MOFFAT THE AFRICAN MISSIONARY. 147 land, on his return, Montgomery said, "They spoiled me by their kindnesses; they did not know me so well as you do:" the response, uttered, not in words but silently in heart, was, there never lived an individual of whom it might so truly be said, as of our friend, "the more he was known, the better he was loved." Nov. 14th.-Montgomery: "Did you hear the Rev. Robert Moffat, the African missionary, at the meeting on Thursday?" Holland: Holland: "No, Sir: I have heard him on a previous occasion, and I mean to read his book." Montgomery: "Yes; so you ought to do; but there was an indescribable interest, a liveliness in his expression on the platform, which no printed narrative can equal: I hardly ever listened to stories of such a wild and romantic character as some which he told; and yet, I dare not doubt of their exact truth: and then the skill which he exhibited in drawing forth the sentiments of the Africans; the apparently simple, but really profound, illustrations of human nature which he elicited, were highly impressive, as exhibited in his own unaffected details." Holland: "One is in some degree prepared to expect that the every-day incidents of a life in the African wilderness, will be more exciting in many respects, than some even of the more important transactions of civilised Europe." Montgomery: "And yet, there is in that vast wilderness a great degree of monotony, as to its general character." Holland: "So there is in the sea itself, simply considered: and yet how sublime and diversified in its associations with man and his darings! So of the African wilderness, in which Mr. Moffat has encountered so many perils, that the Rev. Thomas Sutton* after reading his book, remarked that he thought the missionary was as great a lion *The Vicar of Sheffield. tamer' as Van Amburgh himself. His narrative can hardly, however, be so interesting as that of Mr. Williams." Montgomery: "To me, I think, it was even more so; as a variety of circumstances had rendered me more familiar with the proceedings of the missionaries, and the character of the people in the South-Sea Islands, than with those of Africa." Mr. Montgomery to Rev. James Everett. "MY DEAR FRIEND, "The Mount, Sheffield, Dec. 19. 1842. Mr. John Holland has just informed me that he is going to dispatch a courier to you, and as a feather-weight additional will not break the paper-messenger's back, I will avail myself of the minute or two suddenly afforded (after having procrastinated days, and weeks, and months) to acknowledge the welcome gifts received from you of the memoirs of two eminent Wesleyan ministers,—Daniel Isaac and William Dawson. The former undoubtedly was a singularly acute and ingenious reasoner, and had more the power of attracting and holding the attention of an audience, while he dealt out his matter in minute morsels, crumb by crumb I might say (like a child feeding chickens, and watching them scramble for each grain as it falls among them) than any preacher I ever heard. I never knew a speaker make so little go so great a way; much of it indeed was exceedingly precious, but as usual, that which was least so was most esteemed by too many of his hearers. Admirable wisdom and miserable quaintness fell from his lips on some occasions, and as the one or the other exceeded, his discourses were acceptable to the few or to the many. What might be forgiven in him would have been insufferable in an imitator; indeed, I do not know that he ever had an imitator,- his look, his voice, his whole person, were necessary to produce the peculiar effect which the constitution of his mind led him to pursue, while he was dealing with the most awful truths of time and eternity, involving the interests of beings before him, born for both. Dawson was a man of another REV. D. ISAAC AND MR. W. DAWSON. 149 spirit, and, according to my judgment, far superior in genuine originality. He had his faults,-enough and to spare, though he seldom did spare, but wantoned in committing them. Then, however, he had merits; so many and of so rare an excellence, that the most fastidious critic, if not perversely determined to show no mercy, could not help to do him justice, if capable of measuring the height and depth of that man's genius, which the highest cultivation might have refined, and made him as different an orator from what he was, as he was different from Daniel Isaac ; but that would have been at an expense of vital power in the utterance of those thoughts and feelings which gave him such sovereignty over great congregations, and the greater they were, the more easily and mightily he moved them. He was at once a Boanerges and a Barnabas; from Sinai he came down, as a son of thunder, breaking in pieces hearts harder than its rocks; but before the smitten were aware, the son of consolation was healing, binding and pouring into their wounds (mortal only to their sins) the wine and oil of the gospel. Having known him long and well, and condemned and admired him more than most of his hearers, my judgment of his talents, gifts, I ought to say,—and graces, is at least independent, because my prejudices naturally lay against his mannerism. 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' has, I verily believe, been said to him by the highest authority in heaven and earth, and that must supersede for ever all criticism for or against him as a living preacher. As one 'who being dead, yet speaketh,' in your honest memoir I will only say, that I think you have done him all the honour in your power, by shunning the temptation of exhibiting him as one whose eccentricities, rather than his fervency of spirit and tenderness of heart, made him alternately as eloquent as Apollo, as argumentative as Paul, and as affectionate as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He had the heart of an infant, and the intellect of one who had attained to the stature of a man in Christ. With best regards to Mrs. Everett, in which and to yourself Miss Gales heartily joins, "I am truly your obliged friend, "J. MONTGOMERY." CHAP. XC. 1843. FAILURE OF PARKER, SHORE AND CO's. BANK. - THE DRESSES A PUBLIC MEETING ON THE SUBJECT. READING ΤΟ On the morning of Monday, January 16th, the inhabitants of Sheffield were astounded by the intelligence that one of the oldest and most respectable banks in the town-Messrs. Parker, Shore, and Companyhad stopped payment. It so happened, that Mr. Holland had several hundred pounds in the bank at the time of its failure, and which had, in fact, been first deposited there by the advice of Montgomery, who himself had always transacted his pecuniary business through the same establishment. Early in the forenoon of the day alluded to, the poet called upon his friend, the expression of his countenance indicating a curious mixture of solicitude and inquisitive gravity, occasioned by the catastrophe. Mr. Holland jocularly addressed him with, "Good morning, Sir: I perceive you have heard the bad news; but you see I am not in tears; and I suppose you will admit that the man who can treat an event in which he is so deeply interested as FAILURE OF PARKER AND SHORE'S BANK. 151 cheerfully as I do, must be a philosopher, at any rate?" Montgomery: "But how shall I look you in the face?" Holland: "Just as if nothing at all had happened; for I do not consider you to blame in the matter; and I am sure it will afford me some consolation to learn that you are not likely to be a sufferer along with me and so many others." The poet then said that he had only a comparatively inconsiderable sum of his own in the hands of the bankrupts, and happily nothing on account of any of the societies whose monies he was constantly in the habit of remitting through them; one such case, involving a sum of two or three hundred pounds, having occurred only a very short time before the stoppage. In order to obviate any aggravation of the disastrous effects of such a calamity upon the town generally, the Master Cutler, acting by the advice of his friends, promptly called a public meeting, to express unabated confidence in the stability of the other Sheffield banks. At this meeting, which was most numerously and respectably attended, as might be expected in a case involving half a million of money, Montgomery, at the request of the conveners, moved the first resolution, expressive of deep regret at the circumstances which had compelled the bankers to suspend payment. To the "circumstances" in question, the speaker did not make any particular allusion: these were, however, alleged, in the official notice issued by the partners, to have been "the long continued commercial depression, and the heavy losses which their banking-house had sustained in preceding years." We have adverted to these proceedings thus circumstantially, because they illustrate the predominating influence of Montgomery's character in the place of his residence; for it may well be conceived that the individuals who selected him for the discharge of an im |