• Robert Roff

    The Life And Ministry Of Robert Roff

    My deceased friend was called by grace about the year 1823. While under great exercise of soul, as he walked with me he used to sigh and groan, not knowing what to do; and sometimes along-side a wall near the road which led to my home he would pour out his soul in prayer to God. When parting he would say, "Do pray for me;" and I being in the same state of feeling, would reply, "And you pray for me." When we went on the Lord's day to the Baptist chapel, his looks in some measure spoke out the inward feelings of his soul, as if weighed down with grief and sorrow. Sometimes when I have met him, his first looks seemed as if…

  • Thomas Jones

    The Life And Testimony Of Thomas Jones

    I complete my fourscore and three this day. A considerable excess on the years commonly allotted to Adam's children. Moses reckoned the "days of our years as threescore years and ten; and if, by reason of strength, they he fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow" (Psalm 90:10). No doubt this, in the general, describes a protracted life in its decadent stage, "when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves" (Ecc. 12:3); but I am bound to say these conditions are mercifully mitigated in my own case thus far, so that, though daily reminded by unmistakable symptoms that I am an old man, I enjoy a fair degree of bodily health, and my principal sorrow is such as…

  • Thomas Jones

    The Life And Ministry Of Thomas Jones

    Instead of this month continuing (as intended) my notice of more of the godly ministers of past days, I will tell a little of our very old friend, who has just closed a ministry of upwards of sixty years honourably, steadfast in the faith to the end, and extensively useful. Mr. Thomas Jones, of Broseley, Shropshire, who was called home on July 4th, in the eighty-ninth year of his sage. Born in a humble cottage at Bridgenorth, March 4th, 1795, and his mother dying in his early childhood, he was cared for by her mother, but had no early advantages of education; and after the custom of those days, and that mining, quarrying, and clay-working district, had to be inured to early toil. When some…

  • John Shaw

    The Life And Testimony Of John Shaw

    He was better known in the North by the familiar name of Johnnie Shaw. The late Mr. Gadsby and Mr. M'Kenzie both esteemed him highly for his work's sake. As stated in the Obituary, he was a plain country farmer, altogether unlettered, but well taught by the Spirit. In the beginning of his religious life he was a strenuous advocate for Arminianism, though at the same time his experience bore direct testimony against it, he having been deeply ploughed up in his conscience by the force and spirituality of God's most holy law. He was promised considerable property if he would become a Churchman; but, to use his own expression, "The Lord drove me away in spite of my teeth." After this he joined the…

  • Robert Pym

    The Life And Ministry Of Robert Pym

    The subject of the following brief memoir was one who lived much alone. He sought retirement, often saying to his friends that he did not wish to become a public character. But during the last few months of his life the Lord so powerfully blessed him that he repeatedly spoke and wrote to those friends who were favoured to have intercourse with him, requesting them to call upon the Lord's people to praise him for the great favours with which he supported and comforted him on a dying-bed. Nothing could be more repulsive to his feelings than the idea of exalting a "hell-deserving sinner," (as he frequently called himself,) but if the riches of grace could be magnified, and any of the Lord's tried family…

  • William Tiptaft's Letters

    The Life And Death Of William Tiptaft

    A warm and general desire having been expressed by many who knew and loved my late dear friend and brother, William Tiptaft, that a little Memoir of him should be published, embracing a longer account of his life and death than could be comprised within the limits of an Obituary, and the execution of that task devolving by their wishes on me, I find myself placed in a strait. On the one hand, I feel that I must not and cannot decline the labour of love thus allotted me, especially as it falls in with my own wishes that some more full and abiding memorial should be raised of one so much esteemed and greatly beloved by the living family of God than our scanty…