Judgment; The Joys of the Saints; The Pains of the Reprobate. His Intention-To persuade to the Contempt of the World. The Use-To despise the Things of the World; To seek the Things which be God's." Neale calls it "a bitter satire on the fearful corruptions of the age. But as a contrast to the misery and pollution of earth, the poem opens with a description of the peace and glory of heaven, of such rare beauty as not easily to be matched by any mediæval composition on the same subject." The first portion of the poem has been happily and beautifully put into English verse by the Rev. John Mason Neale, D.D., and published in his "Mediæval Hymns and Sequences." JOHN BERRIDGE. 1716-1793. JOHN BERRIDGE was the eldest son of a wealthy farmer and grazier of Kingston, Nottinghamshire, England, where he was born March 1, 1716. The greater part of his early years he spent with an aunt in the town of Nottingham, where, also, he acquired the rudiments of a common-school education. At the age of fourteen he returned home and was employed on the farm. But such was his inaptness for agriculture as to constrain his father to say to him,— "John, I find you are unable to form any practical idea of the price of cattle, and, therefore, I shall send you to college, to be a light to the Gentiles." About this time he was hopefully converted, mainly by the agency of a pious companion and a godly tailor of the neighborhood. He now gave himself to study and devotion. After a suitable preparatory course, he entered Clare Hall, Cambridge, October 28, 1734, where he pursued his studies with the greatest avidity. He graduated, A.B. in 1738, and A.M. in 1742. Having been chosen one of the Fellows of his college, he continued his residence at the University for twenty years, devoting himself to literary pursuits, and, for several years, exercising his gifts as a preacher. His remarkable wit and humor made him a great favorite in the University, and disposed him to a familiarity with Hudibras and other humorous publications. At the same time he pursued his classical studies so indefatigably as to compel his college associate, Rev. Henry Venn, with whom he was intimate for fifty years, to say of him, that "he was as familiar with the learned languages as he was with his mother tongue." During his residence at Clare Hall, he regularly devoted fifteen hours daily to the acquisition of knowledge. In his thirty-fourth year (1749), he accepted the curacy of Stapleford, a small village of rustics, five miles south of Cambridge. He served them, for six years, from the University, preaching occasionally at St. Mary's Church, Cambridge. By the presentation of his associate Fellows of Clare Hall, he was admitted, July 7, 1755, to the vicarage of Everton, an obscure village in the edge of Bedfordshire, about twenty miles south-southwest of the University. This humble position he retained for life. Thus far he had seen but little fruit of his ministry. At an early period of his college residence, he had so far imbibed Socinian views as to intermit private prayer most of the time for ten years. These views, however, he had relinquished before entering on the work of the ministry. Still he clung to a low Arminianism, and preached mainly a legal righteousness. At a later day he said of himself: "Once I went to Jesus like a coxcomb, and gave myself fine airs,-fancying if he was something, so was I; if he had merit, so had I. And I used him as a healthy man will use a walking-staff-lean an ounce upon it, or vapor with it in the air. But now he is my whole crutch; no foot can stir a step without him." This change occurred early in 1758. As he sat mournfully musing one day, perplexed and anxious about his religious state, a voice seemed to say to him: "Cease from thine own works; only believe." At once his burden was gone, and he found "joy and peace in believing." A deep impression was now made on the hearts of his parishioners by the presentation of his new views. They crowded the church, and not a few were hopefully converted. He burned up all his old sermons, began to preach without notes, and abounded in labors for the spiritual good of his people. At midsummer he began to itinerate among the villages of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, nothing daunted by the rebukes of his bishop, and the opposition of the ungodly. He was greatly encouraged by the kind words of John Wesley and George Whitefield, with whom, soon after, he gladly entered into delightful fellowship. No church A wonderful work of grace ensued in 1759. could hold the crowds that flocked to hear him. "He took to the fields" (May 14, 1759), and preached in the open air to thousands. He extended his circuit to Essex and Hertford, preaching ten and twelve times a week. "Ten or fifteen thousand, at some places, composed his congregation, and he was well heard by all of them. People came to hear him from the distance of twenty miles," reaching Everton in time to attend his morning service at seven o'clock. Four times on the Sunday, and often through the week, he preached the word. Four thousand souls, it was computed, were converted within twelve months under the preaching of himself and the Rev. Mr. Hicks, of Wrestlingworth,— a convert under Berridge's preaching. Romaine, Madan, Venn, Fletcher, and Lady Huntingdon visited and cheered him. Opposition showed itself in the most violent forms, but he gloried in tribulation. He now began to make periodical visits to London, Brighton, and Bath, as a temporary supply for Whitefield's and Lady Huntingdon's chapels. In 1771, he es poused the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism, and became a frequent contributor, both in prose and verse, to The Gospel Magazine, associating with Newton, Toplady, Simeon, and men of like spirit. He suffered, for twenty-five years, from acute disease, but nothing impeded his work or abated his zeal. He died of asthma, January 22, 1793, at his home in Everton. He was greatly addicted to poetical composition, but his verse has but little to commend it to a refined taste. In 1760 he published "A Collection of Divine Songs, designed chiefly for the Religious Societies of Churchmen in the neighborhood of Everton, Bedfordshire." It was a compilation, mostly from Charles Wesley, with a few from Watts and other authors (greatly altered), and some originals. After the change in his doctrinal views, he sought to suppress this publication, buying and burning every copy that he could obtain. In 1785 he published an original work of 342 Hymns, entitled "Sion's Songs or Hymns, composed for the Use of them that love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity." Of its origin, he says: "Ill-health, some years past, having kept me from travelling or preaching, I took up the trade of Hymn-making, a handicraft much followed of late, but a business I was not born or bred to, and undertaken chiefly to keep a long sickness from preying on my spirits, and to make tedious nights pass over more smoothly." "Twelve years ago, these Hymns were composed in a six months' illness." "A few of them occasionally rambled into magazines, under the signature of 'Old Everton.'" Their composition, therefore, is to be referred to the year 1773. The best of these is the popular marriage hymn, "Since Jesus freely did appear," and his hymn on the text, Ps. cxxxi. 2: "Jesus! cast a look on me, Give me sweet simplicity, Make me poor and keep me low, Seeking only thee to know. "Weaned from my lordly self, Weaned from the miser's pelf, Weaned from the scorner's ways, Weaned from the lust of praise. "All that feeds my busy pride, Cast it evermore aside, Bid my will to thine submit, Lay me humbly at thy feet. "Make me like a little child, Of my strength and wisdom spoiled, Walking only in thy might. "Leaning on thy loving breast, Where a weary soul may rest; "In this posture let me live, In this temper let me die, The first, third, and fourth of these stanzas are from a hymn by Charles Wesley (altered), on Isa. xxviii. 9, beginning with "Lord! that I may learn of thee." Several others of his hymns had a similar origin. He published also, in 1773, "The Christian World Unmasked," an exceedingly quaint and thoroughly evangelical book, full of wit, wisdom, and godly counsel. It has had a very extensive circulation. GEORGE WASHINGTON BETHUNE. 1805-1862. THE REV. GEORGE W. BETHUNE, D.D., the Christian gentleman, the ripe scholar, the graceful poet, and the eloquent divine, was born in the city of New York, March 18, 1805. His honored father, Divie Bethune, the successful and honest merchant, and the Christian philanthropist, was |