By the late WILLIAM JAY.
DURING my first visit to London to supply Mr. Hill’s chapel, one Friday morning, after hearing me, he came into the vestry. I did not then know his person, but he introduced himself, and, to my surprise, intimated a wish to retire into the house with me. I led him into the study, and I have never forgotten the condescension and kindness with which he addressed me. Taking me by the hand, he said, “Some of us are going off the stage, but we rejoice to see others rising up and coming forward. But, my young friend, you are in a very trying situation, and I am concerned for your safety and welfare. I have been so many years in the ministry, and so many years a minister in London; and if you will allow me to mention some of the snares and dangers to which you are exposed, I shall be happy to do it.” How could I help feeling not only willing to receive, but grateful for such a seasonable warning? And how useful may the aged servants of God be to the younger, if they would privately and freely communicate of their experiences and observations! Some of the things he mentioned seemed, for the moment, rather strange and needless; but I confided in his wisdom, and time has fully shown me that they were all words in season.
Contrasts strike us; and it is curious and useful to observe the different qualities and manners of good men themselves. A week after this interview, one of his very attached followers, a Mr. B—, wished to introduce me to Mr. Romaine. I can truly say I shrunk back from modest timidity; but he urged me and prevailed, and one Tuesday morning, after the service at Blackfriars Church, he took me into the vestry, and, with a few words, mentioned my name. But Mr. Romaine noticed me in no other way than, as, immediately leaving the room, he said, very audibly, “There was a Sir Harry Trelawney.” I inferred that some faithful caution was intended, but a mere youth from the country, and little acquainted with the religious world, I had never heard of the person by whose errors or fall I was to be warned until I inquired. I have no doubt of the aim of both these admonishers, and I ought to have been thankful to the latter as well as to the former; but severity does not actuate like affection, and “he that winneth souls is wise.”
He also more than once mentioned, that he knew a good man and woman, who read the Scriptures morning and evening in their daily worship, to whom a gentleman gave a folio commentary to aid them. But after they had tried it for some time, the husband said to the wife, “I think we did better before we had this great book. When we read the Bible itself only, it was like a glass of pure wine; but now it is like a glass of wine in a pail of water.”
I recollect a little sailor-boy calling upon him with his father. Mr. Newton soon noticed him, and, taking him between his knees, he told him he had been much at sea himself, and then sang part of a naval song. Was this beneath him? Would not the lad always favorably remember him?
Another morning a forward young man said, “Pray, Mr. Newton, what do you think of the entrance of sin into our world?” “Sir,” said he, “I never think of it. I know there is such a thing as moral evil, and I know there is a remedy for it; and there my knowledge begins, and there it ends.”
I saw Mr. Newton near the closing scene. He was hardly able to talk; and all I find I had noted down upon my leaving him is this: “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.” And, “Did you not, when I saw you at your house in Bath, desire me to pray for you? Well, then, now you must pray for me.”