day, made the new time a perpetual Sabbath, and the shoemaker’s room “a perfect paradise.” In March, 1770, after the usual period of probation, he was admitted to full membership, and received what the Methodists call “his first ticket.” He was not long in discovering, as every one else has done in similar circumstances, that the change, though genuine, was not complete. An outburst of passion, and a growing desire after disputation on theological matters, in which he found himself contending for mastery rather than truth, gave him to see that a sound and secure religious character is a matter of growth and culture and can only be maintained by watchfulness and prayer, and the careful formation of habits of piety. And as Thomas à Kempis finely says, “Custom is overcome by custom,” so Bradburn found it, and in order to put a bar between his spirit and possible temptations, changed his way ofliving, hiscompanions, and hisbooks. One day, when John Wesley was administering the Lord’s Supper in the little chapel at Chester, Bradburn was seized with the idea that he must become a preacher. For a long time he strove hard to drive it from his mind. But the more he did so the more it seemed to possess him. His sense of unfitness for so great an office as that of the preacher, his exalted notions of the sacredness and responsibility attaching to the office, and his own deepening conviction, which nothing could resist, that it was his duty before God to devote himself to the work, made him for a time positively wretched. He tried the effect of change of residence upon his feelings in the matter. He was now twenty years of age, and out of his time. But on visiting his relations at Wrexham, he found that they and their friends of the Wesleyan Society, to whom he was introduced, had a common feeling that such a young man ought surely to exercise his gifts as a speaker. In answer to their entreaties he spoke several times in their meetings, and thus made his first start in public speaking. Still the question of preaching was left unsettled, and disturbed his mind night and day. It became a positive burden to him—“the burden of the Lord,” indeed, and no power of his own could remove it. Six months after this brief visit to Wrexham, he obtained a situation, and went to reside in Liverpool, where he fell in with people much to his mind, who were exceedingly kind to him. They, however, no sooner came to know him than their opinion was strongly expressed to the same purport as that of his friends in Chester and Wrexham. In four months he left Liverpool and returned home, the great life-question still upon his mind. He dare not settle it, in one way or the other; all he could do was to resolve to live as near to God as possible, commit his way unto Him, and submissively wait for the direction of Divine providence. In this condition of mind he passed the rest of the year 1772. At the beginning of the following year he found employment at Wrexham, and there took up his abode in the congenial society of his relations and religious friends. Soon after this the event occurred which decided the severe and agonizing mental struggle to which he had been subjected for the last twelve months, and determined the wholecourse of his life, and the employment of his rare gifts as a preacher of the Gospel. On Sunday, February 7th, 1773, the preacher for the day failed to appear. Young Bradburn was invited by the leaders of the congregation to take the service. Trembling from head to foot, almost blind with fear and excitement, and casting himself on divine aid, he mounts the pulpit stairs. The opening part of the service gives him confidence, and when the time for preaching comes, he is able to speak with much freedom and fervor to an appreciative and thankful audience. In the evening he is once more asked to occupy the pulpit, and this time he delivers a discourse which is not too long for the hearers, though it lasts for more than two hours. The next week he preaches to the same people three times; and now the question is settled, and settled, as he and his friends are fain to believe, in a providential way: Samuel Bradburn iscalled to be a preacher, and a preacher of no ordinary power. He has not waited all these long months for nothing. He has not run before he was sent. He has not tarried in the desert like Moses, like Elijah, like Saul of Tarsus, to learn the truth and will of God, with no beneficial results. He has been called of the Holy Spirit to the work, and to the work of preaching he must now give himself and his very best powers, or a woe will rest upon him. He and his Methodist friends would not trouble themselves for one moment about the question of his being a shoemaker, orremaininga shoemaker, if he is to become a preacher. One apostolic precedent was as good as twelve to them in a matter of this kind, and Paul did not cease to be a tent-maker when the Holy Ghost said to the church at Antioch, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the work whereunto I have called them.”[12]

Soon after the events just referred to, Bradburn resolved to go and see the Rev. John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley in Shropshire, the friend of Lady Huntingdon, and Benson, and John Wesley. Fletcher had a reputation for piety and usefulness which few men in his day could equal and none surpass. He was a great favorite with the followers of John Wesley, not alone because of his friendship with their leader, but on account of his saintly life, his evangelistic zeal, and his rare catholicity of spirit. None worked more faithfully and diligently than he at the College of Trevecca in Wales, of which he was for several years the president. Yet he received no emolument for his labors. “Fletcher was no pluralist, for hedid his work at Trevecca without fee or reward, from the sole motive of being useful.”[13]It is said of his apostolic work at Madeley, that “the parish, containing a degraded, ignorant, and vicious population employed in mines and iron works, became, under his diligent Christian culture, a thoroughly different place. His public discourses, his pastoral conversations, his catechising of the young, his reproofs to the wicked, his encouragements to the penitent, his accessibility at all hours, his readiness to go out in the coldest night and the deepest snow to see the sick or the sorrowing, his establishment of schools, and his personal efforts in promoting their prosperity—in short, his almost unrivalled efforts in all kinds of ministerial activity, have thrown around Madeley beautiful associations not to be matched by the hills and hanging woods which adorn that hive of industry.”[14]Bradburn was lovingly received at the Madeley vicarage, stayed for several days with the family, and preached in one of the rooms of the house to a congregation of villagers. If Fletcher could not ask his shoemaker friend to officiate in the church, seeing that he had taken no holy orders, the good vicar had no difficulty or scruple in regard to his guest’s preaching the Gospel in the house. On leaving, young Bradburn carried away, as a precious treasure of the heart, a deep sense of Fletcher’s holy character, and never forgot the good man’s characteristic remark, “If you should live to preach the gospel forty years, and be the instrument of saving only one soul, it will be worth all your labor.” Returning home, he went on with his work as a shoemaker, preaching on Sundays in the chapels at Flint, Mold, Wrexham, etc., until the beginning of the following year, when he went to reside with friends at Liverpool. Here his preaching was so much enjoyed by the congregations of the “circuit” that he was pressed to stay and minister to them till July, when it was hoped that some arrangement might be made by the Conference in London by which he would be permanently and officially appointed to labor among them. Although he had become somewhat popular by this time, and was warmly welcomed wherever he went on account of his earnestness and rough eloquence, he was sometimes regarded with distrust because of his youthful and unclerical appearance and manner. One good man, who generally entertained the preacher on hisvisits, was so annoyed at the sight of “a mere lad” “travelling the circuit, that he sent young Bradburn to take his meals and sleep in the garret with the apprentices.” After the morning sermon, however, which surprised and delighted all who heard it, “he was judged worthy to sit in the preacher’s chair” at the table of his host, and at night was allowed to sleep in the “prophet’s chamber.” In September of that year he was not a little surprised to find himself appointed by the Conference as a regular “travelling preacher on the Liverpool circuit.” It was about this time he had his first interview with John Wesley. The veteran evangelist’s simple and kindly manner affected the young preacher deeply, and his advice was wonderfully like him: “Beware,” said Wesley, holding young Bradburn by the hand, “beware of the fear of man; and be sure you speak flat and plain in preaching.”

In these early days of Methodism, when the denomination was undergoing the process of rapid growth, it was impossible to wait for men, to meet the urgent need of the churches, who had gone through a regular process of ministerial education and training. Such as had the requisite character and the gift of speech were “called out” and placed over churches in a manner that would not have been tolerated in later times, when colleges had come to be established. Yet the work done by men of Bradburn’s stamp was genuinely apostolic, and served, under the divine blessing, to lay broad and deep the foundations of that Wesleyan denomination which, in the present day, yields to none of the so-called “sects” in the culture and moral power of its ministry. It is not to be supposed that the fluent young shoemaker was insensible to his need of education. The first year’s work in Lancashire taxed his mental resources severely, and set him wondering many times whether he should be able to go on preparing new sermons in order to preach repeatedly to the same congregation. It was consequently an immense relief to him when the year came to an end, and he found that the Conference at Leeds had set him down for an entirely new field of labor, at Pembroke, in South Wales.[15]

Bradburn felt his poverty in more ways than one. Wesleyan ministers were then but poorly paid, and men of his generous character, who found it easier to give to the needy than to economize and save, were often in great straits for funds. On his way down to Pembroke he was reduced to his last shilling, and, but for this meeting with Wesley at Brecon, might have found it an awkward matter to reach his destination. “Apply to me when you want help,” said Wesley to his friend, and very soon proved his sincerity by prompt assistance when the young pastor made known his straitened circumstances. The following story is too good to be omitted. In reply to Bradburn’s appeal Wesley sent the following short letter, inclosing several five-pound notes:

“Dear Sammy: Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.—Yours affectionately,John Wesley.”

To which Bradburn replied:

“Rev. and Dear Sir: I have often been struck with the beauty of the passage of Scripture quoted in your letter, but I must confess that I never saw such useful expository notes upon it before.—I am, Rev. and dear Sir, your obedient and grateful servant,S. Bradburn.”

The year spent in South Wales was happy and prosperous, and the churches at Pembroke, Haverfordwest, and Carmarthen were greatly increased and well organized under the care of Bradburn and his colleague. By the Conference in 1776 he was sent to Limerick, and from thence, in four months, such was the severity of the strain upon his health, he was removed to Dublin. Here he had met, on first landing in Ireland, with the young lady who was afterward to become his wife. It was a case of “mutual admiration” and “love at first sight.” Bradburn was a passionate lover, and could ill brook the delay of two years which had to pass away before he took the beautiful Miss Nangle to his own home. In one of his anxious moods, when sick of love and hope deferred, he rose from his sleepless bed to pray for divine guidance and favor in regard to the serious business of courtship. It was his custom to pray aloud, and supposing his colleague, who occupied the same bed, to be fast asleep, he did not balk his prayer in this instance, finishing a fervent appeal for divine direction with the simple words, “But, Lord, let it be Betsey.“ His bedfellowhumorously responded, ”Amen,” and broke out into a hearty laugh at poor Bradburn’s expense. John Wesley, who favored the match, and generously interceded in his friend’s behalf, both with a much-dreaded stepmother and the fair one herself, conducted the marriage ceremony in the house of a friend. He had invited the bride and bridegroom-elect, and Mrs. Karr the stepmother, “to breakfast with him at Mrs. King’s,[16]the morning after his arrival, being his birthday; as soon as she (Mrs. Karr) entered he began the ceremony and married us in the parlor. Pride would not let her affront Mr. Wesley, and she was forced to appear satisfied.“ ”Wesley,” says Bradburn’s biographer,[17]“more than once took up cudgels for his preachers when in difficulties of this kind, but not in such a summary manner.”

Back to Index Next