CONSOLATOR:

OR,

RECOLLECTIONS OF A DEPARTED FRIEND,

THE

REV. JOHN PEARSON.

BY THE

REV. ALFRED BARRETT.

LONDON:

HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.;

SOLD ALSO BY JOHN MASON.

1856.

210. m. 69.

PREFACE.

THE following pages are commended to the notice of Christian youth, as affording them a view of as bright an example as it has been the writer's lot ever to witness. The rising Ministry, too, it is hoped, may find here very much to emulate and copy, though it is, alas! a brief course which is sketched.

In harmony with the affectionate promptings of friendship, and to secure simplicity and ease, a style is adopted, in speaking of my departed friend, which is hardly to be used by persons in other circumstances, or by writers in the statelier forms of biography. Respect in speaking of Ministers of Christ is only a part of that respect which is due to the Gospel of which they are Ministers. The tone of these recollections, it is hoped, will not betray any forgetfulness of this truth.

LEEDS, Nov. 17th, 1856.

A. B.

CONSOLATOR.

CHAPTER I.

AT HOME.

IN the early part of the period of my appointment to Leeds, made in the year 1840, I often perceived in the chapel at Holbeck, at the usual times of Sabbath worship, a youth of more than ordinary interest. His form was slender, his features delicate and expressive, his eye quick and lustrous, and his whole bearing refined,—not a little indicative of that inward endowment which God often gives to those in early life whom He has marked for special usefulness in His Church. From the time when the service commenced, there was not a more absorbed or interested worshipper in the congregation; and the varied shades of expression which kept gliding over his fine countenance, according to the varying tone of the discourse, after the sermon had commenced,-all of which, however, bespoke reverence and love,-gave evidence so far, that the Gospel did not come to him in word only, but "in power, and in the Holy

B