I have heard that in actual conversions, Mr. Mortlock's ministry was more useful to the people of other villages than to his own parish. The great day will declare. But Morcott knew at least so far the blessing it enjoyed in such a clergyman, that it would have been difficult to surpass the affection with which he was regarded. The Rectory garden, bounded by a low wall and adjoining a lane, used to be stripped every year by nightly depredations. But now, though the walls were not raised higher and the lane had the same traffic as before, it was as secure as if centinels had guarded it day and night. His centinels were the admiration and love of his parish. Whenever he went with his family on a short absence to seek recreation and health elsewhere, the merry bells, not hired and not paid, welcomed him back to his home; and when, in consequence of a new Rector's resolution to come and reside, Mr. Mortlock prepared to remove to Hastings, an unanimous petition, unknown to Mr. Mortlock, besought the Rector to leave the parish in the Curate's hands. When at last they found he could no longer be retained, they presented him with a silver coffee pot -bought with the free-will offerings of his parishioners, consisting only of labourers and farmers. It was but natural that the pastor should be beloved, who, for nine years had diligently taught their souls, and with a bounty beyond his means had fed and clothed their bodies. Many a midnight visit did he pay to the sick and dying; for he encouraged their applications to him at all hours, however unseasonable, and rose cheerfully from his bed to relieve their sufferings or their fears. He knew every person in the parish by name, even the little children, and was never so hurried but that he had a kind greeting and a ready smile for the one, and a pat on the head for the other, as he passed them. Here my child,' he would say, if he saw a child with a dirty face, here's a penny for your mother to buy soap; ' and a penny always wrapped up in a tract carried to the cottage a lesson of cleanliness and a lesson of godliness; the one being next to the other, as the proverb says. He was in fact in his parish as a father in a large family, and they looked up to him as to a father. A friend, who lived in his constant society at Morcott for five years, has told me, that she never once saw him out of temper. This evenness and calmness of disposition was the work of grace, and not of nature: for I have heard his brother say, that as a boy, at Bury School, he had his passionate moods like other boys. Self-denial was a distinguishing feature of his character. His circumstances were narrow, but his heart was large, and yearned over the poor and needy. To give an instance that occurred at Morcott, he was urged for his health to take wine. 'No,' he said, 'I can't do that, for then I shall have none to give to the poor.' To assist his narrow incometoo narrow for a sickly and increasing family--he took pupils at Morcott, and he continued them to the last at Brighton. Did he sink the minister in the tutor? the message of the Gospel in classic or Indian literature? No. The manner of his taking pupils was strik ingly indicative of his conscientious regard to his ordination vows. The first thing that he did, after coming to the conclusion that it was his duty to take pupils, was this: he sent to the Christian Knowledge, to the Church Missionary, and to the London Missionary Societies, to offer to instruct gratuitously in the languages of India any missionaries they might wish to send him an office for which he was eminently qualified. For, in fact, a proposition was put before him to take a professorship of Gentoo, at Haylebury College, with a house and 400l. a year; but as soon as he found that the ministry was to be given up in the professorship, he requested his friends to proceed no further in the business. At first he received the missionary students into his house, treating them exactly as he treated his other pupils; but afterwards, thinking that the liberality of his pupils' table was perhaps not the fittest preparation for missionary habits, he judged it better to have lodgings for them in the village; but the time he gave them, which was never less than two hours in the day, was not abridged. Mr. Calthrop, a valuable missionary of the Christian Knowledge Society at Tanjore, was one of his pupils, and preached his first sermon in Morcott pulpit. In the second place, he resolved from the first that he would have a classical coadjutor, to relieve him from the consumption of all his time in teaching pupils: and thus he constantly secured six hours a day for his ministerial duties. A friend expostulated against his plan of a coadjutor, urging that it would disseminate the idea that he was unable to teach them himself. 'It will not keep from me pupils of God's sending,' he answered; and if they are not of God's sending, I am sure I am better without them.' And it is remarkable that, proceeding with this simple faith, and refusing to 'confer with flesh and blood' in the matter, though sometimes the vacations came with scarce a pupil returning, and none engaged to replace those who left, during eleven years his number was always full. It was full when he died. On such occasions he would say, 'Our faith must not fail: the Lord will provide.' His aim with his pupils was not merely to teach them the perishable languages of the East, but the imperishable knowledge of their God and Saviour; so that they became a branch, and not the least important branch of his ministry. I know from their own testimony that he was greatly beloved and esteemed by them. It could not be otherwise: but, what is of much higher moment, I understand that his example and instruction were blessed in the case of several of them to an entire change of heart and life. One more point remains, too characteristic to be omitted. Where 'the love of Christ constraineth,' a minister will not limit his exertions to set times and places, but he will be instant in season and out of season," seeking Christ's sheep in this naughty world, to strengthen the diseased, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken, to bring again that which was driven away. He will be the messenger of peace and mercy, not only in his own pulpit and his own parish, but in all places; not only on the Lord's day, but at all times; not only to the souls expressly committed to him, but to all those in whom he can find a listening ear. He will even gather up the fragments of time, and watch for spiritual opportunities, that nothing may be lost. How well this secret principle of zeal and love for perishing souls was kindled in Mr. Mortlock's breast, may be faintly inferred from a few facts, little in themselves, but still conclusive of the source from which they were derived. He attended, once, a sick friend on a journey out of town, and arrived at Barnet at seven in the evening. Late as it was, he went down, according to his custom, to speak to the ostlers, "They have souls," he used to say, " and I want to see whether they know it." Returning to the inn, he went up to the chamber of the sick lady whom he was escorting, and prayed by her bedside with more than common solemnity. Something has happened, I am sure,' she said : 'what is it?' She learnt that, by the ostler's direction, he had been to the death-bed of a poor creature whom he found on the verge of eternity, yet ignorant of Christ, the only hope of glory. ser The last six months of his life, especially, were a continued series of afflictions, Malignant scarlet fever broke out in his house: six of his eight children, seven vants, and a dear friend, who in their hour of sorrow came to nurse them, took it; some in its worse, and some in its milder form. One of his children died of it; and so great was the terror inspired, that they experienced considerable difficulty in procuring either lodgings or attendants for their sick. The expense of such a house of illness weighed heavily on him; and the more, because, having no source of income but his own exertions as tutor, the scarlet fever cut off in part his only revenue. For, of course, he wrote to his pupils to apprize them of the state of his family; and though he was prepared to receive those who came in the house adjoining his own, some would not venture so near the contagion. When I say no source of income, I must mention that his brotherin-law, the Bishop of Lincoln, had in the kindest manner presented SEPTEMBER, 1838. him to the rectory of Farthingstone, in Northamptonshire, to which he was instituted April 7, 1828. But the living having no house upon it capable of receiving himself and his large family, his children also requiring sea air, he appointed to it an excellent and laborious curate; and what with curate's salary, schools, and other demands of charity and kindness, he not only derived no emolument from Farthingstone, but was every year a loser. Farthingstone, therefore, could not help him in this of increased expenditure and diminished income: and I know now, what I did not know at the time, that his faith was much tried by these pecuniary difficulties. season In the month of January, 1837, his friends began to entertain serious alarm at his altered appearance. Dr. Todd, the physician who, during all his residence at Brighton, had attended him and all his family with an unwearied and brotherly kindness, became also uneasy, suspecting the latent mischief which afterwards proved fatal. At the earnest request of Mrs. Mortlock, he was induced to make his patient acquainted with his critical state. The intelligence was received with the most Christian composure, as it regarded himself: he was a little moved when he heard that it had previously been communicated to his wife, from whom he was tenderly anxious to ward off every pang; and then he desired to be left alone,-I doubt not, to pour out his soul before God in reference to his great change. His manifold afflictions, indeed, had for some time before this quickened him to search out the end which his Heavenly Father intended by them. "Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me," was his prayer. Now came the answer to that prayer: "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom 2 U of God." The tribulation grew sharper and sharper. Once he was heard faintly to utter, in his pain, the word intense.' But the patience with which he was enabled to bear his trials, being all patience'-patience derived from the might of Christ to meet all exigencies as the trials rose, still rose above them; nay, to the very last, had for its companions joy and thanksgiving. Perhaps the severest part of his last trial, the bitterness of death, was parting with his wife and children. How sensitively he felt the parting, may be inferred from his desiring his children, a little before he died, to be brought in to his bedside, and offering a short and silent prayer for each; but when the youngest, a babe in arms, was brought in, he covered his face with both his hands, as if he could not look upon its helpless infancy committed to the winds and waves of this troublesome world without a father's guiding hand. So, methinks, shrank a daughter of Levi when she left her babe in its ark of bulrushes. May the God of the one babe be the God of the other babe! In my own interviews with him, his extreme debility led me as much as possible to prevent his speaking, and simply to read and pray with him. He said he thought no one knew how weak he was. Such were his manifold trials; yet, I thank God, to the very last, patience with thanksgiving abounded. The disease suspected had come on, in an unequivocal form, and with a violence which at once indicated that the assault was made against the citadel of life. It was a deep-seated and large internal abscess. Once it broke in such a manner as to revive our hopes; but gathering again, when it burst the second time, it either suddenly interrupted the vital functions, or else it had reduced him to an exhaustion so extreme, that, falling into a fainting fit, he could not recover from it. The night of death suddenly overshadowed him; but there was in it the light of his Redeemer's presence, and a voice speaking to his soul, "It is I: be not afraid." At dawn of day, on the 13th of February, the spirit, wearied of its dilapidated tenement, took to itself wings, flew away, and is at rest. Mr. Mortlock's death was improved by his valuable friend and biographer, the Rev. H. V. Elliott, by a sermon preached at St. Mary's, Brighton, from Rev. xiv. 13, and subsequently published with a brief Memoir, from which most of the preceding narrative has been extracted.* In delineating the character of his deceased friend, Mr. Elliott observes : 'The last point that I shall mention at present is, that he was a man of prayer. He was often on his knees, and referred little things as well as great things to his heavenly Father. He had received, and he acted on, his Lord's rule, "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same, with thanksgiving." And while he thus continued instant in prayer, he counted upon a faithful God to grant answers to prayer. My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him," was the language of his heart; and, from what I have heard him say, I believe that he considered that even in this life his " confidence had great recompence of reward.” 66 On the last Lord's day, when we had the privilege, as a congregation, to pray for him, (it was * We strongly recommend this Sermon and Memoir to our readers, who will there find some very interesting and instructive anecdotes, every way deserving of extensive circulation. Any profits arising from the publication will be given to St. Mary's Hall, Brighton, an institution for the Education of Daughters of Poor Clergy. the last day of his life) he desired the Church service to be read to him at the hour in which we were engaged in it, saying cheerfully from his dying bed to his beloved and watchful wife, 'Let us, too, go to church; but afterwards, finding himself through weakness unable to attend to the whole, he selected the confession and thanksgiving, saying, 'These suit me the best.' His last illness, which was attended with much bodily suffering, and, on our part, with many alternations of hope and fear as to its issue, came not on him unprepared. For himself, from the beginning he had little hope of recovery, and he set his house in order that he might die. 'It was a death-bed, my brethren, not of high joys, but of most patient suffering; of peaceful trust and hope in Christ, as an almighty and all-sufficient Saviour; and, from first to last, full of meek thanksgiving. 'Called at an early hour of life's short day, and with brief notice, to leave seven young and beloved children, and a wife with whom he had lived in uninterrupted and uncommon unity of mind and affection, not one word of repining ever escaped him. The Lord's will be done,' was often on his lips. Only let my evidence of an interest in Christ be clear,' he said to me. Pray for me, my friend, that it may be clear.' No doubt His sun And it was clear. clouded his evening sky. set in peace, to rise again, not in this world of labour and sorrow, but in a world wherein dwelleth righteousness. "the memory In the mean time, of the just is blessed." May the Lord grant us grace to follow him as he followed Christ!' A REST FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD. "There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God." (From the Philadelphia Episcopal Recorder.) Rest from the toils of life, Rest from consuming cares, Rest from the spirit's strife With sin's deceitful snares. Rest from all sorrow, pain, From all that mars the peace, The fears, the yearnings vain, That will not, cannot cease. Rest to the mourning heart, Rest to the weary breast, Longing from earth to part, By sin and woe oppress'd. Rest to the pilgrim band, Dwelling as "strangers" here, Seeking a better land, In glory to appear. Rest on that peaceful shore The bosom of his love, The blessed host above. Rest that no change can know, C. |
