FOR SEPTEMBER, 1841.

BIOGRAPHY.

MEMOIR OF MR. SAMUEL BENNETT,

Of Tempsford, Bedfordshire:

BY HIS SON.

MR. BENNETT was born at East Leak, in Nottinghamshire, in the year 1758. His father, Nathaniel Bennett, was a dairy farmer. He attended the religious services of the established Church, and was a man of strict integrity and good morals, but not at all acquainted with experimental religion. Very early, however, in the life of Samuel, his father became a hearer of the General Baptists; whose ministry was shortly made the instrument of his salvation. He joined the united General Baptist church of Leek and Wimeswould, and continued in consistent membership with it to the end of his life. In consequence of this union of Mr. Bennett, sen., with the General Baptists, his family was brought up in the views held by them, and was greatly attached to their peculiarities. But this was not all. Samuel, in his fourteenth year, became very seriously impressed by religious considerations, and expressed to his father his thorough conviction that he was in the high road to hell. His father at first smiled at the communication, which was made somewhat abruptly; but this caused the son to burst into a flood of tears. The good old man (for it was a proverbial expression in that neighbourhood, that if there were a good man anywhere, it was old Mr. Nathaniel Bennett) saw that there was more than he at first supposed in his son's language, and there and then began to show him that Jesus Christ came into the world to save just such sinners as himself. He prayed with him, and exhorted him to go to the cross, and at once to rest his soul, by faith, on the atonement of Christ; assuring him that then he would find peace to his troubled conscience. Samuel attended to his father's instructions, and was soon made truly happy in the love of God. He afterwards acknowledged, indeed, that this happiness was only to be preserved by constant watchfulness and self-denial. He was still very young; and the frivolities of youth, after a while, deprived him of the peace which he enjoyed. But he could not rest in this backsliding condition. He was deeply convinced of the sinfulness of his state, and came to the cross as at first, (only, as he said, with more pungent VOL. XX. Third Series. SEPTEMBER, 1841. 3 C

grief,) and was thus restored to the joy of salvation. He learned from this a lesson which, by the divine mercy, he never afterwards forgot. From that time to the day of his death he retained his sense of the adopting love of God; and frequently repeated his testimony, both to his family and Christian friends, that God had lifted up on him the light of his countenance, and thus put gladness in his heart more than the increase of their corn and wine could occasion to others. At such times he would often add, with his accustomed simplicity, in words to this effect: "Not that my heavenly Father could always look with approval upon all my ways. I fear I have too often given him occasion to pity my weaknesses and short-comings; but I have not wilfully departed from him, and I have kept my hold of his promised mercy in his dear Son, so that the relationship has never been broken off. O no! Blessed be God, he is my Father still!"

He first left the parental roof to engage in a small farm at Wimeswould. About this time, too, he was married to Miss Mary Cooper; a young woman who not only united a most amiable disposition with considerable personal attractions, but, which is of by far the most importance, had likewise decidedly chosen the good part, and was fitted to be a true helpmeet for him in all his religious concerns. This situation was not, however, the one which divine Providence had appointed as the sphere in which he was to live and act. In a short time after his marriage he obtained, very unexpectedly, the offer of a much larger farm, at Tempsford in Bedfordshire. He accepted the offer; and, having taken the farm, continued in it, a mere tenant at will, for the long period of fifty years, and ultimately left his younger son in the same position.

On entering Tempsford he was placed at first in very discouraging circumstances. He has often been heard to say that, after toiling the whole week upon his farm, which he found in a wretched state of cultivation, he was still more disheartened, on the morning of the Sabbath, when he beheld the moral destitution of the entire neighbourhood. There was the parish church, it is true; but in those days, the only one service which was performed there was sadly hurried over; and it is to be feared, that both the Pastor and the flock were alike strangers to the religion of the heart. There were many who never went to the house of God at all, but spent the whole Sabbath in idleness, intemperance, and various sports. Mr. Bennett was cut to the heart when he thus saw the day of God dishonoured, and his neighbours eagerly seeking death in the error of their ways. He felt that he could not be himself innocent, if he suffered them to continue these practices unrebuked and unwarned. He therefore attacked these Sabbath-breakers wherever he met with them; and though his reproofs were often severe, they were felt to be so just, that, to avoid them, when he has been seen approaching, recourse has been had to flight. And thus far, even at an early period of his residence in the village,

his active zeal was successful, in preventing those more public displays of profanity which previously had prevailed. This, however, was not accomplished without raising up much painful opposition against himself. The 66 new farmer" was represented as a disturber of the common peace. And he was no longer encouraged and aided by the society of his Christian friends. Feeling as he did on the subject of religion, there were none who were like-minded with him. The nearest General Baptist chapel was at St. Ives, a distance of eighteen miles: and Sabbath after Sabbath, with scarcely an interruption, himself and his wife went there to worship God. But as his family increased, the journey became more inconvenient; and as he unhappily could not have what he desired in his own parish church, he for some time sat under the ministry of the Rev. John Berridge, then Vicar of Everton; and often has he related to his family the effects produced by that Minister on himself, and on the multitudes who thronged the church of the pious Vicar, and eagerly listened to his word. An extraordinary unction attended his preaching. Many of the hearers were cut to the heart, and often could not refrain from exclaiming, "What must we do to be saved?" And in the intervals of divine service, hundreds of persons were in the habit of attending the prayermeetings which were held, chiefly for the sake of newly-awakened penitents, in the parish sand-pits. Under Mr. Berridge's instructions, my father profited much. With his peculiar sentiments, indeed, on the Calvinistic controversy, he was far from coinciding; but this neither hindered him from receiving advantage, nor from returning, to the man whom God so highly honoured, the respect which he believed to be due to him, and which he gladly paid him to the end of his life, unaffected by any doctrinal differences.

He

Still, Mr. Bennett, though thankful, was scarcely satisfied. wanted the means of grace in his own immediate neighbourhood; and it was not long before he was favoured with them, as he always believed, by the merciful interposition of Providence.

In the course of the year 1794, as Mr. Bennett was one day attending to some of the duties of his farm, he met with a stranger on horseback, with whom he entered into conversation. The interesting character of the surrounding scenery was mentioned, and an apparently casual reference to the great Author of nature soon led to more extended religious remark; and the parties, though strangers to each other, found that they could hold mutual converse on a subject which was dear to them both. The traveller told Mr. Bennett that his name was Thomas Linay; that he was a Methodist Preacher, then stationed at St. Ives; and that he was then on his way to Inksworth, the residence of a truly pious lady, well known in that part of the country as Madam Harvey. He added, that as he had been riding through various villages on his way, he could not help greatly fearing that they were in a deplorable state of moral destitution; and that he

earnestly desired to have an opportunity of preaching in some of them. My father's heart responded to all this with joy; and he engaged Mr. Linay to hold divine service in his farm-house the next time he came

that way.

According to this engagement Mr. Linay came. Before the appointed hour, my father went from house to house among his neighbours, to invite them to attend. A large congregation was collected, and a very gracious influence rested on the Preacher and his hearers. Curiosity was excited in all, and many were moved by a higher feeling to desire Mr. Linay to visit them again. He did so; and thus was Methodism introduced into Tempsford. By the blessing of God, the seed then sown has continued to yield its produce unto the present day.

After this first visit, at every succeeding service, the farm-house became more and more crowded: and the usual effects followed upon the faithful ministration of the word of God. Many felt that they were warned to flee from the wrath to come, and saw that it was both their duty and their privilege to avail themselves of the advantage of mutual oversight, spiritual conversation, and prayer. In the customary phrase, a society was formed, religion began to lift up its head, and vice to be less audacious and obtrusive. It is not too much to say that a new era seemed opening in what had so long been a neglected and benighted village.

The congregations had soon increased to such an extent that the difficult question arose, How shall sufficient accommodation be provided for them? To obtain a chapel, or indeed any convenient place to be set apart for public worship, seemed, in the circumstances of the village, (all the land and buildings belonging to Sir Gillis Payne, my father's landlord,) an almost hopeless case. The need, however, was pressing; the cause of religion appeared to require that a chapel should be erected; and they who were interested in the matter gave themselves to prayer on account of it. But my father believed that it was his duty to do more. He neither liked industry without prayer, nor prayer without industry; and this was his disposition equally in religion and in his worldly affairs. He resolved, therefore, to apply directly to Sir Gillis for leave to appropriate, for the purposes of Methodist worship, a barn in his own occupation, but lower down in the village, and some distance from the farm-premises. He had reason to believe that he was somewhat of a favourite of Sir Gillis. He had greatly improved his farm, and was rather gaining upon brother farmers in point of respectability than otherwise. At all risks, however, he resolved to ask permission to convert the barn into a chapel. He was received courteously by his landlord; but, on mentioning his business, Sir Gillis asked him if he were mad. "Those Methodists," said he, "will ruin you, as sure as you are a man.” “O no, Sir Gillis," was the reply, "they will do me no harm, but much good; and they will do good to the whole village too." He continued

his