inquired how he had relieved them, his reply generally was, 'I am not to let my left hand know what my right hand doeth.'

“As a master and a tradesman, his character was irreproachable; and as a husband, I ever found him the next friend to my God. He was the soother of my sorrows, the sweetener of my joys, and my wisest and kindest earthly director in the ways of holiness and peace. May I and all my dear children follow him as he followed Christ! Amen."

MEMOIR OF MR. JOHN PATRICK,
Of Bingley:

TRANSMITTED BY THE REV. THOMAS GALLAND, A.M.

THE late Mr. John Patrick was born at Bingley, near Bradford, in the month of February, 1757. His father died when he was an infant; and being thus early bereft of paternal support, and left to the care of his widowed mother, he was at an early age bound apprentice to a clothmaker, at Baildon, with whom he served his time. to the satisfaction of his master. Some time after he had married, and had begun business on his own account as a clothier, the light of truth broke in upon his mind, and he discovered that he was by nature fallen from God. But he had as yet imperfect views of the extent of his depravity, of his liability to the divine displeasure, of the nature of repentance, of the way of faith, or of the efficiency of the great atonement for sin; though he had been wounded, he had not been slain, by the commandment; he had no conception of obtaining heaven in any other way, than by doing something to merit it; and therefore went about to establish a righteousness of his own. He resolved to be religious; and being sincere in his determination, he immediately set about carrying it into effect. He became regular and punctual in his attendance at the church, purchased a Prayer-Book, acquired the art of finding with ease the different parts of the service, attended with assiduity to the ceremonials of religion, and passed for a decent Churchman; but all the while never dreamed that this was all a dead letter. From some information he had received respecting the Methodists, he was led to go out in search of the place where they preached; and when on his way, he saw an individual whom he took to be the Preacher, and said within himself, "That is the man I want to hear;" and added, in the language of Ruth to Naomi, "Whither thou goest, I will go." He traced the Preacher's footsteps till he was led to the place of his appointment, and heard him preach from these words, "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (2 Tim. ii. 19.) The truth came home, and he felt its force. Under this sermon he

discovered, that "circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." His views on the subjects of Christian theology and experience were corrected; he was obedient to the heavenly vision, and instantly began in earnest to pray for pardon through the merits of the Crucified; and he did not long wrestle before he prevailed. This occurred in the year 1782 or 1783. The Preacher, on what to him was a memorable occasion, was the late Rev. Thomas Mitchell, also a native of the parish of Bingley.

From this time there was an evident and lasting change in the spirit and manner of Mr. Patrick; and perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of that change was, his love of devotional retirement. He was not satisfied with living in a devotional spirit, but had his stated periods every day for private prayer and serious meditation; and from an exact and regular attention to these, no pursuits were allowed to withdraw him.

His attachment to the word of God became deeply-rooted and permanent. He delighted to meditate in "the law of the Lord" day and night; and by a course of daily reading, for a series of years, he acquired a peculiar aptness in quoting strikingly appropriate passages from the sacred volume. After his conversion to God, he found no difficulty in breaking a snare by which, when under the influence of partial light on divine things, he had often and again been entangled ; and the secret of his power was in his love to the oracles of truth. Previous to his conversion, his ungodly associates were in the habit of calling upon him every Sunday afternoon for the purpose of enjoying themselves (as they termed it) on that sacred day; and he found himself as though he was spell-bound in their presence, and could not resist their entreaties to accompany them in their unhallowed recreations. But then his mode of resistance became direct and simple, and therefore easy and effective. On the Sunday after he had heard Mr. Mitchell preach, they called upon him as usual. He was courteous and kind, he invited them in, and wished them each to take a seat; when he opened the Bible, and proposed that, in lieu of their usual walk, he should read them a chapter; on hearing which they left him to his studies, and gave him no farther trouble.

Having thus disentangled himself from his old companions, he sought a more intimate acquaintance with the people of God, and was ready to carry out Ruth's determination, "Thy people shall be my people, and their God my God." He was enrolled as a member of the Methodist society; and from that day he always set a high value on the privilege of enjoying "the communion of saints." His love to his class-meeting would allow no intervening obstacle to prevent his regular and punctual attendance on the arrival of the appointed hour: his Leader knew his habits, and as he always looked to find him in his place, so was he seldom disappointed. In the commencement of his religious course, he felt, for a short time, some difficulty

in engaging in family worship; and his diffidence overcame his sense of duty, until conviction of its propriety, and a sense of its value and importance to his rising charge, impelled him to do violence to his feelings, and to establish an altar in his house to the God of the families of all the earth. His internal struggles, however, (and they were only short-lived,) were more than compensated by the sweet and refreshing seasons with which himself and family were often favoured in drawing near to the throne of grace; and, ultimately, by the satisfaction with which he observed that the practice was continued by his children when they had families of their own.

At an early period he commenced the self-denying habit of fasting every Friday in the year; a practice which he maintained to a recent date, when his state of health, and the general lassitude of his physical energies, would not allow him to continue it any longer.

The performance of these and various other duties, relative and social, being based upon deeply-rooted principle, Mr. Patrick made considerable progress in the divine life; and it soon became apparent that he might usefully sustain the office of a Class-Leader. He was accordingly appointed to it: nor were the expectations which were formed disappointed; for he long filled this important office to the edification of his little flock, and with advantage to the church. He and his people experienced the sympathy which attracts together kindred spirits made one in Christ Jesus by regenerating grace; and, being united in object, affection, and effort, they were mutually comforted, strengthened, and encouraged in the Lord.

His love to God, and the cause of God, directed the operation of the same divine principle toward those who, in the early period of Methodism, exercised an itinerant ministry of the Gospel; and his heart and his house were opened to receive them when they came to Baildon in their progress through the Circuit; the Preachers arriving on the Saturday evening, and proceeding onward on the Sunday morning.

In the year 1802 he removed from Baildon to Kirkstall, and from thence, in 1806, to Burley, where he formed a class, and was appointed its Leader; and frequently, both in the prayer-meetings, and when the unexpected absence of the Preacher called for such assistance, he gave exhortations to those who were present, which, through the energy and point of their figurative character, are profitably remembered by some of his hearers to this day.

He removed from Burley to Leeds, prior to the unhappy division which so painfully agitated the Methodist societies in the year 1827. Both then, and at the great division which took place in the year 1797, he manifested his strong attachment to the doctrines and discipline of the original body, by resisting, to the utmost of his ability, the attempts that were made to assail its principles, or to impair its unity.

Mr. Patrick, during "the days of the years of his pilgrimage," had frequent occasion to bring into exercise the passive graces of the Holy Spirit. He experienced at times much domestic affliction. Once, in the course of only sixteen weeks, no less than three deaths occurred in his family; and in the year 1821 (and this was the severest stroke of all) he was called to sustain the loss of his dearly-beloved wife. The whole of these bereavements, together with trials from the concerns of this life, in which he did not experience much prosperity, he bore with truly Christian resignation, exclaiming, with Job, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

During the latter period of his life, when, by reason of his increasing infirmities, he had ceased to be officially occupied in the church, he still went about doing good, by visiting the sick, and conducting prayer-meetings. His usefulness in this way was not a little promoted by his having so long held fast his profession without wavering his varied experience, indeed, of the changing scenes of this mortal life, and his acquaintance with the deep things of God, rendered his communications exceedingly valuable. At all times, and under all circumstances, whether seated in his family circle, or walking by the way, he was in the spirit of prayer; nor could any one be more ready to adopt the language of the Psalmist, "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth." A short time before he ceased to walk abroad, being met in the town by a friend, who asked him concerning the state of his health, he replied, "I am better than I deserve to be: I am a happy man. I have been begging this morning up and down the streets as I have come along, and have had my present wants richly supplied; and besides that, I have a pokeful of promises." Then, throwing off the figurative garb with which his ideas had been clothed, he said, "My friend, I have had sweet intercourse with God this morning; and he has abundantly blessed my soul, while I have been lifting up my heart to him." This was not with him an occasional or a fitful feeling it was the warp that ran through the whole web of his experience, and was apparent whenever a short interview gave him an opportunity of referring to his own spiritual state.

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The evenness of his disposition, and the composure of his mind, were maintained during his last illness, which continued but for three weeks. During this period he frequently expressed his gratitude to God, that he felt neither sickness nor pain; he likewise gratefully remembered all the mercies with which he had been favoured in the course of his earthly pilgrimage, and often gave vent to the overflowings of his heart, in his favourite ascription of praise to the Trinity: "Glory be to the Father, glory be to the Son, and glory be to the Holy Ghost!" And, probably with some allusion to the sermon under

which he was blessed at the very outset of his course, he would exclaim, "I have my feet firm on the sure foundation."

At two o'clock in the morning of Friday, Feb. 22d, 1839, being the day on which he died, when the power of speech had failed him, and when he had entered upon his last struggles with his final foe, he stretched out his hand, and pointed with his finger very distinctly three times, as if he had something more than earthly in view. He continued gradually to sink; and in the course of a few hours afterward, he quietly breathed his last, aged eighty-two years.

The Rev. T. Pennington, having visited him in his last affliction, has furnished the following statement :

"I had several conversations with the late John Patrick during his last illness. I found him to be a most intelligent and happy Christian. He was evidently well-instructed in the way of the Lord; and there existed a richness and a glow about his religious experience which showed, that he walked closely with God, and there found rest for his soul. During my interviews with him, I saw exemplified a happy union of deep humility and rapturous joy. He said, he felt himself to be the chief of sinners, a mean and guilty worm. But he had a Saviour, Christ was his, and in Christ he both gloried and shouted for joy. O,' he said, 'I like to hear that song which ascribes glory to the Lamb. It is an old song of mine. I sing it yet I shall sing it for ever. Some of the observations which he made while I was with him were very striking. On one occasion he alluded to a sermon which he heard while seeking the Lord.' He said, 'It was a pretty sermon: it was about heaven. The Preacher told us what a very fine place it was: there was a fine crown, a fine throne, fine angels, fine hymns, fine walls. I thought I should like to get into that place. But he forgot to tell us, that there was a door into heaven. He did not tell us how we were to get in. Here was a fine place, with walls all round, and no road into it. I went away in a dark and disappointed frame.' This old disciple, however, was not in the dark when he came to die. He saw then, that the door was open for him; and after he had referred to the sermon in question, he quoted this passage of holy writ: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.'

"During my visits to him, he several times adverted with great pleasure and gratitude to those pious persons who, in his early religious life, took him by the hand, and led him to Christ, and with whom he first united in church-fellowship. He seemed to feel that same respect and love which Paul expresses to his 'companions in distress,' and his seniors in the faith, when, in his Epistle to the Romans, he writes, Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the Apostles, who also were in Christ before me.'