"^mimi^"^ '^^odiivDJO^' '^jjuoNvso)^^ '^/sm\\^ ^OFCALIFO)?^ ^OfCAlIFO/?^ ^^y^FUNIVER% ^lOSANG tMS> «•* x-^x^ ^\ ^^P»2 55 gjw^ AS S ^ < "— *r\ >■ .V' ^>M-UBRARY(9yr;, ^IIIBRAH ^•OFCAllFOff,^ ^OFCAlli Z. ^ ^^WEUNIVERi/4 ^lOSAK' RYQc UBRARYQr. ^UIBRAI %uoh- ojiivjjo'^ ^ AWEimVERJ//. ^lOSANCElfx^ o . o %}HAINfllWV .^.OFfAllFOff^jk, .^,OFCAllF0/?i^ - * ' ^ S or ^NStUBRARYQ^ ^lUBRARYQc. ,5MEUNIVER% ^lOSANCEirj^ %jnV3J0^ '^^tfOJIWDJO'^ &Aavaaii# ^OFCAIIFO;?^ ^\WEUNIVER% _^lOSANCElfj^ ^OABvaan^' ^riuDKVSOi^ > "^/sMAiNn-awv^ \WEUNIVERSyA A>clOSANCEl% -i^lUBRARYOc. -^ILIBRARYO^ ^xiij3Nvso# ^/sajAwniftV^ \^i\m\^ \^my^^ AWEUNIVERS/a ;s>:lOSAKCEU-j> ^.OFCAllFOft^ ^OFCAIIFO/?^ ^4 EngTOA-ecL by O- J StociarV a,pKotograp}xfhy EU,u>ti>& Fry. ALEXANDER RA-LEIGH A&C BlackEdubuigb ALEXANDER RALEIGH Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN ALEXANDEE EALEIGH EECOEDS OF HIS LIFE EDITED BY MARY RALEIGH "... The healing of tlie world Is in its nameless saints. Each separate star Seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars Break up the niglit and make it beautiful." Bayard Taylok. EDINBUEaH ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1881 All riirhts reserved. Printed ly R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. PREFATORY NOTE. I WISH here to express my thanks to the friends who have kindly furnished me with letters for this volume, or contributed personal recollections, or who have spoken to me words of encouragement in my work. My special thanks are due to my nephew, Mr. Thomas Ealeigh, of Lincoln's Inn, who has revised all my MSS., and given me much help in the arrangement of my materials. These pages were in print before the tidings came of the death of Dr. Enoch Mellor. He has taken his place in the unbroken procession which is ever passing from the Church on earth to the Church in heaven. His words about his friend are memorial now in a double sense. The outlines given here of my husband's life are intended chiefly for those who knew and loved' him. ^ (r\ A f\ClA Q vi PREFACE. A book is a poor medium by -wliicli to convey a full impression of any life. The shifting lights, — the colours that fade or deepen on the spiritual horizon as the years come and go, — may in part be seen and remembered, but can hardly at all be expressed in words. Those who knew him will be able to read between the lines, with the clear sight of affection, something of what cannot be written. A selection only has been given from my husband's letters and papers, in order that the volume might be kept within moderate compass. I have tried to be true as he was, and while giving — from his own hand as much as possible — enough of details to fill up the picture, I have had a loyal regard to his characteristic reticence. M. E. Granton House, Edinburgh, 18th November ISSl. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Galloway — Boyhood .... 1 CHAPTER n. Liverpool — Business Life . . • .12 CHAPTER m. College . . • • • • ^° CHAPTER IV. Greenock — First Charge . . . .29 CHAPTER V. Failure of Health 36 CHAPTER VI. Rotherham . . • • • .45 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAOE Rotherham^Marri.\qe and Domestic Life . 58 CHAPTER VIII. Glasgow . . . . .70 CHAPTER IX. London — Hare Court . . . .89 CHAPTER X. London — Hare Court — Continued . . .105 CHAPTER XL America — Chairmanship of the Union . .125 CHAPTER XII. Letters of Counsel and Consolation . .148 CHAPTER XIII. Switzerland . . . , . .171 CHAPTER XIV. Lectures on Preaching . . . .189 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. PAGE Methods of the Preacher . . . .207 CHAPTER XVI. Hare Court and Stamford Hill — Pressure of Work 223 CHAPTER XVn, Journey to Egtpt . . . . .238 CHAPTER XVm. Palestine ...... 249 CHAPTER XIX. Kensington . . . . . .265 CHAPTER XX. Last Days ...... 289 Index . . . , . . 305 "What he could have done iu this lower house, he is now upon that same service in the higher House ; and it is all one, it is the same sei-vice and the same IMastei-, only there is a change of con- ditions." — Samuel RuTHEnroKD. CHAPTEE I. GALLOWAY — BOYHOOD. " Pure livers were they all : austere and grave, And fearing God ; the very children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's Word, And an habitual piety, maintained With strictness scarcely known on English ground." Wordsworth. Alexander Ealeigh, the fourtli son and fifth child of a family of nine, was born at the Flock- a farm-house near Castle-Douglas, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, on the 3d of January 1817. His grandfather, Thomas Ealeigh, was a man of great integrity and force of character. His powers of mind were such ^ as to com- mand a position of authority among his neighbours. As they made their way from church or from field- preaching on the Sabbath-day, discussions would often arise, and on these occasions it was observed that what- ever the subject was, Thomas Ealeigh would never rest till he had " torn it abroad to the outmost." His son, Thomas Ealeigh, the tenant of. the Flock, was of a less argumentative disposition, somewhat silent and reserved B 2 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. in manner, of few words, but of fervent spirit. He is remembered to tliis day in that coimtry-side for his straightforward simplicity and iipriglitness. " There was a stern faithfulness in the soul of the man," said one who knew him well ; and the little community amongst whom he lived believed so fully in his impar- tial discernment that they sometimes referred local disputes to his decision. On one occasion a married couple who had separated on account of incompati- bility of temper came to him to ask him to ?'e-marry them, believing that " Thomas Ealeigh's prayer " might go far to enable them to begin again with better hope of happiness. He did actually marry them, " at a dyke- side," although with what result we are not told. His wife, Isabella Ealeigh, was a woman of brilliant gifts, possessed of a lively imagination, and almost universal sympathy. At the time of her marriage it was said of her husband and of her, by one whose opinion carried oracular weight, "There was not, in twelve parishes, such a couple for sense, character, and intelligence". The Flock was a small farm, and father, mother, and children too as they grew up, had to work hard to make ends meet ; and as may be supposed, a heavy share of the burden fell upon the wife and mother. When, now and then, bad harvests, loss of stock, or other contingencies made the struggle almost desperate, herspiiit never quailed. "Mrs. Raleigh," people .said, " was happiest when she had a difficulty to face," and it is certain that she had a heroic joy in the conflict GALLOWAY— BOYHOOD. 3 with circumstances. She encountered cheerfully all the difficulties of small means, a small house, and a large family, and managed to' preserve, in spite of many labours and anxieties, her love of reading, and Jier interest in poetry and speculative theology. She has herself told how, seated at her spinning-wheel (for all the wool for the family clothing was spun at home) with her foot ready to touch the rocker of the cradle at her side, she used to have a favourite book propped up before her, that she might steal a few sentences as she could. Her memory was stored with passages from the Bible, as well as from Milton, Thomson, and other poets, which she loved to repeat to her children as they gathered round the fireside. One of their favourite amusements was to recite single verses from the Psalms, challenging their mother to tell where these were to be found, and also to give the context, and she generally succeeded in doing both. When she went to market in the nearest town, the treasure brought back was often a book, sometimes one in Latin for the boys. It was from her that Alexander inherited his early love of reading; and from her, too, perhaps even more than from his father, came that rugged originality which made his tenderness seem only more tender. Thomas Ealeigh and his wife were attached, by habit and by conviction, to the small sect wliich takes (or -took till recently) its name from Eichard Cameron the Covenanter — the remnant of pure Presbyterians who, after 1689, continued to protest against the errors of an Erastian Church and an " uncovenanted " State. 4 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. The Cameronian body was never numerous ; its churches were few, but it possessed, sixty years ago, more than one preacher of exceptional power. Of these the chief was John Osborne of Dumfries, whose sermons com- bined in a remarkable manner the old-fashioned Puritan fidelity to the letter of Scripture, with a speculative freedom wliich often carried Imn far beyond the limits of the Westminster Confession. After the work of the day was over, and the family assembled round the fire in the winter evenmgs, or lingered in neighbourly talk at the door in the long summer twilight, great questions in theology, suggested by the Sabbath teachings, would be discussed and new views of doctrine considered. So late as 1873 Dr. Ealeigh, in a note of thanks to a friend for the gift of Reflections and Reminiscences by Dr. M'Leod Campbell, says : — " The book takes me back to my boyhood. I can remember distinctly how the 'Eow Heresy' was talked of at my father's fireside, and also distinctly that my mother and he inclined to it as no heresy, but the truth — thus giving umbrage to some of the stricter sort. I have some remembrance, too, of the way in which the matter touched my first religious thoughts ; it came like a breeze from the hills, blowing away something that I felt even then to be oppressive." In fields and on hill-sides vast congregations would assemble, even on a winter Sabbath, to hear Osborne or any other of the orators of Cameronianism. These open-air services were long, extending, with two short intervals, from the forenoon of the Sabbath till the GALLOWAY— BOYHOOD. 5 shadows of evening fell. In later years Mrs. Ealeigh used to express surprise if any one in her hearing com- plained of the length of a modern sermon, and would describe in fervent language those Sabbaths of solemn worship, the sermons which never seemed too long ; and told how, when the moon had risen, the services of the day used to close with a psalm, which went up " a storm of music from the hiU." In fact, the religion of those people was their all. Not only did it bring to them immortal hopes, but it supplied interest and romance and intellectual food to lives that would otherwise have been poor. The distractions of travel, and the interest of the daily press and the public library, were almost unknown, and perhaps on that very account the one great theme had space to live and grow till it filled and covered all their life. It was at one of the " field preachings " that Alex- ander Ealeigh was baptised ; and among the memories of his boyhood none stood out more clearly than the open-air communion Sabbaths — the green hill-side, the white-covered tables, and the hushed interest of the hearers, who followed the preacher from point to point of his elaborate discourse. The fifthlies and sixthlies were not always retained by tlie childish mind ; but in the air and sunlight, with hills and sky to look at, even the children did not tire. Some phrase of the long oration, some text quoted with impressive elocution, would be caught up and remembered, to be recalled after many days. One of Osborne's striking texts, " / '10111 not eat till I 6 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. have told mine errand" (Geu. xxiv. 33), chosen by Dr. Ealeigh, in Canonbury, for a discourse of his own, brought back to him, after long years, these unforgotten Sabbaths. " I go back nearly forty years, when I was so young that I could remember only this text, discoursed from on a sacramental occasion, by a famous preacher, for well-nigh an hour and a-half He spoke from a tent in a green field on a clear summer day, the communion tables covered Avith the linen clean and white, spread out waiting their occupants, who came to sit down at communion after the sermon Avas over, and during the singing of a psalm. Although the preacher spoke so long, no one seemed to weary, unless it were some of us boys and girls. But we did not weary much. We had the consolation of the green grass -, we had the help of the daisies. We heard the bird sing and watched its flight, and saw the solemn movement of the cloud. And the sound of the preacher's voice was solemn ; and the awe-struck, desiring look of the people — nearly two thousand of them — almost as if they expected a visit on that day and in that place from their " risen Lord. The whole formed a picture and a scene not likely to be forgotten." From the Flock it was a mile or more across the fields to Buittle parish scliool, where Alexander Ealeigh received the first rudiments of his education. But before he had passed beyond the spelling-book stage, in the year 1825, the pressure of hard times forced his father to surrender the farm and to remove with his family to Castle-Douglas ; and the boys were thus transferred to the high school of that town. The GALLOWAY— BOYHOOD. 7 programme of a liigli school was not in those days much more ambitious than that of a parish school. A good knowledge of English and arithmetic, an excellent style of handwriting, and perhaps tlie elements of Latin — such was the equipment with which the youth of Castle-Douglas began the world. Among his school- fellows Alexander Ealeigh was regarded as a boy of good but not shining ability. .He was a good worker, obstinate, indomitable, e^^ger to lead and to excel ; not always willing to fight, but a formidable enemy when once committed to a quarrel. In after years his brothers and : sisters were sometimes reminded of incidents which ex- hibited his boyish temper ; how, for instance, he nearly made an end of himself by attempting an impossible leap over a " moss-hole." A moss-hole in Scottish speech is the bed from wliich peat or turf has been taken for fuel. It is often of considerable depth, and is filled with black moss-water. One day Alexander, aged four, and his brother Samuel were jumping over one of these black pools — first from the ground, then from one peat, then from two. " I'll do it from three," shouted the younger boy ; but the peats slipped, and next moment nothing was seen of him but two little feet above the water. Providentially, the father was at hand to draw the child out, and to carry him home in his big, blue coat. It is remembered, also, how, after much provo- cation, he vanquished the bully of the Castle-Douglas school, and how he was suspended over a bridge, head downward, for what seemed a long time, because he refused to submit to the dictation of an older lad who 8 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. wanted him to say a profane word. At home lie was considered then somewhat deficient in the milder virtues ; and his mother has been heard to say that none of her children owed less to nature and more to grace, in the matter of terrper, than Alexander, and that in none was the victory more complete. The home Thomas Ealeigh had to give his children is typical of not a few Scottish homes of that day, and is perhaps less common now than it once was. There were no luxuries there ; the work was hard and the fare was very plain — oatmeal porridge and Scotch broth formed the staple food of the farm, with tea, then very costly, added occasionally. Amusements were few ; indeed, the theory of life adopted by the old Covenanters still held its ground, and pleasure was relegated to a very secondary place. Conventional refinements were little regarded, but there was the culture that comes with " thoughts that look before and after" — the eleva- tion of character given by Faith in the Unseen, and the nobility that knows not how to swerve from the path of truth and duty. This hardy nurture of his child- hood left its impress unmistakably on Alexander Ealeigh; and although, like his native Galloway in summer, his character came to be touched and softened into beauty, there w^as always the strength of the granite beneath. He even held that the granite itself had some share in imparting to the character of the men of Galloway a stability and power of endurance like its own. This ojDinion is supported by the author of Modern Painters. Euskin says, " The quiet streams, GALLOWAY— BOYHOOD. 9 springs, and lakes are always of exquisite clearness, and the sea whicli washes a granite coast is as un- sullied as a flawless emerald. It is remarkable to what an extent this intense purity in the country seems to influence the character of its inhabitants. ... As far as I remember, the inhabitants of granite countries have always a force and healthiness of character, more or less abated or modified, of course, according to the other circumstances of their life, but still definitely belonging to them as distinguished from the inhabitants of the less pure districts of the hills." Other influences went to mould the growing boy. The country-side was beautiful, and it was alive with memories of brave men and women who gave their lives, as they themselves loved to put it, for " Christ's Crown and Covenant." Their heroic story, lingering among the moors and hills of Galloway, and woven into the religious thought of the people, was of a kind to stir the chivalrous instincts of boyhood. Sometimes the whole district was roused to enthusiasm to do honour to the heroes of the Covenant. Young Ealeigh was present at the great gathering on Kirkconnel Moor, where 10,000 people met to hold a religious service over the grave of one of the martyrs shot down by Claverhouse. Osborne preached one of his great ser- mons on the occasion, and every village and hamlet for many miles round sent its stream of people to the place of meeting, only the very old and the little children being left at home. Memories, too, of a more savage bravery were abun- 10 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. dant ; for Galloway was the country of tlie Black Douglas, and young Pialeigh joined in many a holiday expedition to Thrieve Castle, the Douglas stronghold, and kriew by heart the stories, some of them horrible enough, of which it was the scene. Of necessity the elder boys left the home early, to make their own way in the world, and many years afterwards Alexander Ealeigh used to recall his feel- ings when it came to the turn of his favourite brother, Samuel, the one next above himself in age, to leave his father's house, " to seek his fortune." He was to go to Edinburgh, which place loomed then, vast and myste- rious, to the imagination of the younger boy. The coach to Edinburgh from the South passed through Castle-Douglas some time after midnight ; and the two lads waited together at a corner of the village street till it should come up. Alexander never forgot the chill, choking sense of loneliness, and the baffled con- sciousness of the unknown, which took possession of him when his brother got on the top of the coach, and passed swiftly into the darkness. His progress at school must have been such as to satisfy his teachers,, for when he left it he obtained by their recommendation the place of tutor in a farmer's family. His tutorial duties were combined with farm- work : many a Scottish student earns in this way, by the labour of his own hands and brain, the money which enables him to enter a university. But young lialeigh's ambition did not yet soar so high; he returned to Castle -Douglas to be apprenticed to a draper, in GALLOWAY— BOYHOOD. 11 1832, and remained in that employment some three years. Before his time was out another family migra- tion had taken place. Thomas Ealeigh, with all his gifts of mind and character, was never a prosperous man; he was now compelled to leave Castle -Douglas and remove to Liverpool. Alexander, left behind alone, was unhappy ; his apprenticeship was almost, com- pleted, and his position becoming intolerable to him, he left at last without waiting for his master's permission, and made his way to Liverpool, where he rejoined his family. In course of time a place was found for him in the shop of Mr. White, a draper in Eanelagh Street ; and with Mr. White he remained till he began to study for the ministry. CHAPTER 11. LIVEKPOOL — BUSINESS LIFE. " Nor with thy share of work be vexed, Though incomplete and even perplexed, It fits exactly to the next." A. A. Proctoh. It would be a great mistake to suppose that the years which Alexander Ealeigh spent in active business did nothing to fit him for the work of his life. He became a good business man, clear and punctual in aU his dealings, and well acquainted with what Caleb Garth, in Middlcmarch — the novel he most admired — calls "the nature of things." To the end of his life he never cared to receive any of the small concessions sometimes made to ministers on account of their sup- posed ignorance of business. But he was beginning to cherish hopes which the life of a successful trader was not at all likely to satisfy. He had begun to read and think for himself, and as he became conscious of his powers, he longed to devote himself to some work quite different from that in which he was engaged. But his duty to his family and to his father, who was then failing in health, kept him steady to his work, although it was distasteful to him. All he earned was given to LIVERPOOL— BUSINESS LIFE. 13 the common stock, and althongli he was anxious to prosecute his own reading, he gave up much of his scanty leisure to help his sisters in their studies. Wlien Mr. White selected him to take charge of a ne\yly- opened branch of his business, young Ealeigh thought less of his improved position and income than of the increased independence which enabled him to secure more time for his own studies and thoughts. His intellectual bent was thus to some extent in con- flict with his duty and interest as a business man. He was troubled and oppressed by the feeling that he was not in his right place. One of his brothers observed that he was " an affecting instance of the round man in the square hole." It was at this critical period that Alexander Ealeigh came under the power of those spiritual influences which were to mould and inspire the whole of his future life. When Thomas Ealeigh settled in Liverpool, he wandered for a time from one place of worship to another, finding none to take the place of the Scottish preachers of his choice. At last, one Sunday he re- turned home to his family with the announcement, " I have found a man." The " man " in question was the Kev. John Kelly, then beginning his Liverpool ministry in Bethesda Chapel. The massive, doctrinal style and the Puritan theology of this young Independent minis- ter were very satisfying to the Scottish mind. Over thoughtful men generally, and especi^ly over young men, Mr. Kelly exercised an attractive and formative influence of no ordinary power. His Sunday 14 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. evening Bible class, held in his own house, among his boolvs, is remembered by many of those who attended it as the birthplace of their higher life. Among the members of that class, in the years of which we are speaking, were Lockhart, Chisholm, and Ealeigh, and many more who have done good work, tliough their names are less known in the Churches. One of these shall speak for all. In 1873 Dr. Ealeigh presided at a meeting in the Crescent Chapel, Liverpool, on the occasion of Mr. Kelly's retirement. We quote a part of his opening address : — " I too am an old Liverpool man, or boy rather, for I was little more than a lad when I came hither, now a long time ago — not very long after Mr. Kelly himself. At any rate, I very well remember the old Bethesda days. A picture of the congregation as it then was — silent, thought- ful, slightly Puritanic in its aspect, with the young minister in the pulpit — is among the indelible things in my memor3^ I remember well the last sermon there, from the text ' Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth ; ' and how, when the preacher and pastor had touched, thankfully and tenderly, on some of the triumphs of Divine grace Avithin the walls of the house we were leaving, we left it slowly, and almost sorrowing that we should see its small windows, and deep seats, and general dinginess no more. "And this place I remember, if one may say so, long befoi'e it was built. I have passed Everton Crescent many a-^ime, long before there was any chapel here ; — going up to the heights to get a breath of fresh country air, to see the green fields, and the sheen of the sea, while LIVERPOOL— BUSINESS LIFE. 15 the ships went out and came in, silently, although in nothing like the numbers which crowd the river now. ... I heard Mr. Kelly's first sermon here, from a text taken from one of the minor prophets, 'From this day will I bless you;' and then for years I heard scarcely any one else, and had no desire to wander ; for here I found Sabbath home, and the deepening of spiritual life, and increase of knowledge — not only by the ministrations of the pulpit, but sometimes even more by those of Mr. Kelly's Bible class — and then, more under Mr. Kelly's influence than from any other out- ward cause, I went from this church to study for the Christian ministry, in which I have now spent many busy and happy years, and in Avhich I continue until this day." In later years Dr. Raleigh was led to widen in some degree the Evangelical theory of conversion. Without surrendering the belief that all men are sinful and require to be turned from sin to God, he saw that there were souls with what he calls " a congenital aptitude for grace," with whom the turning is gradual and almost un- conscious. But in his earlier sermons the notion of con- version, as a definite, conscious change of heart and life, is very prominent. These sermons were probably drawn from his own experience. He knew that he himself had been " born again," and could fix the season of the happy change from blindness to clear vision. And now the vague longings and ambitions of his youth were being absorbed in one desire — the desire to make known to others the truth of the Gospel. On the 5th of October 1838 he was received into the Church, and about the same time he undertook to teach a large Bible class in 16 ALEXANDER RALEIGH. place of ]\Ir. Lockhart, who was making ready to go to China. He was introduced to tlie school by Mr, Chisholm, afterwards an honoured and successful mis- sionary in the South Seas.^ Hitherto Alexander Ealeigh had been known to few even among the men of his own standing ; he was reserved and silent in company, and was not generally supposed to possess any extraordinary gifts. It was only when his duties in the Sunday school brought him into notice, and compelled him to use his powers, that his friends discovered what he was. The following extract is from a journal kept by a sister of ]\Ir. Lockhart's, and sent to her brother, then in China : — 29//t December 1839. — "The whole school and the Bible classes were to be addressed in the vestry — a goodly company— Alexander Ealeigh gave the third address. I was astonished. It was plain and simple, admirably adapted to his audience ; but elegant and poetic, and delivered with a point and earnestness which made me actually shed tears. . . . We were all delighted, and felt that a young man of very great promise was among us. His shyness and reserve could not conceal the truth that he had the soul of a poet." Mr. Kelly and Mr. S. B. Lockhart (father of the missionary) advised him to study for the Christian 1 The manner of life of that circle in Liverpool is described by one of themselves : " There was a true simplicity -in our life. Amusements, now so common among religious people, were not thought of. Our religion, and the intercourse it gave us, the hold it took upon our intel- lect, our Sunday classes, and the excitement of foreign missions, made every day a joy that no amusements could have brought." LIVEKPOOL— BUSINESS LIFE. 17 ministry. There were many difficulties in the way : his health was not robust ; his means were small, and his family could promise but little in the way of assist- ance. At last the resolve was formed ; in March 1840 he decided to leave business and enter Blackburn College as a student for the ministry. Before the first step had been taken towards carrying out this purpose his father, Thomas Ealeigh, died. The burden of those members of the family who could work was somewhat increased ; but the determination that Alexander should be a minister remained unaltered. Before his mind was fully made up as to his vocation for the ministry, one of his brothers wrote to him :— " You must ask yourself; — 'Am I fit for this life of single purpose ? Do I possess that rare quality of character which aWII guarantee unflinching perseverance in the pursuit of this, the grand object of my ambition 1 ' In all candour and in severest truth, I think you do. Strength of purpose is one of your marked characteristics. My impression is . . . that you carry out a principle of conduct with a rigour perhaps if anything too httle conciliatory to the prejudices and established habitudes of others. Your earnestness of conviction rests satisfied with nothing short of aggi-ession upon the opposite error. . . . My first thought after reading your letter was, there at last is the right thing, and it shall go hard but we will realise it sooner or later." Another of his brothers, speaking afterwards of these years in Liverpool, said — " It was Alexander's noble and unselfish conduct at home that first convinced me of the reality of religion." c CHAPTEE III. COLLEGE. ' ' So when mj^ Saviour calls I rise And calmly do my best ; Leaving to Him, with silent eyes Of hope and fear, the rest." Fabee. At the beginning of the winter session of 1840-41 Alexander Ealeigh was admitted a student of the Independent College, or Academy, at Blackburn, at that time presided over by the Eev. Gilbert Wardlaw. He was older in years and in thought than most of his class-fellows ; but he was prepared to find that in scholarship he had much to make up. His letters home show that his first impressions of college life were favourable. 2d November 1840. — "The heart-beating occasionally returns upon me still, but I hope it is gradually leaving me. With everything else I am pleased, excepting myself, of course. ... I go every Sabbath to Darwen, a distance of four miles, to hear Mr. Porter, the best preacher I ever heard, not excepting Binney or Osborne either ; and yet he is a man unknown comparatively." It is not necessary to give here an exact record of the I COLLEGE. 19 course of study pursued by Alexander Ealeigh at Black- burn and at Manchester, to wliich place, in 1843, the college was transferred. His fellow -students testify that his class work was done well and punctually, but his strength was not more than equal to the prescribed amount of reading. He suffered much from dyspepsia and nervous prostration ; and the anxieties natural to his position were so painfully intensified by ill-health, that he was more than once on the point of giving up study and returning to business. Once in vacation time, meeting a fellow -student, Mr. R Davies, in the street in Liverpool, he mentioned his doubts about returning to college. " Ealeigh," was the blunt but most encouraging reply, " I did not think you were quite such a fool." Referring to this incident at the time of Mr. Davies' death in 1879, Dr. Ealeigh said, "But for Eobert Davies, it is very possible that I might not have been in the ministry to-day." To the doubts and fears caused by physical weak- ness were added cares of another kind. More than once in his home letters we come upon passages like these : — 10 //i March 1842. — "My funds are worn very low. I have had to pay a good deal in books, shoe-soling, medicine, etc., . . . and I know not where I must look next. How- ever, I am not in immediate need, and will give you due notice before I reach the starving-point. A few months now will, I hope, end my pecuniary difficulties." Miss Lockhart's Journal gives an interesting glimpse of the same difficulties from another point of view : — 20 ALEXANDEE RALEIGH. "Mrs. Ealeigh (his mother) came in the morning to tell me of Alec's perplexities for want of money. ' Truly,' as she says, ' when he becomes a great man, and writes his life, some of these incidents of his earlier days will be suf- ficiently piquant. They Avill look quite romantic then ; but now they are rather painful.' " The Journal goes on to record that one of the Crescent Chapel friends called the same evening to inquire where Alexander Ealeigli lived, and " set off thither with an acceptable present — £5." By such kindnesses, given and received in the name of the Master, the struggle was rendered easier; and if Dr. Ealeigh had fulfilled his mother's expectation by writing his own life, no false pride would have pre- vented him from acknowledging his debt to those who thus helped him througli the difficulties of his early years. We have said that want of strength prevented him from undertaking any course of study much beyond the usual requirements of his profession. He was not, and he never professed to be, a learned man. Indeed, he never had much ambition that way ; but in his classical studies at college he reached a fair standard of excellence, and his command of the English language was already remarkable. Knowledge, of whatever kind, seemed to him only subsidiary and instrumental ; tliere was but one thing he felt he could do, and was called to do — to preach the Gospel ; and in this desire all others were swallowed up. The Eev. E. M. Davies, now of Oldham, who was COLLEGE. 21 then a student at Blackburn College, gives tlie follow- ing account of his first appearances as a preacher : — " I have not forgotten his first preaching appointment. When informed tliat his name was on the list of preachers he observed, ' Well, I did not expect it. It is the be- ginning of my public work for the Master. I will seek His help, and do my best.' His room was next to my O'wn, sejiarated by a thin partition, and I can testify that he spent the most part of that night in prayer. He soon acquired popularity as a preacher ; but tliis led to no assumption of superiority ; for however much his services were enjoyed by others, he often declared that they fell so far short of his own ideal as to keep him humble. His generous impulses were many, and the goodness of his heart was often shoAvn in acts of delicate and unexpected kindness. His student life was as exemplary as his spirit was devout." The following extract from a letter to one of his sisters, who was engaged in teaching, may serve to illustrate certain opinions which he formed early in life, and never relinquished : — 11^/i 3Iay 1842. — " I should like to know something of the inhabitants of H , Avhether they are any more civil- ised than the average Lancashire population, and whetlier the children are more apt and teachable than the general run. Speaking of this, I would have you beware of setting down any child as a dunce. Eetain it as a firm conviction that every child has the elements of true greatness and infinite expansion. Your labours will then become invested with more of dignity and interest, and in due season will be productive of all the more abundant fruits. ..." 22 ALEXANDER EALEIGH. To the same sister he writes to explain why he cannot accompany her to a concert : — l3thFehruari/ ISi'i. — ". . . Dr. Vaughan himself \vonl