At*
 
 Cbe Hlbrarg of flSetbo&tet 38(ograpbg 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 REV. JOHN TELFORD, B.A. 
 
 SAMUEL COLEY

 
 ^AMUEL COLEY 
 
 THE ILLUSTRATIVE PREACHER 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT P. DOWNES, LL.D. 
 
 CHARLES H. KELLY 
 
 2 CASTLE ST., Cmr RD., AND 26 PATERNOSTER Row, E.C.

 
 DeDtcatefc 
 
 TO THE METHODIST PEOPLE WHOM 
 
 HE LOVED, AND WHOM I ALSO 
 
 LOVE, HAVING SHARED THEIR 
 
 GRACIOUS HOSPITALITY 
 
 FOR MORE THAN 
 
 FORTY YEARS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY ... 9 
 
 II. EARLY YEARS . . . . 17 
 
 Parental Influence. Love of Know- 
 ledge. Early Service for Christ. College 
 Life. 
 
 III. CIRCUIT LIFE . . . -39 
 
 Thoughtful Eloquence. The Illustra- 
 tive Preacher. Pleas for Holiness. 
 
 IV. THE PASTORATE . . -71 
 
 Class Leading. Conversational Gifts. 
 Care for the Young. 
 
 V. THEOLOGICAL TUTORSHIP . . 9! 
 
 The Witness Within. A Dissolver 
 of Doubts. Theism and Modern 
 Thought. 
 
 VI. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS . 105 
 
 Saintliness. Geniality. Intellectual 
 Power. Strength of Will. Wisdom. 
 Christlike Charity. 
 
 VII. TWILIGHT AND MORNING . .121 
 
 Closing Words. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 I am indebted for much of the material used in 
 this sketch to the Rev. S. Birt Coley R, P. D,
 
 Servant of God, ' Well done ! ' 
 Thou dwellest now beyond the golden sun ; 
 Nor do we doubt some high, serene employ 
 Still claims thee in that fadeless world of joy. 
 
 Not thine the mis-spent years, 
 Whose only harvest is a brood of fears : 
 But years with holy thought and teaching rife, 
 Whose fitting guerdon is eternal life. 
 
 Not thine the bitter hate 
 Of men who found thee heedless of their fate, 
 Or curse of lips denied the living bread, 
 But thanks of multitudes redeemed and fed. 
 
 Not thine the infamy 
 Of those who are forgotten ere they die, 
 But cherished memories from friends who love, 
 And long to meet thee in the life above. 
 
 Not thine a diadem 
 
 Without the glory of one precious gem, 
 But one where many glitter pure and bright 
 In the rich blaze of God's unsetting light. 
 
 R. P. D. 

 
 SAMUEL COLEY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 FROM the days of Wesley until now 
 the Methodist ministry has been remark- 
 able for its variety. Offering to eager 
 and consecrated youth a sphere of service 
 unsurpassed in Christendom, it has drawn 
 into its ranks men of wonderfully diversi- 
 fied capacity and genius. A glance at a 
 few of the prominent members of its 
 brotherhood during the period of Samuel 
 Coley's active ministry will amply demon- 
 strate this. Dr. Osborn, the ecclesiastical 
 dictator, the Nestor of debate, the sworn 
 champion of orthodoxy, strong in the 
 defence of his gospel as St. Paul, and, 
 like St. Paul, eloquent also through the 
 
 9
 
 10 Samuel Coley 
 
 tenderness of tears. William Arthur, a 
 truly fascinating personality, uniting the 
 dove-like gentleness of the Divine Spirit 
 with the glow and potency of 'the tongue 
 of fire.' George T. Perks, refined and 
 sensitive as womanhood at its highest, 
 every inch a gentleman, a pattern of con- 
 scientious service, a man who would have 
 graced a bishopric. Dr. W. Morley 
 Punshon, the finished orator, wedding 
 lofty thought with rhythmic music, and 
 sending it home from the great soul 
 behind it, as the sea hurls its waves 
 upon the beach when winds are high. 
 Thomas Vasey, a lovely spirit among 
 men, uniting with the brain of a dialec- 
 tician the passion of an evangelist and 
 the heart of a child. Dr. W. B. Pope, 
 one of the foremost theologians of his 
 time, yet so child-like in spirit, and so 
 rooted in the region of thought, as to be 
 unconscious of his own greatness. W. O. 
 Simpson, an orator born, not made ; 
 rapid in utterance, resistless in appeal, 
 and mighty in a speech which was no
 
 Introductory 1 1 
 
 feeble twittering, but, as the 'eagle's 
 bark at blood.' Dr. James H. Rigg, 
 strenuous in battle, generous in victory, 
 a man of broadest culture and widest 
 sympathy, stern in outward seeming, but, 
 when intimately known, as sweet as 
 summer. And last, but not least, among 
 these servants of the King, Samuel Coley, 
 winsome and saintly, wise in all the 
 wisdom of the schools, a profound ex- 
 positor of Holy Writ, and a great teacher, 
 unmatched in illustrative power, bringing 
 down sublimest truth to the compre- 
 hension of the wayfaring man and the 
 little child. 
 
 It is with this gifted and saintly man 
 that we deal in the following pages, a 
 man concerning whom we are convinced 
 that only those who knew him intimately 
 have any adequate conception of his true 
 greatness. We desire to bring before the 
 mind of the Church which he so nobly 
 served some aspects of his character and 
 work which are of special and enduring 
 interest.
 
 12 Samuel Coley 
 
 It is one of the finest offices of noble- 
 ness to enkindle nobleness. Our greatest 
 teachers are great examples, and we cannot 
 allow a beautiful life to slip unregarded 
 into oblivion without inflicting an injury 
 on society which is not easily measured. 
 
 As to our fitness for the task we have 
 undertaken, we may remark that having 
 lived for eighteen months the sunniest 
 and most helpful of our life in the house 
 of this great teacher, we have something 
 to say about him which lies deeper and is 
 of more tender import than a comparative 
 stranger would be able to supply. We 
 have felt the warm beat of this man's 
 heart ; we have shared in the sanctity of 
 his home life ; and we can therefore write 
 of him with the affection of a son, while 
 at the same time we may claim exemption 
 from the suspicion of that indiscriminating 
 blindness to which a son is so nobly prone. 
 
 Let it be understood at the outset that 
 the life of which we treat is not one of 
 travel or adventure, or of accidents by 
 flood or field. It is the life of a devout
 
 Introductory 1 3 
 
 thinker, a great teacher, a dedicated soul. 
 As such we shall deal with it, striving as 
 far as possible to keep our own personality 
 in the background and to let the subject 
 of our sketch speak for himself.
 
 CtfAPTEft II 
 
 EARLY YEARS
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Some people will give any amount of crutches 
 to an eagle in full career. What cares he for their 
 help? 
 
 The Romans built the temple of virtue and 
 honour so that none could enter the temple of honour 
 without first going through that of virtue. 
 
 Think not only of the good things given, but 
 also of the goodness of the giver. Every ray of 
 light will lead you at last to the sun. 
 
 The little angel of the alley said, ' Yes, it is a 
 little place, but see how high it is.' So the Christian 
 may possess but a small spot of earth, but how much 
 of heaven of which sordid worldlings never think ! 
 
 Epaminondas, finding one of his captains sleeping 
 in the day on the edge of the battle-field, slew him. 
 One reflected on him, and he replied, ' I left him as 
 I found him.' 
 
 Unbelief is a little thing. So are the eye-lids 
 but they are big enough to shut the whole world of 
 colour and beauty out of the soul. 
 
 It was said of a Persian prince in proof of his 
 ' greatness that he did such great things for his friends 
 and accepted such little things from them. This is 
 i grandly true of God. 
 
 A poor Persian nobleman married the daughter 
 of Cyrus, the great king. One asked the nobleman, 
 'What about the dowry?' 'That,' he answered, 
 ' is in the king's heart ! ' Christian, thy dowry is in 
 
 God's heart! 
 
 SAMUEL COLBY.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY YEARS 
 
 SAMUEL COLBY was born in Birming- 
 ham on February 17, 1825. He was 
 the son of Richard and Ann Coley, 
 both of whom were earnest Christians 
 and members of the Methodist church. 
 Richard Coley was a sword-blade forger, 
 who, by God's blessing on his industry, 
 built up and maintained a comfortable 
 home. The future minister of Christ 
 thus sprang from the ranks of the toilers, 
 and of this fact he was ever mindful. On 
 one occasion he remarked to the writer, 
 ' The poet says of the flower that it " seeks 
 the sun, yet grasps the soil." Methodism 
 touches some sunny social heights, but 
 its roots are among the people, and if 
 it should ever forget or neglect them, its 
 glory will perish as an uprooted flower.' 
 17 2
 
 18 Samuel Coley 
 
 The child given of the Lord to the 
 Birmingham toiler and his prayerful wife 
 was extremely small and delicate, so much 
 so, indeed, that the neighbours thought he 
 was not likely to live. But no fear in 
 this regard seems to have existed in the 
 mind of his parents, and as though they 
 had some prevision of his future career, 
 they named him Samuel. In the home 
 there hung a printed impression of the 
 picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds of the 
 young Samuel at prayer, and the future 
 minister of Christ would tell how he was 
 often pointed to it as a model to imitate. 
 
 Parental Influence 
 
 But his godly nurture did not end 
 here, for it was the custom of his mother 
 to take her two children a brother and 
 sister into her bedroom, and while they 
 knelt on either side of her, to commit 
 them to God and to plead for their early 
 consecration to His service. The answer 
 to her prayers was not long delayed, 
 for when but a little more than six
 
 Early Years 19 
 
 years of age the child Samuel was led to 
 rejoice in the favour of God. To this 
 fact he bore witness in later days. In a 
 remarkable sermon on the godly training 
 of children, he says : ' Children have 
 been saved. On this matter I neither 
 dispute nor theorize ; but if any deny, I 
 quietly answer, " You are certainly wrong, 
 for I myself knew the happiness of peace 
 with God soon after six years of age." 
 When only twelve years old he became 
 a member of the church and a regular 
 attendant at the Methodist class-meeting. 
 Thus in actual childhood was that love 
 of God kindled in his soul 
 
 Whose visionary splendour steeped his life 
 In hues of heaven. 
 
 Whatever may be said of Wordsworth's 
 platonic dream concerning 'The Recol- 
 lections of Immortality in Childhood,' it 
 is true of the subject of this sketch that 
 'heaven lay about him in his infancy,' 
 and that he issued forth from his lowly 
 home ' trailing clouds of glory ' whose 
 radiance never vanished from his feet.
 
 20 Samuel Coley 
 
 This is a lesson which all Christian 
 parents should carefully ponder. It is 
 only too often assumed that children must 
 first plunge into sin and then be dragged 
 back into the Church by conquest ; that 
 they must make an excursion to the devil 
 before they come to Christ. Not such, 
 however, is the conception of the Apostle 
 where he instructs us to ' bring them up 
 in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord.' Why should we for one moment 
 suppose that there is no grace of the 
 quickening and transforming Spirit suit- 
 able to a little child ? Why should not 
 the innocence of childhood glide into 
 the life of God as sweetly and imper- 
 ceptibly as spring glides into summer or 
 twilight into morning ? Truly does Mr. 
 Coley say in his Life of Thomas Collins, 
 . ' Methodism has done much and well by 
 conquest ; but only little and inadequately 
 by nurture. May her power and per- 
 fection in this matter daily increase I 
 Thousands ought to be, might be, must 
 be, thus gathered into our fold.'
 
 Early Years 21 
 
 From the day on which he joined 
 the Methodist church to the day of his 
 death, Samuel Coley maintained' the 
 blessedness of peace with God and purity 
 of heart and life. The altar of his soul was 
 never desecrated by strange, unhallowed 
 fires. His vision of divine things was 
 never blurred by vicious living. His 
 conscience was never darkened by bitter 
 memories of past transgression. He was 
 one of that happy number who did not 
 know what it was to be a hindrance to 
 the soul of another ; who never took 
 advantage of another's frailty, or poverty, 
 or ignorance ; who never stained the 
 thought or life of another ; who did not 
 extend the empire of evil by a single 
 hair's-breadth, but only the empire of 
 purity and good. 
 
 In certain reminiscences of his child- 
 hood, recorded in after years, we read : 
 'The first book I remember to have 
 read was the Pilgrim's Progress, which I 
 accepted literally, and received without 
 any misgiving. I even thought I knew
 
 22 Samuel Coley 
 
 the way to start. It lay, I believed, 
 through King's Norton Wood. The 
 second book I remember was Robinson 
 Crusoe, which gave me quite a penchant 
 for cave-digging, and led me to furnish 
 up a deserted pig-stye as my would-be 
 island home. The next book I remember 
 was the Life of Sir William Wallace, the 
 fiery patriotism of which made me a 
 terrible hater of tyrants. The first litera- 
 ture I ever bought was the first number 
 of the Saturday Magazine, to which I 
 became a subscriber. The first volume 
 was a book called the Wonders of Nature 
 and Art. My first schoolmaster was an 
 old man of the name of Arrowsmith. 
 He lived to hear me preach, and gladly 
 listened to his old pupil.' 
 
 Love of Knowledge 
 
 The young Samuel gained the elements 
 of his education at three private schools in 
 Birmingham, in the last of which, so great 
 had been his proficiency, that he assisted 
 in teaching. Even then study was to him
 
 Early Years 23 
 
 no task-work, but a delight. Then, as in 
 after life, books were among his chief 
 sources of enjoyment. At the age of four- 
 teen he was well acquainted with the works 
 of Wesley, Fletcher, Richard Watson, and 
 some of the Puritans. The fact is, that 
 the vital religion which had purified his 
 heart had also quickened and exalted his 
 intellect. In him the words were fulfilled, 
 ' The entrance of God's Word giveth light, 
 yea, it giveth understanding to the simple.' 
 The foundation of his mastery as a thinker 
 was laid in his knowledge of Holy Writ, 
 and, however wide the reach of his studies 
 in after years, the Word of God was the 
 centre on which they all converged. By 
 this Word his thoughts were raised above 
 the trivial and the mean. He shared, in 
 common with all sacred thinkers, 
 
 A deeper transport and a mightier thrill, 
 Than come from commerce with mortality. 
 
 And that which elevated him in thought 
 also elevated him in life. He borrowed 
 the riches of eternity for the ennobling of
 
 24 Samuel Coley 
 
 the poverty of time. You cannot get 
 grandeur into a man until you have in 
 some way allied him to infinity and im- 
 mortality. The oak cannot flourish or 
 reach its natural growth in a flower-pot. 
 You must give it the free winds and the 
 immeasurable sky. So is it with human 
 life. To reach its true proportions it 
 must have heaven about it, and eternity 
 beyond it. 
 
 At this period young Coley's thirst for 
 knowledge was intense, and led him to 
 prolong his vigils far into the night. And 
 his eagerness to impart knowledge was as 
 marked as his passion to acquire it. His 
 acquisitions were not a miser's hoard. 
 He was as ready to distribute his wealth 
 as to gather it. To him, from the first, 
 teaching was a delight. He coveted no 
 deeper joy. 
 
 One who met with him in Christian 
 fellowship during those early years, wrote : 
 1 Supreme in our class was Mr. Coley, 
 though but a youth during his member- 
 ship ; of beautiful classic mind, richly
 
 Early Years 25 
 
 stored with knowledge. His master, at 
 whose side he worked as an apprentice, 
 said to me, "Coley is a walking cyclopaedia." 
 Mr. Coley see'riied to me, who up to the 
 time of my conversion had neglected self- 
 culture, a library in himself a circulating 
 library too, for being ready to communicate, 
 he brought out of his treasury things new 
 and old, with great fluency, in his own 
 felicitous style. His language was choice, 
 and gave a charm to common things ; 
 whatsoever he touched he turned to gold. 
 Altogether he was head and shoulders 
 above us all, and a marvel to many, 
 reminding me of two graphic lines in* 
 Goldsmith's "Village Schoolmaster," 
 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 
 I have not only a great admiration for 
 Mr. Coley, but also a great and loving 
 remembrance of him, for by a few kind 
 words he led me to a saving knowledge of 
 Jesus Christ.' 
 
 It was evident to his parents, as well as 
 to all who came into personal contact
 
 26 Samuel Coley 
 
 with him, that this godly youth, who was 
 also a born teacher, would be eventually 
 called to the Christian ministry. The 
 winning of daily bread was, however, 
 his first business ; and to this end, when 
 little more than fourteen years of age, he 
 was apprenticed to a gun engraver in his 
 native town of Birmingham. In the work- 
 shop in which he toiled he was exposed 
 to many temptations and suffered con- 
 siderable persecution. But he stood 'firm 
 as the beaten anvil to the stroke.' Some 
 of the men were infidels of sufficient 
 intelligence to wield the negative arguments 
 of Voltaire and his English disciple Tom 
 Paine. This sent the studious youth to 
 the works of Chalmers, Paley, Butler, and 
 other defenders of the faith, thus grounding 
 him in that mastery of Christian Evidence 
 which served him so well, both in the 
 pulpit and the lecture-room, in after years. 
 
 Early Service for Christ 
 
 About the same time he began to be an 
 active worker in Christ's vineyard. A
 
 Early Years 27 
 
 Scripture Reading Association had been 
 formed ; a number of converted youths 
 met together on Sunday afternoons and 
 went with others who were older to read 
 and pray in various houses in the neigh- 
 bourhood. He became a member of this 
 band. One who frequently went with 
 him writes, 1 1 was astonished at his 
 ability in expounding the Word of God 
 with such clearness, force, and freshness. 
 As a prayer-leader he had much power, 
 and a way of speaking so directly to God, 
 that it was evident to those who heard 
 him that he understood the secret of 
 prevailing prayer.' He began to preach 
 when about sixteen. He used to tell a 
 story about one of his earliest services. 
 He felt very anxious that a youth who had 
 been to the same school with him should 
 be led to the Saviour, and he prayed 
 specially for him, every day, for a fortnight. 
 The youth attended the service, perhaps 
 out of curiosity, to hear how his old 
 schoolfellow would preach ; and in the 
 prayer-meeting afterwards came forward
 
 28 Samuel Coley 
 
 to the communion-rail as a penitent, 
 became converted, and afterwards entered 
 the ministry. 
 
 Samuel Coley gradually attracted round 
 him a number of Christian young men, 
 some of whom became his special friends 
 and met at his father's house for conversa- 
 tion and prayer once a week. One who 
 attended these meetings reports : ' Joyous 
 of heart and of a very affectionate disposi- 
 tion, he seemed to know, as by a delicate 
 instinct, where cheerfulness ended and 
 levity began, and was always able to keep 
 within the boundary. In those gatherings 
 we talked freely of books and topics of 
 thought which made known to us his clear 
 and logical mind. But nothing is better 
 remembered than the manner in which he 
 would lead us into conversation on the 
 deeper spiritual truths of the gospel and 
 engage us in prayer for a richer experience 
 of those truths. Those evenings with 
 Samuel Coley, at his father's house, are to 
 those of us who were favoured with them 
 bright spots in the past.'
 
 Early Years 29 
 
 On October 10, 1841, atTipton, he, for 
 the first time, heard his cousin, Thomas 
 Collins, preach. It was a memorable day 
 in his spiritual history. He, himself, in 
 his Life of Thomas Collins, tells how 
 the preacher again and again pressed the 
 question, ' Wilt thou not be made clean ? 
 When shall it once be ? ' At last he was 
 enabled to answer, not only with the lips, 
 but with the soul, ' Now.' He adds, ' It 
 was no flash of enthusiasm, it was a work 
 of the Holy Ghost. Its force is still 
 unexpended. That " now " stirs me yet. 
 Nor ever since that memorable time has 
 my faith dared to procrastinate, or say 
 anything but "now" to all sanctifying 
 offers of the promise-keeping God.' 
 
 In 1844, being then nineteen, he became 
 a candidate for the ministry, and was 
 accepted by the Conference. But he was 
 not yet out of his apprenticeship, and his 
 master was not willing to give up so 
 valuable a workman as he promised to be. 
 Fifty pounds was demanded for the can- 
 celling of his indentures. Unwilling to
 
 30 Samuel Coley 
 
 lay this burden -upon his parents, he made 
 it a matter of earnest prayer. Before 
 many weeks had elapsed a benevolent but 
 eccentric gentleman brought his mother 
 fifty pounds to be expended in any way 
 she desired. Thus the difficulty was 
 removed, and the devoted youth was called 
 from the bench of the engraver in steel to 
 print as with ' an iron pen ' upon human 
 souls, words which shall endure 
 
 When the sun is cold and the stars are old, 
 And the books of the Judgement Day unfold. 
 
 College Life 
 
 In the September of 1844 Samuel 
 Coley was^ admitted to the Richmond 
 Branch of the Wesleyan Theological 
 Institution, where he remained for three 
 years. Here his blameless life, his 
 diligence in study, and his remarkable 
 gifts as a preacher, won the admiration 
 and regard of all who knew him. His 
 trial sermon at the College Chapel, 
 preached soon after his entrance, made a 
 great impression on his fellow students. 
 There was a ripeness and maturity about
 
 Early Years 31 
 
 it which seemed truly extraordinary in 
 one so young. And this was a striking 
 characteristic of his early ministry. 
 
 As we grow older we are apt to become 
 impatient with the utterances of youth. 
 The confidence and assurance, which is 
 largely based on ignorance, frets and 
 chafes us. We long for the words of one 
 who has wrestled in solitude with the 
 great problems of human life and destiny ; 
 who has fought with the demons of doubt 
 and -temptation in no martial posture, but 
 on his knees ; who has suffered and wept 
 as we have wept and suffered. Such, 
 however, was the depth of this young 
 student's spiritual experience that this 
 irritating immaturity was never felt, even 
 by the aged in his congregations. When 
 he stood before the people it was evident 
 that he had come from the divine presence- 
 chamber to speak to men that, indeed, 
 he had followed for himself the counsel 
 given in a letter to a brother minister : 
 * Go and talk with God on the mount of 
 prayer, and then descend with shining
 
 32 Samuel Coley 
 
 face and transfigured soul to bless the 
 waiting multitudes beneath.' Of those 
 college days a fellow student writes : ' I 
 remember his holy life at Richmond. It 
 has been a blessing to me all through my 
 ministry.' 
 
 At college Mr. Coley was extremely 
 delicate in appearance, more so, indeed, 
 than in reality. Some feared as to 
 whether the devout and serious youth, 
 whose features were literally 'sicklied o'er 
 by the pale cast of thought,' would ever 
 live to enter into the full ministry. 
 Appointed on one occasion, during his 
 student life, to preach in a prosperous 
 town in Bedfordshire, it was arranged 
 that he should stay with a widow lady 
 who was highly sensitive and nervous. 
 On his arrival at the house the lady was 
 so startled by his delicate appearance that 
 she feared to entertain him ; with the 
 result that she sent a note to one of the 
 officers of the church entreating him to 
 receive the student into his own house. 
 To this he consented. After Mr. Coley
 
 Early Years 33 
 
 had preached on the Sunday morning, 
 such was the effect of the sermon on the 
 lady referred to, that she begged that he 
 might be permitted to return to her for 
 the remaining period of his sojourn in the 
 town. ' No, madam,' replied his host, 
 ' I find I have entertained an angel un- 
 awares ; and such is the sacred influence 
 of his presence in my home I could not 
 surrender him to you on any consideration.' 
 
 One of his student friends at Richmond 
 was the manly and vigorous John Walton, 
 who rendered such splendid service to 
 Methodism in after years. ' Friend Coley,' 
 he would say, 'when you stand up to 
 preach you look so fragile that the people 
 expect nothing from you. The result is 
 that when they hear you they are filled 
 with astonishment. Now, on the contrary, 
 when I stand up they expect so much 
 from a man of my appearance that they 
 are never astonished and sometimes dis- 
 appointed.' 
 
 As a student Mr. Coley was only too 
 diligent. In the record of his college days 
 
 3
 
 34 Samuel Coley 
 
 stories are told by his friends of the 
 difficulty they had in persuading him to 
 leave his desk for a run in the open air. 
 Even the view from Richmond Hill, one 
 of the most enchanting in beautiful 
 England, could hardly tempt him from 
 his beloved tasks. 
 
 His salient mental gifts were : great 
 soundness of judgement ; unusual powers 
 of abstraction and generalization; a 
 marvellously capacious and retentive 
 memory ; and a bright fancy, ever ready 
 to cast its light over the sombre steps of 
 reason. To these gifts were added that 
 quickness of mental insight which unearths 
 hidden truths ; that keenness of logical 
 analysis which tracks specious fallacies ; 
 an intellect which, at once subtle and 
 profound, could ' spin the gossamers as 
 well as forge the anchors of the mind ' ; 
 and a moral discernment continually 
 clarified by holy living and blessed 
 intercourse with God. During his college 
 life he was bereaved of both his parents. 
 Of this double loss he wrote : ' I feel my-
 
 Early Years 35 
 
 self now to be peculiarly the Lord's. He 
 is my Father. He loves me more tenderly 
 than a mother. He is my portion and 
 my all.' 
 
 O blessed is the fatherhood which, when 
 it passes hence, leaves its offspring 
 consciously folded in the arms of the 
 Divine Father ; and the motherhood whose 
 pity and fidelity suggest 
 
 The love which reaches infinite degrees 
 Beyond the tenderness of human hearts.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CIRCUIT LIFE
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 Malice is anger gone cold. 
 
 Selfishness is as greedy as the sea and as barren 
 as the shore. 
 
 Some professors are like the moon, very little light, 
 less heat, and many changes. 
 
 Cicero complains, Homer makes gods act like 
 men. Grace makes men act like gods. 
 
 The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are 
 the greatest men. 
 
 A man cannot be eloquent for atheism. In that 
 exhausted receiver the mind cannot use its wings. 
 
 We never know the true value of our friends. 
 While they live with us we are too conscious of their 
 faults ; when we have lost them we see only their 
 virtues. 
 
 A great step is gained when a child has learnt 
 that there is necessary connexion between liking a 
 thing and doing it. 
 
 He who does evil that good may come pays a toll 
 to the devil to let him into heaven. 
 
 Never fight with a sweep. You cannot blacken 
 him, but he may blacken you. 
 , A man is no greater than God thinks him. 
 
 To a farmer who went to market extremely 
 anxious not to be cheated, a philosopher said that 
 when he became just as anxious not to cheat another, 
 his market-wagon would be as splendid as the 
 
 chariot of the sun. 
 
 SAMUEL COLEY.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CIRCUIT LIFE 
 
 IN the year 1847 Samuel Coley left 
 college and began his work as a Wesleyan 
 minister in circuit life. So sincere was 
 his attachment to the Church of his 
 adoption that she never had among all her 
 sons one more devoted to her interests 
 or more powerful in her defence. He 
 loved his own communion with a love 
 which amounted to a passion, was proud 
 of its high position among the Protestant 
 churches of Christendom, jealous of its 
 honour, and chivalrous in its defence. 
 His attachment to Methodism was based, 
 not merely on the fact that he was cradled 
 in it, but on an intelligent conviction of 
 its marvellous wisdom as a system of 
 church order, adapted to all circumstances 
 and to all time. He repudiated altogether 
 the idea that it was a mere evangelical 
 
 39
 
 40 Samuel Coley 
 
 revival destined to die out with the heat 
 of its first fervours ; on the contrary, he 
 saw in it those elements which, on the 
 scientific principle of the survival of the 
 fittest, stamped it as something which was 
 destined to endure, and not only to endure, 
 but to spread, until the wide world should 
 become in deed and in truth the parish of 
 its great Founder. He specially delighted 
 in its sympathy with the spirit and genius 
 of primitive Christianity as attested by its 
 evangelical earnestness and universal 
 charity ; in its clearly defined scriptural 
 system of doctrine, with its power to 
 maintain it in its integrity ; in its unrivalled 
 hymnology, by which the shafts of truth 
 are feathered with the wings of holy song ; 
 in the purity of its discipline, combining 
 swiftness of action with absolute fairness 
 of trial and the greatest possible economy ; 
 in those peculiarities of church order 
 which enable it to be so aggressive in its 
 work yet so watchful over the spiritual 
 interests of each individual member ; in 
 its unswerving faithfulness to the great
 
 Circuit Life 41 
 
 principles of the Protestant Reformation ; 
 in the liberality of its laity, combined with 
 the incalculable wealth of their unpaid 
 labour ; and in the genial and noble 
 brotherhood of a ministry within the ranks 
 of which the words of the Master pass 
 into the splendour of a literal fulfilment, 
 ' He that is greatest among you let him 
 be your servant.' For a defence of 
 Wesleyan Methodism against Anglicans 
 without and dissidents within, I know 
 of nothing in the literature of our Church 
 which excels in convincing force the 
 former part of the twelfth chapter of 
 Mr. Coley's Life of Thomas Collins. Let 
 those who desire to form some adequate 
 estimate of the argumentative ability of 
 the subject of this sketch turn to these 
 pages pages which should be read and 
 re-read by every Methodist, whether at 
 home or abroad. 
 
 Mr. Coley's first appointment was to 
 Hastings, where he found a sphere of 
 labour admirably adapted to his powers, 
 and where, after the lapse of forty years,
 
 42 Samuel Coley 
 
 some of his sayings are quoted with delight 
 by the veterans of the church. The facility 
 with which his sermons were remembered, 
 and the length of time for which they 
 were retained, formed, indeed, one of the 
 special characteristics of his ministry. 
 
 In one of his addresses, that strenuous 
 thinker and missioner, the Rev. Samuel 
 Chadwick, says : 
 
 'The sermon which made the pro- 
 foundest impression on me I heard when 
 I was not more than ten years of age. 
 Samuel Coley was the preacher. I was a 
 little chap in a big chapel at the back of 
 the gallery. He talked about the "lily 
 among thorns," and I remember some 
 things he said as though it were yesterday. 
 He quoted the first Psalm. When he 
 came to the sentence, "And whatsoever 
 he doeth shall prosper," he said, " It is 
 not what he thinks he will do, not what 
 he hopes, and is going to do, not what he 
 half does, not what he does ten minutes 
 too late, but whatsoever he doeth promptly 
 and thoroughly and heartily, and with
 
 Circuit Life 43 
 
 both hands, to the Lord, it shall prosper." ' 
 After spending two years in Hastings 
 Mr. Coley went to Southwark as assistant 
 to the Rev. T. C. Ingle, and there he met 
 the elect lady to whom he was united in 
 marriage in the August of 1850. Highly 
 strung, and naturally of a retiring dis- 
 position, Mrs. Coley was little known 
 beyond the confines of home ; but her 
 devotion, both as a wife and a mother, 
 was beyond all praise. The lines of 
 James Russell Lowell might fitly have 
 been ascribed to this faithful helpmeet 
 of a hardworking minister of Christ : 
 
 No simplest duty is forgot, 
 Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
 That doth not in her sunshine share. 
 
 She doeth little kindnesses 
 
 Which most leave undone, or despise ; 
 
 For naught that sets one's heart at ease 
 
 And giveth happiness or peace, 
 
 Is low esteemed in her eyes. 
 
 As a result of this union two sons were 
 born, the elder of whom is a Wesleyan 
 minister, and the younger a physician in 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne.
 
 44 Samuel Coley 
 
 At the Conference of 1850 Mr. Coley 
 was ordained and appointed to the 
 Nottingham Wesley circuit. Owing to 
 the disastrous Reform movement the 
 church there was in such a depressed 
 condition that a deputation of its officers 
 waited on the Conference to plead for the 
 withdrawal of their third minister, as they 
 could not see their way to his support. 
 During the services held at the Conference 
 town, however, they heard Mr. Coley 
 preach, and wisely resolved to receive him 
 with open arms. 
 
 It was a time of strife and division, and 
 the heart of the young minister was bruised 
 and torn by what he described as the 
 ' havoc, blasting, and desolation/ which 
 fell upon the Church he loved so well. 
 But by the gentle forbearance of ' a meek 
 and quiet spirit,' he disarmed opposition 
 and alleviated bitterness and rebellion. 
 
 One incident of these mournful days is 
 worth recording. After preaching at a 
 prosperous village near Nottingham, Mr. 
 Coley met the united classes of the place
 
 Circuit Life 45 
 
 for the renewal of their tickets of member- 
 ship in the Society. They all, with one 
 consent, refused their usual contributions 
 for the support of the ministry. Calm 
 and collected, the young preacher said : 
 ' You have resolved, then, to join in the 
 cry of " stop the supplies," and to starve 
 the servants of the Lord. I will not argue 
 with you in your present mood ; but, 
 before we part, let us pray together.' He 
 then knelt down, and with tears in his 
 voice pleaded with God that the bitter 
 strife which was blighting and dividing 
 His Church might cease, and that those 
 present might be blessed and brought to a 
 better mind. Deeply moved by the 
 sorrow and the tenderness of the young 
 preacher, on his retirement the people, 
 without exception, renewed their con- 
 tributions for the maintenance of the 
 ministry, and ceased from further strife. 
 Such was the spirit continually manifested 
 by this Christ-like man, and thus did he 
 ever seek 'to still the enemy and the 
 avenger.'
 
 46 Samuel Coley 
 
 Thoughtful Eloquence 
 
 After three years of service in Notting- 
 ham, crowned with special blessing in the 
 healing of divisions and the winning of 
 souls, Mr. Coley was appointed to the 
 Stockport (Tiviot Dale) circuit. Here he 
 spent three years of a consecrated and 
 successful ministry, removing at the end 
 of that period to the Oxford Road circuit, 
 Manchester. 
 
 As far as it can be traced it was during 
 these six years of ministerial service in 
 Lancashire, ranging from 1856 to 1862, 
 that a change took place in his pulpit style. 
 The natural bent of his mind was meta- 
 physical, analytical, logical. His early 
 preaching was a model of close reasoning, 
 not seldom kindling into that glow of 
 genuine eloquence which has been aptly 
 described as ' logic on fire.' The Rev. 
 Dr. Dixon, one of the severest of critics, 
 characterized his trial sermon ' as one of 
 the best he had ever heard from a young 
 man, remarkable alike for thought and 
 expression.' It seemed, indeed, at one
 
 Circuit Life 47 
 
 time, as if he were destined to excel as a 
 master of rhetoric and finished oratory. 
 
 The following extract from one of his 
 early Missionary speeches illustrates our 
 point : 
 
 THE ' NEW SONG ' 
 
 ' St. John foreheard it, as it will be the 
 universal song of this world. Not like 
 that of the nightingale, confined to 
 peculiar districts or sung only in solitary 
 shades, the habitable globe shall vibrate 
 as the heart of one man with the strain, 
 "Worthy is the Lamb 1 " There are lands 
 it has not yet reached, but it is on its 
 way and will reach them as the light of 
 farthest stars does earth. In Asia the 
 songs of the people were idolatrous, but 
 soon the harps of Diana were broken 
 publicly on her altars. In Corinth, Ephesus, 
 and Cyprus, the praise of Bacchus rang 
 from every lyre. In the myrtle shades and 
 on the vine-clad hills of Sicily, praises to the 
 foam-born and abandoned Venus were 
 sounded forth without secrecy or shame. 
 But the " Song of the Lamb" soon silenced
 
 48 Samuel Coley 
 
 the impure odes of Anacreon and ended 
 the orgies of Cybele. Yea, many of those 
 who had joined in them, joined in it, and 
 Paul said : " Such were some of you, but 
 ye are washed, ye are sanctified." In 
 Athens, all songs, from Hesiod's to 
 Homer's, were devoted to deified men, or 
 to imaginary gods, worse than men, but 
 they faltered and failed before the " Song of 
 the Lamb." Plato said : " It is difficult to 
 find out the Creator of the universe, and 
 when we have found Him, it is impossible 
 to make Him known to the multitude." 
 The "New Song," at first, had but a 
 feeble choir "Dionysius the Areopagite, 
 a woman named Damaris, and others 
 with them " ; but ere long, Christian 
 craftsmen knew and taught what Plato 
 thought impossible, and the "New Song" 
 silenced the orchestra of heathenism. In 
 Rome the eloquent lyrics of Horace and 
 the licentious songs of Ovid, the praise of 
 bloody idols, and the tribute of servile 
 poets to lustful and cruel Emperors, rang 
 from palace to palace and from shrine to
 
 Circuit Life 49 
 
 shrine, while vice and error waxed full- 
 orbed in the vile nest of the Caesars. But 
 the " New Song " swelled upward from 
 rank to rank, until from the low hum as 
 of the imprisoned bee, it became as " the 
 sound of many waters." ' 
 
 Now take in contrast with this early 
 outburst of prose-poetry the following 
 thoughtful and suggestive outline of a 
 speech, which may be headed 
 
 AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN. 
 
 ' " Freely ye have received, freely give." 
 We are debtors to the world, to illuminate 
 and evangelize it. In proof of this, 
 consider (i) Our Geographical Position. 
 Herschel declared England to be the 
 centre of the terrene globe. Test it for 
 yourselves. Take a globe. Bring London 
 to the zenith, and you will find that of all 
 spots it is the nearest, the most accessible, 
 and the most central of all the cities of 
 the earth. Emerson said that " England 
 resembled a ship in shape." Were it one, 
 the ablest Admiral could not have brought 
 
 4
 
 50 Samuel Coley 
 
 it up to a more effective position. Anchored 
 at the side of Europe, near enough to see 
 her harvests wave, but remote enough to 
 defy her armies. (2) Our Race. Lordly 
 Roman, tiery Celt, patient, indomitable 
 Saxon, storm-braving Viking, chivalrous 
 Norman, blend in him. (3) Our vast 
 Colonial Empire. Unlike Greece, or Italy, 
 or Egypt, Britain lies not in a Mediter- 
 ranean, bounded by a surrounding shore 
 which may be coasted by timid mariners, 
 but on the very lip and verge of the wide 
 waste of waters. Her sailors, if they 
 launch at all, must launch out on the 
 brave old ocean, daring its western waves, 
 its winter tempests, its fogs like palpable 
 darkness, and all the dangers common to 
 the mighty and changeful sea. Britain is 
 the mother of nations. Commerce is her 
 vocation and colonization the law of her 
 progress. She has sailed east, west, 
 north, and south, and planted empires. 
 The United States, now her compeer, is 
 her offshoot. Canada, New Zealand, 
 Australia, and Africa, are fast filling with
 
 Circuit Life 51 
 
 her sons. Ceylon and the Mauritius she 
 occupies for trade. India obeys the 
 whisper of her throne, and is being covered 
 by a network of laws woven in her 
 Anglo-Saxon loom. Japan opens at her 
 word, and China refuses intercourse no 
 more. Her cannon command the 
 entrance to the Mediterranean, the chops 
 of the Persian Gulf, the mouth of the Red 
 Sea, and the straits of Malacca. Her 
 ships whiten every sea. Her Consuls live 
 in every port. Her Ambassadors speak 
 before every throne. Europeans, Asiatics, 
 Africans, Americans, and Australians, take 
 her pay, eat her bread, do her work, fight 
 her battles, and extend her fame. (4) Our 
 Unequalled Influence. The result of power, 
 freedom, wealth, and character. (5) Our 
 Rich Heritage of Spiritual Advantage. 
 Depositories, guardians, and dispensers 
 of divine truth. (6) Our Language. The 
 tongue which Shakespeare spake, which 
 Milton consecrated, and which seems 
 destined to become the universal speech.' 
 As a further specimen of thoughtful
 
 52 Samuel Coley 
 
 eloquence we append the following out- 
 line of 
 
 A PLEA FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 'Once more the Church of Christ is 
 awake, and has set forth on her errand of 
 catholic mercy, and pledged herself to rest 
 no more until the world is leavened with 
 truth and won for her redeeming Lord. 
 The breadth of the modern missionary 
 movement marked the divinity of the 
 impulse which originated it. It stirred 
 the heart of Moravian and Baptist, Prelatist 
 and Presbyterian, Independent and Wes- 
 leyan alike. The progress of maritime 
 discovery and the increase of intercourse 
 with remote parts of the earth were 
 secular preparations for missions. Young 
 men, do you sometimes tremble for 
 the ark of God amid the convulsions 
 of the age ? Let the noble daring and 
 God-honouring faith of the fathers and 
 founders of our various societies encourage 
 you. Those were not halcyon days in 
 which they pledged their fealty to this 
 glorious cause. It was amid the strange
 
 Circuit Life 53 
 
 hurly-burly of nations which followed the 
 French Revolution they sent forth their 
 messengers of peace and goodwill. 
 Tempest and thunder filled the air, and 
 fiery were the stars that gleamed in the 
 horoscope of the birth of modern missions. 
 They were cradled for conquest and 
 empire amid storms. 
 
 ' If it be asked whether modern missions 
 have accomplished anything, we reply (i) 
 Missions have furnished the age with its 
 most touching illustrations of Christian 
 principles. Sceptics may doubt, but peni- 
 tent pagans believe. (2) Missions have 
 enlarged the circle of Christian fellowship 
 and prayer ; they have made the Church 
 beautiful by exercising her charities, and 
 strong by distant alliance. (3) Missions 
 have followed the track of the navigator, 
 anticipated the researches of the traveller, 
 outstripped the enterprises of commerce, 
 kindled the gospel lamp in the emigrant's 
 home, and preached salvation to the 
 perishing pagan. (4) Missions have ren- 
 dered theology more practical and less
 
 54 Samuel Coley 
 
 polemic, made good men more inclined to 
 work for a world than to contend for 
 a word. (5) Missions have already ground 
 many a grim Moloch, quenched the fires 
 of Suttee, broken the fetters of the slave, 
 gathered wanderers into towns, given 
 elevation, strength, purity, and permanence 
 to languages, originated literatures, erected 
 markets, and laid the foundations of 
 Empires. (6) Missions have blessed the 
 world. As Peter walked at eventide his 
 lengthened shadow fell on the gathered 
 sick in the streets of Jerusalem and healed 
 as it swept over them ; so Christianity 
 goes through the world a sweet spirit of 
 life and health, and fallen nations start up 
 and live. The Missionary enterprise can- 
 not fail. Devouring flames may destroy 
 the trees of the forest, but cannot harm 
 the bush of Horeb. Ships of Tarshish 
 may founder, but the ark of God will 
 outlive every storm.' 
 
 The Illustrative Preacher 
 
 Such was the class and style of cultured
 
 Circuit Life 55 
 
 and suggestive oratory which the subject 
 of our sketch wielded in the earlier period 
 of his ministry. 
 
 In later years, however, mainly in- 
 fluenced by his cousin, the Rev. Thomas 
 Collins, he renounced, in a large degree, 
 his metaphysics and his rhetoric, and 
 adopted in preaching that unique and 
 illustrative style for which he became so 
 famous through the length and breadth 
 of the land. In this change of method 
 we recognize an act of intellectual self- 
 sacrifice which we cannot choose but 
 honour. Not for his own delight was 
 this change made, but for the glory of 
 God and for the deepening of his influence 
 on the masses. 'With a wondrous 
 simplicity,' says the late Rev. Robert 
 Newton Young, ' instead of weaving 
 attenuated webs of fancy, of extreme 
 delicacy and beauty, as he could have 
 done, he confined himself to setting forth 
 the central truths of Christianity in a 
 popular form. . . . He asserted over and 
 over again that he should never have
 
 56 Samuel Coley 
 
 deviated from his early style, but for the 
 deliberate conviction that God had given 
 him powers in the other direction, which 
 could be used with greater and more 
 general effect.' 
 
 This conviction was amply justified by 
 the result. It lent such an entrancing 
 charm to his succeeding ministry that 
 'old men and maidens, young men 
 and children' were alike led captive 
 by his spell. He illumined and enforced 
 saving truth with a profusion of 
 anecdote, a wealth of classical allusion, 
 an affluence of apt and felicitous quotation, 
 a fund of ready wit, and a winsome 
 simplicity of familiar incident, which 
 charmed his hearers and made the hour 
 devoted to his sermons glide away almost 
 imperceptibly. The range of his illus- 
 trations on the various themes with which 
 he dealt was so wide that, as one has said, 
 ' in listening to him the hearer might 
 well suppose that the preacher had read 
 everything, had heard everything, had 
 thought about everything ; and that all
 
 Circuit Life 57 
 
 his gathering of knowledge, of wisdom, 
 and of experience had been made with 
 special reference to the delivery of that 
 one sermon.' 
 
 Neither were his anecdotes and illus- 
 trations dragged into his sermons without 
 rhyme or reason. They were all used to 
 illustrate the point in hand. 
 
 To attempt a selection of his illustrations 
 presents an embarrassment of riches 
 seldom encountered by the biographer. 
 Many volumes of this limited order might 
 be profitably filled by them. The follow- 
 ing, however, must suffice : 
 
 When preaching once on ' Life's 
 mysteries,' he said : ' A little girl was 
 taking her father's dinner in a basket with 
 a white cloth over it, and a passer-by 
 asked her what she had in the basket, and 
 she replied, " If my mother wanted you to 
 know, she would not have placed a white 
 cloth over it." 
 
 THE MURDERER-TREE 
 
 ' In Brazil there grows a common plant,
 
 58 Samuel Coley 
 
 which forest-dwellers call the Matador, 
 or Murderer. Its slender stem creeps at 
 first along the ground, but no sooner does 
 it meet a vigorous tree than, with a 
 clinging grasp, it cleaves to it and climbs, 
 and as it climbs, keeps at short intervals 
 sending out arm-like tendrils that embrace 
 the tree. As the "murderer" ascends, 
 these ligatures grow larger and clasp 
 tighter. Up and up it climbs, a hundred 
 feet, nay, two hundred if need be, until 
 the -last, loftiest spire is gained and fettered. 
 Then, as if in triumph, the parasite shoots 
 a flowery head above the strangled 
 summit ; and thence, from the dead tree's 
 crown, scatters" its seed to do again the 
 work of death. Even thus, worldliness 
 has strangled more churches than ever 
 persecution broke.' 
 
 CHRIST REVEALING GOD 
 
 'Jesus Christ not only redeemed the 
 world, but He also revealed the Father. 
 God's work in creation was a going forth 
 in the darkness. The listening universe
 
 Circuit Life 59 
 
 heard the roll of His chariot-wheels and 
 beheld the manifestations of His power 
 and wisdom, but His face was not seen. 
 It is as though there once lived a mighty 
 monarch of the gorgeous East whose 
 people had seen his armies, heard of his 
 fame, and studied his mighty works, but 
 the monarch himself they had not seen, 
 as he rode from his palace only in the 
 night. On one memorable night, how- 
 ever, as he comes forth, a costly jewel 
 falls from his diadem into the dust. 
 Torches are lit to recover the lost gem, 
 and the light which finds the jewel reveals 
 the face of the seeking king. Thus does 
 the gospel light, which finds the lost 
 jewel of our world, reveal the countenance 
 of the seeker God.' 
 
 THE ETERNAL CHRIST 
 
 1 When Ptolemy built Pharos he would 
 have his name upon it, but Sostratus, the 
 architect, did not think that the king, 
 who only paid the money, should get all 
 the credit, while he had none ; so he put
 
 60 Samuel Coley 
 
 the king's name on the front in plaster, 
 but underneath, in the eternal granite, he 
 cut deeply enough " Sostratus." The sea 
 dashed against the plaster and chipped off 
 bit by bit. I dare say it lasted out 
 the time of Ptolemy, but by-and-by 
 the plaster was all chipped off, and 
 there stood the name " Sostratus." I 
 am not sure that there ai 3 e"~n6t waves 
 that will chip off all human names from 
 the church of Christ, but I am quite 
 sure that the one name of Christ shall 
 last.' 
 
 RELIGION AND LIGHT 
 
 1 Just as the sun gleams over the palace 
 
 and into the cottage, flushing alike with 
 
 its splendour the council-chamber of the 
 
 monarch and the kitchen of the peasant ; 
 
 i as the all -pervasive light fills the vast 
 
 I dome of the sky and the tiny cup of the 
 
 1 flower ; so religion illumines at once the 
 
 heaven of our hopes and the earth of our 
 
 cares. Secularities become hallowed ; 
 
 toil brightens with the smile of God ; 
 
 business becomes crystalline ; light from.
 
 Circuit Life 61 
 
 God comes through it to us, glances from 
 us go through it to God.' 
 
 THE LIFE OF FAITH 
 
 ' Have you ever thought of the life of a 
 child ? Why, the life of a child is a 
 perfect life of faith. That little child 
 what can that little child do ? Why, 
 that little child could not find its way to 
 the street end and back again. It would 
 be lost if you trusted it alone. That 
 little child could not find the next meal. 
 If you left that little child it would die of 
 want. That little child could not furnish 
 a shelter for its own head to-night, and 
 yet, has that little child any fear about it ? 
 Has that little child any sort of alarm 
 about it ? Not at all ! How comes it 
 that the child's life is the happy life it is ? 
 Because, instinctively and beautifully, it 
 is a life of faith. That child could not 
 buy the next loaf, but it has a firm belief 
 that "father" can. That child could not 
 provide for itself the garments for to- 
 morrow, but it has an unbounded belief
 
 62 Samuel Coley 
 
 in "father's" power to do it and mother's 
 power to do it. That child could not do 
 it for itself one day, but it never cost that 
 child a moment's concern. Its life is a 
 life of perfect faith in its parents.' 
 
 Pleas for Holiness 
 
 Another impressive feature of Mr. 
 Coley's ministry was his witness for 
 sanctity of heart and life. Personally 
 blessed and exalted by a living experience 
 of holiness an experience which placed 
 his whole being on the altar of consecra- 
 tion, constituted his home a sanctuary, 
 and hallowed every exercise of his 
 ministry he continually proclaimed it as 
 the privilege, and not only the privilege 
 but the duty, of all Christian believers. 
 He never declared the love of God with- 
 out calling for the response of perfect love 
 from the believer's heart. For him, the 
 gospel of mercy without the gospel of 
 holiness was as God's voice without echo 
 or answer. For him, perfect love in man 
 was but the natural reflex of Infinite love
 
 Circuit Life 63 
 
 in God. Under his ministry Christians 
 realized the solemn and awful beauty of 
 their calling. 
 
 The finest exposition of the doctrine of 
 the sanctification of believers which we 
 ever encountered was contained in a 
 sermon from his lips on the words, 
 ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God.' In that sermon he dealt, 
 first, with the theme, Purity of heart ; 
 second, with the affirmation, Blessed are 
 the pure ; third, with the wondrous 
 promise, They shall see God. ' The pure 
 in heart/ he said, ' are those in whom the 
 Holy Ghost has put forth the fullness of 
 His cleansing power. The effect on the 
 Understanding is that it is brought into 
 moral sympathy with God ; on the 
 Conscience, that it is illumined and made 
 tender ; on the Will, that it is harmonized 
 with the divine. The pure are blessed. 
 The union of joy with holiness is one 
 of the moral laws of the universe. 
 Demonstrated in Good men, Glorified 
 saints, Angels. If we inquire concerning
 
 64 Samuel Coley 
 
 its philosophy, it comes, By natural 
 sequence. Sanctity and blessedness have 
 the relation of cause and effect. The 
 process of purity removes the great causes 
 of misery : gnawings of remorse ; difficulty 
 of keeping up fair appearances with the 
 world ; carnal appetites ; evil passions, 
 such as pride, malice, envy, revenge ; 
 inordinate and foolish desires of wealth, 
 honour, power ; a divided purpose, which 
 always brings weakness. But, further, 
 the process of purity brings into the soul 
 all the elements of bliss : the resting of the 
 soul upon its centre ; warmth and pro- 
 tection under the shadow of the Almighty ; 
 a tranquil and approving conscience ; 
 peace through submission to the Highest. 
 The wondrous Promise, "They shall see 
 God." This is a promise for eternity. It 
 implies intimate converse with the Deity. 
 To see the King's face implies free inter- 
 course. The saints shall see God not 
 remotely, but face to face ; not transiently, 
 but with an abiding vision. He will not 
 confer on them one glorious flash of light,
 
 Circuit Life 65 
 
 but feed their immortality for evermore, 
 as the sun feeds the glory of the planets. 
 He will take them to Himself ; make them 
 companions of His eternity ; reflect Him- 
 self in them as the sun in the dew-drops. 
 The term " beatific vision " is a symbolic 
 phrase expressing the idea of a clear know- 
 ledge of God. Here we see but shadows 
 of His glory, and the reflex of His beauty, 
 but there we shall see " face to face." ' 
 
 Such is the brief, imperfect outline of 
 only a part of one of the finest sermons 
 we ever heard from consecrated lips. 
 
 In harmony with this message was Mr. 
 Coley's appeal to the Methodist Church 
 in his 'Annual Address of the Conference ' 
 issued in the year 1869. In this Address 
 he says : 
 
 ' Be spiritual. How else can you be 
 ready to take part in what Mr. Wesley 
 declared to be our vocation, namely, 
 " to spread Scriptural holiness through the 
 land " ? Dr. Clarke thought the great 
 religious movement, in the bosom of 
 which he found himself, more secure of 
 
 5
 
 66 Samuel Coley 
 
 permanence than any which had preceded 
 it, because, with new clearness, it opened 
 before the faith of believing men God's 
 gospel of purity. The reason is good if 
 we be faithful. But the sanctifying truth 
 committed to us, if we merely keep it 
 packed away in a definition, will be power- 
 less as a sheathed sword. It must be 
 made to tell upon life. Possibility of 
 perfection in love, if a doctrine to be 
 believed, must plainly be a duty to be 
 urged, and an experience to be enjoyed. 
 Though we put " perfect love " into our 
 creeds as carefully as hydrographers do 
 the North-west passage into their charts, 
 it will be with as little practical result so 
 long as we go not that way. 
 
 'Among teachers in the Church who 
 have left their mark on the ages, John 
 Wesley stands pre-eminent as the -great 
 divine of religious experience. His glo- 
 rious course began in himself with the 
 joys of personal salvation. His work was 
 not sharpening the corners of creeds, but 
 declaring the life of God. His great
 
 Circuit Life 67 
 
 labour the success he sought lay not in 
 the refutation of error, but in the 
 salvation of men. You look along his 
 track, not to find heresies crushed by his 
 logic so much as souls quickened by his 
 word.' 
 
 Then follows the beautiful exhortation 
 addressed to the people of his choice. 
 ' Prayer will work marvels yet. Let 
 us lay to heart the littleness of our 
 increase ; let us crowd our meetings 
 for prayer ; let us confess the whole 
 fault to be ours ; let us mourn before 
 the Lord ; let us plead with such desire 
 as swelled the great heart of John Knox, 
 when he cried, "O give me Scotland 
 or I die 1 " Unto us, as unto our fathers, 
 God will come. So shall we no longer 
 be unto Him as a snow-clad vineyard, 
 without fruit on the branches, or song in 
 the grove. He shall say, " Awake, O north 
 wind ; and come, thou south ; blow upon 
 My garden, that the spices thereof may 
 flow out." At that word the Spirit's 
 influence, as the breath of spring, shall
 
 68 Samuel Coley 
 
 "K ' ; 
 
 dissolve the frost. His vital ray shall 
 penetrate the soil, quicken every tree, and 
 touch into life, beauty, and fragrance every 
 flower. Then the Lord Himself will 
 walk again with joy in His paradise ; and 
 beneath His eye the lily shall vie in white- 
 ness with the light, the rose reflect the 
 ruddy beams of the morning, the vine put 
 forth her shoots, and the boughs be 
 purpled over with clustering grapes/ 

 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PASTORATE
 
 DUST OF GOLD 
 
 Sorrow brings out truths as night brings out stars. 
 
 Discontent with others almost always comes from 
 something wrong in ourselves. 
 
 He has little music in his soul who cannot sing to 
 another man's harp. 
 
 Godless science reads Nature only as Milton's 
 daughters read Hebrew : rightly syllabling the sen- 
 tences, but utterly ignorant of the meaning. 
 
 It requires the same power to melt the heart as to 
 make it. 
 
 The poorest beggar-babe transcends the sun in 
 excellence, for that glorious orb knows not what it 
 shines upon. 
 
 He who cannot live well to-day will be less quali- 
 fied to live well to-morrow. 
 
 Every day has moments which, like those stray 
 stars which lie outside all constellations, prove to 
 have been unincluded by the most careful morning 
 forecasts of engagement. One of these unpledged 
 life-fragments may be of small value ; but the sum of 
 such in a year constitutes an item of tremendous 
 importance. 
 
 The one cure for pride is the vision of God. 
 Mercury is one of the brightest of the planets, and 
 yet it is seldom seen. It rolls in an orbit so near to the 
 sun that during a great part of the year it is lost in 
 his beams. So the man who gets nearest God will 
 have'selfleast seen. 
 
 SAMUEL COLEY.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PASTORATE 
 
 UNLIKE some popular preachers, who 
 give their whole strength to pulpit work, 
 it never occurred to Mr. Coley that he was 
 called to be a preacher only. He made 
 ' full proof of his ministry,' and realized 
 the wealth of meaning contained in the 
 terms, ' Pastors and Teachers,' as found in. 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians. In his 
 Life of Thomas Collins he writes : ' None 
 will suppose me likely to rate the value of 
 preaching too low ; yet I say, woe comes 
 of it when the Church can discern nothing 
 in Christ's ambassadors except the glibbest 
 tongues of the brotherhood. They degrade 
 the vocation who see in it no other eleva- 
 tion than that of the rostrum stairs. 
 
 ' Who can tell the area of a room from 
 its length ? Give me also its breadth. 
 Thus, by square measure, did John Newton
 
 72 Samuel Coley 
 
 reckon clergy. " What, in the pulpit ? 
 What, out of it ? " Minister is a bigger 
 word than Preacher utters more ideas ; 
 covers a wider field of duty. Minister 
 servant of God ! Let none, moved by 
 vain ambition, desire upon himself that 
 label. It is a work-imposing, conscience- 
 quickening name. Men expect him to be 
 that Trinity in Unity Evangelist, Pastor, 
 Teacher, welded into one. Heaven help 
 us ! " Who is sufficient for these things ? " 
 But, through the grace of God, Samuel 
 Coley was found sufficient, as the writer, 
 who worked with him as a colleague in 
 the Birmingham Wesley circuit, can amply 
 testify. Despite his numerous public en- 
 gagements, occasioned by a popularity 
 which called for special service from every 
 district of the kingdom, he was frequently 
 found in the homes of his people, and was 
 specially regardful of the sick, the sorrow- 
 ing, and the poor. He exemplified in the 
 very noblest way the Apostle's fine defini- 
 tion of religion, which reads : l Pure 
 religion and undefined before our God and
 
 The Pastorate 73 
 
 Father is this, to visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 himself unspotted from the world.' 
 Neither did he mock the poverty of the 
 poor by visiting them with empty hands. 
 His gifts to them were truly lavish, con- 
 sidering his means. He moved among 
 them as one to whom, as Herbert puts it : 
 
 All earthly joys grow less 
 To the one joy of doing kindnesses. 
 
 He made a conscience of his appointments, 
 and was scrupulously careful not to dis- 
 courage the smaller and remoter places in 
 his circuits. 
 
 Another beautiful quality in this Christ- 
 like man was the way in which he would 
 seek out and encourage those who had 
 done good service in the church, but who, 
 by reason of age and retirement from 
 more active work, were in danger of being 
 overlooked and forgotten. 
 
 The Class-Leader 
 
 As a class-leader Mr. Coley was pre- 
 eminent. His deep spiritual experience
 
 74 Samuel Coley 
 
 and tender Christian sympathy constituted 
 the Society classes which he led in the 
 course of his ministry, a means of grace of 
 incalculable value. The counsels which 
 fell from his lips to his doubting, tempted, 
 or dispirited members were so hallowed 
 and precious that the very memory of 
 them is a benediction. Such utterances 
 as the following were common : ' God 
 made the world to be trampled on. Mind 
 you keep it where He put it, beneath your 
 feet.' ' Nothing worth having is gained 
 by sin and nothing worth keeping is lost 
 by holiness.' ' Do not imagine that you 
 are forgotten by God. God has two 
 thrones : one in the highest heavens, and 
 one in the lowliest human hearts.' ' The 
 loudest laugh of hell is the pride of dying 
 rich.' ' It is better to be new-born than 
 high-born.' ' Observed duties maintain 
 our credit, secret ones our life.' ' I am 
 glad you have been divinely helped. I 
 know not indeed which is the greatest 
 love, preparing a soul for heaven or heaven 
 for a soul/ ' Covet the fruits of holiness,
 
 The Pastorate 75 
 
 and get into the sunshine of God's coun- 
 tenance that they may ripen. Remember 
 the distinction : works of darkness fruits 
 of holiness. Man can do a work, but God 
 only can make a fruit.' ' Do not be dis- 
 couraged by seeming failure, but press on. 
 Salvation is all of gift, that the poorest 
 may come, the worst may hope, the proud 
 may be humbled, and God may be praised.' 
 ' Do not quarrel with your low estate if 
 Christ is yours. A hut on the rock is ^ 
 better than a palace on the sand.' ' You ' 
 may stumble in your prayers, but God will 
 interpret them aright. He will listen to \ 
 the heart without the words, but not to - 
 the words without the heart.' ' Do not be 
 dismayed by the opposition of ungodly 
 men. When a man is right he can never 
 fall into a lower ministry than two 
 Almighty God and himself.' 
 
 Conversational Gifts 
 
 Our sketch of Samuel Coley would be 
 strangely imperfect if we did not allude to 
 his wonderful conversational power. To
 
 76 .Samuel Coley 
 
 meet him in the homes of his people was 
 indeed a delightful experience. We read 
 in classic story how Alcibiades was 
 forced to stop his ears and run away 
 that he 'might not grow old' in listening 
 to the talk of Socrates. How often 
 have we felt what this meant when 
 listening to the talk of Mr. Coley ! Some 
 studious men are like a deep well without 
 a bucket, others are as a fountain bringing 
 all their wealth into the light. The maxim 
 of Fontenelle that ' if a wise man has his 
 hands full of truths he will open only his 
 little finger/ is steeped in ignoble selfish- 
 ness. ' It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive.' Hence many of the noblest 
 thinkers have also been great talkers. 
 Ripe experience, if there be a kind heart 
 at the root of it, is apt to teach. This was 
 eminently the case with the subject of our 
 sketch. He scattered freely the gold of 
 his study and research. Unlike many 
 talkers, who will unbend only in the society 
 which is bright and appreciative, and are 
 dumb where the surroundings are chilling
 
 The Pastorate 77 
 
 or adverse, Mr. Coley would brighten by 
 sweet and helpful words the very dullest 
 circle, ' casting his honey over the nettles ^ 
 from which he could not extract it.' S 
 Nevertheless, like all men who have any- 
 thing to say worth hearing, he loved a 
 good listener ; and, this secured, with that 
 massive head thrown back and those kind 
 eyes half closed in introspective musing, 
 his speech, subtle and powerful, and 
 pliant to all necessities of thought, would 
 flow forth with such perennial freshness, 
 and with such depth and sweetness in its 
 moving music, that the memory of it is a 
 joy to me for ever. Here also, as in the 
 case of Socrates, was f a master of those 
 who know.' In the current of this speech 
 things human and divine blended their 
 mystery and their meaning ; history gave 
 in its testimony ; philosophy cast deep its 
 plummet ; theology wedded the truths of 
 earth to the lore of heaven ; religion pro- 
 claimed 'the beauty of holiness/ and poetry 
 proclaimed 'the holiness of beauty' ; light 
 welled forth from new fountains ; truth
 
 78 Samuel Coley 
 
 issued from hidden caves ; familiar texts 
 opened out into new discoveries of divine 
 wisdom ; and rich illustrations, like storied 
 windows in a marble chancel, poured their 
 splendour on the sanctities of thought. 
 It has been the custom of some literates to 
 speak slightingly of Boswell, and we are 
 all too apt to mingle a modicum of con- 
 tempt with the cup of our thankfulness as 
 we think of his services in relation to his 
 ' burly idol.' Nothing, however, would 
 delight me more than to be a Boswell 
 worthy of this later Johnson. I append 
 only a few of the many thoughts expressed 
 in my hearing, some of them in the homes 
 of our) people, but the majority of them in 
 his own. For it was not the practice of 
 Samuel Coley to be communicative in the 
 houses of others and taciturn at home. 
 On the contrary, those who saw the most 
 of him saw the best of him, and his 
 ordinary table talk was a continual in- 
 spiration. How often have I sat enthralled 
 beneath his spell on a Sunday evening, 
 when, after the excitement of the day's
 
 The Pastorate 79 
 
 work, his great mind seemed like a sea 
 swaying itself to rest ! Deep, serene, ten- 
 der, twilight-haunted, and domed round 
 by the starry cope of heaven, how grand 
 then were its purple vistas, how rich and 
 full its reflection of ancient lights of truth, 
 and how sweet the cadence of its stately 
 psalm ! Let us gather a little of this star 
 dust. 
 
 Envy no man his position ; he pays the price. MI 
 
 Mere sensibility is not saving. Many are affected 
 by the tragedy of the Cross who will not receive its 
 doctrines or deny themselves a single indulgence for 
 His sake who hung thereon. 
 
 God is to the true saint what the sun is to the 
 world. He shines on everything, and they see 
 nothing but through Him and in His light. 
 
 Christianity is God descending to the door of 
 man's heart to get admission. 
 
 To Pilate Jesus is silent. To those who read in 
 scorn the inner lights of the Word are sealed. 
 
 The truly happy life is a life in God. TheJL-*' 
 brightest star cannot make day if the sun be set, or J^ 
 the darkest cloud night if he be risen. 
 
 They who disbelieve in virtue because man has 
 never been found perfect might as reasonably deny 
 the sun because it is not always noon. 
 
 We should be a stronger Church if we were more
 
 80 Samuel Coley 
 
 stringent with respect to membership. Few and good 
 is best, as God taught Gideon. 
 
 When the just Judge gives crowns at last, some of 
 the very brightest will flash on unexpected brows. 
 
 All revelations are concealments. God ever hides 
 more than He reveals. The measure of the lesson 
 is not what you can teach, it is what the child can 
 take in. Revelation is not what God knows, but what 
 you can take in. 
 
 As the sea catches the hues of the sky, so some 
 men catch the character of their company. 
 
 There are stronger lights under the gospel dispen- 
 sation and also stronger shadows. Sin under the law 
 was sinful ; under the gospel it is intensely so, for here 
 we not only break the restraints of law, but also 
 those of love. 
 
 God, like the sun, which feeds the glow of the 
 planets, will feed the glory of His saints. 
 
 In glory all will be perfect, but all will not be equal. 
 Every soul will be full of bliss, but some will have 
 the capacity of a wine-glass, others of a goblet. 
 
 The tumbling of Empires no more kept back 
 Messiah's reign than did the storms of night the 
 glory of the sunrise. 
 
 The Cross is the gem of which the whole world is 
 the setting. When the great historic painting yet 
 on the easel of the ages receives its last touch from 
 the finger of time, in the light of eternity the mightiest 
 deeds of men will be seen to be but border and 
 background of the Cross.
 
 The Pastorate 81 
 
 The fear of God and the love of God are the 
 centrifugal and centripetal forces of the moral universe, 
 holding the creature reverently distant from the 
 Creator, yet compassing the child about with ever- 
 lasting love. 
 
 We need light from heaven to guide us on earth. 
 Terrestrial charts cannot be accurately constructed 
 without celestial observations. . 
 
 Many of the agents of Providence ' know not what 
 they do.' The hirelings who made the cross little 
 supposed it was to be the world's ladder to heaven, 
 and with all the vulture-keenness of the vision of 
 fiends, hell's craftiest has been astounded at the issue 
 of his own deeds. A mightier mind than Satan's 
 has foiled his craftiness, and yoked him captive to 
 the Redeemer's car. 
 
 Not less edifying and helpful than his 
 conversation were Mr. Coley's lucid yet 
 profound expositions of divine truth. In 
 the week-night prayer-meeting, in his own 
 home, and in the homes of others, if was 
 his invariable habit to expound the Scrip- 
 tures. On these occasions his lips dropped 
 marina and 
 
 Airs from Paradise did fan the house. 
 
 For depth of spiritual insight the writer 
 has heard nothing equal to these unf oldings 
 
 6
 
 82 Samuel Coley 
 
 of the Word. And they were often re- 
 membered with thankfulness for long 
 periods of time. Pursuing his usual custom 
 at a home in Brighton, his host said : ' I 
 am glad you continue that. We have not 
 forgotten what you said fourteen years 
 ago.' 
 
 Care for the Young 
 
 A special feature in Mr. Coley's ministry 
 was his tender and thoughtful care for the 
 young. He was ever mindful of the fact 
 that our young people will be the men and 
 women of the future. At present the 
 world is merely their playground ; but ere 
 long they will wield its hammers, direct 
 its industries, fight its battles, sing its songs, 
 create its homes, mould its constitutions, 
 shape its destinies. 
 
 Personally conscious, as we have already 
 seen, of the divine acceptance while yet in 
 infancy, he claimed all the children for 
 Christ. In a sermon preached on behalf 
 of the Sunday School Union in May 1865, 
 we find the following on the meaning and
 
 The Pastorate 83 
 
 importance of Sunday-school work : 
 ' Every institution is the shrine of a 
 thought, the incarnation of an idea, the 
 faithful outworking of which is its mission. 
 Truth to its central and vital principle is 
 the law of its being and the pledge of its 
 success. What are the principles to which 
 you are bound ? Such as these : That 
 godly nurture is essential to any worthy 
 conception of education, so that without 
 it all teaching or training must be miser- 
 ably incomplete and defective ; that divine 
 truth is graciously adapted for the very 
 earliest presentment to the youthful mind ; 
 that it is the duty of the Church, as far as 
 possible, to stand in loco parentis to all 
 outcast, unpitied, or undisciplined youth 
 to become the foster-mother, and, so far 
 as her means can reach, to take upon 
 herself the culture of the world's moral 
 orphanage ; that it is your duty to work in 
 her behalf for this very end. After some 
 manner or other we must win the youth 
 of our land for Jesus. The City wants 
 them. This done, at no distant day
 
 i 
 84 Samuel Coley 
 
 drunkenness would cease to stagger in our 
 streets, blasphemy would be silenced, and 
 the brazen front of lewdness banished 
 from our highways. The Country wants 
 them. The youth of the nation saved, 
 how certain the glory of the nation's 
 future ! Then would the homes of the 
 land be happy, its institutions strong, its 
 policy hallowed, and all its interests bap- 
 tized with the benedictions of heaven. 
 The Church wants them. Great is the 
 work, and the labourers are few. Standard- 
 bearers continually fall ; rising champions 
 are needed to bear on the banners of the 
 host of the Lord. The World wants them. 
 Who are to dispel its darkness, remedy 
 its evils, wipe away its tears in the coming 
 age ? The Saviour wants them. For 
 every one of them the bitter pains of His 
 passion were endured. For all of them 
 in His heart there is love ; in His cause 
 there is work ; in His heaven there is 
 room.' 
 
 And not to the Sunday school only did 
 Mr. Coley delegate this important work. He
 
 The Pastorate 85 
 
 brought up his own children ' in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord,' and he 
 established in his circuits Bible-classes 
 for the young, which were fruitful in 
 blessing. In regard to ministerial work 
 among children he was strongly in 
 favour of the Scotch system of cate- 
 chizing. He says, in one place, ' Scotch 
 catechizing, if we could impart it into 
 English churches, would be the best 
 thing that ever crossed the Tweed. . . . 
 The lambs will never be fed by a mere 
 sermon-mill. Hooker says : " The delivery 
 of elements should be framed to the tender 
 capacity of beginners." They must be 
 catechized. The minister must do in 
 divinity what Socrates did in philosophy. 
 Surrounded by untaught youth, his business 
 is to instruct, by questioning, knowledge 
 into them, and to examine, by questioning, 
 knowledge out of them. The skilful dealer 
 with children does both : he first instils 
 and then extracts.' 
 
 In this connexion Mr. Coley's views on 
 Infant Baptism are of great value. He
 
 86 Samuel Coley 
 
 held that children from their birth belonged 
 
 to Christ were redeemed by Him, saved 
 
 by Him ; and that the rite of baptism 
 
 acknowledged this fact and placed upon 
 
 them what he calls ' the seal-mark of the 
 
 Great Proprietor.' ' Baptism,' he says, 
 
 'does not cause the child's relation to 
 
 Christ, but attests it. The farmer marks 
 
 his lambs, not to make them his but 
 
 t because they are his. So we baptize the 
 
 I children, not to make them Christ's, but 
 
 \because they are Christ's.' 
 
 This fact acknowledged, he urges on the 
 parents the solemn obligation of training 
 their children up for Christ. Their pres- 
 ence at the font admits the claim of Christ 
 on their children, and their future con- 
 duct should accord with that act of conse- 
 cration. Of a trust so precious, so 
 solemnly acknowledged, and so sealed, 
 they are bound in the after-time to render 
 account. 
 
 Mr. Coley thus writes on Education in 
 Godliness : ' Education in its highest form 
 is moral ; its most majestic aim is the
 
 The Pastorate 87 
 
 formation of character. To be complete 
 it must have many parts. We need 
 teaching, for we are ignorant ; correction, 
 f8r we are wrong ; development, for we 
 are immature ; discipline, for we are un- 
 practised ; direction, that every faculty may 
 bear upon the noblest ends. 
 
 ' All truth is important ; but all truth is 
 not equally important. Truths are im- 
 portant to us just in so far as they involve 
 our interests. Since religious truths relate 
 to our highest, most vital, and eternal 
 interests, they are and must be the most 
 important. Hooker says, " Education is 
 the means whereby reason is made both 
 sooner and better to judge rightly between 
 truth and error, good and evil." John 
 Milton defines the end of learning to be, 
 " to repair the ruins of our fall ; to bring 
 us to know God aright ; and of that 
 knowledge to love, serve, and be like 
 Him." 
 
 ' A head crammed is very far inferior to 
 a character formed. We want Christians. 
 That achieved, education has issued in a
 
 88 Samuel Coley 
 
 result worthy of its name ; for then has the 
 being subjected to its processes been led 
 forth to its highest possible reach. " The 
 Christian, he alone is great ; the Christian, 
 he alone is wise." '
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THEOLOGICAL TUTORSHIP
 
 COUNSELS TO MINISTERS 
 
 A faithful minister is the envy of angels, an un- 
 faithful one the laughter of devils. 
 
 On no other condition should we extend one hand 
 to receive honour but that with the other we should 
 transmit it to God. 
 
 It is a grander thing to win a soul for Christ than 
 it would be to launch a new star into space; for 
 when all the stars are dim that soul will shine on, 
 reflecting the glory which comes from the counte- 
 nance of God. 
 
 Do you aim at the greatest moral development ? 
 Then go oft and stay long with the volume of the 
 Book. 
 
 Would you understand the Bible? Then, like 
 Hezekiah, take the letter before the Lord. 
 
 Believe in the influx of God into man, the return 
 of Deity to the sin-desolated soul. 
 
 You will find in the after-time that the good you 
 have done in the world was far more on individuals 
 than on crowds. 
 
 Be as jealous for the honour of Christ as for your 
 own. 
 
 The world is a whirlpool in which many a noble 
 ship has gone down. Beware of it. 
 
 Do your duty in an obscure position if you would 
 rise to a prominent one, like Epaminondas the 
 Theban, who, being twitted for being placed in an 
 obscure position, replied, ' I will fill it so well that 
 hereafter it shall be honourable.' 
 
 SAMUEL COLEY,
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THEOLOGICAL TUTORSHIP 
 
 THE later circuits of Mr. Coley's 
 itinerancy were London, City Road ; 
 London, Brixton Hill ; Birmingham, 
 Wesley ; London, Highbury ; and Black- 
 heath. It was in Birmingham that he 
 gave to the Church that Life of Thomas 
 Collins which has been so frequently 
 referred to in these pages. It is a 
 biography, to use his own words, ' wealthy 
 in such things as will thrill holy souls, 
 instruct young ministers, and stimulate all 
 true hearts.' As a handbook for evangelists 
 it stands without a rival. It has, indeed, 
 attained the position of a classic. 
 
 The retirement of the Rev. John Lomas 
 from the Chair of Theology, at Headingley 
 College, in 1873, led to the appointment 
 of Mr. Coley to that difficult and re- 
 
 91
 
 92 Samuel Coley 
 
 sponsible post. His election was a 
 surprise to some who knew him only 
 superficially, but his lectures delivered to 
 the students amply vindicated the wisdom 
 of the appointment. That was a just and 
 discriminating tribute of the Rev. R. N. 
 Young, when, addressing the students of 
 Headingley, he said, ' Your theological 
 tutor is one of the greatest living ex- 
 positors of holy writ.' Mr. Coley regarded 
 theology as a science, and the queen of 
 the sciences. Thus he possessed that 
 first requisite for success in his work, an 
 adequate appreciation of its greatness. 
 In the introduction to his lectures we read, 
 'Theology is the most comprehensive, 
 important, and noble of all the sciences. 
 God and man are the terminals of theology. 
 A theological system is a methodical 
 arrangement of the doctrines revealed in 
 Holy Scripture, such as will make manifest 
 their connexion with, relation to, and 
 dependence on each other. System is not 
 a monopoly of divinity. Any sane man 
 must generalize, classify, and define ; and
 
 Theological Tutorship 93 
 
 it is in this way that the science of the 
 present day has arrived at what it is. The 
 essentials of a good system of theology 
 are three : consistency, completeness, and 
 simplicity.' With this estimate of the 
 science he was called to teach, the entire 
 method of Mr. Coley kept chime. Firm 
 in his grasp of the great central verities 
 of the faith, and clear in his apprehension 
 of their harmonious relations, he ex- 
 pounded them with a lucidity and defended 
 them with a force which left nothing to 
 be desired. And, while his entire system, 
 as presented in the three years' course of 
 lectures, was round and perfect as a star, 
 there were parts of the great whole, as 
 those of his students who copied his notes 
 on the Roman Catholic controversy will 
 bear me witness, which assumed colossal 
 proportions. With him nothing was 
 obscurely uttered, because nothing was 
 obscurely thought; and in dealing with 
 baseless sceptical assumptions or with the 
 arrogant opposition of science, falsely so 
 called, his words were like Luther's, ' half
 
 94 Samuel Coley 
 
 battles/ and his tread that of a Titan. He 
 studied with great care the development 
 of dogma, as defined by the creeds and 
 councils of succeeding ages of ecclesiastical 
 history, and was well versed in the great 
 masters of theologic lore. In this science 
 he was truly cultured, knowing the best 
 which had been said and written. Mighty 
 in the scriptures, all fragmentary truths 
 he carefully tested and adjusted by the 
 analogy of faith, while error reeled and 
 fell before the trenchant sword of the 
 Spirit. His also was that Ithuriel spear of 
 a fine spiritual discernment, before which 
 the disguises of falsehood were stripped 
 off, and the lurking fallacy appeared after 
 its own likeness. Carefully guarding the 
 Bible in its integrity and full authority as 
 the sufficient and only rule of faith, some 
 might have deemed him narrow in his 
 views of truth. But the words he used 
 with respect to Thomas Collins were 
 equally true of himself, where we read, 
 ' He had no desire to be considered a 
 many-sided man. He made no pretensions
 
 Theological Tutorship 95 
 
 to that breadth of thought in praise of 
 which the cant of to-day is so loud. 
 Much of it is as broad as the unbounded 
 air, and as thin.' While not deeply 
 versed in Greek or Hebrew, he had yet 
 mastered sufficient of both to enable him 
 to appropriate the finest results of scholar- 
 ship, while at the same time he was 
 happily free from that bane of many 
 scholars, the despotism of a verb or a 
 particle. He dealt with great principles 
 rather than with small details, and went 
 straight to the heart and kernel of the 
 matter, in place of merely playing about 
 the husk. 
 
 The Witness Within 
 
 Yet further, Samuel Coley had the 
 witness within of the reality of the truths 
 he taught. As a theologian he was 
 specially strong through the reality and 
 depth of his own spiritual experience. 
 A quiet master of the inner secrets of the 
 spiritual life, he testified of the things he 
 knew, and not the things he had merely
 
 96 Samuel Coley 
 
 dreamt about. Divine things are 'spirit- 
 ually discerned.' They are not revealed 
 to the brute, or to the brutish man. The 
 greatest of all teachers said : ' If any man 
 willeth to do His will, he shall know the 
 doctrine, whether it be of God or whether 
 I speak of Myself ; and again, 'My judge- 
 ment is just, because I seek not Mine own 
 will, but the will of Him that sent Me.' 
 \ Sanctity of life brings clearness of vision. 
 Perfect obedience to the will of God gives 
 an insight into spiritual truth as infallible 
 as the flight of the migrating swallow, or 
 the instinct of the bee. The greatest 
 spiritual teachers are spiritual men, and 
 Samuel Coley was one of these. His 
 doctrines were not mere opinions ; they 
 were transmuted into his life, they were 
 the very breath of his being. God was 
 for him a great reality, because he walked 
 with Him and talked with Him. Christ 
 was for him a Divine Saviour, because He 
 had taken away his sins, and blessed him 
 with the abiding benediction of His peace. 
 The Holy Ghost was for him a divine
 
 Theological Tutorship 97 
 
 Person, because he knew Him as the 
 indwelling God, the sustainer and cherisher 
 of his spiritual life, 
 
 The anchor of his purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 The guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul 
 Of all his moral being. 
 
 His teaching was the outcome of that 
 insight of the 'pure in heart,' which 
 transcends alike the ethics of the moralist, 
 the reasonings of the logician, or the 
 dreams of the poet. 
 
 To him also was given the rare power 
 of making Theology interesting and attrac- 
 tive. Beneath his fresh and powerful 
 intellect old truths lighted up with new 
 meanings, the breath of his creative fancy 
 made dry bones live, and the brooding 
 glory of his consecrated spirit caused the 
 barren rod, like Aaron's beneath the 
 Shekinah, to bud and blossom and bear 
 fruit. One of his students, a Master of 
 Arts of London University, said to the 
 writer, 'The chief benefit received from the 
 lectures of Mr. Coley was this, that he 
 made theology so winsome and interest- 
 
 7
 
 98 Samuel Coley 
 
 ing, that the study of it was a delight.' 
 
 A Dissolve! of Doubts 
 
 Mr. Coley was also a potent dissolvcr of 
 doubts. No part of his career as a 
 theological professor was more fruitful 
 than his answers to the various questions 
 of the students on points presenting 
 special difficulties to faith. Here his 
 strength and subtlety as a dialectician 
 manifested itself with peculiar force ; and 
 the eager listener knew not which most 
 to admire, the breadth of his culture or 
 the keenness of his unsparing logic. 
 Before his appointment to Headingley, it 
 was for years a beautiful custom with him 
 to send for any student who happened to 
 be supplying in his circuit, and ask, with a 
 sweetness the very memory of which 
 breathes a perpetual benediction, ' Now, 
 my brother, is there any mental difficulty 
 in which I can help you ? ' Neither 
 could any go forth from his presence 
 unimpressed by a saintliness, a tenderness, 
 and a wisdom, such as have been granted
 
 Theological Tutorship 99 
 
 to few among the sons of men. Of his 
 service in the Theological chair, and the 
 lectures given to the students, we can 
 furnish in this brief vignette no adequate 
 record. 
 
 The following refutation, in brief, of 
 the theory of ' Immortality only in Christ/ 
 is worthy of quotation : 
 
 ' i. Those who hold this view assume 
 that in the language of the Scripture death 
 and extinction are identical, which is 
 manifestly untrue. 
 
 ' 2. They reject the underlying reason 
 in the value of man's nature justifying the 
 unparalleled divine outlay for the re- 
 demption of man. 
 
 ' 3. God found man a sinner but by 
 nature a passing evil : why not let him pass ? 
 
 '4. Patriarch and sage found reasons 
 for faith in immortality which were not 
 based on any alteration produced by 
 Christ.' 
 
 As an example of his treatment of yet 
 profounder themes, we append the 
 following fragment :
 
 100 Samuel Coley 
 
 THEISM AND MODERN THOUGHT 
 
 1 i. Theism but supposes the action of 
 a cause which from our own conscious- 
 ness we know really to exist, namely, the 
 force of intelligent personal will. 
 
 ' Is the cosmos, can it be, the result of 
 blind, mindless force ? Or, is it not, 
 must it not be, the beautiful result of 
 intelligent aims ? 
 
 ' 2. Everybody admits ex nihilo nihil 
 fit ; we further claim that nothing can be 
 produced by an inadequate cause. 
 
 ' Beauty, order, fitness, life, intelligence, 
 personality, conscience, these things are ; 
 for these things, therefore, adequate cause 
 must be ; but matter and force are not 
 such causes. 
 
 1 3. Herbert Spencer and his admiring 
 "agnostics" give and persist in just one 
 reply : "Not knowing we cannot say." . . . 
 It seems, then, from anything they know 
 of the matter that we may be right. 
 
 '4. Avowed ignorance, by a startling 
 paradox, is set forth as surpassing wisdom. 
 Spencer admits there is something back of
 
 Theological Tutorship 101 
 
 all visible things, but claims that his 
 awful unknowable is a conception much 
 grander than that of our personal God. 
 We willingly give up this magnificence of 
 darkness for vision of our Heavenly 
 Father's face. 
 
 ' 5. We are told that this infinite mystery 
 as much transcends our anthropomorphic 
 notions of intelligence and will, as 
 intelligence and will transcend mechanical 
 motion. Suppose we admit that the 
 forms of theological speech are anthro- 
 pomorphic, we affirm the notions and 
 formulae of their philosophy must be so 
 too. Neither sages nor saints can rid man 
 of himself. Man can no more go beyond 
 humanity than an eagle can outsoar the 
 air which bears it up. Their conceptions 
 of force are as anthropomorphic as our 
 thought of God. 
 
 ' 6. Divine ubiquity means omnipo- 
 tence, whole, everywhere. My thought of 
 omnipresent Deity is this, that every point 
 in the whole universe is focal for the 
 power of God ; that every supposeable
 
 102 Samuel Coley 
 
 inch of measureless space is a centre of 
 omnipotent force ; and that, as well, God 
 can exercise His whole energy therein. 
 . . . The indivisible God, One in the 
 infinity of space, is whole at every point, 
 i.e., can know, and love, and do, with 
 the whole force of Godhead everywhere.'
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
 
 WORDS OF HOPE AND CHEER 
 
 x By-and-by every mystery will be found a mercy. 
 V Mechanicians say that an absolute balance is 
 *^ beyond the reach of art. 
 
 >^ If there is any seeming delay in God it is only 
 ' such delay as belongs to the steps of majesty. 
 -. ' Cemetery' means sleeping-place. * Not vainly did 
 our fathers call the burying-place ' God's acre.' It 
 is sown with the seeds of God's harvest, and the day 
 of resurrection is God's reaping-day. 
 
 One who lost his mother by death said, ' The same 
 God who has wiped away her tears by taking her to 
 heaven, has wiped away mine by the assurance that 
 she is there.' 
 
 The Great Throne is white. Dark clouds may 
 have veiled it, vivid lightnings may have draped it, 
 the emerald rainbow arched it. But the throne itself 
 is white. No spot has ever stained it. It is neither 
 crimsoned by cruelty, tarnished by injustice, nor 
 dimmed by decay. 
 
 That they have not become indissolubly one ; that 
 the serpent and the man have not, as in Dante's 
 awful image, grown together, each melted into the 
 other, but that they are still twain, this is the element 
 of hope with regard to fallen man. Sin may be 
 taken from him. ' The seed of the woman shall 
 bruise the serpent's head.' 
 
 Time was when Chrysostom finished a speech on 
 the spread of gospel truth from the Aegean to the 
 German Ocean by saying, ' Britain possesses the 
 Word of light.' In more than two hundred languages 
 she now gives that Word to the world. 
 
 SAMUEL COLBY.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ALL noble work and teaching spring 
 from some inherent nobleness of character 
 and life. The quality of the stream is as 
 the quality of the fountain. Our dearest 
 helpers are those who have chosen to be 
 pure and good, and thus to draw after 
 them the tears and blessings of their kind. 
 It is so with regard to the subject of this 
 sketch. 
 
 The prominent personal characteristics 
 of Samuel Colefy were saintliness and 
 geniality. First of all he was a saintly 
 man. He 'walked with God.' His life 
 was spent as within the precincts of a 
 temple its words worship, its thoughts 
 incense, its deeds sacrifice. With him 
 piety seemed not so much an effort as a 
 state of nature the habit of his life. It 
 
 105
 
 106 Samuel Coley 
 
 was as natural as light from a star, or as 
 perfume from a flower. When he prayed 
 God seemed so near that the listener was 
 not seldom startled by the evident famili- 
 arity of the creature's intercourse with the 
 Creator. Yet with this conscious nearness 
 of access no touch of irreverence was 
 blended ; it was but the intimacy of the 
 holy child with the < Holy Father.' God 
 was felt to be not less in heaven because 
 He was so near to His suppliant on earth ; 
 and not less throned in eternity because 
 He had also found a home in a soul 
 limited by the conditions of time. But 
 while the sanctity of Samuel Coley was so 
 pre-eminent, it was free alike from narrow- 
 ness and from repellent austerity. From 
 the one he was delivered by his broad 
 culture, and from the other by his loving 
 heart. His goodness had a charm about 
 it which made you long to dwell in the 
 same atmosphere. Men saw in him 'the 
 beauty of holiness.' 
 
 During the months of my residence 
 under his roof I never once heard him
 
 Personal Characteristics 107 
 
 speak in unrighteous anger, or utter an 
 ungenerous criticism ; neither did I observe 
 anything in his life which led to any 
 faltering in the witness which its whole 
 spirit and character compelled me to 
 render, of ' Mark the perfect man and 
 behold the upright.' Of the purity and 
 sweetness of his home intercourse I can 
 scarcely permit myself to write. Let it 
 suffice to say that never was a delicate, 
 nerve-shaken wife enriched by a love 
 more exquisitely considerate and tender ; 
 and never did sons more fully realize all 
 that is included in the word ' father.' 
 
 Geniality 
 
 Another prominent characteristic of 
 Samuel Coley was his uniform geniality. 
 This beautiful grace filled with sweetness 
 and light a face which must otherwise 
 have appeared unusually massive and 
 sombre. His features were transfigured 
 by the gentleness and kindness of the 
 soul which pervaded and looked through 
 them, ' a smile ever playing on the broad,
 
 108 Samuel Coley 
 
 deep brow, like summer sunshine on the 
 sea.' 
 
 That was a charming compliment paid 
 him by a little girl, who said, ' Mother, I 
 like to see that nice-looking face which 
 speaks so kind.' It has been said that 
 every face should be beautiful at forty. 
 There is truth in this, for we are all sculp- 
 tors shaping both body and soul in such 
 fashion as we ourselves ordain. By the 
 time they are forty, people have had the 
 opportunity to make themselves beautiful 
 in expression at least, if not in features. 
 There is a distinct connexion between a 
 beautiful face and a beautiful life, and 
 through the grace of gentleness Mr. Coley 
 had made a plain face beautiful. He was 
 one of the gentlest of all human creatures. 
 Entering his study on one occasion I 
 found him chasing on the window-pane a 
 blue-bottle fly whose ceaseless buzzing had 
 disturbed his thinking. Having at last 
 caught it he opened the window, and, 
 releasing it, said, * Go, little creature ; I 
 will not take thy life.'
 
 Personal Characteristics 109 
 
 Intellectual Power 
 
 Another element in Mr.Coley demanding 
 special notice was the vigour of his intellect. 
 That broad, deep forehead held within it 
 a brain which was remarkable not only for 
 quantity but also for quality. And that 
 brain was the organ of a mind marvellously 
 active, subtle, and profound. This fact 
 was veiled to many by the simplicity of 
 his manner and by the free use of anecdote 
 in his public utterances, but it is a fact 
 nevertheless. There is an important differ- 
 ence between child-likeness and childish- 
 ness. Mr. Coley was child-like, but not 
 childish. Simple in style and manner he 
 undoubtedly was, but this simplicity was 
 far removed from shallowness. The illus- 
 tration by figure or by anecdote might fill 
 with a sweet light of laughter the eyes of 
 the peasant or of the little child, but the 
 underlying truth was great and deep 
 enough to delight a philosopher. No 
 objection to this great man appears to me 
 so puerile as that founded on his rare 
 simplicity ; for did not the Divine Teacher
 
 1 1 Samuel Coley 
 
 adapt His utterances to the common un- 
 derstanding, simplifying the profoundest 
 truths by the free use of parable and 
 apologue, by common things in nature 
 and familiar things in daily life ? 
 
 As a student Mr. Coley was diligent 
 beyond the bounds of discretion. It was 
 customary with him to labour nine hours a 
 day, and it is to be feared that his too 
 early death may be .in great measure at- 
 tributed to that love of mental work which 
 led him to deny himself that measure of 
 physical exercise which is essential to 
 vigorous health. His work as a student 
 was characterized by great thoroughness 
 and by rigorous method. Nothing was 
 done carelessly, and nothing was per- 
 mitted to fall into disorder. 
 
 Light, love, and labour unto life's last height, 
 These three, were stars unsetting in his sight. 
 
 He was an omnivorous reader, and his 
 love for books transformed his whole 
 house into a library. At the time of his 
 death his books could not have numbered 
 less than five thousand volumes. And
 
 Personal Characteristics 1 1 1 
 
 these volumes were of no ordinary kind, 
 since all through life he acted on the 
 principle of eliminating the worthless and 
 preserving the valuable. Time-stained 
 vellum and brilliant cloth, the antique and 
 the modern, stood side by side, representing 
 the finest results of human reason, exegeti- 
 cal, critical, theological, philosophical, and 
 historic. But the most remarkable feature 
 in a visit to this library was that the broad- 
 browed thinker who moved among these 
 various teachers seemed the master of 
 them all. You could not point to a book 
 the excellences or defects of which he had 
 not weighed, and the pith and marrow of 
 which he could not embody in a few vivid 
 and luminous words. 
 
 Strength of Will 
 
 Another noteworthy feature in the char- 
 acter of Mr. Coley was the strength of 
 his will. Professor Huxley, in his ideal f 
 picture of a marTraKed by an all-round 
 culture to the true height of manhood, 
 instances as a foremost element in his
 
 1 1 2 Samuel Coley 
 
 character 'a vigorous will, the servant of 
 a tender conscience.' This Samuel Coley 
 possessed in a very high degree. He was 
 no reed shaken by the wind, but an oak 
 deep-rooted to resist the shock of storms. 
 Beneath all that meekness and playfulness 
 of manner which invested him with such 
 a delicate and winning charm, there was 
 an underlying strength of purpose which, 
 though it might escape the ordinary ob- 
 server, as from a distance the trunk of the 
 tree may be hidden by the leafage of 
 drooping branches, was yet well known 
 to his intimate friends. None who ever 
 witnessed the intensity of his righteous 
 indignation toward those who, through 
 their evil example or their false teaching, 
 ' robbed him,' as he expressed it, ' of his 
 children/ could doubt that beneath his 
 habitual gentleness of manner there lay a 
 giant's force. Wherever principle was 
 involved he would not swerve even by a 
 hair's breadth, for the still, small voice of 
 conscience in which God spake was more 
 to him than all earthly clamour of storm,
 
 Personal Characteristics 1 1 3 
 
 or earthquake, or fire. Ever gentle in 
 reproof, and ever eager to conciliate the 
 estranged or the quarrelsome, he could 
 yet be stern in presence and bold in action 
 towards persistent wrongdoing. His quiet 
 energy of character was in nothing more 
 impressively displayed than in his dealing 
 with unreasonable men who, through the 
 worship of some poor crotchet, or the 
 desire to make some empty parade of 
 power, set themselves to obstruct and 
 hinder the work of God. Almost imper- 
 ceptibly, but nevertheless surely, their 
 influence in the councils of the Church 
 waned and dwindled, and ere they were 
 ware they were left stranded on the poor 
 mudbank of their own conceit while the 
 good work went on. 
 
 Wisdom 
 
 Another noteworthy feature in Samuel 
 Coley was his wisdom as a counsellor. To 
 this remarkable man there was given not 
 only knowledge but also wisdom, finding 
 its root in vital piety. He was pre-eminently 
 
 8
 
 1 1 4 Samuel Coley 
 
 a Christian philosopher. In his judgement 
 of men and things he endeavoured as far 
 as possible, to stand on a line with God 
 his will, his purpose, his righteousness, 
 his charity. ' He set the Lord alway 
 before him, he walked before the Lord in 
 the land of the living.' Hence he was 
 wise with the wisdom which springs from 
 sanctity, and from the nobleness of an 
 absolute, unselfish devotion to the great 
 end of life. His eye was single, and, as a 
 natural result his whole body was full of 
 light. In the public councils of our church 
 his voice was seldom heard a fact which 
 led me on one occasion to express to him 
 personally my surprise, on which he 
 modestly replied that he felt there was no 
 need for him to speak, inasmuch as his 
 views were expressed by others, and that 
 more forcibly than they would have been 
 by himself. In private life, however, he 
 was peculiarly rich in counsel, his sugges- 
 tions for the guidance of conduct and the 
 shaping of character being pure and 
 bracing as the breath of the sea.
 
 Personal Characteristics 1 1 5 
 
 An extract from a letter sent to the 
 writer in a time of mental difficulty will 
 illustrate the wisdom of his counsels : 
 
 Do not worry yourself too much with sceptic ques- 
 tions ; dwell deep live inwardly. 
 What is religion for? To make me good. 
 What is goodness ? Conformity to God's designs. 
 What is sin ? Following my will as against His. 
 What is purity ? Sincerity of intention to please 
 God in all we do. 
 
 How is this maintained? By the indwelling of 
 Christ. 
 
 How is Christ within us? 
 
 In the mind, by a true idea of Him. 
 In the faith, by a hearty trust in Him. 
 In the will, by a practical submission to Him. 
 In the heart, by a fervent love for Him. 
 In the life, by all-sustaining grace from Him 
 Plunge into the bath of Calvary every morning 
 and be clean. *T 
 
 Gaze on the Man acquainted with grief, borne for 
 you, and love. 
 
 Go forth, after Him, doing good, and work. 
 Let these underlie all, as primitive rocks do the 
 fruitful soil ; may they pervade all, as principles do I 
 actions ; vitalize all, as love does work. 
 
 Christ-like Charity 
 
 Another beautiful feature in Samuel 
 Coley was his Christ-like charity. He was
 
 1 1 6 Samuel Coley 
 
 utterly free from all bitterness, turning 
 aside with noble self-mastery even from 
 ' the hate of hate, and the scorn of scorn.' 
 He could bless those who cursed him and 
 pray for those who despitefully used him. 
 He never blazed into holy indignation, 
 except against the destroyers of the souls 
 for whom Christ died. Neither did he 
 imagine, as a thinker, to use an expression 
 from Goethe, that he could see and 
 measure the world from his own church 
 steeple. 
 
 Perhaps the man in connexion with the 
 Church with whom he had the scantiest 
 sympathy was the sacerdotalist. He who, 
 calling himself a priest, robbed Christ of 
 His honours by usurping His title and 
 His work, was to him specially objection- 
 able. Yet even of these men he thus 
 spoke in an address at a Wesleyan mis- 
 sionary meeting in Exeter Hall : 
 
 ' I believe there are some persons talking 
 nowadays as if religion in this country 
 were falling off. I don't believe it. I 
 don't believe there was ever as much true
 
 Personal Characteristics 1 1 7 
 
 religion no, nor as much proportionally, 
 in this land, as there is to-day. Mind you, 
 on missionary platforms we get inclined 
 to be very catholic and kindly. Even a 
 civilized hedgehog will uncoil its ball and 
 lay back its spines when it is in good 
 company. I suppose nobody will think 
 me likely to fall in love with Puseyism. 
 I don't much believe in those who go to 
 the dark ages for light ; I don't much 
 believe in those people who go to Hilde- 
 brand and Borgia for their succession ; I 
 don't believe in those who go to tradition 
 for certainty ; and I could tell you many 
 other things I do not believe in. But I 
 am bound to say I believe that in that 
 High Church movement there is a great 
 deal more godliness than many people 
 think, and that in its adherents there is a 
 great deal more of the love of God than 
 many of them get credit for. I am not 
 speaking of mere ritualism that alone 
 would soon be crushed out ; but there is 
 a core of goodness somewhere, a spirit and 
 power of love ; and whilst we deplore the
 
 1 1 8 Samuel Coley 
 
 errors and detest some of the things that 
 are connected with it, I believe that, after 
 all, in the reviving power of the Church 
 of England in this land, there is something 
 in which we ought to rejoice.'
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TWILIGHT AND MORNING
 
 FACSIMILE OF SERMON OUTLINE
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TWILIGHT AND MORNING 
 
 ON the retirement of the Rev. John 
 Farrar, Mr. Coley was elected to the 
 chairmanship of the Leeds District, an 
 office which added largely to the burden 
 of his work. It is indeed a characteristic 
 of Methodism that it confers no dignity 
 without its accompaniment of toil. Soon 
 after he received a significant nomination 
 to a still higher office the Presidency of 
 the Conference. On my writing to con- 
 gratulate him on the approaching honour, 
 he replied with his usual modesty : ' My 
 standing so near the chair arose simply 
 from the unprepared-for absence of Dr. 
 W. B. Pope. It will greatly surprise me 
 if I stand so near again. But, you, I 
 think, know that it really awakes in me 
 no desire. I am certain that it would be 
 
 131
 
 122 Samuel Coley 
 
 a cross ; I more than doubt whether it 
 would be a crown.' 
 
 Meanwhile, assiduous study, with few 
 intervals of exercise and recreation, were 
 slowly undermining his health. Gradually, 
 but only too surely, the tired brain re- 
 fused to act as the organ of the mind, and 
 his fine intellect became clouded. In 
 1878 the state of his health was such as 
 to excite the apprehension of his friends, 
 and it was felt that the labour of the 
 Presidency would be extremely perilous. 
 
 Hoping that the sea voyage and the 
 total change of life and work might prove 
 beneficial, he was appointed as represen- 
 tative to the General Conference of the 
 Methodist Church of Canada. His fame 
 as a preacher had travelled to America, 
 and his biography of Thomas Collins 
 had thrilled and blessed multitudes in 
 that Continent ; so that the news of his 
 appointment as the representative of the 
 British Conference was hailed with delight. 
 He was able to take many services in 
 Canada, but could not extend his visit to
 
 Twilight and Morning 123 
 
 the United States, where his Methodist 
 friends had no opportunity of listening to 
 one whom they had long held in honour. 
 
 After his return his case seemed for a 
 time more hopeful ; but, ere long, the 
 disease which had fastened on him was 
 seen to be making further progress. 
 
 In the November of 1879, he had a 
 slight paralytic stroke, from which he 
 never really recovered. For about a year, 
 though still at Headingley, he was obliged 
 to stand aside and see the work of the 
 college go on without him. His lectures, 
 the result of so much thought and care, 
 were read by his colleagues, and the 
 conviction began to grow upon him that 
 his work was done. But he had loved it 
 so much that it was difficult to be 
 resigned to silence. 
 
 It was a pathetic sight, on which none 
 could look unmoved, to behold the 
 stricken teacher seated in the porch 
 of his house on Saturday afternoons 
 watching the students, as, with life before 
 them and all its precious opportunities in
 
 124 Samuel Coley 
 
 their grasp, they went forth to the work to 
 which he would return no more. Some- 
 times he would say in plaintive accents, 
 ' I shall never preach again.' To one of 
 the students he said, as the twilight 
 deepened and he felt his day was spent : 
 ' I thought I should get better, but now I 
 am afraid I shall not. You know I love 
 my work, and it is a great trial to give it 
 up, but I am now resigned.' Then, he 
 added, ' However, it is quite right ; my 
 Father can do no wrong ; and I may say, 
 I never had a deeper realization of what I 
 have preached than now.' We are re- 
 minded by these words of the paraphrase 
 in which the praying mother of J. M. 
 Barrie found such comfort : 
 
 Art thou afraid His power shall fail 
 
 When comes the evil day ? 
 And can an all-creating arm 
 
 Grow weary or decay ? 
 
 His last public appearance, of any kind, 
 was on the College Commemoration Day, 
 on May 6, 1880. In the afternoon, for 
 the first time for some months, he walked
 
 Twilight and Morning 125 
 
 down the field where all the resident 
 students were, together with many of the 
 men of former years, and he was greeted 
 with a ringing cheer. He viewed with 
 kindly eye the general joy. At the 
 evening meeting, at which he was unable 
 to be present, many praised the gentle 
 and devoted teacher, while one testified 
 that from him he had received his first 
 religious impressions in City Road Chapel. 
 
 Thank God, the words of His true 
 servants do not die. Rather do they 
 make of this dim dome of time ' a 
 whispering gallery around which they roll 
 and reverberate for ever/ Kindred souls 
 catch the inspiration, and transmit it 
 onward until the crack of doom. 
 
 Mr. Coley left Headingley in the August 
 of 1880, to settle at Warwick, where, 
 a few weeks later, he exchanged the 
 toil of the servant for the joy of the 
 Lord. He entered into rest on the 
 morning of October 30, 1880, aged fifty- 
 five years. 
 
 That eternal blessedness he had long
 
 126 Samuel Coley 
 
 desired. ' God/ he said, l our own God, 
 possessed, that is Home. Oh, that the 
 day were come when, with the choirs 
 and glorious hierarchies that belt His 
 throne, we were securely at His feet for 
 ever ! ' 
 
 O joyous day ! For now 
 This champion of the Lord, 
 
 Through death's short agony, 
 Has gained his sure reward. 
 
 O happy Brother ! thou 
 Hast found in glory bright, 
 
 The eternal Father's Son 
 Who led thee on to light. 
 
 Thou in this vale of tears 
 Didst for His presence sigh ; 
 
 He with His fullness now 
 Thy soul doth satisfy. 
 
 Closing "Words 
 
 Though our task is ended, and the 
 space allotted us exhausted, we cannot 
 refrain from lingering still in fond re- 
 membrance on some of those aspects of 
 this saintly and ministrant life the con- 
 templation of which deepens admiration 
 into reverence. That ' chastity of honour
 
 Twilight and Morning 127 
 
 which felt a stain like a wound ' ; that 
 uplifting revelation of a soul so full of 
 God that it had no room for sin, and so 
 happy in God that it felt no craving after 
 sin ; that tender consideration for weak- 
 ness and infirmity which breathed 
 continual benedictions ; that touching 
 humility, the outcome of fellowship with 
 God, which made this man unconscious 
 of his own greatness ; those lovely out- 
 goings of kindness and generosity in which 
 it appeared as if he were receiving a 
 favour rather than conferring one ; that 
 delight in service which made him so 
 winsome and so radiant in its exercise, 
 these beautiful qualities contributed to 
 make Samuel Coley an apostle bringing 
 men to Christ, and an evangelist portraying 
 Christ to men. 
 
 Too soon, as it appeared to us, the voice 
 of the wise and gentle teacher faltered 
 into silence. Too soon death's silent 
 ocean, which ripples at the feet of all of 
 us, withdrew him from our sight. Our 
 chief benefactors are those who attract us
 
 128 Samuel Coley 
 
 by their sanctity and instruct us by their 
 wisdom, and we desire for them a 
 lengthened twilight which the darkness 
 shall long linger to disturb. But we 
 forget that what appears to us as darkness 
 is for them eternal morning. Men of 
 Samuel Coley's order strengthen our faith 
 in immortality. We are well assured 
 that God will not forsake His own life 
 which He has quickened within them, or 
 deny those ardent desires after the beatific 
 vision which He Himself has inspired. 
 As surely as God lives, the faith in which 
 this man loved and laboured cannot be 
 denied its fruition, or the hope he cherished 
 vanish like a bubble on the wave. Ah 
 no ! He has passed from our rude life 
 to the brotherhood of angels. He has 
 cast aside his encumbering clay to walk 
 with seraphs. He ' rests from his labours, 
 but his works do follow him/ in a life 
 ' re-orient out of dust/ a 
 
 Life that bears immortal fruit 
 
 In such great offices as suit 
 
 The full-grown energies of heaven.
 
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