Jabez Bunting.

It has been said that the name of no English preacher has appeared more in print than that of JABEZ BUNTING, and yet none has shown more dislike of such notoriety. He has openly rebuked the reporters, and repeated his old sermons before them, as if to defy them, and with express admonition that they should only get what they had recorded before. He seems studiously to have kept, from the "pen-and-ink sketchers" and "penny-a-liners," the incidents, and even the dates, of his life; he is a wise man, and stops not for even self-defence against the misrepresentations of the press-frequent of late-well knowing that the practical history of a public man, if right in itself, will in due time, and demonstratively, explain and vindicate his character.

It is somewhat difficult, then, to make out a veritable narrative of Dr. Bunting's long career. Most extant articles about him have been but general sketches-characteristic portraitures. We have been able, however, to glean some reliable facts, and give them here, woven into as comprehensive and brief an outline as possible.

Richard Boardman, the first preacher sent to this country by John Wesley, passed, on his way to embark, through the village of Moneyash, Derbyshire, in the summer of 1769. He preached there on the prayer of Jabez.

1 Chron. iv, 9, 10. The word was a savour of life unto life" to, at least, one soul present-a young lady. She never forgot the occasion, and will never forget it in heaven. So deep was the impression of the subject on her memory, that when, ten years later, she became a mother, she devoted her first-born son to God, and "called his name Jabez." He was born at Manchester (not Moneyash, as usually stated) May 13, 1779. Great men, it is said, derive their characters from their mothers. Unquestionably the decided religious character of his mother influenced the whole destiny of Jabez Bunting. His early and great capacity for any kind of success, and the numerous temptations to secular life which beset him, would have diverted, from the self-sacrificing career he chose, almost any ordinary man; but a direction was given to his mind in the outset which has energetically borne him along through his protracted career. His mother carried him, when yet a babe, to Oldham-street Chapel, Manchester, to receive the blessing of the venerable founder of Methodism. Mr. Wesley took him in his arms and pronounced a benediction upon him. The history of Methodism has shown that it was a bequest of his own mantle to the child.

His conversion was brought about by an incident which, though apparently trivial, seems to have had a providential relation to his subsequent life as a great administrator in the Church. His mother, remembering her vows, habitually took him to the love-feasts when he was yet a child. About his fifteenth year Alexander Mather (a name of note) was their pastor. He was a rigid disciplinarian, and admitted no one to these meetings without the "ticket”— the proof of membership in the Society. The boy was

getting ready to go one day, when his mother informed him, with much seriousness, that he could not get admittance, remarking, "I do not know what you think of it, Jabez, but to me it seems an awful thing, that, after having been carried there, you should now be excluded by your own fault." "The Lord used these simple words of maternal solicitude," says an English writer, "to awaken a soul that was to be the instrument of awakening many. Not a few will remember the simplicity and pathos with which he related this fact at the Centenary meeting in City-road Chapel; adding, with a gush of emotion, 'I have to thank God for Methodist discipline as well as for Methodist doctrine. To use again his own words-That moment the blow was struck in the right place.' Soon after, he was a regular and earnest member of a class led by his maternal uncle. The class paper, for one quarter in the year after he joined, is still extant, and against the name of Jabez Bunting 'absent' is not once marked. Thus discipline stood allied with his most sacred recollections."

Like most really great men, he early gave evidence of superiority. A physician, Dr. Percival, was so struck with the promise of his mind that he proposed to take him under his patronage. The opportunity was an auspicious one, and, Mrs. Bunting being now a widow, it might have seemed providential; but she remembered her vow, and kept the boy for her Lord. In about his twentieth year he went forth, accompanied by his friend James Wood, (a distinguished name afterwards among Wesleyan Methodists,) to preach his first sermon in a farm-house. His text was, "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." The discourse gave to his friend a presentiment of his future success. "I never heard a better sermon," he exclaimed.

"Jabez shall be more honourable than his brethren." "Nearly forty years from that day," says an English author, "you might see this same countenance fixed on the same friend, and glowing with like sentiments. They are now in that Oldham-street Chapel, so connected with their early religious course. The black locks of James Wood have become white as snow, and time has also touched his friend. The compact, expressive head is very bald; the pale countenance has become full and strongly coloured; and instead of extreme slenderness, we have advanced corpulency. But the whole air speaks generosity and happiness. Those smiles do not play upon the countenance,-that confidence does not sit in the eye,— those various tones of easy and sometimes playful sagacity, of hope, and humour, and pathos, do not come from the breast of a man who has a bitter or a broken heart. Methodism has reached the age of a hundred years, and her chief men are met to concert measures for duly noting her centenary. To him all look for the clearest exposition and the wisest counsel. He is in the act of opening up that plan which is to evoke such a wonderful response throughout home and missionary Methodism. As his friend watches him with joy and pride, doubtless he thinks of the day when he saw him trembling before his cottage audience. Have not goodness and mercy followed them both? He sits there, one of the most considerable merchants of his native Manchester, President of the Chamber of Commerce, the beloved centre of a large and intelligent circle, one of the most eloquent lay preachers in the country, and about to lay down for the fund, on which his friend is discoursing, the sum of five thousand dollars. And that friend-has not the prayer of Jabez been indeed