his young pinions at a tea meeting in the Allen-street school. After this, at the instance of many friends, he essayed to preach the word in some of the villages in the vicinity of Sheffield; and in due time was enrolled on the preacher's plan, and thus entered upon his blessed work, as a minister of the evangel of love, which he never relinquished until fatal sickness disabled him. The religious associations and studies of his youth were so very happy that they were ever precious in his memory, and he loved to speak of them in later years. As he grew up to manhood he grew in every Christian excellence. He escaped all the corruptions that are in the world through lust. None of the man-traps of evil caught him. Religion was his guardian angel, and made his virtue strong. He increased in wisdom and in favour with God and men. The love of God was continually shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit given to him; and, while he thus had joy in God, through whom he had received the atonement, he also had rejoicing in the testimony of his conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, he had had his conversation in the world.

Being now grown up to early manhood, his heart was wisely set upon being devoted to the sacred ministry; but though he diligently prepared himself for its holy work, he never took one step to initiate or to strengthen a movement in favour of his introduction to that office. Public opinion in the circuit, however, was undivided as to his destination by Providence; and by the consentaneous voice of the churches which had marked his conduct from his boyhood, and which had for some time enjoyed the advantages of his ministry as a local preacher, he was elevated to this the highest office in the kingdom of Christ. When his beloved and revered friend, the Rev. J. Wilson, requested Mr. Marriot to part with him, that he might become a circuit preacher, that gentleman instantly shed tears of mingled grief and joy: of grief at the prospect of losing one whom he deeply loved, and of joy because his young friend was honoured with a call to the Christian ministry; and he declared, with much emotion, that nothing but such a call should have separated them. It is seldom that such an attachment as that of Mr. Marriot to Thomas Ridge subsists between persons in their respective social positions, but in truth it is not often that such a cluster of lovely virtues is found in the character of a young man in his sphere as was found in him. Mr. Marriot reluctantly gave him up to be devoted to the work of God; but how could his widowed mother part with her only son? She was mainly dependent upon him, young as he was, and he loved her deeply and tenderly. If he became a minister, he could receive, in addition to his board, only £24 per annum. That pittance would continue for four years at least, and so long as he might be unmarried, and neither extraordinary skill nor extraordinary labours could augment it. With that small sum he always had to dress in a style befitting his profession; and the daily wear and tear of clothing by a " travelling preacher" is no trifling element of He had also to provide himself with books and stationery. were then so heavy, that to form a friendship was to incur a A young minister would occasionally have three or four shillings in a day to pay for postages. The Beneficent Fund required an annual subscription to be paid; a trifle had now and again to be given to the

expense.

Postages

tax.

destitute and afflicted; and other expenses had to be incurred which must be placed under the category of sundries. Altogether these items, small as some of them were, constituted a somewhat formidable aggregate on the per contra side of an annual balance-sheet of £24. How much of this sum could be annually spared towards the sustentation of a poor and widowed mother? He had to give a practical solution of this problem, and he solved it marvellously well. During the four years' probation some of us have proved the £24 to be wholly insufficient for our exigencies, and have had to apply for aid from home, from time to time, especially when the journey by coach to a new circuit had to be undertaken; so that, had a dear mother been dependent upon us, as his was upon him, we must have entered upon a new branch of study, and have taken lessons in the art of severe and pinching economy. Mr. Ridge, however, managed his personal expenditure, at a period in life when most persons know better how to spend money than to save it, with such singular tact and judgment, and with so much self-denial, that he was able every quarter to transmit to his beloved mother not less than fifty shillings out of his one hundred and twenty; and most willingly, for her sake, he hampered himself with the balance of three pounds ten. And yet who ever knew him to go about pleading poverty? When did he ever trumpet forth his filial generosity, or appeal for aid to the sympathies of those who knew and loved him? Even in his straitened position he was never known to be in debt. The man never lived who had to visit him as a "dun." And yet he never had the epithet of "the shabby parson" fastened on his name, for he never dishonoured his office by faded and seedy clothes; nor was he indebted to private generosity for help; for his noble acts of selfdenial were not generally known. By what process of pecuniary legerdemain he succeeded in sparing ten pounds per annum out of twenty-four for his mother, it is difficult to divine; and it is certainly an art which it is most undesirable that any other young minister should have to learn. But, to his honour, he actually did this, from profound filial love. He did it for above six successive years; but he never referred to it in a boastful spirit, or seemed to imagine that he had done more than he ought to do. How greatly must such a son have been beloved by that mother! and how acceptable must these sacrifices of self-denying filial piety have been in the sight of HIM who so loved his mother, the immortal and honoured Mary, that even amidst the throes of his cross, as though forgetful for an instant of his supernatural agonies, he committed her to the care of his most beloved disciple, and charged him to adopt her as his own mother, and to be adopted by her as a son! No sooner did Mr. Ridge have a home of his own, than he took his mother to that home, and there she lived in comfort, and died in peace. Many sons and daughters, alas! are haunted with reproachful recollections after the death of their parents; but Mr. Ridge enjoyed, to the latest period of his life, the intensely gratifying consciousness of having been a ministering angel to his mother in her declining years.

The first circuit to which our beloved brother was sent was Leeds, whither he went as a supply. This was in 1828. I first saw him about three years after this, as he stood in the pulpit of our Hanley Chapel. His countenance then was a picture of youthful ruddiness, and was

flushed with a degree of excitement as he ministered before the great congregation which worships in that splendid chapel. The sermons, as might be expected, were somewhat juvenile in their staple and in their style, but to me, who was a mere boy, they evinced a maturity of judgment beyond his years. He was particularly earnest and fervent in the delivery of those discourses, and left such favourable impressions behind him that, so soon as he could be stationed in the Hanley circuit, by being married, his appointment was unanimously requested, and was obtained. Though I often heard him offer prayer when we have worshipped God together, I did not hear an entire sermon from him, after my entrance into the ministry, until I was stationed in Sheffield, when, as he and I on one occasion preached anniversary sermons, I heard him in an afternoon, in Scotland-street chapel. The discourse he delivered on that occasion would have done no discredit to any minister. It combined beautiful simplicity with great power. It was thoroughly modern in style, and from the beginning to the end it was pervaded with energy. It was lucid, comprehensive, and eloquent, without being unduly ornate; and was altogether a superior discourse.

One defect generally characterized his public ministry which a candid biographer cannot wholly ignore. He emphasized too much in his delivery. Almost every third or fourth word was uttered with emphasis, so that the weight of the weightier words in a sentence was not duly felt, owing to an equal stress being laid on the lighter. The undue force he gave to the subsidiary words of his sentences was so much taken from those in which their point and power really lay. His enunciation was rather overdone with well-meant energy, so that his very emphases produced a degree of monotony; and words and passages in his sermous, which were most impressive per se, did not tell much more on the mind of the hearer than others. Mr. Ridge did not generally shout. He was not one of those who gallop because they cannot walk. But he was so hearty and so earnest in every word that he was almost equally emphatic throughout a discourse, so that, as a preacher, he was less effective than he would have been had he generally spoken in a somewhat more easy, even, and level tone. The fall of a sparrow is not to be described in the same fervent tones as the fall of an archangel or of an empire, but our beloved brother would have so described it. The defect lay, not in his diction, but in the modulations of his voice. His soul was ever instinct with energy. He would do and say everything with all his might, so that his emphases were too frequent and too equal to correspond with the relative importance of his words; and the general impression which an excellent sermon made on a congregation was consequently not so deep as might have been produced by an inferior composition with a more effective delivery. He was never tame, feeble, or heavy as a preacher; but was wide awake, and would keep his audience so. Simplicity, truthfulness, oneness and directness of aim, and a calmly-fervent zeal, distinguished him in all the functions of his ministry. His sermons were always prepared with commendable care. The multitude did not run eagerly after him as a preacher, but no man contemned him. If the stationing committee had not to act the part of umpire between contending claimants for his services, neither was there any difficulty at any time in stationing him. He commanded the respect to which he was entitled, and he won universal love. In his public

He

ministry he perpetrated no blunders, he betrayed neither pedantry nor ignorance, nor did he attempt to instruct the people with rant. gave intelligent expositions of the written word in an affectionate, manly, and earnest style; and he seemed to enunciate every sermon as with his whole soul. No man had occasion to be ashamed to own him as his minister, or to charge him with apathy or with remissness in his work. He was approved of men and was honoured of God; for he so laboured in every place that the Judge of all might have to say to him every day" Well done, good and faithful servant."

The four years of Mr. Ridge's probation were spent in Dudley, Manchester, and Ashton. The first and fourth years were spent in Dudley, where he must have been highly esteemed, or his reappointment would not have taken place after the lapse of only two years. During his first year the Rev. W. Cooke, being stationed in Dawley Green, an adjacent circuit, had occasional intercourse with him, and he states that he found him to be "as playful as a kitten and as pure-minded as a cherub." In each of the three circuits he acquitted himself so honourably as a Christian minister, that at the termination of his probation the Conference received him into "full connexion" as an accredited minister, and duly ordained him to the work to which he had consecrated his life. He was then stationed in Boston, and afterwards in Hull. In Boston he became acquainted with Miss Tyler, and at the end of one year after he left that circuit they were married. They were permitted to travel life's pathway together for a period of more than twenty-two years, and enjoyed the most entire and unceasing satisfaction in each other's society. He loved her as his own heart; and she, who studied his character and spirit in the privacy of domestic life during all those years, regarded him as an almost perfect man.

It pleased Divine Providence to give them one daughter, who was a lovely girl, and who, soon after she entered upon her teens, was assailed by a pulmonary affection which was fatal to her life. Her early death was felt to be a most distressing affliction, and but for the consolations of our divine faith it would have been felt to be almost too heavy to be borne. He wrote an interesting memoir of his departed child for the JUVENILE INSTRUCTOR; but a long time elapsed ere his riven heart could summon up sufficient fortitude for that painful task. Three sons were also given to them, who survive their father, and each of whom now gives promise of being a crown of rejoicing to their widowed mother.

When Mr. Ridge left Hanley,-his first circuit as a married minister -he was appointed to Sunderland, and afterwards to Alnwick. In Alnwick he was so greatly beloved, and his ministry was so highly esteemed by our people, that, after the lapse of a dozen years, they unanimously requested his re-appointment, and he was thereupon stationed there three years more. He thus spent five years of his ministerial life in that town, officiating regularly in the same pulpit every Sunday. During the interval of these two appointments he was stationed at North Shields, Guernsey, Nottingham, Dudley, Chester, and Yarmouth.

In each of the above circuits Mr. Ridge was distinguished by his great attention to pastoral duties. A Methodist minister goes to a new eircuit as a stranger, who has everything to learn as to its topography

As

and condition, and the antecedents and idiosyncrasies of his new charge; and shortly after he has begun to take root amongst domestic sympathies and local institutions, his spirit begins to be loosened from the place by the prospect of removal to another. But in every circuit he finds, in the class leaders and stewards, a band of competent coadjutors, who always render him willing counsel and aid. Though the members are placed in little companies under their special oversight, they properly prefer, and are entitled to receive, the personal attentions of him whose effective pulpit ministrations render him an object of deferential love, and whose whole life is consecrated to the sanctuary. the demands upon his time for pulpit preparations are much less than if he constantly ministered to one congregation, he has ample time to devote to domiciliary visitation, notwithstanding that he spends some hours per week in travelling through his circuit. A slothful pastor deprives himself of much high enjoyment, greatly impairs his usefulness, and allows irreparable injury to be sustained by the church and by the souls of men. The most exemplary and useful ministers in the land are those who, while mighty in the pulpit, unceasingly delight in the unostentatious work of visiting the sick and absentees of their congregations; and who, in personal and private interviews, seek to instruct the erring, to admonish the careless, to encourage the desponding, and to strengthen the attachments of the faithful. He who fails as a pastor will reap inferior harvests as a preacher. As Mr. Wesley said, the way to a man's heart is by going to his house; and our errand there is, by the silent influence of high character, by sweetness of spirit, by lessons of practical wisdom, and by words of persuasive love, to enlist the profoundest sympathies of all hearts in favour of the ordinances, institutions, and enterprises of the church, to increase our congregations, and, above all, to save every man's soul from death. If we go amongst our people as angels of the Lord, with a happy combination of Christian dignity, lowliness, and love, avoiding undue stiffness on one hand, and undue familiarity on the other, we may be as useful out of the pulpit as in and indeed the influence we acquire in one department of our holy work will greatly augment our success in the other.

As a pastor Mr. Ridge was a good and faithful servant of the Lord. From the time of his arrival in a circuit until his departure for another, he was unceasingly diligent in the work of domiciliary visitation. He ferretted out not only the absentees and the sick, but many others also, that he might strengthen their love to the church and to the Lord. He felt himself to be, as a minister, neither beneath the rich nor above the poor. He passed by none. In no place did a few families monopolize his friendship, but he laboured in every place as far as possible to shepherd the whole flock. He had his preferences, indeed, in social life. He keenly and quietly discriminated character. He did not regard unequal merits with equal love. He appreciated wisdom, high principle, generosity, and gentleness of spirit; and he well knew how to estimate meanness, factiousness, a crooked and querulous temper, and every spirit that savoured of earth or of hell rather than of heaven. But as a minister of Christ he knew no man after the flesh. He commended himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. He went among the people of his charge, both early and late, and even during the intervals of Sabbath worship, as an angel of the Lord. He