The life of the Rev. Adam Clarke

Introduction

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

No name in the history of Methodism, after John Wesley's, is more widely and honorably known than that of Adam Clarke. His " Commentary on the Bible " has been more generally circulated, both in the British Islands and in America, within the last thirty years, than any other exposition of the sacred writings. The Biblical culture of many a Methodist minister is due chiefly to that great work. And although it is now to some extent behind the present state of science, especially in the geography and topography of the Holy Land, its multifarious learning, and its excellent practical observations and reflections make it of great value, and keep it in circulation.

But those who know Adam Clarke only from his Commentary know little of the man. His mental characteristics, it is true, are broadly stamped on that vast work : his simplicity, industry, self-reliance, boldness, even credulity, are obvious enough to the careful reader of the Commentary. But the nobleness of his nature, his thorough devotion to the cause of God, his spirit of self-sacrifice, his unfaltering loyalty to Methodism — these traits are chiefly displayed in other fields of his activity. To exhibit and illustrate them is the task of his biographer. A copious life of Dr. Clarke, by his son, including a curious and characteristic autobiography j appeared in London in 1834, (3 vols. 8vo,) and was • afterward republished in this country. But it never supplied the wants of the general public as a life of Dr. Clarke. Too bulky for general and cheap circulation, and too minute and prolix for easy reading, it affords a repository of facts

4 INTRODUCTION.

for the biographer, rather than a biography itself. The want of a portable volume, portraying the man as he was, for the people, has long been felt.

Dr. Etheridge has supplied this want in the volume now offered to the public. He evinces that first requisite of a biographer, a true and hearty sympathy with the subject of his work, in a high degree. He discriminates well amid the vast mass of extant material, selecting the salient points of Dr. Clarke's varied career, and presenting them clearly and boldly. If he fails at all, it is in the grouping of his facts ; pictorial skill is not among his most striking endowments. But even the naked facts are enough ; the plain, unvarnished tale of the rise of Adam Clarke from the hut of the humble schoolmaster in Ireland, to be the companion of princes and of the intellectual monarchs who are far higher than princes, is a record of surpassing interest. Most of all is the work valuable as the history of a true and earnest Christian life; simple and modest in its profession, but manly and robust, to the highest degree, in its realities.

Besides the attractiveness of this volume, as the record of a life full of rapid changes, and touching human society at many points, it has an ethical value for all classes of readers. To the young student it will afford the stimulus and example of unparalleled devotion to the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and of grand success in the pursuit. For the Methodist minister it portrays a career of itinerancy in which the most minute attention to the details of that arduous life were made compatible with continued and systematic culture. For the Christian reader it depicts a life of earnest, simple, childlike piety, growing, from the beginning to the end, in richness of experience, and fullness of sanctification, throughout a career of unexampled labors, cares, and temptations.

The book is welcome to its place among that repository of true and noble names, that genuine Acta Sanctorum of modern times, the list of " Methodist Biographies."

Preface

It has long been felt that the communion of which the eminent person to whose memory these pages are dedicated was a devoted minister, should have its own record of his exemplary life ; and the Committee charged with the literary affairs of the Methodist Connection have the happiness of stating that, by an arrangement with his surviving representatives, by which the copyright of many inedited papers has come into their possession, they are enabled to meet such a demand. Several years have passed since the publication of any biography of Dr. Clarke; and we believe that the time is now come when a new volume on the subject, written on a plan altogether different from any already pursued, may be offered without disparagement to the interests of preceding authors.

The ample materials placed at our disposal are sufficient for the creation of a work as voluminous as some of our largest English biographies ; those, for example, of Chalmers or of Wilberforce ; but the object of the Committee, to offer a memoir which shall be accessible to readers in general, would thereby have been defeated. A book of such dimensions, like the Leviathan ship, is not always easily launched. As it is, we have the satisfaction of believing that the present work will be found to present the memorabilia of Dr. Adam Clarke's life and character in such a clear and true

6 PREFACE.

light as shall render it an acceptable gift to those who knew and loved him, and a means of pleasure and profit to many others, who, now becoming acquainted with his excellences, will begin to love him too.

It will not be deemed at all disrespectful to the Doctor's name, that we have recounted the annals of his life without overloading our recital with a cumbrous mass of particulars, which, important as they may have been in their own hour, do not extend a sufficient influence on after time to demand a record on the page of history. This principle has been adopted as the right one in all the ages of literature ; and therefore some of the choicest and most classic biographies, both ancient and modern, are distinguished by their comparative brevity.

We have to express our respectful sense of obligation to Mrs. Richard Smith, the daughter and first biographer of Dr. Clarke, for the kindness with which she has afforded every facility for the completion of this new Life of her honored father ; and, also, our best thanks to Messrs. Wo Tegg and Co., the proprietors of the Doctor's voluminous works, for their permission to republish the excellent portrait which gives an embellishment to the present volume.

Contents

INTRODUCTORY 9

BOOK I. THE MOENINCt OF LIFE

PAGE.

CHAPTER I. His Parentage and Childhood 13

II. Regenerate 29

III. First Essays in the Seryioe of Christ 50

IV. The opened Road rough at the Outset. . . 57 Y . The Evangelist 70

VI. The Evangelist 85

VII. The Missionary 106

VIII. The Circuit Minister 133

IX. The Circuit Minister 153

Book II. Meridian

CHAPTER I. The Preacher 171

II. The Pastor 187

III. The Preacher and Pastor — continued . . . 201

IV. The Preacher and Pastor — continued. . . 223 V. The President r 237

VI. Itinerancy 257

8 CONTENTS.

rum.

VII. ITINERANCY 260

VIII. The Student and Scholar 281

IX. The Student — continued 307

X. TnE Author 322

XI. The Literary Servant of the State 340

XII. The Coadjutor of. toe Bible Society 348

XIII. The Commentator 351

Book III. Evening

CHAPTER I. The Elder revered in the Church 373

II. Honored by the Great and Good 389

III. The Philanthropist 401

IV. The Friend 413

V. TnE Husband 431

VI. The Father 438

VII. TnE Saint, in Life and Death 446

SUPPLEMENT of Illustrative Passages from Dr.

Clarke's Correspondence 461

INTRODUCTORY.

The most ancient book in the possession of mankind, the Genesis of Moses, has enregistered for all time a series of biographical memoirs. The Spirit of God, in dictating those recitals by his own inspiration, has thus given a Divine and eternal signature to the lawfulness and utility of a description of writing which perpetuates the names of the great and good, re-echoes the words of the silent dead, and preserves, in imperishable fragrance, the sanctities of their ended life. The same principle is inculcated throughout the Bible. " The memory of the just is blessed." " The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." Upon the Christian Church the duty is enjoined by an express command, to " remember them who have spoken to us the word of God," and to imitate their faith. May he then who now writes, and they who shall read, the words of this record, be stirred up to follow the high example of him to whose memory these pages are consecrated ; remembering " the end of his conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

A quarter of a century has already passed since this eminent servant of God descended to the grave ; yet, not for a day in this long interval has he ceased to preach among the

10 INTRODUCTORY.

livincr the truths which it was the labor of his life to illustrate and practice. . And while some of his contemporaries, who, in their day, made a considerable figure, have already disappeared in oblivion, time, the great prover of all things, has, for the name of Adam Clarke, authenticated a title to immortality. The worth of his character, his massive and consecrated learning, the high motives of his laborious life, and the enduring beneficence of its results, have all been verified by a scrutinizing world.

The retrospect of such a career will strengthen the best aspirations of the heart, and show us the way to attain their objects. Adam Clarke uplifts his eyes, at the outset, to the true standard of human effort — the glory and approval of the Most High God. With this great ideal he holds such habitual converse, as greatly to think, and feel, and live, till at length his character brightens into a deathless grandeur, and he " stands in his lot" with those nobles of the universe who are "a kind of first-fruits" of the creatures of God.

Few ministers of the Gospel in the present age, by the integrity of their character, the splendor of their learning, and the sterling merit of their works, have acquired more largely the veneration of enlightened and impartial men in all parts of Christendom, than Dr. Clarke ; and, if so many of the good and great in every branch of the Catholic Church have learned to esteem his memory, it well becomes that particular communion of which he was a conspicuous ornament, and in the most intimate fellowship with which he lived and died, to enshrine his name in her heart, and to teach it to her children. " He was a burning and shining light ;" and we, who, while he was yet personally with us, (rojoiced in the benefit of his luminous ministration, should give some worthy attestation of our grateful estimate of his

INTRODUCTORY. II

labors and his love, and of our desire that those who follow us may profit, to distant ages, by the unfading reflections of his wisdom, and the inspirations of his great example.

Nor is there any need that this sacred tribute should be spoiled of its moral effect by the use of exaggerated eulogy, or the pompous imbecilities of laborious panegyric. No man requires this at our hand. We do not ask that the name of Adam Clarke should be canonized, nor seek for him a niche in the pantheon of imaginary saints, around whose heads a paganized Romanism has traced the aureole of unearthly perfection. It is our aim to fulfill the far more difficult but more fruitful task of portraying the actual life of a sincere Christian, a diligent inquirer after truth, and a hard-working and effective servant of God, and of man, in the diffusion of it — clad, all the while, in the every-day habiliments of suffering humanity.

And if the most sun-like of characters have had their spots, and no mere man, however great, has ever appeared without some imperfections and littlenesses, the subject of our memoir will not be depreciated, if we find that in opinion he was sometimes in error, or that in any of the partialities or prejudices of the heart he gave evidence of being a fellow-creature, of like passions with ourselves. But, after all, it will, I believe, be a common conclusion, that he was more free from these inevitable blemishes than most men ; while, on the other hand, few instances may be adduced in which a nobler model has been offered to the study and imitation of the aspirant after real excellence. The lessons of his life teach those who are asking after the way of salvation, the secret of attaining true repose for the conscience, and purification for the heart ; the heroic enterprises of his intellect animate the student to press into those regions of knowledge

12 INTRODUCTORY.

into which ho went as a pioneer, and where there remains so much land to be possessed ; the evangelist will be stirred up to seek the needed and promised gifts of the Spirit, with whose uncreated flame this great doctor of the Church was so richly baptized ; and, even with regard to secular interests, in his advancement from the humblest circumstances to an elevation in which he became the recognized teacher of teachers, and the familiar friend of the prelate and the prince, young men may learn how, in a country and age like ours, integrity and diligence in one's allotted sphere will not fail of their recompense of reward. In a word, in the progress of his career, the living may learn how to live ; and in its consummation, the dying, how to die.

The providence and grace of God have, from age to age, raised up men whose lives should be a beacon of hope to them who come after. " A true intellect stands like a watchtower upon the shore." The waves thunder against it, and vanish in spray. Its clear and steady lamp burns in the storm ; a consolation and a guide, over the dark sea, to the haven of glory.

THE LIFE

OF THE

REV. ADAM CLARKE, LL.D.

Book I.-the Morning Of Life. Chaptee I

HIS PAKENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.

To retrace the foosteps of Adam Clarke's early youth, we should visit some obscure hamlets in Ireland, lying on the borders of the North Channel, in a champaign country abounding in landscapes where a Ruysdael or a Paul Potter would have found many a congenial subject for his pencil. The ancestors of Adam Clarke, though of English origin, had been settled in that part of Ireland for some generations, and were possessed of good landed property in the counties of Antrim and Derry. The family came into Ireland some time in the seventeenth century, and obtained a portion of what were called the "Debenture Lands." The property thus acquired was afterward increased by intermarriages with the families of Strawbridge, Courtenay, Higgison, and Boyd. Dr. Clarke's great-great>grandfather, William Clarke, held the estates of Grange, in the county of Antrim, and was regarded with such consideration in the county, as to be appointed to receive the Prince of Orange,

14 LIFE OF ADAM OLAKKE.

when, in 1690, he came to Carrickfergus. An anecdote of this interview is preserved, to the effect that Mr. Clarke, though at that time a disciple of the rigid doctrines of George Fox, mindful neither to compromise his principles as a Quaker, nor his behavior as a gentleman, left his hat behind him, and so approached the prince bareheaded. He addressed his future monarch in a few words of dignified simplicity, with which the prince seemed well content, and entered upon a conversation, at the close of which he was pleased to say, that Mr. Clarke was one of the best-bred men he had ever met with. This William Clarke had a son named John, who married a daughter of Mr. Horseman, mayor of Carrickfergus. They had eighteen sons and one daughter. The ninth of these sons was William Clarke, the grandfather of our Adam. He formed a matrimonial connection with the Boyds, a family of Scotch extraction, who appear to have settled in Ireland about the same time with the Clarkes. Archibald Boyd was a Presbyterian clergyman, and the first Protestant who preached at Maghera after the Revolution. The fruit of the marriage of William Clarke with Miss Boyd were four sons, of whom the eldest, John, was the father of Adam.

These few details are sufficient to show that the family of the Clarkes held rank formerly with the most substantial and respectable in that part of the kingdom. But, like those of mmiy other houses, their fortunes had, toward the end of the last century, undergone a disastrous change. Their lands in the neighborhoods of Larne and Glenarm, and on the pleasant banks of Lough Neagh, fell, by one loss a tier another, into the hands of strangers. A lawsuit deprived them of an excellent estate called "the Grange;" and, while Adam was yet a child, the last acre of their property was gone. "I well remember," he once said, "the time when the last farm went out of the family, and our ancient boast was lost forever. The weeping and wailing that morning upon which we were made acquainted with the fact, still live in my reinemberance, though I was then scarcely seven years of age." Yet, who knows but that there was mercy in this stroke % Had that little estate remained, men would, perhaps, never have heard of Adam Clarke. The Supreme Disposer often takes away one blessing, to make way for a greater.

John, the father of Adam Clarke, has been described by the latter as a "man standing about five feet seven, with good shoulders, an excellent leg, a fine hand, and every way well proportioned, and extremely active." Intended by his parents for the Church, he had received a good classical education at school, which was followed up by studies for the clerical profession, at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Among his college testimonials was the name of the eminent Hebraist, Hutchinson. At Edinburgh he gained a prize of some distinction, and at Glasgow took his degree of Master of Arts. He then, with the more immediate view of qualifying for episcopal orders, entered Trinity College, Dublin, successfully competing for a sizarship, at a time when classical merit was the only passport to that privilege. Thus far all was propitious ; but a severe fever prostrated his health, and, after his return to Dublin, a premature marriage with one who became the deservedly-loved partner of the joys and adversities of after-life, dissolved his connection with the university, and gave a new direction to his career. By the stress of circumstances now unknown, Mr. Clarke was induced to turn his views from the clerical to the scholastic profession. His first idea was to obtain a professorship in one of the new collegiate establishments in America; and fbr this adventure he turned his patrimony into money, and took a passage in a vessel bound for this continent. On the very eve of embarkation, his father, who earnestly deprecated the undertaking, succeeded in dissuading him from attempting it.

With some still lingering hopes of obtaining Church preferment, the young scholar now passed an anxious interval, during which his means of support were rapidly melting away ; and at length, as a kind of last resource, he applied for the customary license to act as a teacher of youth, and gave up the pulpit of the clergyman for the desk of the schoolmaster. His lot was now confirmed, and the steady, earnest, and laborious endeavors which gave a character to his remaining life, manifest an unswerving resolution to acquit himself of its responsibilities. The school appears to have been generally well attended, and by the children of all ranks in the neighborhood. The young people bent their steps in a morning to the common place of learning, alike from the cottage, the rectory, and the hall. Dr. Barnard, afterward bishop of Killaloe, and of Limerick, was at that time rector of the parish, and confided his own son to the care of Mr. Clarke, among whose scholars there were not a few who in after years filled the situations of clergymen, (whether Episcopal, Popish, or Presbyterian,) medical men, lawyers, and schoolmasters. Dr. Clarke used to say, that there were few priests, clergymen, surgeons, or lawyers, of those resident in the north of Ireland, who had not been educated by his father. And yet, from the extremely low charges then customary for education, the diligent labors of this able and conscientious teacher yielded but a poor return for the support of his family. The highest charge for a range of instruction which comprehended the mathematics, and the classics, both Latin and Greek, was seven shillings per quarter ; while the primary elements of school knowledge were rendered at the lowly price of fourpence, twopence, and even three halfpence per week. It may be conjectured, therefore, that the temporal concerns of the family were the reverse of affluent. The worthy schoolmaster knew all about the res angusta domi. The mind both of father and mother seems to have been shadowed by almost habitual care ; and the children, as Adam once expressed it, " neither fared sumptuously every day, nor was their clothing purple and fine linen."

Mrs. Clarke was of Scotch origin, a descendant of the M'Leans of Mull, in the Hebrides — a hardy race, remarkable for muscular strength. A brother of Mrs. Clarke, the

Rev. I. M'Lean, " could bend iron bars with a stroke of his arm ; roll up large pewter dishes like a scroll with his fingers ; and, when traveling through Bovagh-wood, (a place through which his walks frequently lay,) he has been known to pull down the top of an oak-sapling, twist it into a withe by the mere strength of his arms and fingers, and, thus working it down in a spiral form to the earth, leave it with its root in the ground for the astonishment of all that might pass by."*

One day, dining at an inn with two officers, who wished to be witty at the parson's expense, he said something which had a tendency to check their self-confidence. One of them, considering his honor affected, said : " Sir, were it not for your cloth, I would oblige you to eat the words you have spoken." Mr. M'Lean rose up in a moment, took off his coat, rolled it up, and threw it under the table with — " Divinity, lie there ; and, M'Lean, do for thyself." Saying it, he seized the foremost of the heroes by the cuff of the neck and the waistband, and threw him out of the window.

The great-grandfather of Mrs. Clarke, Laughlin M'Lean, was chief of his clan, and laird of Dowart. Dr. Clarke ever cherished a tender veneration for his mother. According to his description, she was not a beauty, but a sensible woman ; something above the average height, graceful in moving, and remarkably erect even in old age. What was better, she was as upright in principle ; a woman who feared God, and whom his Holy Spirit failed not, as we shall see, to lead at length into the liberty of his children. Mrs. Clarke, at the time of her marriage, was a decided Presbyterian ; her husband, with equal strength of principle, an Episcopalian. It redounds not a little to their honor, that these differences never interfered with the charm of that holy love which tempered and sanctified the hardships of their self-denying life. Their eldest son, named Tracy, after his relative, the Rev. John Tracy, rector of Kilcronaghan, was bred to the medical profession. Some passages in his remarkable history will be noticed further on. Of their daughters, the eldest married the Rev. W M. Johnson, LL.D., rector of St. Perrans Uthnoe, in Cornwall ; and another became the wife of Thomas Exley, Esq., M. A., of Bristol.

Adam Clarke, the subject of our memoir, was born at Moybeg, in the parish of Kilcronaghan, county Londonderry. The year of his birth was either 1760 or 1762. He was always uncertain upon this point, but inclined to the first date. Though he was baptized by his Uncle Tracy, no register of his baptism was preserved ; and Mrs. Clarke herself could give no decisive information, her own recollection on the matter being somewhat confused. This is not an unexampled instance of maternal forgetfulness. The mother of Dr. Martin Luther could not certify the year of his birth. Melancthon, who questioned her about it, records that she recollected the day and the hour perfectly, but had forgotten the year.* Mrs. Clarke's prevailing sentiment was, that her son was born in 1760. He received the Christian name of Adam at the request of his grandparents, in memory of a beloved son of their own whom they had lost in early life. The old people wished to adopt him as their own child, and his first years were passed under their charge, Adam was a remarkably hearty child; at eight months on his feet, and a month later walking about alone; at three years old sitting in the snow in winter, and in the summer wandering among the lanes and fields, and often taking his stand by a draw-well, peering curiously into its depths, as if searching to know the mysteries beneath. When, at five years, he took the small-pox, the child disdained the then customary regimen of covering up the patient in a closely shut room, left his bed on every opportunity, and ran away naked in the open air. He had, also, uncommon strength for his age, which his father seemed proud of showing, setting the child to roll large stones when visitors came to the house.

* Andin, " Histoire do Luther."

He appears to have returned to his father's care on the removal of the family from Moybeg to Maghera, a village in the county of Derry, sixteen miles south of Coleraine. This was when Adam was six years old. Two years later we find another removal to Garva, or Grove, a hamlet some ten miles distant. Here they resided till about his twelfth year, when their unsettled domestic history shows another exodus, to a place called Ballyaherton, in the parish of Agherton, some little space from Coleraine. It was in the first of these transient resting-places that the future commentator of the Bible became, though with sore trials to the flesh and spirit, acquainted with the contents of the primer. Unlike his bodily powers, the mental faculties of the child were but slowly developed. He has told us that " he found it very difficult to acquire even the knowledge of the alphabet ;" and that his father, who had set his heart upon his becoming a scholar, strove to awaken his intellect with harsh words and unseasonable chastisement. " But this," says the doctor, " so far from eliciting genius, rather produced an increase of hebetude ; so that himself began to despair of ever being able to acquire any knowledge by means of letters. When, however, he was about eight years of age, he was led to entertain hopes of future improvement from the following circumstance : A neighboring schoolmaster, calling at the school where Adam was then endeavoring to put vowels and consonants together, was desired by the teacher to assist in hearing a few of the lads their lessons.

Adam was the last that went up, not a little ashamed of his deficiency : he, however, hobbled through his lesson, though in a very indifferent manner ; and the teacher apologized to the stranger, and remarked that that lad was a grievous dunce. The assistant, clapping young Clarke on the head, said, 'Never fear, sir ; this lad will make a good scholar yet.' This was the first thing that checked his own despair of learning, and gave him hope." I give this in his own words, for the sake of the useful reflection which follows them : " How injudicious is the general mode of dealing with those who are called dull boys ! To every child learning must be a task ; and as no young person is able to comprehend the maxim, that the acquisition of learning will compensate the toil, encouragement and kind words from the teacher are indispensably necessary to induce the learner to undergo the toil of those gymnastic exercises. Willful idleness and neglect should be reprehended and punished ; but where genius has not yet been unfolded, nor reason acquired its proper seat, the mildest methods are the most likely to be efficient, and the smallest progress should be watched and commended, that it may excite to further attention and diligence. With those who are called dull boys, this method rarely fails. But there are few teachers that possess the happy art of developing genius. They have not sufficient penetration to find out the bent or characteristic propensity of their pupils' minds, to give them the requisite excitement or direction. In consequence, there have been innumerable native diamonds which have never shone, because they have fallen into such hands as could not distinguish them from common peb bles ; and to them neither the hand nor the art of the lapidary has ever been applied. Many children, not naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster."*

The elder Mr. Clarke was a man of right honest purpose, and of resolute determination. He reigned in the school as an absolute monarch in his kingdom. His juvenile subjects knew the man and his communications, and worked with the assurance that nothing short of actual improvement would keep them right with him. He was their friend, though a severe one. It was their welfare he had at heart. Goldsmith's description of a similar potentate applies to him in this as in other respects :