emotion to the record of the caracterh and career of veteran ministers, such as Dr. Waddy and Alfred Barrett, who, after a long, distinguished, and successful course, and a due interval of calm decline, had rested from their labours. But there was felt to be something peculiarly touching in the sudden disappearance of the young probationer, who had just worked long enough to show the high quality of his work, and the ardent and unslackening will with which he wrought. Rich tributes were paid by a number of ministers to his marked intellectual and spiritual superiority, to his loyal devotedness to Methodism throughout his University career, to his unsparing evangelistic toils whilst he was a Local-preacher in Manchester, and to the exemplariness and efficiency with which he had discharged the manifold duties of circuit-work. The President, Dr. Pope, told the Conference what a pure, strong, steady light had been so unexpectedly withdrawn. The ExPresident, the Rev. A. McAulay, spoke of the interest with which he had watched his labours and marked his spirit on his first appointment, and the high hopes he had conceived of his future usefulness. Mr. (now Dr.) Greaves, now President of the Conference, testified to his devotedness and usefulness at Oxford. The Chairman of the Cornwall District, the Rev. William Andrews, spoke of the deep impression Alfred had made on the minds of his brethren in the District, and he described the subduing effect produced on the Convention of Christian Workers at Camborne by the tidings of his death, when they had been expecting to hear something of the experience he had already acquired as a successful labourer in the vineyard of the Lord-how, for a time, they 'could do nothing but seek in prayer the lessons of a loss so mysterious and severe.'

I can never lose the feeling of the delicate fraternal sympathy of my brethren when I returned to my place in Conference, or forget the moist eyes and the quivering lips of that erect, unflinching devoted of duty, John Bedford, who had known something of Alfred in Manchester, and had heard much more.

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The following is an extract from his obituary as recorded in the Minutes of Conference for 1877:

'He was a young man of rare intellectual endowments and high culture, having graduated at Oxford, where he won a first class in honours. All his energies were faithfully devoted to the cause of Christ. Both as a preacher and as a writer, he gave promise of great service to the Church. As a pastor, he was systematic and laborio's. He had an intense desire to become a successful preacher. He thought no work too insignificant, no field too narrow, if only he might win souls for the Master. The period during which he was permitted to labour in the ranks of our ministry was brief, but he was enabled by the Divine blessing to turn many to righteousness.'

THE

CHAPTER XII.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

HE most marked features in the character of Benjamin Alfred Gregory are made sufficiently clear by his course of life, by his diary and letters, and by the testimony of those who knew him best. His juvenile religiousness, the simplicity with which he received the great Christian truths— the Fatherhood of God, the Atonement and Mediatorship, the love and sympathy of Christ, the hatefulness and the nonnecessity of sin, the certainty of eternal bliss to all who trust and love and obey the Saviour-led his parents to assign his good qualities to the influence of the Spirit of God. Yet he had not a genius for religion,' such as he himself, in his sermon on Psalm xc. 14: 'O satisfy us early with Thy mercy,' instances in the case of St. Theresa, William Jay, and others; and, as we have seen, he did not experience the critical change before he was fourteen years of age. But assuredly his lovable, teachable, happy disposition came down from the Father of lights.'

Many passages in his sermons cast a strong side-light upon his character, being unconscious self-revelations. The citation of a few of them will serve a double purpose, as at once specimens of his preaching and indications of his personality.

First of all, his preaching and his writings manifest throughout the simplicity and straightforwardness which formed the basis of his character. His style was always direct and onward-bearing. He had no mannerisms. Affectation of

SIMPLICITY.

279

every kind was his abhorrence.

He did not even affect

simplicity, or strain after ease, or make naturalness a work of art. Of this naturalness his transparency alike of style and character was part.

His simplicity, too, was the source of the humility and modesty which struck every one who knew him tutors, schoolfellows, college chums, Class-leader, Class mates, pastors, colleagues, and members of his flock. He was 'clothed with humility'; and it was a habit that beseemed him well. At one period, indeed, for a very short time, his tone in discussion awoke some anxiety lest the delicate bloom of his boyish modesty should be rubbed off. expect a preliminary deference to his opinions. He was sometimes positive and touchy. But this mood soon passed away.

He seemed to

He habitually disclaimed all knowledge of any subject which he had not systematically studied. This tendency he indulged too far. He would say: 'I know nothing of such and such a science,' if he had no special acquaintance with it.

That his humility was a 'fruit of the Spirit'-Christian humility—and not a wild flower of nature, is very plain from glimpses of personal experience, and unconscious touches of self-delineation in several of his sermons. Thus in the discourse on Fruits meet for Repentance, he says:

'The first thorough shaking of a man's self-satisfaction is the beginning of a better life, the first term of a soul's training for heaven. And this dissatisfaction with self cannot help appearing in the general tone and air. There will be a subdued and humble spirit. The old pride and self-conceit

cannot remain.'

Again, in a sermon on 'Somebody hath touched me':

'The Spirit of conviction has turned our eyes inward, and we see our nature in its true colours. Our self-complacence is shattered. It may be we seemed to human judgment unoffending, good-natured, amiable. The opinion of our acquaintances

did not accuse us of much outward sin, and we had not eyes to see the inward sinfulness-the hard, earthly, frivolous

heart, that had no love for God, our Father and our Saviour, but was always leading us to a life unlovely, and indeed hateful in His sight. But now we have come to ourselves, and found self-knowledge the knowledge of evil.'

Alfred fully carried out the apostolic injunction: 'Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.' His whole spirit and bearing were in accordance with the following passage in his sermon on Christianity the Religion of Common Life (Luke x. 38-42), which gives some fine strokes of unconscious self-delineation, and explains that thorough enjoyment of a remote Country-Circuit which surprised so many :

'Alike the teaching and the history of Christ give interest, dignity, and sanctity to our ordinary existence. The Gospel is for all; and therefore most commonly for undistinguished people, who play no brilliant part on the world's stage, who are not mixed up with any great events, and will live and die unknown except to a few. The virtues Jesus inculcates, the interests He consults, the temptations and sorrows for which He promises strength and consolation, are those that are common to men,” but are none the less important to human life because they and those whom they affect will soon be all forgotten together, except by God. Christ Himself chose to live such a life as this, chose His friendships among the lowly and the unknown just ordinary people living a quiet, obscure life amid common occupations; and He made their small cares and petty occupations of interest to Himself. And one who has learnt his lesson from the lips and the example of Jesus will find himself delivered from the restless desire for distinction which makes so many impatient of the narrow bounds that shut in their life on all sides. The longing for a large sphere, the rebellion against obscurity, the repining at being limited to the common lot—all this is removed by the religion of Jesus. In place of that unsatisfied, because insatiable, ambition that would mount above ordinary men, it inspires a restful content. To live such a life as Jesus lived for the most part of His life on earth, to have his friends in that rank in which Christ had His, may well seem better and nobler than a life like any of the great ones that the world envies.

'And Christ has taught us too that in the ordinary life