the highest strain of lyric sublimity; it might seem little likely to convey comfort to a spirit which had long been inconsolable; but its effect was like that of a spark of fire upon materials which are ready to burst into combustion. He cried aloud in the congregation; and, when the throe was past, declared that he had now found rest, and was filled with joy and peace in believing.

"And now," says he, "I felt of a truth, that faith is the substance, or subsistence, of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. God, and the things of the invisible world, of which I had only heard before by the hearing of the ear, appeared now, in their true light, as substantial realities. Faith gave me to see a reconciled God, and an all-sufficient Saviour. The kingdom of God was within me. I drew water out of the wells of salvation. I walked and talked with God all the day long whatsoever I believed to be his will, I did with my whole heart. I could unfeignedly love them that hated me, and pray for them that despitefully used and persecuted me. The commandments of God were my delight: I not only rejoiced evermore, but prayed without ceasing, and in every thing gave thanks; whether I ate or drank, or whatever I did, it was in the name of the Lord Jesus, and to the glory of God." This case is the more remarkable, because the subject was of a calm and thoughtful mind, a steady and well-regulated temper, and a melancholy temperament. He had now to undergo more obloquy and ill-will than had been brought upon him by his renunciation of the errors of the Romish church. That change his relations thought was bad enough ; but to become a Methodist, was worse, and they gave him up as undone for ever. And not his relations only, nor the Romanists: " Acquaintances and neighbours," says he, "rich and poor, old and young, clergy and laity, were all against me. Some said I was an bypocrite, others that I was mad; others, judging more favourably, that I was deceived. Reformed and unreformed I found to be just alike; and that many, who spoke against the Pope and the Inquisition, were themselves, in reality, of the same disposition."

Convinced that it was his duty now to become a minister of that gospel which he had received, he offered his services to Mr. Wesley, as one who believed, and that not hastily or lightly, but after ardent aspirations, and continued prayer and study of the Scriptures, that he was inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit to take upon himself that office. He had prepared himself, by diligent study of the Scriptures, which he read often upon his knees; and the prayer which he was accustomed to use at such times, may excite the admiration of those even in whom it shall fail to find sympathy. "Lord Jesus, I lay my soul at thy feet, to be taught and governed by Thee. Take the veil from the mystery, and show me the truth as it is in Thyself. Be thou my sun and star, by day and by night!" Wesley told him it was hard to judge what God had called him to, till trial had been made. He encouraged him to make the trial, and desired him to preach in Irish. The command of that language gave him a great advantage. It was long ago said in Ireland, "When you plead for your life, plead in Irish.' Even the poor Catholics listened willingly, when they were addressed in their mother tongue his hearers frequently shed silent tears, and frequently sobbed aloud,

and cried for mercy; and in country towns the peasantry, whỏ, going there upon market-day, had stopt to hear the preacher, from mere wonder and curiosity, were oftentimes melted into tears, and declared that they could follow him all over the world. One, who had laid aside some money, which he intended to bequeath, for the good of his soul, to some priest or friar, offered to bequeath it to him if he would accept it. In conversation, too, and upon all the occasions which occurred in daily life,-at inns, and upon the highway, and in the streets, this remarkable man omitted no opportunity of giving religious exhortation to those who needed it; taking care always not to shock the prejudices of those whom he addressed, and to adapt his speech to their capacity. Points of dispute, whether they regarded the difference of churches, or of doctrines, he wisely avoided; sin, and death, and judgment, and redemption, were his themes; and upon these themes he enforced so powerfully at such times, that the beggars, to whom he frequently addressed himself in the streets, would fall on their knees, and beat their breasts, weeping, and crying for mercy.

Many calumnies were invented to counteract the effect which this zealous labourer produced wherever he went. It was spread abroad that he had been a servant boy to a Romish priest, and having stolen his master's books, had learned, by that means, to preach. But it was not from the Catholics alone that he met with opposition. He was once waylaid near the town of Rosgrea, by about fourscore men, armed with sticks, and bound by oath in a confederacy against him; they were so liberal a mob, that provided they could reclaim him from Methodism, they appeared not to care what they made of him; and they insisted upon bringing a Romish priest, and a minister of the Church of England, to talk with him. Walsh, with great calmness, explained to them, that he contended with no man concerning opinions, nor preached against particular churches, but against sin and wickedness in all. And he so far succeeded in mitigating their disposition toward him, that they offered to let him go provided he would swear never again to come to Rosgrea. Walsh would rather have suffered martyrdom than have submitted to such an oath, and martyrdom was the alternative which they proposed for they carried him into the town, where the whole rabble surrounded him, and it was determined that he should either swear, or be put into a well. The courage with which he refused to bind himself by any oath or promise, made him friends even among so strange an assembly: some cried out vehemently that he should go into the well; others took his part in the midst of the uproar, the parish minister came up, and, by his interference, Walsh was permitted to depart. At another country town, about twenty miles from Cork, the magistrate, who was the rector of the place, declared he would commit him to prison, if he did not promise to preach no more in those parts.— Walsh replied, by asking if there were no swearers, drunkards, Sabbath-breakers, and the like in those parts; adding that, if, after he should have preached there a few times, there appeared no reformation among them, he would never come there again. Not satisfied with such a proposal, the magistrate committed him to prison: but Walsh was popular in that town; the people manifested a great interest in

his behalf; he preached to them from the prison-window, and it was soon thought adviseable to release him. He was more cruelly handled by the Presbyterians in the north of Ireland: the usage which he received from a mob of that persuasion, and the exertions which he made to escape from them, threw him into a fever, which contined him for some time to his bed and he professed that, in all his journeyings, and in his intercourse among people of many or most denominations, he had met with no such treatment; no, not even from the most enraged of the Romanists themselves.

The life of Thomas Walsh might alone convince a Catholic, that saints are to be found in other communions, as well as in the church of Rome. Theopathy was, in him, not merely the ruling, it was the only passion: his intellect was of no common order; but this passion, in its excess, acted like a disease upon a mind that was, by constitution, melancholy. To whatever church he had belonged, the elements of his character would have been the same: the only dif ference would have been in its manifestation. As a Romanist, he might have retired to a cell or an hermitage, contented with securing his own salvation, by perpetual austerity and prayer, and a course of continual self-tormenting. But he could not have been more dead to the world, nor more entirely possessed by a devotional spirit.His friends described him as appearing like one who had returned from the other world; and perhaps it was this unearthly manner which induced a Romish priest to assure his flock, that the Walsh, who had turned heretic, and went about preaching, was dead long since; and that he who preached under that name, was the devil in his shape. It is said that he walked through the streets of London with as little attention to all things around him, as if he had been in a wilderness, unobservant of whatever would have attracted the sight of others, and as indifferent to all sounds of excitement, uproar, and exultation, as to the passing wind. He showed the same insensibility to the influence of fine scenery and sunshine: the only natural object of which he spoke with feeling, was the starry firmament,-for there he beheld infinity.

With all this, the zeal of this extraordinary man was such, that, as he truly said of himself, the sword was too sharp for the scabbard. At five-and-twenty he might have been taken for forty years of age; and he literally wore himself out before he attained the age of thirty, by the most unremitting and unmerciful labour, both of body and mind. His sermons were seldom less than an hour long, and they were loud as well as long. Mr. Wesley always warned his preachers against both these errors, and considered Walsh as, in some degree, guilty of his own death, by the excessive exertion which he made at such times, notwithstanding frequent advice, and frequent resolutions, to restrain the vehemence of his spirit. He was not less intemperate in study. Wesley acknowledged him to be the best biblical scholar whom he had ever known. If he were questioned concerning any Hebrew word in the Old, or any Greek one in the New Testament, he would tell, after a pause, how often it occurred in the Bible, and what it meant in every place. Hebrew was his favourite study: he regarded it as a language of divine origin, and therefore perfect. "O truly laudable and worthy study!" he ex VOL. II.

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claims concerning it: "O industry above all praise! whereby a man is enabled to converse with God, with holy angels, with patriarchs, and with prophets, and clearly to unfold to men the mind of God from the language of God!" And he was persuaded that he had not attained the full and familiar knowledge of it, which he believed that he possessed, without special assistance from Heaven. At this study he frequently sat up late; and his general time of rising was at four. When he was entreated to allow himself more sleep, by one who saw that he was wasting away to death, his reply was, "Should a man rob God?" His friends related things of him which would have been good evidence in a suit for canonization. Sometimes he was lost, they say, in glorious absence on his knees, with his face heavenward, and arms clasped round his breast, in such composure, that scarcely could he be perceived to breathe. His soul seemed absorbed in God; and from the serenity, and "something resembling splendour, which appeared on his countenance, and in all his gestures afterwards, it might easily be discovered what he had been about." Even in sleep, the devotional habit still predominated, and his soul went out in groans, and sighs, and tears to God." They bear witness to his rapts and ecstasies, and record circumstances which they themselves believed to be proofs of his communion with the invisible world. With all this intense devotion, the melancholy of his disposition always predominated and though he held the doctrines of sanctification and assurance, and doubted not but that his pardon was sealed by the blood of the covenant, no man was ever more distressed in mind, nor laboured under a greater dread of death. Even when he was enforcing the vital truths of religion, with the whole force of his intellect, and with all his heart, and soul, and strength, thoughts would come across him which he considered as diabolical suggestions; and he speaks with horror of the agony which he endured in resisting them. Indeed, he was thoroughly persuaded that he was an especial object of hatred to the devil. This persuasion supplied a ready solution for the nervous affections to which he was subject, and, in all likelihood, frequently produced those abhorred thoughts, which were to him a confirmation of that miserable belief. Romish superstition affords a remedy for this disease; for, if relics and images fail to avert the fit, the cilice and the scourge amuse the patient with the belief that he is adding to his stock of merits, and distress of mind is commuted for the more tolerable sense of bodily pain.

For many years Mr. Wesley kept up an interchange of preachers between England and Ireland; and when Walsh was in London, he preached in Irish at a place called Short's Garden, and in Moorfields. Many of his poor countrymen were attracted by the desire of hearing their native tongue, and, as others also gathered round, wondering at the novelty, he addressed them afterwards in English. But, on such occasions, mere sound* and sympathy will sometimes

The most extraordinary convert that ever was made, was a certain William Heazley, in the county of Antrim, a man who was deaf and dumb from his birth. By mere imitation, and the desire of being like his neighbours, he was converted in the 25th year of his age, from a profligate life; for his delight had been in drinking, cock-fighting, and other brutal amusements. On the days when the leader of the Society was expected, he used to watch for him, and run from house to

do the work, without the aid of intelligible words. It is related in Walsh's life, that, once in Dublin, when he was preaching in Irish, among those who were affected by the discourse, there was one man "cut to the heart," though he did not understand the language. Whatever language he used, he was a powerful preacher; and contributed, more than any other man, to the diffusion of Methodism in Ireland. All circumstances were as favourable for the progress of Methodism in that country as they were adverse to it in Scotland: the inefficiency of the Established Church, the total want, not of discipline alone, but of order, and the ardour of the Irish character, of all people the most quick and lively in their affections. And as his ⚫pposition to the Calvinistic notions made Wesley unpopular among the Scotch, in Ireland he obtained a certain degree of favour for his decided opposition to the Romish church; while he was too wise a man ever to provoke hostility, by introducing any disputatious mat. ter in his sermons. After a few years he speaks of himself as having, he knew not how, become an honourable man there: "The scandal of the cross," says he, "is ceased, and all the kingdom, rich and poor, Papists and Protestants, behave with courtesy, nay, and seeming good will." Perhaps he was hardly sensible how much of this was owing to the change which had imperceptibly been wrought in his own conduct, by the sobering influence of time. The ferment of his spirit had abated, and his language had become far less indiscreet; nor, indeed, had he ever, in Ireland, provoked the indignation of good men, by the extravagancies which gave such just offence in England at the beginning of his career. Some of the higher clergy, therefore, approved and countenanced his labours; and it would not have been difficult, in that country, to have made the Methodists as subservient to the interests of the Established Church, as the Regulars are to the Church of Rome.

Among so susceptible a people, it might be expected that curious effects would frequently be produced by the application of so strong a stimulant. A lady wrote from Dublin to Mr. Wesley in the following remarkable words :-" Reverend Sir, the most miserable and guilty of all the human race, who knew you when she thought herself one of the happiest, may be ashamed to write, or speak to you, in her present condition; but the desperate misery of my state makes me attempt any thing that may be a means of removing it. My request is, that you, dear Sir, and such of your happy people who meet in Band, and ever heard the name of that miserable wretch P. T., would join in fasting and prayer on a Tuesday, the day on which I was born, that the Lord would have mercy on me, and deliver me from the power of the devil, from the most uncommon blasphemies, and the expectation of hell, which I labour under, without power to pray, or hope for mercy.-May be the Lord may change my state, and have mercy on me, for the sake of his people's prayer. Indeed I cannot pray for myself; and, if I could, I have no hopes of being heard. Nevertheless, He, seeing his peo

house to assemble the people; and he would appear exceedingly mortified if the leader did not address him as he did the others. This man followed the occupation of weaving linen, and occasionally shaving, which was chiefly a Sunday's work; but, after his conversion, he never would shave any person on the Sabbath.