Elijah Bedding,

LATE SENIOR BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

In this brief pen-and-ink portrait of the late Bishop Hedding, we shall not attempt to give the likeness of the man, drawn from opinion. Our purpose is to sketch what he was in a few selected facts from his history. If we succeed in this purpose, he will furnish us an instance of the influence of piety and industry, united with sound commonsense, in giving a noble character, a distinguished position, and eminent usefulness to their subject. We shall find him rising from an humble origin, without artificial aid, and with many disabilities in the way of success, by the force of his own worth, through the grace of God, from the retired condition of a Green Mountain farm-boy, to sit, in the honour of the Episcopal office, among the princes of Israel; and with a name in the Church, the mention of which is "as ointment poured forth."

What were his qualifications to become a minister? How did they fit him for the demand of his times? These are the two questions naturally first presented, and which we shall first attempt to answer. We shall then be at no loss to determine why "God counted him worthy, putting him into the ministry." It will be necessary, in this attempt, to give a little attention to his early life.

ELIJAH HEDDING was a native of Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., and born June 7, 1780. He was the eldest of quite a number of children. His mother, though at the time not a professor of religion, took great pains to instruct him, very early, in the truths of the Bible, and to teach him to pray. When not more than three or four years of age, and for several years subsequently, he was frequent and regular in the practice of secret prayer. Often, in maturer years, he referred with grateful remembrance to those instructions of his mother, as not only affecting the whole moral tendencies of his life, but expressed the belief that at that early age, the Spirit of God operated upon his heart, and made him the subject of renewing grace; and that, had he been carefully guarded in his associates, and nursed as a tender infant, it might have been said of him that from a child he had known the way of the Lord.

In the year 1789, Rev. Benjamin Abbott, the pioneer of Methodism in that region, visited the town where the parents of young Hedding lived. His word was in the demonstration of the Spirit and with power. The mother, and other relatives of young Elijah, were among the converts through his ministry. This gave him increased opportunities for religious instruction, as he usually accompanied his mother to preaching, and remained with her in the class held immediately afterward. In the class Mr. Abbott often made him the subject of his exhortations and counsels. As long as he lived, Bishop Hedding retained very vivid impressions of these exhortations, and the good influence they had upon him at the time. Had Mr. Abbott seen in that youthful subject the future able preacher, and eminent expounder of the discipline of his Church, what increased interest would he have felt, and how much

more earnestly would he have prayed, that the instruction he was giving him might none of it be in vain.

When about ten years of age, he removed with his parents to Vermont, and settled in the town of Starksboro', on the western slope of the Green Mountains. Here he lived, for nine years following, in the severe habits and duties incident to the farm-life of a pioneer in a new and rough country. Inured by his labours, and nerved by the bracing air of the mountain-side, he grew up to more than usual height, the embodiment of health, with a giant's frame and an iron constitution, apparently capable of any amount of toil, and of enduring the most protracted fatigue.

The religious advantages of this sparsely settled country were very limited. For a number of years, the only public ministration of the word was an occasional sermon from some Baptist minister passing through the town. The greater part of his neighbours had embraced Universalism or infidelity. Young Hedding endeavoured, in turn, to believe these errors; but the early religious teaching of his mother, his frequent habit of reading the Bible, and the lingering influence of Mr. Abbott's exhortations, fortified him against them, "and," as he once said, "much as I tried and desired to embrace them, I could not bring my mind to believe either."

In the year 1795, a family from Connecticut settled in Starksboro', near where young Elijah lived. The husband and wife of this family were Methodists, and, soon after their settlement in the country, feeling a solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their neighbours, invited them to gather at their house on Sabbath days for religious services, and for several years had a "Church in their own house." At these services the man would usually sing and pray, and

call upon young Hedding, who was a good reader, to read one of Wesley's sermons, or a selection from Baxter's Call. By this means he became quite intimate with this Zachariah and Elizabeth. These public readings had a good influence upon him. They served to continue in his mind his early impressions of religious things; they gave him confidence to appear in public; and, as he says, "I took great pride in these readings;" they probably were a school in elocution that improved his style of address for after life. The pious woman of this house showed an interest in young Hedding that led her, on many occasions, to seek his conversion. After he had finished reading, and the people had left the house, she would often detain him, and converse with him about what he had been reading, or immediately about the concerns of his soul.

He derived another, and no inconsiderable advantage from his intimacy with this elect family. Books, especially religious books, were very scarce in that new country, and they had brought with them quite a large library, embracing about all the books then published by the Methodists, both in England and America. To this library he had free access, and he borrowed and read, until he became familiar with all the writings on Wesleyan theology or Christian experience. Who shall say that his love of reading in subsequent life, and his future eminence as a clear vindicator of the doctrines of his Church, had not their origin in his habits of study of the books borrowed from this lone Methodist family?

For nearly three years the Sabbath services were continued in the manner we have described, when the Methodist itinerants, ever seeking "the regions beyond," first made their appearance in that part of Vermont lying between

the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, and formed the Vergennes Circuit. Once in six weeks they visited Starksboro', and preached on Sabbath in the log-house of the pious family to which we have referred. Reading and prayer were continued on the intervening Sabbaths as formerly. The labours of the circuit preachers were followed by the conversion of hundreds. To this time young Hedding had successfully resisted the frequent deep convictions that he felt while reading the books he had borrowed, or under the personal exhortations of the truly religious woman of whom we have written; but he could resist no longer. One Sabbatlı, after he had read in public as usual, and she had endeavoured privately to impress the truths he had read upon his mind, while on his way homeward he turned into a wood by the roadside, and, kneeling beside a great tree, vowed to God to part with all his idols, and seek the salvation of his soul with all his heart. Soon after this, while listening to a sermon from Mr. Mitchell, the circuit preacher, he was, to use his own language, "so affected with a sense of his sinfulness of heart and life he could not help roaring aloud." In much this state of mind he continued for six weeks. He then heard Mr. Mitchell again, and remained after preaching to class. "While in this meeting," he says, "and while the friends were engaged in prayer for me, I found peace of soul, and my conscience was at rest. It was the 27th of December, 1798, and I immediately gave my name as a probationer in the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the next visit of Mr. Mitchell to the place, while in conversation with him respecting the witness of the Spirit, the light of the Spirit broke in upon my mind, clear and perceptible as the light of the sun when it comes from behind a cloud, testifying that I was born of God, and that it was