Special thanks are due to Miss Cornelia Bagster for her kindness in allowing the free use of her father's unpublished Autobiography, and to Martin Wilkin, Esq., for his courteous permission to print an autograph letter of Rev. John Ryland, A.M.
THE THREE RYLANDS ^unbreb %e(nte of various Cfyxxefian Service. BY JAMES CULROSS, M.A., D.D., Honorary President ofBristol Baptist College, AUTHOR OF 'JOHN WHOM JESUS LOVED,' ' THE LIII. OF ISAIAH : AN EXPOSITION AND AN ARGUMENT,' ETC. WITH INTRODUCTION BY W. RYLAND DENT ADKINS, B.A., Late History Exhibitioner ofBalliol College, Oxford, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW 1897.
INTRODUCTION. This monograph—to which I am allowed by my friend Dr. Culross to prefix a few pages of intro ductory comment—is concerned with the lives of three men who successively exercised much in fluence over the thoughts and modes of training of Protestant dissenters, especially those belonging to the Baptist denomination. Differing much in temperament and gifts, the three Rylands—father, son, and grandson—worked on almost exactly similar lines in their religious and educational activities, and were alike characterized by undevjating evangelical orthodoxy, combined with zeal for acquiring and diffusing learning. Much the ablest and strongest character of the three, as it seems to his descendant who writes these lines, was the first of these, John Collett Ryland ; and the bent of the family influence, and the tradition to which they were all loyal, were determined by the condition of thought and religion in England when he commenced his career as a Baptist i
2 THE THREE RYLANDS minister in 1748. His cast of opinion and his religious temperament were those of the seven teenth-century Puritans, while the general current of thought in the country was then altogether dif ferent from that of the previous age. England at that time, and during most of Ryland's life, was, like Western Europe generally, in the full tide of reaction. From the times of Elizabeth to those of Anne, Englishmen had been striving and fighting continually for the realization of ideas in religion and politics. To so long a period of stress and high tension there was bound to come a profound reaction towards prosaic temper and materialism. With the accession of the House of Brunswick, these set in and continued largely till the French Revolution. For the first part of this period there was little in public affairs to stir the minds and hearts of men. In place of uncertainty as to national and dynastic existence, came the settled government and peace policy of Walpole. Instead of a nation harassed by war-taxes and shaken by factions, came fat years of plenty. Rents throughout England had increased by one half during the thirty years ending in 1746. In rural districts the labouring classes were more comfortable and better off than they have ever been, before or since. Trade was expanding, and commerce increasing, and the national energies were diverted into channels of material prosperity. Similar character
INTRODUCTION 3 istics marked the intellectual world. The finest minds of the time were no longer concerned with constructive theories in religion and politics : to a creative had succeeded a critical age. This was no doubt well, but to fervent spirits wedded to the formulae of the last generation, criticism seemed perilously like desecration and destruction. The changed conditions showed themselves in the world of morals. Hypocrisy and malignity, which always disfigure ages of enthusiasm, are less prominent, but sloth and coarse enjoyment loom larger in the denunciations of preachers. The England of George II. was no worse, but rather better, than the England of Charles I., but it was much less highly wrought for good or evil, and was marked by all the signs which accompany a time of repose, when great forces have burnt themselves out, and when even the highest faculties of a nation have to lie fallow to recover their fertility. Perhaps the weaknesses of the new age were felt more than its benefits by the dissenting bodies among whom John Ryland was brought up. In common with all religionists, they breathed a different air from their fathers, and a new temper, strong in robust sanity, but weak for want of fervour and spiritual elevation, shows itself in them as in the episcopal churches at once by the growth of rationalistic opinion, and yet more by the spread of what in Scotland was called ' Moderatism '—that
4 THE THREE RYLANDS spirit which exalted common-sense and balance of faculty above emotional and introspective religion. But, unlike the Churches of Rome and England, they gained little of the best life of their time in critical scholarship and intellectual eminence. They had lost the supreme stimulus of persecution. They had not gained the full encouragement of perfect freedom. The Toleration Act allowed them to exist. The Statute Book prevented their sharing the educational endowment of the nation. Treated with contemptuous indifference, and removed by disabilities and want of wealth and status from the main stream of the national life, they were in the very position where it was easiest to sink into apathy, most difficult to retain their vigour, and impossible to develop their ideas. Among such people came John Ryland, young, ardent, with marked individuality, and with all that vehement temperament preferring eccentricity to platitude, which would have been congenial to the two previous centuries or to ours, but which was in sharp collision with the prevalent tendency of his own. To a man so situated there is always one deadly temptation. He finds himself hostile to the mode of his day ; he is satisfied with the religious habits of thought of an earlier time, and devoted to the ways and phraseology of an age half gone, and he is very likely to intensify his antagonism to his contemporaries, and hugging his cloak of antique
INTRODUCTION 5 virtue about him, to become an obscurantist, detest ing not only the new opinion and the new temper, but even polite learning and general culture, as being alienated from his dearest religious ideas. It is John Ryland's great claim to distinction that he did the exact opposite of this, and showed untiring zeal for culture as well as for religion. The greatest risk of his time was that earnest and pious dis senters, in protest against the spirit of their day, should despise liberal learning, and become selfcentred and remote from the life of their time. That this was mainly avoided is due not a little to Ryland's energies. He was intensely orthodox, according to the Calvinism of his day. There is no evidence that he had any original thoughts on the principles of religion. But he loved liberal culture like the best of the Humanists, and by means of his schools even more than by his pulpit he united old-fashioned dissenting theology, and true profound religion beneath it, with a genuine devotion to polite learning. His example and his teaching did no little to maintain this combination in others, and so to put English dissenters in the right place to take advantage of the enriched culture and varied thought of our own century. Along the same path walked his son and his grandson. The former, indeed, whose period of activity was contemporaneous with the best years of the Evangelical revival, found his own type of
6 THE THREE KYLANDS religious thought more in vogue than his father had ever done ; and while John Ryland the elder is like a Cromwellian divine displaying his fierce fervour a century later, Dr. Ryland is a quite repre sentative man of the revived and partly humanized Calvinism which flourished from the American War to the birth of the Oxford Movement. Less even than his father would he have been disposed to treat his religious ideas critically ; but, on the other hand, he was probably more erudite, being, as regards Hebrew especially, a really learned man, and displayed precisely the same blend of un questioning orthodoxy with strenuous efforts to impart thorough knowledge of secular as well as sacred subjects to his students. It was so also with the grandson, J. E. Ryland. His father and grandfather had not forgotten to secure for their children the same varied and genuine culture which they strove to impart to their pupils ; and the grandson, whose work was to lie in literary effort, had a sound grip of ancient and modern literature. The originality of the family was seen only in his grandfather ; but he was as industrious and as devoted to the same lines of thought as either of the other two, and his work, especially as a translator, helped to place English nonconformists en rapport with kindred schools of theology abroad. Thus it will be seen that the three Rylands show
INTRODUCTION 7 a record of strenuous mental activity continued for more than a century, and exercised in a sphere which peculiarly needed men of their special char acter and stamp of work. During the hundred years which saw their successive labours the English dissenters experienced less changes in the condition of their lives, and consequently show less variation of opinion or development of ideas, than many other classes of the community. From first to last they needed leaders like the Rylands, whose usefulness lay in the union which they all showed of certain religious opinions, with a certain attitude towards mental culture. Had John Ryland the elder devoted his original talents to free religious inquiry, he might easily, in that age, have found himself driven into negative speculations, which would have alienated from him the Protestant dissenters among whom his lot was cast. Had Dr. Ryland spent his critical faculty in analyzing and inquiring into religious principles, instead of expounding those current in his circle, the Baptists of a century ago might have lost the most genial and sweet-natured of their leaders. And had J. E. Ryland found his religious home in other surroundings, the middle-class nonconformists of his day would have had to do without many learned and reasonable utterances on matters of literature and biography, which they stood much in need of hearing. On the other hand, had the
8 THE THREE RYLANDS Rylands been merely devout dissenters, unmindful of culture, the intellectual condition of many groups of faithful nonconformists would have been as low in this generation as it all but became in the days of George II. When the University tradition had almost died out among dissenters, when penal laws and the 'cold shades of opposition ' had chilled the ardour of an earlier generation, there was, as has been said, grave danger of Baptists and Independents alike sinking into obscurantism. To save them from this was needed a succession of men whose unfeigned ac ceptance of dissenting theology, in both its strength and its weakness, commanded the full confidence of their co-religionists, and who yet would keep the torch of learning alight under all difficulties and dis abilities. Such a succession is seen in the Ryland family, and their discharge of this work, thoroughly and all through, is their title to remembrance. VV. Ryland Dent Adkins. Milton, August, 1897.
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND. I. EARLY LIFE. John Collett Ryland is a name little known to this generation. Dr. VV. Newman wrote a slender volume as a memorial of him, entitled ' Rylandiana,' now long out of print. The family was an old yeoman family, many of whom were distinguished for godliness in evil times. His grandfather, John Ryland, of Hinton-on-the-Green, Warwickshire, was a member of the Baptist Church in Alcester. During the reigns of Charles II. and James II., in con sequence of his sturdy nonconformity, he had once and again to go into hiding. He incurred fines to the amount of ^1,200 ' for not attending his parish church,' as he was required by law to do. Joseph Ryland, his son, was a prosperous grazier, who occupied a farm at a rental of ^400 a year at Lower Ditchford, near Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire. He married Freelove Collett, of the family of the Colletts of Slaughter (corrupted from Sclostre), in his own neighbourhood, a woman ' of a sweet and
12 THE THREE RYLANDS godly character.' who proved a true help-meet to him. The Collett family, which had branched out con siderably, claimed as their kinsman the famous Dean Colet, one of the Reformers before the Re formation, founder of St. Paul's School, friend of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. Their son, John Collett Ryland, was born, October 12, 1723, at Bourton-on-the-Water, to which the home had been removed. Bourton, lying on the Roman Fossway, was, and is, one of the loveliest of English villages. There had been a Baptist Church there dating back at least to the Protectorate ; it was represented among a number of associated churches at a meet ing held in Warwick on March 4, 1655. After being worried and spoiled under the Stuarts, and all but exterminated, the church set to work in 1701 to erect a house of prayer, 'taking into considera tion, in this day of liberty and free publication of the Gospel, what might contribute to the honour of Almighty God and promote the interest of the Gospel.' The building cost ^87 12s., so that it could not have been very 'magnifical.' In 1765 an ' elegant ' meeting-house, seating 500 persons, replaced it. In 1720, owing to differences among the members as to the choice of a pastor, they had dissolved, and on January 30 were reconstituted. Who was chosen to the office of pastor does not appear, probably Mr. Flower. Freelove Collett Ryland died in 1729, when her
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 13 boy was only five years old. Her death was a serious loss for the child, and as he grew up, with no mother's guidance, he surrendered himself to the follies of youth common at the period. In 1741 there occurred a remarkable 'awakening'in Bourton, under the instrumentality of young Benjamin Beddome, in which more than forty persons were brought to repentance and faith, young Ryland among them ; and on October 2 of that year he was baptized and received into the membership of the church. This took place just before the completion of his eighteenth year. Soon afterwards he resolved to devote his life to the ministry of the Gospel, if the Lord would accept him. ' If God don't bless me with abilities for the ministry, I'll get me a place to be an outrider for a Bristol, Coventry, or London tradesman. When the year is finished 1 with Mr. Foskett I shall partly see how the matter will go, and if I don't engage in the work of the ministry, I'll endeavour to return the money paid for my board, and any more expended on my account and what they desire for interest, and engage in the business I served my apprenticeship to learn ; and, if (please God) I am able, I'll also make Mr. Foskett a handsome present for bestow ing his pains on such a dull fool as I have been, and I am afraid shall ever be.' After his conversion he began (unwisely, I think) to keep a diary, which throws light chiefly on the
•4 THE THREE RYLANDS alternations of his feeling. It indicates sensitive ness of conscience and fear of self-deception. Thus, January 14, 1743, he records that after he had prayed ' with some degree of life and sense ' he thought of studying a sermon from Matt. iv. 17. He set about doing so with fear and trembling and darkness. ' O Lord,' he prays, 'assist me and en courage me. I hope I can truly say I long for and love the work.' On the 23rd of the month he records that he was ' very hard, dark, and dry all day, though, I thank God, the vain thoughts are removed ; some degree of fervency of spirit Had some life in prayer, and exceeding strong desires after employment in the Master's vineyard. I pray God they may be answered.' A few days after ward : ' O Lord, I am in the depths of darkness and trouble; uncertain about God's existence or my own immortality.' ' I had some thoughts about preaching to poor sinners, and reasoning with them about honour, profit, or pleasure ; I had a deeper sense of my past follies than usual. God would be just if He were to curse me, and deprive me of the comfort of His promises. But oh ! how terrible is the thought of it ! I have had some apprehension of the sweet nature of God.' ' This evening I grieved the Holy Spirit by my cursed folly. I am the most foolish brute in the world. My heart is brimful of darkness and ugly sin.' ' My heart is exceeding full of sin and darkness. I know not how to act.
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 15 0 God, if Thou dost not help me I am undone. Prayed with little life and affection ; my soul in a fretful, ugly humour afterward.' ' Rose and prayed and read the "Saints' Legacies," but could not absolutely apply any of the promises to myself, though I thought I could not live without them. 1 found great darkness, and my heart as hard as an adamant, and many base conceptions of God ; yet I had some vehement desires after the work. My soul is ready to sink for fear the Lord should not answer my prayers, and I dare not go if He does not [answer] in some way or other. Outward and inward wants are exceeding pressing and urgent. This day spent in reading my Bible. I prayed and pleaded with God several times, but could get no answer. My soul continued dark and hard and dry. At night prayed poorly, and fretful because I spent my time so badly.' Partly, this miserable condition of mind was due to an inadequate understanding of the generosity of Divine grace, and partly to a habit of intro spection, and feeling the pulse of the affections, common at the time, but which weakened instead of bracing and strengthening, and which robbed the soul of joy. But the words quoted give a vivid picture of the inward misery which he endured, and which for a length of time haunted him. Early in 1744 he entered the Academy at Bristol, then presided over by the Rev. Bernard Foskett.
i6 THE THREE RYLANDS Mr. Foskett, the son of a Buckinghamshire gentle man, intended for the medical profession, was an able and learned man, with the gravity, not to say sternness and severity, of the old Puritans ; not perhaps the best guide for a young man of Ryland's temperament. In the Academy, however, Ryland became an acceptable preacher, an excellent classical scholar, a better mathematician, and a very good Hebraist ; he read widely in all directions, and laid a broad and solid foundation for his after acquirements. In a small journal lying before me I find a list of more than a hundred books, devo tional, theological, poetical, and historical, with which he concerned himself during his residence in Bristol. He forgot nothing. ' All his brains ' (to use his own figure) ' were fish-hooks' On June 24, 1744, which was a Lord's Day, he begins his systematic Bible-reading at three places—Genesis, the Psalms, and the Gospel according to Matthew. The journal begins with this resolution, ' I read for Eternity,' imitated from the words of the old painter, ' I paint for Eternity.' In the Academy Mr. Day, afterwards of Welling ton, Somerset, was Ryland's bosom friend, and he could not have had a better. From his childhood Day had been distinguished for his solidity. At the Academy, says Ryland, ' the simplicity of his conduct, the integrity of his heart, his thirst for knowledge, and his diligence to attain it, were very
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 17 conspicuous ; never haughty to his fellow students, never self-sufficient, nor assuming, never ludicrous.' His sermons were drawn up with a great deal of care, and ' he was of a mind clear and calm, generally animated in his delivery, but never vociferous.' The friendship of such a fellow-student was in valuable to Ryland. In the Academy the old distress continued to haunt him, notwithstanding that he fought against it. Under date : June 25, evening io,' he writes : ' If there is ever a God in heaven or earth, I vow and protest in His strength, or that God permitting me, I'll find Him out ; and I'll know whether He loves or hates me, or I'll die and perish, soul and body, in the pursuit and search, John Collett Ryland.' It is sometimes maintained that such experiences, in which 'the very foundations' are threatened, are incompatible with true faith. But as a matter of fact, some of the most eminent Christians have been tortured by them. Richard Baxter, for instance, points out, 'Satan's assaults are oft made at the foundation ' ; and, speaking of the evidences of the Christian religion, he says, ' It is the subject which I have found most necessary and most useful to myself. And I have reason to think that many others may be as weak as I, and would fain have those to partake of my satisfaction that have partaken of my difficulties. Had I felt as strong assaults against my faith when I was 2
i8 THE THREE RYLANDS young as I have since, I am not sure it would have escaped overthrow.' Halyburton, Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews, whose writings have been so vitally helpful to many, records under February 24, 1706, being Lord's Day, and he about to preach : ' In the morning I was sore shaken about the truths of God, but came to peace by three things, one of them being this, Lord, Thou hast given me that full and rational evidence for the truth of the gospel, far beyond what would in other things fully satisfy me ; and, therefore, it must only be the wretched unbelief of my heart that keeps me hesitating here.' These doubts and question ings about 'foundation truths,' are as unlike the jaunty scepticism sometimes paraded in proof of intellectual superiority, as the cry of hunger is unlike the whine of a professional beggar. The condition of mind in which Ryland found himself was miserable and perilous ; but he did not disguise it from himself, nor boast of it as if it was a dis tinction ; and in due time he learned to sing : ' He brought me up also out of an horrible pit and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings ; and He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.' The cast of his preaching in after-life was largely deter mined by this early experience. The condition of England in this century, which Carlyle names 'The godless eighteenth century,'
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 19 was deplorable. For the most part the Churches appeared to have forgotten their calling. The ' antinomian devil ' was playing havoc among some of them, the ' Laodicean devil ' among others, and the ' scoffing devil ' of disbelief among others. There were some so-called Christian ministers who went on rattling dry bones in the pulpit, or droning their hearers to sleep, or preaching a gospel of good advice, like old Pagans, the only Christian thing about them being their white necktie. The very atmosphere was charged with doubt. It was well known that in the Established Church there were many men who declared their unfeigned assent and consent to doctrines which they did not believe. Swindling was an excusable sin compared with this, which was lying to the Holy Ghost. At the same time, public immorality was rampant. Hogarth's pictures reveal the foulness of the period. The ' lower orders,' a remnant ex cepted, were steeped in ignorance and low vices. The common speech was coarse, often profane. Among the 'upper classes,' gambling, duelling, blasphemy, lewdness, debauchery and drunkenness, were scarcely regarded as sins. Dr. Johnson said he remembered when 'all the decent people of Lichfield got drunk every night, and were not thought the worse for it.' And this was England, sometimes named ' the garden of the Lord !' The Christian minister had stern work in hand.
20 THE THREE RYLANDS In 1746, according to a custom now largely for gotten in England, Ryland was ' called out to the ministry ' by the church in Bourton, after he had preached a sermon from 1 Cor. ix. 16, 'For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel.' This ' calling out ' by the church of which he was a member, was the ' regular gospel way ' of entrance upon the work of a preacher. In his diary he records, ' This day we had a church meeting at eleven, for preparation before the Lord's Supper, and for the solemn calling me—poor, wretched, worthless me !—to the im portant work of the ministry. At two I preached from 1 Cor. ix. 16. I bless God for some degree of liberty, both in prayer and preaching, though several defects and blunders. Lord, pity me ! I am less than nothing, and very vanity.' An entry in his diary shortly after is interesting : ' I find great benefit in fasting ; my body seems to be the fresher and healthier for abstinence from food the former part of this day, viz., till half-past three in the afternoon. My blood circulates the better, and my spirits are the freer. I intend, God permitting, to fast in the forenoon, as often as I can conveniently bear it. O Lord, fill my soul with spiritual food! This night I longed for a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures in the original languages. And would to God I had a large, nay,
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 21 a complete knowledge of all the best languages, and all the noblest sciences, especially that glorious science, divinity. I long to grow in all human and Divine knowledge day and night.' II. WARWICK. In the autumn of 1745 the Baptist Church at Warwick unanimously invited him to 'labour among them ' as their minister for twelve months. He accepted the invitation, and the twelve months were prolonged to nearly four years. He occupied the Moderator's chair at the meetings of the Midland Association of Baptist Churches on May 28 and 29, 1750, and wrote the circular letter in 1758, when the meetings were held in Bromsgrove, and again, 1758, at Alcester. He was chosen early in 1750 as pastor of the church. His ordination, by the laying on of hands, took place July 26, 1750. The Rev. John Brine gave the charge to the young pastor from 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2, ' I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom ; preach the Word ; be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and doctrine.' After setting forth the leading truths involved in preaching the Word, Mr. Brine went on to say : ' Some persons seem unwilling that these doctrines should be preached, at least they do not
22 THE THREE RYLANDS approve of their being much insisted on. They will do well to consider whether heaven is likely to be an agreeable place to them or no, for there the grace of God and the glory of Christ are the principal subjects the minds of men will be enter tained withal unto eternity; and, therefore, those who don't now like to hear much said of these glorious subjects, give but small evidence of a meetness for the heavenly state. Some, it may be, will say to you, " It is most profitable to treat on practical subjects chiefly, and to show the necessity of holiness." This you ought by no means to neglect; but if you recommend the practice of duty upon an evangelical foundation, and clearly show what true holiness is, and how it differs from mere morality, I am greatly mistaken if your dis courses of that kind will meet with a more cool reception from any than from such persons. Con sider, my beloved brother, you are shortly to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ; let me therefore intreat you closely to examine what doctrine God hath revealed, and preach it, yea, preach it boldly ; whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. If you do not, how will you be able to look our dear Lord Jesus in the face? ,You must abide and continue in this labour, although you may meet with many difficulties, discouragements, and much opposition : you must not think of quitting this service either on account of reproaches cast on
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND you by enemies, or because you may be neglected by friends. None of these things should move you. Nor must you ever propose to disengage yourself from this work by views of secular advantage, what offers of that kind soever may at any time present.' Mr. Haydon, of Horsley, gave the charge to the church ; Mr. Beddome, Mr. Overbury and Mr. Crane prayed, and the meeting was closed with prayer by Mr. Ryland himself. The following letter, transferring Mr. Ryland from Bourton to Warwick, shows in what estima tion he was held where he was best known : 'The church of Christ meeting at Bourton-onthe-Water and Stow,* in Gloucestershire, under the pastoral care of our beloved brother, Benjamin Beddome, to the church of Christ of the same faith and order meeting at Warwick, sendeth greeting. ' Dearly beloved in our Lord Jesus, as it was our happiness that God should raise up such a gift as our brother Ryland amongst us, so 'tis your privilege that you have enjoyed his ministry so long; had him restored after a threatening and dangerous illness (of the small-pox in April last), and are now likely to have him settled in office amongst you. For this purpose we dismiss him from his fellowship with us and recommend him to * The Baptist church at Stow had been so weakened that in 1743 they had dissolved, and the members, to the number of fifteen or sixteen, had joined Bourton.
THE THREE RYLANDS you, assuring you that we think it our honour that we ever had such a member, and hoping that the God of all grace will still preserve to him that amiable character which he hath hitherto sustained. May you long be a mutual blessing one to another, and may you enjoy much of God and of Christ under his ministrations. In return for such a gift we desire, and we think we have some claim to, an interest in your prayers, who are yours in the glorious Head of the Church, Christ Jesus.' Soon after his settlement he married Elizabeth, the only daughter of Samuel Frith, of Warwick. They had five children: (i) John, afterwards Dr. Ryland, one of the founders, and, later, one of the secretaries, of the Baptist Missionary Society, pastor of Northampton Baptist Church, and then pastor of Broadmead, and President of Bristol Baptist College. (2) Elizabeth, comely in appear ance and gracious in spirit, who married Joseph Dent, of Milton, near Northampton, a man of genuine piety, solidity of thought, and promptitude of action—qualities that served him well in his long diaconate.* (3) James, who died in com paratively early life. (4) Hermann Witsius, named from one of Ryland's favourite theologians, went * After Dr. Ryland's removal to Bristol, the church at College Street, Northampton, was for seven years without a pastor ; yet it was kept in peace ; no member left the church, nor was the pulpit vacant for a single Sunday.
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 25 abroad as private secretary to Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, and latterly became a member of the Upper House of Legislature in that pro vince. (5) A daughter who died in infancy. Mr. Ryland started a boarding-school in the Parsonage House, Warwick, which Dr. Tate, the incumbent, let to him. When some high Churchmen blamed Dr. Tate for letting the Parsonage to an Anabaptist, he replied, * What would you have me do ? I have brought the man as near the Church as I can, but I cannot force him into it.' The school prospered. Mr. Ryland was a born teacher, and devoted un bounded energy to his twofold work. Teaching was to him not so much the means of gaining a livelihood as of doing good. He saw clearly that if England was to be saved the children must be educated. And to him education meant the widest and most thorough instruction that could be given, permeated by godliness. As a dissenting preacher, he was fairly protected by the Toleration Act, the ' Magna Charta of Dis senters but as a schoolmaster he had serious impediments in the Test and Corporation Acts that stood unrepealed on the Statute Book. To repeal these Acts seemed to the majority of English politicians like the removal of a breakwater against an overwhelming flood of evils both in Church and State. By these Acts every person refusing to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and to
26 THE THREE RYLANDS receive the sacrament after the form of the Church of England, was rendered incapable of any public employment, civil or military. He could not even be a parish beadle. There must at least be ' occa sional conformity ' to the Church established by law. This applied to every schoolmaster and tutor, public and private. Only a few years previously, in 1 7 14, the third reading of an Act intended to make the law more stringent was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of in. It was entitled, ' An Act to prevent the growth of Schism, and for the further security of the Churches of England and Ireland as by law established.' This Act (' hatched by Bolingbroke, whilst Atterbury sat by the nest encouraging the incubation ') added certain almost incredible provisions to the already existing Acts. No license to teach might be granted by any archbishop, bishop, or ordinary without the production of a certificate, under the hand of the minister and one of the churchwardens of the parish, that the person had actually received the sacrament according to the usage of the Church of England. If anyone holding a license should knowingly and willingly be present at any ' con venticle,' or if he should teach any other Catechism than that in the Book of Common Prayer, he should be liable to the penalties of the Act, namely, imprisonment for three months, and afterwards to be incapable of teaching in any school or seminary,
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 27 or of teaching any youth as tutor or schoolmaster.* On June 25 the Lords, by a small majority, authorized under Her Majesty's Commission, gave the royal assent to this Act. The Act, however, never took effect. The death of Queen Anne occurred on the very day when it was to come into operation, and the Act died with her. The accession of the House of Hanover prevented any mischief that would otherwise have resulted. Though the violation of the Test and Corpora tion Acts was generally connived at, it was not always so. Only a few years previously, in 1734, these Acts had been brought up against Philip Doddridge, of Northampton, who was cited 'to appear personally before the Rev. George Reynolds, Doctor of Laws' (representing the Lord Bishop of Peterborough), and the Archdeacon of North ampton, ' to answer to certain articles or interro gatories to be objected and administered to you concerning your soul's health, and the reformation and correction of your manners and excess, and especially your teaching and instructing youth in the liberal arts and sciences, not being licensed thereto by the ordinary of the diocese' Doddridge was told that he could have a license if he would apply, which he could not do without admitting the right * At the instance of the House of Lords, however, dis senters were permitted to employ schoolmistresses to teach their own children—a marvellous instance of liberality !
28 THE THREE RYLANDS of the Bishop's interference. But the whole pro ceedings were stopped by a message from the King, George II., ' who would have no persecution for conscience' sake in his reign.' Doddridge's loyal, peaceable, and moderate principles and character had been fairly represented to His Majesty by persons of rank and influence ; but what of humble men who had no one to speak for them to the King! Attempt after attempt was made to get the Test and Corporation Acts abolished. It was pointed out that they were cruel and unjust, inconsistent with the rights of conscience, and injurious to the State; but the clergy opposed with all their influence. The cry of ' The Church in danger !' was raised ; the dissenters were told how well off they were in being ' tolerated ' ; and the Acts were not abolished till 1828, within the life-time of living men. Although Ryland took little part in any public agitation, his voice was consistently in favour of liberty, both civil and religious. His early experience of doubts enabled him to be of use to others who were similarly tried. The fol lowing letter, dated March 29, 1751, brings up the picture of Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. ' Walking solitary and disconsolate, he heard the voice of one going before him saying, " When I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear none ill, for Thou art with me."
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND Then was he glad, for he gathered from thence that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself, and that God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state. " And why not," thought he, "with me? though, by reason of the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive it." ' ' My dear Friend and Brother, ' . . . I am pleased and satisfied with the discovery of your brotherly love, by your opening your heart and your spiritual distress to me ; and even while I feel your pain, I am glad to know that others of God's dear children have great conflicts and doubts and fears, and are sometimes under the hidings of our Father's face, as well as myself. I assure you, my dear friend, that since March, 1741, I have known what it is to be under the hidings of the Lord's face for eighteen months together, and through all that time I have not had one hour's spiritual consolation. My heart has been shut up, my mind in the dark, and my poor life has hung in doubt, as it were, between heaven and hell : no spiritual appetite, no savour of the things of God; sometimes careless and carnal, and at other times terrified and distressed to think of my wretched case. No soul but one that has been in it can think of the dismal misery of such a con dition. . . . And part of the time I had dreadful
30 THE THREE RYLANDS atheism and rebellion working in my heart; and all this, and much more than my tongue or pen can express, after I had made an open profession and had many times sat down at the Lord's table.' This is the voice of Faithful, who has got through, sending back encouragement to a soul still in the valley of death-shadow. When Mr. Ryland preached for Dr. Doddridge, the Doctor gave out the hymns, but could not set the tunes, ' for he never could change two notes ' —a remark, says Dr. Newman, that applied quite as much to Mr. Ryland himself. ' When he sang in public worship or in the school, it was generally in a low tone that did not disturb others ; but when he was animated to a high degree, it was like the sea roaring. Yet he was extremely offended by bad singing in public worship, and once told a congregation, it is said, after enduring some time their hideous noise, that he wondered some of the angels did not come down and wring their necks! Once, when he was dangerously ill, the people of the town, as they passed his house, would say, ' God send that man may live ! If there is a good man in the town, he is one.' At this general concern for his recovery, one profane creature was so provoked that he imprecated death and damna tion upon him. After Ryland's recovery, this man courted a young woman who attended the Baptist
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 31 meeting, but vowed that if he obtained her in marriage he would cut off her legs but he would prevent her going to meeting. He used to wait for her near the meeting-house, and then go home with her. One evening, after standing near the door pretty early, he ventured in to see the place. Others following, he found himself in the gallery, and could not easily retreat ; he was obliged, there fore, to stay and hear the sermon. He heard it, and was pierced to the heart, and was afterwards added to the church.* In 1757 he issued a publication entitled 'The Christian Preacher Delineated.' 'The [ideal] Christian preacher,' he says, ' is a man of sound natural powers, cultivated and enriched with prudent and unwearied application, endued with the true grace of God, furnished with the minis terial talents of knowledge and utterance from Christ, the vital Head of the Church, adorned with a fine moral character, inflamed with love to his divine Master and immortal souls, and resolutely determined in the strength of the blessed Spirit to display the perfections and glories of his Saviour and promote the welfare of his people as the supreme end of all his talents and the ultimate intention and use of his existence.' He asks : ' Is it possible for our English divines ever to rise to perfection in preaching while they confine them- * Bogue and Bennet's ' History of Dissenters.'
32 THE THREE RYLANDS selves so much to their notes? Can the under standing freely expand itself? Can the invention and imagination have their full play ? Can all the powers of the mind receive their utmost improve ment, or can the graces of the Christian preacher's heart have their free scope and exertion, while his eyes and mind are confined to just such a number of words and expressions, without daring to utter a new idea that may be generated by the action of speaking or rise from the pathetic energies of the preacher's affections ? . . . And what greater harm is there in reading our prayers than in read ing our sermons ?' He was himself an illustration of the preacher whom he describes ; but he has in view a par ticular individual whom he does not name, but who was well known in England at the time. Does he mean George Whitefield, whom elsewhere he calls ' the greatest preacher in all England ' ? As Cowper writes : ' Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek I slur a name a poet must not speak) Stood pilloried on infamy's high stage, And bore the pelting scorn of half an age.' ' A preacher,' he says elsewhere, ' must be grave and manly, yet pleasant and engaging; not sink into levity and trifling ; indulge no ridiculous humours or childish froth and follies below the dignity of his character. He must keep up the
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 33 honour of his office among men by a beauty and decorum of manner, by a decent and manly deport ment. His exalted station will never permit him to set up for a buffoon, or a good jester, or one that can act a farce well and play a part in comedy, whose highest aim is to spread a laugh round the company in a room full, of fools. The grinning monkey and the capering ape ill becomes a minister of Christ ... It is absolutely necessary for a preacher to maintain a bright moral char acter, to keep up a dignity in his actions, and be possessed of a sublime spirit of religion, if he designs ever to give the least glory to Christ Jesus, or desires to do the least good to the immortal souls of men.' Elsewhere he points out the essentials for a man who is to handle the Word of God. ' A good genius, a capacious understanding, a fruition of the rich cordials of the Gospel, an eminent growth in grace, a large measure of happiness or the pos session of the supreme good, a competent know ledge of the original languages in which the Scriptures were written, a firm intrepidity of mind, which shall neither court the favour nor fear the censure of the Christian world, a most ardent love to souls, and a fervent zeal to promote the glory of Christ in the world—these qualities appear to me to be essential to a good expositor of Scripture.' 3
34 THE THREE RYLANDS III. NORTHAMPTON : PREACHER AND TEACHER. His ministry in Warwick was fruitful in blessing, both in conversions and in edification. It is to be regretted that no detailed account remains. But he was recognised far and near as a man of true spiritual force, with the originality, the enthu siasm and daring which common minds call eccen tricity and extravagance. To preach Christ was the passion of his soul. A man of strong mental calibre and fearless intrepidity, he boldly threw aside all pulpit conventionalism (like the late Mr. Spurgeon) ; his preaching had a raciness and pungency that compelled attention. Few preachers were more successful in getting at the undefended side of the human conscience ; hence he was never considered a ' safe ' man. You could never count on what he would say next, but he saved souls. He gained the warm friendship of Hervey, of Weston Favel, under whose roof he frequently spent his school holidays, and whose life and letters he afterwards published. No fewer than sixty-five of these letters are addressed to Ryland himself. They are on all subjects—personal, critical, Biblical, practical—and indicate the closest friendship. Mr. Ryland and the Rev. Robert Richard, Rector of Sutton Coldfield, known among his contemporaries as ' the good Mr. Richard,' were
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 35 in the habit of exchanging visits and calling each other cousin. One of the Richard family in a former generation—Archdeacon Riland, Rector of St. Martin's, Birmingham—was distinguished, as a mural tablet in the church tells, by his high and consistent character in troublous times. After a residence of thirteen years in Warwick, Mr. Ryland accepted an invitation to the Baptist church in Northampton. In Northampton he remained for the next six-and-twenty years, from 1 759 to 1785. The town soon recognised him as a man of original power. The church increased. The membership did not exceed thirty when he came ; in a year it was more than doubled. The congregations became crowded ; the chapel was twice enlarged ; the boarding-school prospered greatly ; the villages around were evangelized ; the printing-press was largely used ; and Ryland's in fluence in the general community was a distinct and powerful element of good. In Northampton he looked widely abroad on the condition of the whole county and the whole region round about. He took his full share of work in the Association. He wrote the Association ' Letter on the work of the Holy Spirit ' in 1769, and again in 1777, 'On a Gospel Church.' He preached at the Associa tion meetings at Carleton, Beds, in 1774 (where the large house could not contain the audience, and a window was taken out where he stood, and he 3—2
36 THE THREE RYLANDS was heard both hy those outside and those inside); at Kettering in 1775; at Leicester in 1778; at Kettering in 1781 ; in 1 783 he expounded and com mended the design of the Association in their meeting at St. Albans. His preaching was bold, original, and racy in the extreme. Says Robert Hall : ' In the powers of memory, imagination, and expression I have never yet seen any man to be compared with him. I should despair of conveying to the mind of one who never heard him an adequate idea of the majesty and force of his elocution. Cicero pro bably had more softness and polish and artificial grace, but Demosthenes himself must have yielded to him in spirit and fire, in overpowering vehemence and grandeur. Perfectly natural, unstudied, un expected, there were often passages in his sermons sublime and terrible as the overflowing lava of a burning mountain. Everything in his aspect, his voice, and his whole manner was fitted to arrest and to enchain the attention of his audience. . . . He was always above other men, and sometimes above himself. When, for instance, he exhibited the face and convulsions of the terrified Belshazzar, and traced the handwriting on the wall, expounding at the same time its awful import, his hearers were breathless, motionless, petrified with horror. When he described Jacob beholding the waggons that Joseph had sent to carry him into Egypt, every
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 37 heart was melted, and many wept aloud. He governed the spirits of men with a kind of absolute sway ; but while he agitated most powerfully the passions of others as a tempest of wind the moun tain grove, he had always the command of his own.' Having been one of his pupils, Hall adds : ' As a teacher of youth, he had a constellation of ex cellencies. " Simplify and repeat, simplify and repeat," he used to say, " are the maxims for a school." He had walked in all the fields of human knowledge ; and it seemed to me, an inexperienced youth, that he knew everything that was fit to be known, and could do everything that was fit to be done. ... I rejoice while I remember that all the mighty energies of his heart were exerted to bring the Object of faith near, as he expressed it, to exalt the blessed Redeemer, and to enforce the necessity of trusting exclusively and for ever in " the blood and righteousness " of the Son of God. In gentleness he was as a little child among those he loved, and his candour was excessive.' While many of the public schools of England were failures morally, Ryland's Academy was a nursery of godliness. The following letter is given as a specimen of the way in which he sought to influence his pupils. It is addressed to 'Master Josiah Robins, just recovered from the Borders of the Grave and Eternity ' :
38 THE THREE RYLANDS ' Dear Josiah, ' You read of a young king, and your name sake (2 Chron. xxxiv. 3), that while he was yet young he began to seek after God, and (verse 27) his heart was tender, and he humbled himself before God, and did weep before Him, and the Lord heard him. 'Surely, if any Josiah in England is bound to follow his example, you are the person. Think with yourself, Why has God spared my life but to seek Him ? How hath His mercy revived me from the gates of the grave ! And should I not have a tender sense of the Divine goodness, and a tender awe of sinning against such a God, a tender regard for His holy word and promise, a tender love to His day, His good ministers, and people, a tender affection when I hear His law and Gospel, and a tender zeal for His glory through my whole life ? O most dear Lord Jesus, my heart is hard. Do Thou soften it, and give me a tender heart, and then I shall truly improve this awful visitation. Read this short letter once a day till you have digested it and can remember it by heart ; then I will write you another. I commit you to Christ, our Redeemer, and am, ' Your loving tutor, 'John Ryland. ' Northampton, ' March 7, 1761.'
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 39 The following extracts from the unpublished autobiographical reminiscences of the late Samuel Bagster, of Paternoster Row and Old Windsor, a pupil of Mr. Ryland's, will throw light on school life in Northampton : 'The time was now come when it was deter mined by my parents that I should go to a boarding-school (1780), and the school selected was that of the Rev. John Ryland, A.M., of Northampton—a choice I never regretted. The school was large—about ninety boys. It was of celebrity, and justly so. Mr. Ryland was assiduous in improving mental talent when it appeared, and several men became eminent for oratory and scholarship by the education and training imparted there. A short period before my entry Dr. Ryland of Bristol and the renowned Robert Hall had left the school. ' Severity was no means the mode of manage ment. During the four and a quarter years I was there I saw but two boys whipped, and that punishment was inflicted for running away from school. These two boys, before being punished, were brought to "a trial by their peers," as Mr. Ryland called it. Before the assembled scholars the boys were arraigned, defended, and by a jury of boys "found guilty," and the presiding judge passed the sentence, " To be whipped," the enticer the most severely. Mr. Ryland then made a
40 THE THREE RYLANDS speech, and read chosen portions of Scripture. The boys stood in the centre of the room to receive sentence. The punishment as to pain was trivial, but the length and solemnity of the pro ceedings made it heavy. ' Mr. Ryland was intense in his desire to implant patriotic and Protestant feelings in the bosoms of his scholars. On November 5 the morning was employed in reading from Rapin's "History of England," in folio, the account of the Gunpowder Plot, and in the evening we were not discouraged from turning our fervour into squibs and crackers, or clubbing to buy blue candles or rockets. Another trait of the good man I will state. One autumn morning he called up the whole school to see the departure of the swallows, which had clustered in surprising numbers on the roof of the building. His presence and zealous manner of explaining their migration has made this departure of the swallows a frequent occasion of bringing my worthy tutor to remembrance when watching this summer visitor skimming the air with unwearied wing. ' Many eccentricities manifested by Mr. Ryland in his mode of tuition and his manner of preaching are present to my memory, which I omit ; but this pleasing truth I declare confidently, that on no one occasion could the hearers doubt the purity of his motives : his one aim the eternal benefit of those who listened to his instructions. I owe to him a
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 41 high tone of moral feeling impressed on my mind, I believe, by his peculiar mode of imparting in struction. ' The complete sway he had over his pupils was without any apparent effort ; it owed nothing to the fear of punishment. His power to ensure obedience had great similarity to the manner in which our great naval hero Nelson displayed his controlling influence. I owe the following anecdote illustrative of it to the late gallant Sir Thomas Hardy, whom I knew from midshipman to admiral. On one occasion Lord Nelson and Captain Hardy were going ashore in the Admiral's barge at Ply mouth, One of the sailors was under the influence of drink, or some untoward fit of bad temper had seized him ; but talk he would, and would not keep the stroke of oars. When his lordship spoke to him he did not desist; again he was spoken to warmly, but still he was not obedient. Lord Nelson then went to him, and with a light buffglove which he had been swinging in his hand, struck him in the face, and said with a Nelson authority, " Remember for ever that you have been struck by your commander." It is not necessary to say the effect was complete. Thus Nelson, and thus Ryland, ruled. ' I return to his pulpit talent. His manner and sterling qualities made his preaching popular both with the vivacious and the sedate. Every word he
4* THE THREE RYLANDS uttered came warm from his heart, and few persons could be inattentive or listen without advantage. ' On one occasion, when preaching on the want of Christian fortitude in the cause of God (I was present), he took occasion to remark in confirma tion of his views, " Were I at the London Coffee house [where he resided when in London], and began to speak of J esus Christ, at once the current of conversation would cease and silence at first prevail. Soon one would remark to another in a whisper, ' I wish our conversation had not been interrupted.' Gradually the sentiment would be more openly spoken, all joining in the censure, and by degrees one would say softly to his neigh bour, 'Turn him out'; then others would join the cry, ' Turn him out !' " The ardent preacher then rose by graduated strength of voice from a smothered whisper to its full power, ending in a loud shout, "Turn him out !" 'The talented and amiable author of the " Memoirs of Robert Hall," alluding to the educa tion of that gifted man being in part at Mr. Ryland's school, while he remarks on his progress in Greek and Latin, is silent on the moral and intellectual influences I have presented. Had the excellent author personally known the abiding influence of such teaching as Mr. Ryland's pupils had, he would have concluded Mr. Hall left that seminary brimful of noble sentiments, and deeply in
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 43 debted to Mr. Ryland for opening and directing his intellectual powers—a training which gave through life bright evidence of its benign and noble control.' Many of his maxims are of the raciest kind. To the young : ' All the rules of good behaviour are contained in that one word—modesty ;' ' After all, the best rules of behaviour are the rules of Christianity in the New Testament. Every Christian, so far as he keeps his own rules, will be so far a gentleman f ' Work for the world is done best when work for God is done first.' For a school master : ' Accustom yourself to early rising all the year round ' Observe punctuality. Punctuality is a virtue, a beauty, a blessing.' He hated the phrase, ' We must allow five minutes.' ' Let the boys have play enough ;' ' An ounce of prudence will be found worth a pound of learning.' For a student and pastor : ' Have no silly, puppy court ships ;' ' Beware of bad books ;' ' Avoid teadrinking parties ;' ' When you are settled, place no undue confidence in the rich men of your con gregation. Neglect this, and you'll rue it;' 'Never be a secret-keeper to rich or poor. Politely put it off ' Before marriage, if you lodge at a house where there are young women, beware of a fond acquaintance.' To a young tradesman : ' Never launch out into a larger trade than you have capacity, money, and time to manage well ;' ' Rather trust ten men with ten pounds apiece
44 THE THREE RYLANDS than trust one man with a hundred pounds f ' Never be such a fool as to take unusual credit of any man ' Never trust your memory instead of your day-book ' Never lay yourself under bonds for an many in the world. If you can give any thing with justice to a worthy man in distress, do it, but not otherwise. Suretyships are the plague and curse of human life ' A trader or merchant in London or in the country who aims to be a universal monarch in trade is a man destitute of wisdom, goodness, justice, truth, and honesty; he is the plague and curse of society, a cruel enemy to mankind, and ought to be abhorred by all just and good men.' This is the English of what the prophet says : ' Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.' The burning question of the day in theology was the question, ' Who is Jesus of Nazareth ?' There was a growing tendency over England to answer, ' He is only a man.' It was generally granted that He was a good man, though many did not grant even so much. Partly this reaction from orthodoxy was due to the love of words and theological definitions and subtleties rather than of truth, that had for some time prevailed among the later Puritans ; partly the cessation of persecution led to a relaxation of moral fibre in the churches, which easily passed into indifference and torpor
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 45 and incapacity of adoration ; partly it was a theo logical fashion of the period ; partly it was a revolt from the denunciatory and persecuting spirit of orthodoxy. In 1698, largely through dissenting zeal, an Act of Parliament had been passed pro hibiting, under heavy penalties, all books contain ing assaults on the doctrine of the Trinity and other fundamental articles of the Christian faith. ' Any person found guilty of writing, printing, pub lishing, or circulating such books, or of preaching such sentiments, was condemned to lose nearly all the privileges of citizenship ; he could neither sue nor be sued, and neither bequeath nor receive property. He was disabled for ever from holding any public office, and he was to be imprisoned for three years without bail.' The merciless severity of this Act appears to have excited no criticism and no remonstrance. The men who had urged the passing of this law did not even dream of such a theological Nemesis as that their own direct theological descendants, in less than two genera tions, should almost universally embrace the creed which they thus attempted violently to stamp out. Persecution had its natural effect : the doctrine which it was designed to suppress spread the more. In England it was called Unitarianism, or rational dissent ; in Scotland it passed under the name of Moderatism, and meant the suppression of evan gelical zeal.
46 THE THREE RYLANDS Ryland believed that the true way to put down error is not by inflicting civil pains and penalties, but ' by manifestation of the truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God.' He was of the same mind with John Milton : ' Let Truth and Falsehood grapple : who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter ?' Hence his preaching and ministry aimed at establishing the truths which were denied by those who assumed the name of 'Rational Dissenters.' The design which he kept in view in his preaching and writing and his educational work was, in his own language, ' to display the glorious character of God, and, by placing it in the most beautiful point of light ' that he could, 'to endear God's nature and attributes as infinitely amiable to all serious Christians '; and this he sought to effect ' by showing that all the lost prospects of Divine goodness and beauty are restored with infinite advantage in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.' In order, therefore, to honour the Divine Father, he attempted ' to demon strate the divinity, grandeur, fulness, and beauty of His eternal Son ; and the farther we go in dis playing His lovely perfections as God over all, the more we enhance the worth and usefulness of the inspired Scriptures of God, and especially we endear the New Testament to every believer in the world ; . . . and by discovering such a character as the eternal Son of God making satisfaction for
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 47 sin, we give the utmost glory to the natural and immutable justice of the Divine nature. We demonstrate the infinite evil of sin, as it strikes at all possible and infinite good, and fixes a stain in the soul that will endure unless taken away by the atonement and Spirit of Christ ; we show that sin, as filth and pollution, is a most horrid deformity, and as rebellion and guilt, it is a most dreadful offence. When we view ourselves as captives to an almighty conqueror, we love Christ as our precious Redeemer; when we view ourselves as rebels to an injured Sovereign, we love Christ as the great High Priest who has reconciled God to us by an atoning sacrifice ; when we view ourselves as hateful criminals before an injured Judge, we love Christ as our Surety, making full satisfaction to Divine justice for our crimes ; and we see in a light as bright as heaven the vast, the infinite, worth of our immortal souls. And how dear our souls are to the Lord Jesus, who, as our Divine Prophet, full of wisdom, takes away the plague of a dark and blinded understanding, as our Divine High Priest, full of merit, removes the terrible plague of a guilty conscience, and as our Divine King, full of power, takes away the plague of a stubborn and obstinate will, full of enmity to God !' He believed that to demonstrate ' the true and eternal divinity of Christ' was to open out all possible encouragement to every awakened and
48 THE THREE RYLANDS distressed sinner in the world. ' There is not one convinced sinner,' he adds, 'that has the least reason to be afraid of approaching the Lord Jesus for life and salvation in its fullest sense and beauty ; for we show him a Saviour that is God in our nature, obeying and dying for the worst of men, who is able to save to the uttermost—i.e., perfectly and perpetually—all that come to Him ; able, and as willing and resolved as He is able, to remove all guilty fears, to solve all doubts, to answer all scruples and objections, to break all bars, and level all mountains and clear off all difficulties in the way to heaven ; a Saviour that conquers all enemies, shows us all our best friends, and suits all the faculties, powers, and affections of our souls.' When a church member removes from home to a distance he often loses Christian connection. The following letter shows what pastoral care may do in parting with a member, even for a time : ' To the Church of Christ meeting in Eagle Street, near Bedford Square, London, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Gifford. ' Northampton, ' 26 ii., 1775. ' Dear Brethren, 'Our friend Thomas Cartwright, being called to reside in London by Divine Providence,
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 49 and desiring occasional communion with you at the Lord's Table, I do, at his request, certify that he is a member of the Church of Christ meeting in College Lane, Northampton, over which I am pastor. He was received upon a declaration of his experience, April 8, 1774, and baptized by me, April 10. His conversation among us was as becometh the Gospel of Christ. May great grace be upon him and upon you all. 'John Ryland.' In 1783 a young man of two-and-twenty applied to Ryland as a candidate for baptism and church membership. Ryland lent him a book, and put him in the hands of his son, who baptized him in the Nen, a little beyond Dr. Doddridge's chapel. To onlookers it was merely the baptism of a poor journeyman shoemaker, and attracted no special attention. It takes its place in the history of the Gospel as the baptism of William Carey. It is not surprising that a ministry such as has been indicated should be fruitful of saving results. It was the same in his school. As has been already said, teaching was to him not the mere means of gaining a livelihood : it was one of the things which, from a Christian point of view, he saw to be most necessary for England. His direct aim was not merely to impart a good education, but to win his pupils for Christ. In this he was wonder 4
50 THE THREE RYLANDS fully successful. From a manuscript volume which lies before me I give the following extracts ; every name mentioned has a note over against it, with information respecting his history. An Account of the Rise and Progress of the two Societies at Mr. Ryland's and at Mrs. Trinder's Boarding School in Northampton. {An Antici pation of the Christian Endeavour Movement.) ' About the end of November, 1766, two or three ■of Mr. Ryland's boarders—viz., John Ray, William Button, and Thomas Brewer—who were awakened some time before, were in the summer-house with a young man, a member of Mr. Ryland's (church), who was then used to come there because he was preparing for the Academy (at Bristol), and asked him to go to prayer, to which he consented. When he had concluded prayer, they asked him to speak to them from a text of Scripture, and he consenting to that, they desired him to meet with them frequently in that place, and after some little while settled to come twice a week—viz., on Monday and Wednesday. Thus the society was begun by these four persons ; but He that hath said, " Wheresoever two or three are gathered to gether in My Name, there am I in the midst of them," has been pleased many a time to fulfil those His own words to them ; and not only so, but did betimes begin to multiply this small flock ; for
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 51 they had met but a few times before they took in another, and after a little while the English usher, Jacob Austin, of Daventry ; and John Rogers, of Holcutt, a young man who was then at Mr. Ryland's for learning, began to meet with them. After this they had no more increase for the present ; but contrariwise, Brother Brewer went home at the Christmas holidays, and returned no more. Going into apprenticeship, however, he still goes on in the ways of Christ. ' But after the holidays Ray and Button returned, and among the new boarders they found one who appeared to have been with Jesus ; they therefore took him in gladly. There was also another who stayed in the holidays, and lay with John Ryland, who then had, and took, an opportunity of talking with him. Since that time likewise Brother Everard had much conversation with him, and they trusted there appeared the work of the Lord in his heart. Therefore they told the rest what they thought of him, and they all agreed to take him into their number. Soon after this they had some suspicion of Master J. Dunkin, because of a very serious letter which they heard he had sent to his parents. They therefore desired Mr. Wykes to speak with him, and he found him deeply sensible of his original and actual depravity, and earnestly seeking after Christ. Therefore, giving them account, they received him in among them. Much about this 4—2
5* THE THREE RYLANDS time the boys first began to go to prayer in their turns, whereas hitherto nobody went to prayer but Mr. Wykes, and sometimes Mr. Austin and Mr. Rogers. They now also agreed to the following rules : 1. To meet at half after five in the evening on Monday and Wednesday. 2. Every member shall pray in his turn. 3. To take in none till they have been first talked with and examined. 4. Such as behave not according to these rules and according to the rules of Christ, or whose conduct shall be disgraceful to their profession, shall be excluded after the second admonition. 5 . No member shall say anything about this society to the other boys. 6. None shall be absent without a good reason. (Signed) William Wykes, John Everard, John Ray, John Dunkin, William Button, John Ryland, jun. ' Soon after we took in Master Dunkin, Mr. Trinder began to meet with us, and we changed the nights to Tuesday and Friday.
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 53 ' We also kept a prayer-meeting to pray for the other boarders that the Lord would be pleased to make them partakers of the like grace as He had freely given unto us. It so happened we were very much interrupted that day ; nevertheless, it appeared that the Lord graciously heard us : for just after, having some suspicion of D. Holis, because he asked leave to go to the Thursday night meeting, and attended it very constantly with much attention, we examined him, and found reason to believe he was brought out of Nature's darkness into the Lord's marvellous light ; for which reason we received him in, and with him Master Henry Butler, another who appeared to be chosen and called by Christ Jesus. ' This was to us a very refreshing season, and the blessed Emanuel was indeed " God with us." ' So the society went on, with some disappoint ments, and more encouragement. The record goes on to 1777. It is noteworthy that a considerable number of the boys trace their awakening and salvation directly to Mr. Ryland, and specially to his talks on Saturday evenings. A similar story is told of the boarding-school for young ladies conducted by Mrs. Trinder, in which many were brought to the Saviour. Here Mr. Ryland's influence was equally marked. It was in connection with the boys' meeting that
54 THE THREE RYLANDS the future Dr. Ryland was led to decision. He narrates it thus : 'On September 22, 1766, I was conversing with R(ay) ; but their usual time for meeting being come, he went away, at which I took offence. On the following morning he spoke to me, and I would not answer him, when he in quired what was the matter. I replied, "You know that you fell out with me last night, and would not speak to me." He answered that he had not fallen out with me, but he wanted to talk with B(rewer) and B(utton), adding, " I hope we were talking of something better." The expression " something better " immediately struck my mind. I suspected that he had a reference to religious subjects, and that they had that knowledge and sense of them which I had not, but which it was necessary I should have. I endeavoured in the evening to ascertain what was the subject of their conversation. I found that they were talking of Jesus Christ and the salvation of their souls. " Oh," thought I, " these boys are going to heaven, and shall I be left behind?" I felt that I was undone. Yes, I felt it now ; though I knew in some manner before that it was so, yet I had not habitually laid it to heart. Those who know how I was educated may well suppose that I could not have been destitute of a speculative acquaintance with evangelical truth ; but I now began to feel
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND more deeply affected with it than I had ever been before, and endeavoured to apply for mercy by earnest prayer.' IV. PUBLICATIONS. In addition to preaching and teaching and work for the villages (he 'introduced the Gospel' into more than twenty), Ryland kept the printing press busy. At different dates he issued : 'Elements of Geography,' introductory to ' Longer Treatises on the Use of the Globes.' By John Ryland, A.M.* ' An Easy Grammar to the Greek Language, particularly adapted to the Greek Testament.' ' A Key to the Greek Testament, tracing every Word to its Proper Root, and every Verb through its Principal Parts.' ' The Scheme of Infidelity Exposed and Refuted ; or, The Deistical and Socinian Schemes demonstrated to be Insufficient for the Happiness of Mankind : and the Necessity of the Glorious Gospel to discover Pardon, Sanctification, and Support in Death.' ' The Wise Student and Christian Preacher ' : a Sermon preached at Broadmead, August 28, 1780, before the Bristol Education Society. 'A Proposal to Print a Theological Dictionary.' In two volumes. Translation of Dr. Cotton Mather's ' Manductio ad Ministerium.' ' The Preceptor.' * He had his degree, honoris causa, from Brown Uni versity, Rhode Island, U.S.
56 THE THREE RYLANDS 'The Elements of Moral Philosophy extracted from the Scriptures.' ' A Key to the Greek Oration of Demosthenes for the Crown.' A Preface to a reissue of Joseph Alleine's book, ' The Voice of God in His Promises.' Translation from the Latin of Owen's ' Demonstration of Divine Justice. ' ' An Essay on the Dignity and Usefulness of Human Learning.' In this essay he says : ' There is no dominion com parable with that wherewith knowledge crowns human nature. . . . The dominion of knowledge commands of the greatest monarch that ever lived in the world ; for 'tis a command over the reason, the assent, and understanding of man, which is the noblest part of the mind, and gives law to the will itself. There is no power on earth which sets up a throne or chair of state in the spirits, thoughts, and souls of men : this is beyond all civil power in the universe ; but knowledge and learning can rule the imaginations, opinions, and faith of men ; and so we may truly say that the just and lawful superiority over men's under standings by the clear demonstration of truth, beauti fully displayed in its strongest colours, is that glory and dignity of dominion which approaches nearest to the image of God's dominion over the rational world, or the resemblance of His supreme empire over the immortal spirits of all mankind.' 'An Address Delivered at the Grave of Dr. GifTord in Bunhill Fields, July 2, 1784,' standing on a tombstone at sunrise. It was republished in 1834 without the editor's name. In the address 'To the Reader' there is an account of Dr. GifTord, the last of his family, over whose grave this oration was delivered ' by John Ryland, sen., A.M., a man of no less illustrious fame ; one of inflexible integrity, and of undeviating attach ment to the truth as it is in Jesus all his days.' It is noble than the
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 57 in three parts. In the first reasons are given for the appointment of ' all men once to die ' ; the second is an argument for j udgment ; the third contrasts the first and second coming of Christ. In the first and second parts ' the subject is handled truly, solemnly, and in a masterly manner ; but the powerful eloquence of the third part was by no incompetent judges of oratory living at the time compared to the thundering eloquence of Demosthenes.' This edition of the address was republished by Ryland's great-grand daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Ryland Trestrail, in 1888. Exeter : Thomas Upward, High Street. London : Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row. ' Contemplations.' In three large octavo volumes. The keel of this, his largest and most important work, was laid down on March 16, 1745, while he was a student in Bristol. From that date he devoted much time and thought to it. The idea of the work is to exhibit the manifestations of God in Nature, in Providence, in Revelation, and in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. The first volume ran into at least three editions. A fourth volume was written, but was not published, on the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. The work is wide in its sweep, and masterly in conception ; but the style is too stilted, and, lacking the magnetism of the living man, his elocution and gesture, the book loses interest. Had he been able to emancipate himself from the fashion of his age, and to write simply, this work would have been of per manent value. What his friends Hervey and Toplady both told him was true : he would have done more if he had done less. 'The Character of the Rev. James Hervey, A.M., late Rector of Weston Favell, with sixty-five of his Original Letters.' Pp. 412. 'An Address to the Ingenuous Youth of Great Britain, together with a Body of Divinity in miniature ; to which is subjoined a Plan of Education adapted to the use of schools.' With portrait of the author. ' Select Essays on the Moral Virtues, and on Genius, Science, and Taste.'
58 THE THREE RYLANDS In 1781 his son, afterwards Dr. Ryland, of Bristol, then in his twenty-fifth year, was associated with him in the pastorate, and five years later took the sole charge. In the interval Mrs. Ryland died. In 1785 he found himself in pecuniary em barrassment, owing partly to printing expenses, and partly to his too generous spirit, and partly to the stratagems of impostors on a nature very un suspicious, amounting at times almost to credulity. But it is not surprising that a few affectionate friends came to his aid and relieved him from anxiety. It was at this time that he left North ampton, and finally, in 1786, settled at Enfield. The following incident is narrated by an eye witness, on whom it made a deep impression. He had contracted a considerable debt with his baker, and had paid it; but a second claim was made upon him for the amount. He knew he had paid it, but could produce no receipt. The baker brought with him a public officer, and placed before him the alternative—immediate payment of the debt or immediate lodgment in prison. Two or three of his friends happened to be with him when these persons arrived, and heard the pro tracted and earnest conversation. The good man's declaration weighed nothing without the receipt, which seemed gone for ever. The two at length denounced the venerable man as a hypocrite,
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 59 swore at his religion, and prepared to convey him to the county gaol. When the crisis was at its worst, the venerable man knelt down in the presence of all, and prayed, ' O Lord, appear for Thy servant. Thy Name is blasphemed and Thy cause is injured. O Lord, for Thy Name's sake tell me where that receipt is.' In a few moments he rose with the utmost calmness from his knees, and went direct to a closet, and, opening a box there, brought from it the missing document. He had never before placed such a document in that place, nor till he had prayed had he the slightest idea that it was there. His enemies were con founded, while he and his friends rejoiced at the goodness of God. It made an impression on the minds even of the ungodly which could not be forgotten. Having married Mrs. Stott, the widow of a military officer, a lady of undoubted piety, he opened a boarding-school at Enfield, which attained a still higher reputation than his school in North ampton, and became very flourishing. Attention to his school duties and occasional preaching absorbed his whole time. He had singular skill in imparting knowledge to his pupils, and, what was of still more importance, in ' lighting their lamps for them.' His love of teaching was enthu siastic. He frequently expressed the hope that his house would be used as a school ' till the day
6o THE THREE RYLANDS of judgment '—a phrase that marked how real to him were ' the things not seen as yet.' His mode of impressing the phenomena of the solar system on his pupils was original. He used to take them into the playground, and placing himself in the centre to represent the sun, with as many of the boys as would be required at proper distances to represent the planets, would give what in modern phrase we should call an ' object lesson,' but which he termed ' a living orrery.' Not only for his own pupils was his standard of education high. His ' Easy Grammar to the Greek Language,' of which a competent judge recently pronounced that nothing superior to it had been produced since, was dedicated to ' Ingenious youth of both sexes.' He did not survive to see the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society, of which his son was one of the founders. The Rev. J. W. Morris, in his ' Life of Fuller,' reports that at a ministers' meeting before the end of 1786, at the close of the services, whilst a desultory conversation was going on, Mr. Ryland, senior, entered, and insisted that the two junior ministers, Morris and Carey, should each propose a question. Morris named 2 Pet. ii. 1. Carey submitted ' whether the command given to the Apostles was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent.' With out waiting for the judgment of others, Ryland put
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 61 him down as an enthusiast. ' Could he preach in Persic or Bengalee ? He should have known that nothing could be done before another Pentecost (with its gift of tongues) would give effect to the commission as at first.' Dr. Ryland said bluntly that this was 'an illnatured anecdote,' and that he ' could not credit it at all.' If even Fuller held his breath at Carey's audacity in proposing a mission to the heathen, it is not to be wondered at if Mr. Ryland was startled, and pointed out objections as they occurred to him at the moment. And after the lapse of thirty years, between the meeting and the publication of Fuller's memoirs, Mr. Morris's memory may have been somewhat at fault, or he may have misappre hended Ryland's drift. In his second edition, in 1826, he suggests 'that possibly the conversation at Northampton in 1786 might be construed into a piece of pleasantry, and that the whole was in tended as ironical.' V. THE CLOSE. Mr. Ryland was an ardent friend of liberty, both civil and religious, and in his school instilled into the minds of his pupils its fundamental principles. While the war was going on which England had commenced with her American colonies, and was at its hottest, he strongly defended the cause of the
62 THE THREE RYLANDS Americans, and condemned the measures pursued against them. Conversing with Robert Hall, of Arnsby, when young Robert Hall was brought to Northampton to school, he said : ' Were I General Washington, I will tell you what I would do : I would call together all my comrades and brother officers. I would order every man to bare his arm, and then I would order one of them to bring a lancet and a punch-bowl, and he should bleed us all, one by one, into this punch-bowl ; and I would be the first to bare my arm ; and when the punch-bowl was full, and we had all been bled, I would call upon every man to consecrate himself to the work by dipping his sword-point into the bowl, and entering into a solemn covenant engage ment by oath one to another, and we would swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever never to sheathe the consecrated blade till he had achieved the freedom of his country.' As an illustration of what was called his eccen tricity, he was one day giving utterance to his ' full assurance of faith,' when a friend remarked, ' But, Mr. Ryland, are you never afraid lest you should go to hell ?' ' No, sir ; and if I were, I should say, " I love the Lord Jesus Christ," and all the devils in hell would say, " Turn that fellow out ; he has no business here." ' Referring to the modern question whether it is
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 63 right to appeal directly to the unconverted and urge them to repentance and faith, he said Robert Hall, his son, and Fuller were busied on it. The devil threw out an empty barrel for them to roll about, while they ought to have been drinking the wine of the kingdom. ' That old dog, lying in the dark, has drawn off many good men to whip syllabub and sift quiddities under pretence of zeal for the truth.' In his address at the grave of Dr. Gilford— pastor of Eagle Street Church, London, and the last of an illustrious line, to whose benefactions Bristol Baptist College owes so much, both in its library and museum—Mr. Ryland contrasted the first coming of Christ with His second. ' At His first coming He appeared in the high-priest's hall ; at His second He will appear from the highest heavens. At His first coming He stood at Pilate's bar ; at His second Pilate must stand at His bar. At His first coming He stood before Herod and his bullies to be mocked ; at His second Herod and his men of war must stand before Him to be tried for eternity. ' Now, Caiaphas, charge Him again with blasphemy, and rend your clothes afresh! Now, Pilate, bind Him and scourge Him once more ! Now, Herod, treat Him and mock Him as a fool ; laugh Him to scorn ; put another purple robe on His shoulders, and with your men of war set Him
64 THE THREE RYLANDS at nought ; reduce Him to nothing once more ! Barabbas, now hold up your head, and rise once more above Jesus of Nazareth—Jesus the despised Galilean, and swell with pride to think that you are released and honoured, while Jesus is degraded and condemned. ' Judas, Judas, sell His blood once more—sell Him for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. Give Him another traitorous kiss. Go up to Him, not in the garden, but on His great white throne ; say " Hail, Master ! hail, Master !" and kiss Him. Why, man, do you boggle? Why do you shiver? What ! not able to reach Him ? Not dare to kiss Him once more—once more ? What is the matter, Judas ? Ah, thou perfidious traitor ! thou wretch ! thou most abandoned, cursed, ungrateful monster ! It is all over with thee for ever and ever ! ' Come, ye Jewish rabble ! cry out now ye see Him upon His throne, " Hail, King of the Jews !" Follow Him afresh, and with the most violent vociferations exclaim, " Crucify Him ! crucify Him !" Now, soldier, stab Him to the heart once more; plunge your spear into His bosom, and say once more, what probably you said before, "Curse the Jewish impostor ! let Him bleed 1" 1 Imagine the scene in Bunhill Fields : the great, solemn gathering in which are many ministers of various denominations, the summer morning at sunrise, Ryland standing among them on a tomb
JOHN COLLETT RYLAND 65 stone, his majestic person, his piercing eye, his voice deep toned, clear, and strong, but flexible to every emotion of the speaker, and his air of dignity and self-possession. It was a scene for ever memorable to all who were present* How awe some these closing words : ' O ye ministers of Christ, ye people of God, ye surrounding spectators, prepare, prepare to meet this old servant of Christ at that day, at that hour, when this whole place shall be all nothing, but life and death shall be swallowed up in victory ' ! His last sermon was preached at the Rev. Mr. Bell's, Cheshunt. It was on the theme he loved so much—the Deity of Christ. From that day to the day of his death he manifested the most profound and serene submission to the will of God. His last illness progressed slowly and without severe suffering. ' What ease of body, and what peace of mind !' was his exclamation more than once. He died with this for his dying testimony, ' Christ is Jehovah God, my righteousness and strength.' About six o'clock on the evening of Tuesday, July 24, 1792, ' The weary wheels of life at length stood still.' A brass plate on the wall of the present chapel in College Street, Northampton, a few feet from * It was Gifford's desire to be buried at sunrise to testify his faith in the Resurrection. 5
66 THE THREE RYLANDS the pulpit, marks the spot where his remains were interred a hundred and four years ago, while a large mural tablet perpetuates his memory in the following inscription : To the Memory of The REVEREND JOHN RYLAND, A.M., WHO WAS EMINENTLY QUALIFIED FOR RAISING THE INTEREST OF HIS GOD AND SAVIOUR, WHICH WAS EXCEEDINGLY REDUCED IN THIS PLACE, WHERE HIS MINISTRATIONS WERE SO SUCCESSFUL THAT THIS HOUSE WAS TWICE ENLARGED. THE WARM PATHOS, THE VIVID ZEAL, AND THE STRIKING MANNER OF HIS DELIVERING THE TRUTHS OF THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL NEED NO ENCOMIUM, AS THEY STAND AMPLY RECORDED IN THE HEARTS OF HIS BELOVED FLOCK. AFTER BEING THIRTY-TWO YEARS THEIR PASTOR, HE WAS GATHERED UNTO HIS PEOPLE, JULY 24TH, 1792, AGED 69.
II. JOHN RYLAND, D.D., OF NORTHAMPTON AND BRISTOL.
JOHN RYLAND, D.D. In passing from the father, John Ryland, to the son of the same name, we are passing from a man of original talent and temperament to one of a more ordinary type, but one also who in his day was as influential as his father, and who showed the marked family characteristics of orthodoxy and tenacity of ascertained truth, united with a fervent love of learning sacred and profane. John Ryland the younger, his father's eldest child, was born at Warwick on January 29, 1753, in the parsonage-house of St. Mary's, which John Collett Ryland was occupying at the time. The chief feature of his childhood was his remarkable precocity. When only five and a half years of age he was able to read the 23rd Psalm in Hebrew to the celebrated James Hervey ; and a letter of his father, written in August, 1764, tells his acquire ments with paternal pride : ' John is now eleven years and seven months old. He has read Genesis in Hebrew five times through. He read through
70 THE THREE RYLANDS the Greek New Testament before he was nine years old. He can read Horace and Virgil. He has read Telemachus in French. He has read through Pope's " Homer," in eleven volumes, and Dryden's "Virgil," in eight volumes. He has read Rollin's "Ancient History," in ten octavo volumes, and he knows the "Pagan Mythology" surprisingly.' As was to be expected, his early fondness for reading and learning, and his indifference to play, involved somewhat weakly health, and repressed that vigour of mind and that growth of reflective powers which are of so much more worth than learning. He had done better to play. It was in a very different way that he first acquired knowledge of the familiar side of religion. This was literally gained at the fireside from his mother's lips. The story is told of him, as of Dr. Doddridge, that the parlour fireplace was fitted with Dutch tiles representing Bible characters and events, and in the tiles the mother found a picture-book for her child in which a grand procession of patriarchs and prophets, heroes and kings, confessors and martyrs, passed before the imagination and ap pealed to the heart of the boy. That mother's teaching lived with him all his days. Early, too, did he show that tenderness and sweetness of nature which marked his maturity.
JOHN RYLAND 71 He shrank from repeating the answers in Watts's ' First Catechism ' which spoke of the doom of the wicked, and when it fell to his lot to do so, he more than once burst into tears and broke down. All his life, if he spoke of the ' terrors of the Lord,' it was with tenderness and compassion in his tone, often with a choking voice. It was but natural that such a temperament, under such influences, should early show decision of character as regarded personal religion, and we find that he was baptized on profession of faith by his father in the river Nene at Northampton, September 13, 1767, when less than fifteen years old, his father and the church wisely admitting him to fellowship against some opposition on the ground of his age, by those who confused believers' baptism with adult baptism, and who failed to see that the best place for believing children was inside the garden of the Church. When raising him from the water, his father looked upward, and said, ' Thanks be to God for this boy !' And the lad in his diary records it, saying, ' I shall never forget that sound while I live.' Yet, early as young Ryland's religious character had developed, he was far from escaping those mental sufferings and emotional disturbances which were too often in those days looked for as the proper and almost essential preliminaries to re ligious decision. His own records of his frame of
72 THE THREE RYLANDS mind for some time before his baptism are dis tressing reading, and not a little of the boyhood which should have been innocent of introspective troubles was darkened and preoccupied with terrors created by himself through an imperfect perception of the generosity of Divine grace. As he grew older he passed out of these trials, and his precocious development showed itself next in the beginnings of his life as a preacher. His loving and unpretending interest in individual boys in his father's academy, according to opportunity, soon induced him to comply with their request to address his schoolfellows, which he did frequently, and then in time he was asked to preach to the church. His first sermon was from the text Jer. xxi. 9, and it was delivered on May 3, 1770, just after he had completed his seventeenth year. From the evils attendant upon such early pro minence he was saved mainly by his singularly retiring and sweet disposition. His activity in religious matters was very great ; but it was always others who put him forward, and not himself, and from all sources it appears that a constant humility of spirit and modesty of manner distinguished him with a special charm which added greatly to his usefulness. Unlike those most useless persons in Christian societies who are always waiting for great things to do, and who neglect the opportunities which lie to their hand>
JOHN RYLAND 73 young Ryland always did the little which lay to his hand, and found that by doing the ' next thing ' life became rich in opportunities of useful ness. From 1770 onward he continued for years to assist his father both in the schoolroom and the pulpit, and was also zealously engaged in pro claiming the Gospel in the villages round North ampton—a work which he did so affectionately and modestly that he won the hearts of all who knew him. Yet he was not wanting in that youthful ardour amounting to indiscretion which not seldom characterizes young preachers ; for a letter is extant addressed to him by John Newton, then curate of Olney, conveying wise and needed counsel. Newton says : ' I have occasionally heard tales of you, that by the loudness, length, and frequency of your public discourses you are lighting your candle at both ends. I cannot blame your zeal : you serve a good Master, who is well worthy that you should spend and be spent for His sake. You have like wise a sense of the worth and danger of souls, and this makes you earnest and importunate. Perhaps, too, you think you are " immortal till your work is done" (which I shall not dispute), and therefore think it the less needful to be careful of yourself. However, as the Lord usually works by means, if it is His pleasure to prolong your life for the good of many, He will perhaps dispose you to listen to
74 THE THREE RY LANDS a word of advice on this head. I should account him more generous than prudent who, to show his heartiness in entertaining his friends, should in the course of the year exhaust an estate which, if properly managed, might have supplied him and them for forty years to come. Your case is similar. You are young, hardly attained yet to your con stitutional strength, and perhaps, if you over-exert yourself at this period of your life, you never may. ... I fear, unless you can restrain yourself, you are laying a foundation for an early old age and distressing bodily complaint, and that for every sermon you preach or have preached before twenty-one, especially if you speak loud and long, you will hinder yourself preaching ten hereafter. I say your desire is good; but you need a bridle, or you will soon unfit yourself for public useful ness. In a word, as I approve of your zeal, I shall be glad for your own sake if you will approve and adopt a little of my prudence. I wish my letter may be a bridle to you, and yours a spur to me.' In 1771, at the age of twenty-eight, he was called by the church to be his father's assistant and copastor—a call with which he complied ; and five years later, in 1786, the sole charge devolved upon him on his father's removal to Enfield. He remained sole pastor till he went to Bristol, in 1793.
JOHN RYLAND 75 The Invitation to John Ryland, Junr., to become his Father's Colleague. ' The Church of Christ meeting in College Lane, North ampton, to the Rev. John Kyland, Junior, wishes grace, mercy, direction and peace. ' Rev. and dear Sir, ' When we compare this church in its present state to what it was above twenty years ago, we have reason to cry out with admiration, " What hath God wrought 1" By the ministrations of your honoured father, our worthy pastor, in conjunction likewise with your labours for near ten years past, in this part of our Lord's vineyard, many sinners have been converted, many saints have been edified, strengthened and established, and some backsliders restored ; so that we have been increased sevenfold, and through infinite mercy are still kept in peace. ' But you are sensible, dear sir, that notwithstanding our numbers have increased, and our "eyes still behold our teachers," that while we are in the possession of the ordi nances of the Gospel, and are favoured with abundance of religious privileges, we have great reason to lament the abatement of that vigour and zeal in the ways of God that glowed with greater fervour amongst us some few years back. Among the causes that have contributed to this spiritual disease (as well as others amongst us), we cannot but reckon the want of more watchfulness over ourselves and over one another, and the want of more Christian communion with our minister and with one another also. Our pastor, by the daily attention to his numerous family [the boys in his boarding-school], which he hath in charge, is much hindered from visiting the families and individuals of his flock—his strength, he has often declared, is decaying, so that he is incapable of performing the whole work himself ;
76 THE THREE RYLANDS and from this cause, as well as from the providential call of his absence from us for two or three months in the year, he stands in need of assistance in the administration of the sacraments, as well as in preaching and other ordinances of the Gospel. With a view to " set those things in order that are wanting," and in the fear of the Lord we trust, after having sought His direction by prayer, we hereby solicit you, with the full consent of our present beloved pastor, to take upon you the joint pastorship with him of this Church of the living God, hoping, that if the Divine Spirit shall incline you to accept of this call, it will be for the mutual benefit of the whole community. ' Signed by us, in behalf of the whole church, at a church meeting, called on purpose, on the Lord's Day after noon, December 3, 1780 ; the call having been pre viously voted with great unanimity on Lord's Day, November 19. His ministry at Northampton was important and influential. Then, as now, the church at College Street was the leading Baptist community in the county, and its pastor, when a man of commanding character and abilities, became in effect a sort of Baptist bishop. This was Ryland's position, as in our day it has been that of his successor, Rev. J. T. Brown, and not a little of its importance 'John Luck. Wm. Cooper. Joseph Dent. Tho. Trinder. John Adams. Benjn. Knight. Thomas Knight. John Manning. Thos. Turland. Wm. Brown.' Benj. Evans. Reuben Archer.
JOHN RYLAND 77 depended on his influence on the village churches, several of which he founded, and to which he gave a lasting impulse. He was also concerned in the movements of the time which affected Nonconformists. Carey, the great originator of the Baptist Missionary Society, was one of his dearest friends. Ryland had baptized him, was in constant intercourse with him, and was able to lend him books which Carey's income of £$6 a year could not compass. Ryland records an instance of this. ' " Well, Mr. Carey," I said to him one day, " you remember how I laughed at you when I heard of your learning Dutch ? for I thought you would never have any use for that language ; but now I have the first opportunity of profiting by it. I have received a parcel from Dr. Erskine, of Edinburgh, containing books published in America and Scotland, but he says I shall wonder that he has enclosed a Dutch book. This he informs me is a volume of sermons written by a divine now living in Holland, at the end of which is a dissertation on the call of the Gospel, which, if any friend of mine or Mr. Fuller's understands the language sufficiently to translate it for us, he should be glad to see. Now, Mr. Carey, if you will translate the dissertation for me, I will give you the whole." ' Carey soon brought the dissertation, and afterwards an extraordinary sermon on Hosea iii., translated from the Dutch volume.
78 THE THREE RYLANDS This translation is carefully transcribed in Ryland's bold, clear handwriting, and carefully preserved among his MSS. (pp. 80, octavo). The controversy to which the Dutch dissertation referred was one that stirred Calvinists widely at the time. Among the Baptists the leading con troversialist was Andrew Fuller. The question in dispute was whether it be the duty of all men to whom the Gospel is published to repent and believe in Christ. Among the Baptists there were many who maintained the negative, and scouted ' dutyfaith.' Through his admiration of two of these, Dr. Gill and Mr. John Brine, Ryland was at first inclined to take up the same position. ' The sixtysecond of Samuel Rutherford's letters,' he says, ' was one of the first things that put me to a stand on this subject. Closely studying Edwards' " On the Will," and entering into the distinction between natural and moral inability, removed all the diffi culties which ever embarrassed my mind.' The controversy has long ceased to be important, since the debased form of Calvinism which alone made any doubt on the question possible has passed away; but its national importance lies in the fact that it was only the successful dispelling by Andrew Fuller and others of the monstrous heresy that the Gospel was only for the elect, which made possible the great religious expansion which first showed itself in the renewal of missions.
JOHN RYLAND 79 The logic of Carey was unanswerable when he said to Fuller, ' If it be the duty of all men when the Gospel comes to believe unto salvation, then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the Gospel to endeavour to make it known among all nations for the obedience of faith.' In the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, Ryland's, as is well known, was a conspicuous part. At the formation of the society, his name heads the list of original sub scribers —'John Ryland, £2 2s.'—and is placed first in the committee of five then appointed. His intense friendship with Carey, his own views as to the universal obligation of the Gospel, and his influential position in the denomination, led him to render invaluable assistance. With Fuller and Sutcliff he formed the trium virate who, in Carey's picturesque phrase, ' held the ropes.' He was the first man appointed on the committee of five to guide the enterprise after its inception. He threw himself heart and soul into the cause, doing all he could at home, and keeping up an affectionate correspondence with Carey till the close of his life. As will be seen, he removed to Bristol at the end of the next year— 1793. It made no difference to his action ; but it was well for the mission that he was on the spot in Northampton when it was founded at Kettering, and was able to lend help in its infancy
8o THE THREE RYLANDS before the more timid London ministers had ventured to countenance it. There is interesting evidence of his sterling good sense in his treatment about this time of the notorious William Huntingdon, S.S., whose ram pant Antinomianism threatened to infect some of the Northamptonshire churches, and whom some of Ryland's hearers tried to get into Ryland's pulpit. ' His dogmatism, his volubility,' says Ryland, ' with abundance of low wit and abuse of other ministers, acquired for him a considerable degree of popularity, though chiefly among the ignorant and illiterate, while he had a knack of so connect ing detached sentences of Scripture, without regard to their original import and connection, as to make them appear to prove whatever he pleased. His profligacy before his supposed conversion would have been no evidence that it was not genuine, but his effrontery in relating it afterwards in the most ludicrous and jocose expressions would go far towards invalidating it, especially since, after he had left off the indulgence of the lust of the flesh, no man seemed more completely under the dominion of the lusts of the mind. Besides, arrogancy and malignancy, indulged for many years without the least semblance of jealousy lest he should carry them too far in any case whatever, are as inconsistent with all the idea I can form of
JOHN RYLAND 81 a saved sinner as lewdness or drunkenness. This man I never heard or saw, though I have read many of his writings, and have been shocked to see such a mixture of vaunting confidence as to his own safety, and rancorous bitterness towards everyone who did not treat him as a prophet of the Lord. When I refused to surrender my pulpit, at the desire of two or three discontented persons, to this Ishmaelite, he printed a pamphlet in which he charged me with shutting his Master out of the pulpit by shutting out him, and says : " Two clerical gentlemen at Bristol " (meaning Mr. Hoskins and Mr. Caleb Evans) "treated me without any just cause, just as Mr. Ryland has done; but it did not pass unresented: both of them are now no more." ' Had Ryland died before this man, he would doubtless have been added to the number of those who were ' struck dead ' for not receiving him. These various aspects of his activity will give some idea of what Ryland was like when in 1793, in the prime of life, he entered on his next im portant work as President of the Baptist College at Bristol and pastor of the Broadmead Church. He was eminently a cautious, moderate-minded man. He was neither much in advance of, nor at all behind, his age, regard being had to his position and environment. His popularity and good in fluence as a preacher were great, and these were 6
8a THE THREE RYLANDS due mainly to the loftiness and spirituality of his character. Judging from the ' Pastoral Memorials,' his sermons were grave, homely, affectionate, and sincere, neither perhaps profound nor brilliant, with no display of learning, though he was a learned man, nor philosophic in thought, and without those gleams of insight which illumine whole realms of truth in a moment, while of rhetorical art or oratorical grace he had nothing. Yet few preachers were listened to with more delight and profit. One occasional and intelligent hearer was wont to say that he never knew any man make religion seem so reasonable as Dr. Ryland. He stood before his audience with a spiritual dignity which was most impressive, and the effect of every sentence was heightened by the veneration which was felt for his personal character. In truth, while not a man of original talent, he had an admirably balanced mind and a disposition of combined shrewdness and sweetness, and the harmony of his faculties both of heart and mind made him a power to the very close of his long ministry. This was now to be exercised in a more im portant sphere. The year 1791 had seen the death of Dr. Caleb Evans, the minister of Broadmead Church, the principal Baptist community in Bristol, and the President of the Education Society,
JOHN RYLAND 83 as it was then called, now known as the Bristol Baptist College. It was resolved to ask Mr. Ryland to take this post, and, after somewhat prolonged negotiations, he settled in Bristol in December, 1793, as minister and president. The letters which passed between Bristol and Northampton are still in existence, and speak highly of the courtesy and consideration shown by two Christian communities to each other. Their chief interest for our time lies in it being taken for granted all through that a ministerial settlement was naturally for life, and a change of sphere an unusual departure from custom, all of which is in somewhat pointed contrast to the methods of to-day. At Bristol Mr. Ryland—who at this time received the title of D.D. from Brown University, Rhode Island (the degree of M.A. having previously been conferred on him)—found the main work of his life. For thirty-one years he combined the offices mentioned above, and exercised the influence be longing to him as one of the leaders of the Baptists in the West of England. His labour was pro digious. Tuition and preaching at Broadmead were, of course, his first duties ; but the needs of the Academy and other Baptist interests took him often far afield, and during his settlement at Bristol he is said to have journeyed close upon 39,000 miles, preaching in his ministry from first to last 6—2
84 THE THREE RYLANDS at more than 300 different places, and all this in the old coaching days. His appearance was a certain attraction, es pecially in his old Northamptonshire haunts. Very old people can still remember the enthu siasm which in their childhood was evoked by the announcement of a visit from Dr. Ryland to the neighbourhood. Arrangements were speedily made for as many public services in different places as the length of his stay would allow. Usually the great barn of the village was requisitioned. On one occasion the difficulty of finding seats for the numbers expected was happily solved by a resource ful friend. Planks of suitable length, supported at each end and in the middle by half-filled sacks of corn, made a novel accommodation, which was supplemented by forms and chairs. In the College Dr. Ryland himself taught Hebrew, of which he was master, and the Greek and Latin Classics, while exercising a general superintendence over the course of study in theology, Church history, sacred antiquity, and rhetoric. The impression he produced on his students is well shown by the words of one of the ablest of them, Rhodes, of Damerham, afterwards a distinguished student at Edinburgh. ' Loving him and revering him as I did,' he says, 'it gives me real delight to express the deep and tender veneration I cherish for his memory, and to note
JOHN RYLAND »5 my recollections of the wisdom and excellence he manifested towards me and many others while under his care. I have never left any place with so much regret as I quitted two years since the house over which he presided. No tutor could be more loved or revered. The sentiment indulged towards him by us all, and that most deeply by the most pious and cultivated of our number, was a deep and affectionate veneration for his character ; and such was the simplicity and mildness which pervaded his constant intercourse with us that the awe which so much goodness and mental vigour naturally tended to inspire in us was absorbed in cordial affection for him as our best earthly friend. It never appeared to me a serious defect in his plan of tuition that he never read any theological lectures of his own to the students. If it was any defect at all, it was compensated to a very great extent by his preaching, on which we attended, and which, as everyone knows, was of a highly vigorous and intellectual, as well as of a very devotional, cast. We thus received from him his enlarged and luminous views of nearly all the great topics of Divine truth, mingled with the fervour ot impression produced by public address.' These sermons, of course, were delivered by him as pastor of Broadmead, and to their prepara tion Dr. Ryland gave great attention. Many were published after his death in the volumes of 'Pastoral
86 THE THREE RYLANDS Memorials,' which his son, J. E. Ryland, edited, and many more are preserved on the small slips which the Doctor took with him into the pulpit, his sight, which was microscopic, enabling him to write and read the minutest notes, and so put a whole sermon into the compass of a tiny slip of paper. It is interesting to hear that to-day in Burmah outlines of his sermons are given to the native teachers to use in their own districts, and are found most helpful. The circumstances of the times often involved Dr. Ryland in controversy. His candour as a disputant was remarkable, of which his work on Baptism is a conspicuous example. But his candour was far removed from laxity. He was as firm as he was courteous. In a correspondence with Dr. Carpenter, the Unitarian minister of Bristol, he says : ' However, my object is not to dispute, but to let you see the real feelings of my heart concerning you. If you are right, you ought to pity me as a poor old blinded idolater in danger of the curse denounced against him that trusteth in man, believing him to be more than man, to be God as well as man. If you are wrong, I am bound to pity you as one striving to prevent men from thinking so ill of sin, as exposing them to endless misery and needing a great Atonement, or so highly of Him who saveth from the wrath to come, as you and they ought to think.'
JOHN RYLAND 87 It is specially interesting to read how, when the first tidings came home from the missionaries in India, Dr. Ryland had no sooner read his letter from Carey than he sent for Dr. Bogue and Mr. Stephen (two prominent Independents who hap pened to be in Bristol at the time) to share his joy with them. They joined in giving thanks to God ; and then Bogue and Stephen, calling on Mr. Hey, a leading citizen, the three took the first steps towards the formation of the London Missionary Society, which has since achieved such triumphs in all quarters of the world. Thus Ryland, and he alone, was privileged to have part in forming two of the great missionary societies of modern days. It was at Dr. Ryland's suggestion, too, that our mission to the West Indies was commenced in the slavery days. He was also greatly interested in the Jews, and, in conjunction with other ministers of various denominations, made efforts to place Christianity before them. A sermon he preached at the Jews' Chapel, Spitalfields, in 1800, on ' Eight Characteristics of the Messiah laid down by Zechariah, and all found in Jesus of Nazareth,' was published and extensively circulated. The movement eventually gave rise to the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, which became a Church of England society, the energies of Nonconformists being at
88 THE THREE RYLANDS that time fully employed in the two infant mis sionary enterprises. In Bristol Ryland retained all his missionary enthusiasm, and his exertions in behalf of the missionary cause were of the most strenuous and indefatigable kind. His counsel in all matters of perplexity in the great undertaking was of great value from the singleness of mind which always characterized it. No doubt the missionary ardour which still distinguishes Bristol, both in the College and in the general Christian community, is largely due to Ryland's influence, as it is to-day to that of Dr. Glover. When Fuller died, in 1815, the office of secretary of the Missionary Committee was forced upon him, in addition to his varied and onerous duties. The fitness of the appointment was universally recognised. He was one of the ' three mighty men ' who had fought the battle of the mission when the odds against it were at the greatest; and he sympathized with the men in India to the full, and understood them, and was understood by them. The Rev. James Hinton, of Oxford, was afterwards appointed joint-secretary. As his seventieth year drew near his strength began to fail, and he was under the necessity of confining his labours more exclusively to the church at Broadmead, the College, and those re ligious and benevolent objects in the West of England whose claims pressed upon him. In the
JOHN RYLAND 89 year 1820 his health began visibly to decline; the tremulous weakness of age rapidly manifested itself. A chill in the month of December, 1824, marked the commencement of his last illness. On the evening of the first Lord's Day in January, 1825, he was able to occupy the pulpit, and to preach with his old earnestness from Eccles. xi. 9, 10, ' Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth.' Throughout the month he continued to decline, and on the 30th, the day after he had entered on his seventythird year, he completed a ministry that had ex tended over fifty-five years. He lingered on painlessly till May 30, when he fell asleep. The bystanders observed that he passed away with a serenity which no language could adequately de scribe. He was buried in a spot he had selected in the graveyard at Broadmead, near the pulpit end of the chapel. His funeral was largely attended. The ships in the harbour had their flags half-mast high, and the general closing of business places in the city marked the position he had gained far beyond the limits of his immediate surroundings. He had done a valuable work with great devotion. Like his father, he had naturally the quick temper of the Rylands, but few knew or recognised it. Whether, as Robert Hall suggested, from seeing the mistakes his father's impetuosity sometimes committed, or from his own natural bias, his fail
9° THE THREE RYLANDS ing was the opposite one, of timidity and reserve. But his sweetness and lovableness had done as much good in his time as the more masterful qualities of other men. The work of Dr. Ryland was of eminent and varied kinds. To those already described ought to be added his labours for the Bristol Penitentiary, in the establishment of which he was principally instrumental. In private he was a warm and unselfish friend and companion. One of his chief pleasures was in natural history, for which his remarkable eye sight specially fitted him, and it was the custom of his friends and relatives to save natural curiosities for ' Dr. Ryland.' He wrote hymns and occasional verses, which, if not of high distinction, are singularly pure in sentiment and diction. Daniel Sedgwick has col lected and published about a hundred of these in a small volume. Many of them are in frequent use in religious services. The estimate formed of him by men like Hall and Foster gives him a front rank among the best men of his time in England. Rhodes of Damerham says : ' With all the regard and admiration in which he was held by those who knew him, and by many who had no personal intercourse with him, it does not appear to me that the strong and luminous character of his mind, or the wide and
JOHN RYLAND 9« varied range of his knowledge, were in general sufficiently appreciated. Nor is it to be wondered at. His piety was so conspicuous that his other qualities and attainments were hardly thought of by anyone while in his society, or in the contempla tion of his character. His mental endowments and attainments were eclipsed by the brightness of the sanctity which pervaded them.'
JONATHAN EDWARDS RYLAND, M.A. The three Rylands were all men of strong mental calibre, and each in his own way made distinct contribution to the best interests of his generation. Jonathan Edwards Ryland, the only son of Dr. Ryland by his second wife, was born at Bristol May 5, 1798. From his earliest years his father imbued him with the love of knowledge—of that knowledge specially which is the beginning and consummation of wisdom. The great lessons of the Gospel were communicated in a home in which the predominant influences were ' The powers of the world to come,' and in which the great objects of faith were living and present realities. It was a Puritan home, and, like every true Puritan home, it was gladdened by the melody of joy and health. He received his name owing to his father's ad miration of the writings and character of the famous Jonathan Edwards,* metaphysician and theologian, * Among the books in Bristol College Library are two which appear to have belonged originally to John Collet t
96 THE THREE RYLANDS President of Princeton College, N. J., America. The boy received his earlier education under his father's eye in Bristol Baptist College. He after wards proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he studied under the brilliant and fascinating Dr. Thomas Brown, the most original and subtle of Scottish psychologists, who then occupied the chair of Moral Philosophy, and attracted students from all parts of the land. Ryland was an accomplished linguist. He knew the Latin and Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Italian languages, probably more, and was well acquainted with their literature. Soon after leaving Edinburgh he was appointed Classical and Mathematical Master at Mill Hill School, which position he occupied for a time. He was only too glad to resign this position and to devote himself to literary work. He never acquired the love of teaching, which was a passion both with his father and his grandfather. While he was at Mill Hill his father died, 1825. Next year he published two volumes of sermons by his fathe^ entitled ' Pastoral Memorials,' accompanied by a Ryland, and afterwards to the son. Both are heavily under lined, and have marginalia in almost every page. The first is Edwards' 'Life of Brainerd the Missionary,' an intensely missionary book ; and the second is the ' Life of Edwards ' himself, described as 'the greatest, wisest, humblest and holiest of uninspired men.' 'John Ryland, Junr.' notes that he ' returned ' this book to his father in 1 786, ' having bought a new copy for himself for 2s. 6d.'
JONATHAN EDWARDS RYLAND 97 modest and graceful memoir of his father. The work was dedicated by the family to Dr. Carey of Serampore, in remembrance of the long and unin terrupted friendship that subsisted between himself and Dr. Ryland, and specially their intimate co operation in the cause of Christian missions. In acknowledging receipt of the volumes, Carey describes Ryland as 'the guide of my inexperi enced youth, my faithful counsellor, and my stanch friend,' and adds, ' He was scarcely ever forgotten in my prayers, and I believe I was scarcely ever for gotten in his. I felt a lively interest in his joys and sorrows, so far as I knew them ; and no man felt a more lively interest than he in the undertaking to which I have devoted myself.' On leaving Mill Hill, J. E. Ryland taught for a short time in Bradford (now Rawdon) Baptist College, then under the presidency of Dr. William Steadman. The engagement was only temporary. On January 4, 1828, he married Frances, daughter of John Buxton of Northampton, and made his home in Salisbury for a short period. From Salis bury he removed to Bristol. Here he made the acquaintance of Professor F. W. Newman (brother of the Cardinal), who was at that period a member of Broadmead and one of the College committee. His life henceforward was devoted to literature, and was quiet and uneventful. He removed to North ampton in 1835, where he resided the rest of his life. 7
98 THE THREE RYLANDS In 1852 the degree of M.A. was conferred on him by Brown University of America. His literary work brought him into connection with many celebrities. Ryland's literary activity was consistently Chris tian and evangelical. Being self-distrustful, he did not attempt any original or independent work, but engaged in translation, biography, and editing. All his work was done in a Christian spirit, and with a Christian aim. It is difficult to determine all that he did, as sometimes he did not sign his name to his productions. His earliest ventures were con tributed about 1823 to a Bristol periodical called the Visitor. He wrote for the Baptist Magazine, and for a short time edited the Eclectic Rroiew. His name appears as a contributor to ' Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature,' 1845. To the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' eighth edition, he con tributed memoirs of John Foster, Andrew Fuller, John Kitto, Robert Robinson, Christian Friedrich Schwartz, and Schleiermacher. He wrote also the articles on 'Northampton' and 'Northampton shire.' In 1846 he published the 'Life and Corre spondence of John Foster,' two volumes. The present writer (not then a Baptist) fell in with this memoir just after reading that fascinating ' Life of Dr. Arnold,' by Stanley, and was even more deeply impressed by Foster than by Arnold. Ryland enables us to look, as it were, into the eyes of that
JONATHAN EDWARDS RYLAND 99 original and powerful, if somewhat gloomy, genius whose life he writes. The work is done with diligence, care, and sound judgment, and with absolute faithfulness. Of course, he is obliged to omit some things ; but nothing that would modify the view presented of the intellectual and moral character of the man. The life, as presented in these two volumes, verifies Hall's judgment, ' Mr. Foster of Downend, a young man of the most original and extraordinary genius,' though the reverse of a popular preacher. Ryland produced another notable memoir, that of Dr. John Kitto, in 1856. Kitto was a very notable man—a dweller in the land of silence, but a voluminous and delightful writer ; and this life of him was felt to be of great interest, and has proved to be of permanent value. Ryland enters sympathetically into his life-story, and has pre sented it in a very lifelike manner. Both these biographies of Foster and Kitto have one feature in common : while the man is vividly and faith fully portrayed, the biographer keeps himself out of sight. In Carlyle's ' Cromwell,' we are almost as much interested in the biographer and his views as in the hero : Ryland keeps almost com pletely out of view. He has worked in the spirit of the couplet : ' Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.' 7—2
100 THE THREE RYLANDS But the edifice which the architect has constructed is a very noble one. Among Ryland's translations were ' Pascal's Thoughts,' with introductory essay by Isaac Taylor ; 'Jacobi on James;' Felix Neff's ' Dialogues on Sin and Salvation Sartorius' ' Lectures on the Person and Work of Christ ;' Tholuck's ' Guido and Julius,' with preface by Pye Smith ; ' Natural History of the Bible,' for the Religious Tract Society; Semisch's ' Life of Justin Martyr,' two volumes ; the second volume of l.ange's 'Life of Christ;' several of Neander's works ; ' History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church ;' ' Christian Life in the Early and Middle Ages ;' ' History of Christian Dogmas ;' and also Hengstenberg on the Penta teuch. Among the books which Ryland edited, in addition to the ' Pastoral Memorials ' of his father, were Foster's ' Contributions, Biographical, Literary, and Philosophical, to the Eclectic Review,' two volumes, 1844 ; Foster's ' Lectures de livered at Broadmead Chapel, Bristol,' two volumes ; Foster's ' Essay on the Improvement of Time, and other Literary Remains,' one volume. In addition, he edited a volume of selections which he entitled ' Wholesome Words : one Hundred Choice Passages from old Authors,' a volume marked by sound judgment and refined taste. His care and fidelity as an editor were extreme.
JONATHAN EDWARDS RYLAND 101 It will thus be seen that we owe him a large debt for his contributions to sacred literature. His private correspondence exhibits his profound conscientiousness and his delicate regard for the feelings of others. He had to do occasional re viewing ; but did not care to review his friends. Like Robert Hall, he ' felt there was a snare in that which it was best to avoid.' In undertaking a somewhat difficult piece of work, he writes : ' If for any incomprehensible cause you prefer making me the medium, don't doubt my willing ness, and don't, I beseech you, utter, though in the lowest whisper, the word "trouble." Methinks, in this short life, the greatest " trouble " should be that we should not help one another.' He closes another letter thus : ' Having filled two sheets, it is time to stop; but my pen is uncommonly perverse when there is little time and a person incon veniently waiting. It seems drawn magnetically over the paper. Given plenty of time and leisure, and it is immediately as rigid and motionless as if seized with catalepsy ! Is there any philosopher living who can explain this strange perversity ? I fear some would trace it, not to the pen but to the ^nholder, who, nevertheless, is no other than your affectionate cousin and friend, J. E. R.' He was constitutionally shy and reserved; but his literary skill brought him into connection with many celebrities. Those who were admitted to
102 THE THREE RYLANDS his friendship found him a genuine and consistent Christian man. His constitutional shyness and reticence prevented him from making a public profession of his faith by baptism till he had reached manhood. Apart from conducting a Bible class, for young men, he never spoke in public. In chapel he always sought a seat near the door, so that he might be out before the bulk of the congregation. His un conquerable shyness stood in the way of his making friends ; but those whom he did gain—John Foster for example— loved him very sincerely and ad miringly. Among his friends he was genial, warm hearted, sincere, and playful. He had just been appointed curator of the new museum in North ampton, when on April 16, 1866, after a short illness, he died at his residence, Waterloo, North ampton. ' It will be seen,' writes Mr. Ryland Adkins, 'that J. E. Ryland was, superficially, in strong contrast to the earlier Rylands. He had nothing of his grand father's impetuous force of speech and action. To him was not given, as to his father, quiet facility in public life. He shrank from the publicity in which they had lived, and his work was that of a student and a writer, not that of a preacher and educa tionalist. Yet while so contrasting with his elders in temperament, he was in complete unity with them in opinion and in fundamental cast of mind. He does not seem even to have experienced the
JONATHAN EDWARDS RYLAND 103 throes they sustained in adjusting their minds to the mould of creed and conceptions which marked the school of thought to which all three belonged. He, no more than they, was in the habit of letting his mind concern itself with inquiries into the bases of religious belief, but accepted—though accepted in telligently—their standpoint as unquestionably right. But like them he joined with this contentment of religious ideas the same keen and constant interest in learning generally. Those who read the Eclectic Review of the years when he was editor, or his various articles and prefaces, can easily see what manner of man he was. Clear in statement and lucid in comment, his style, if not distinguished, was easy and good, and while from a modern point of view one may miss width of speculative treat ment and freedom of spirit, there is to be noted a solid acquaintance with books and facts and an absence of all pretence which inspire confidence and indicate real and high merit. He was fortunate in finding work for which he was exactly fitted, and having found it, he did it well.' THE END. Elliot Stock. 62, Paternoster Row, London.
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